Russian FDI down to 15-year low as Russia faces "the wrong kind of growth"

Russia’s economy grew by an unexpected 4.1% in 2024, but it’s the wrong kind of growth, say analysts. The Kremlin has been pouring investment capital into the defence sector, but this is non-productive investment, and FDI that would make the Russian economy more competitive has halved. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin February 8, 2025

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Russia has fallen to its lowest level in 15 years, with the total volume having decreased to $235bn by October 2024 , according to data from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), Ukrainska Pravda reported on February 8.

Pre-war Russia was attracting nearly $500bn of FDI a year, which was still a low result compared to other emerging markets.

In the first three quarters of 2024, foreign investors withdrew an additional $44bn from Russia's real economy, following losses of $80bn in 2023 and $138bn in 2022.

FDI had already stopped before the war. Russia received almost zero foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first quarter of 2020, dropping from $10.3bn in the same period a year, bne IntelliNews reported earlier.

Much of the fall is related to the exit or winding down of operations of the Western firms, especially in automotive and retail, following the imposition of extreme sanctions in 2022.

One of the quirks of Russian national accounts is reinvestment of profits by foreign companies working in Russia is counted as FDI, whereas in other countries it is not, thus boosting Russia’s FDI numbers. True FDI into Russia is much lower.

FDI by companies from the so-called friendly countries has also been falling, as fears of being hit by secondary sanctions as part of the increasingly effective US so-called strangulation sanctions rise. Russia received $19.7bn, or roughly 24% of the FDI by Chinese entities in 2023 but investment levels fell in 2024.

Surprisingly, a bne IntelliNews deep dive into inbound FDI into Russia from 2019 found that the US has been by far the largest direct investor into Russia, despite the fact that the US plays only a small role in the CBR’s official figures on the origin of FDI cash. The problem is that the CBR assigns the origin of the investment to the country from which FDI arrives in Russia, the last step, and not the place from which the investment capital started its journey, the first step. As US investors overwhelmingly pass their capital through multiple jurisdictions on the way to Russia, such as Cyprus or London, little of their capital is identified as “American”.

Despite President Vladimir Putin's calls for "maximum openness" to investors from BRICS nations, the anticipated influx of capital has not materialised. Notably, China, Russia's largest trading partner, has prohibited its companies from investing in Russia's oil and gas sector, has declined participation in the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline project and has advised automotive firms against establishing factories in Russia.

Wrong type of growth

The lack of FDI and directing all Russia’s internal investment into the military industrial complex and not civilian production will cause long-term problems for Russia as it struggles to find new sources of investment capital. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin met President Putin on February 7 to report on progress in developing the economy and said that Russia had ended 2024 with a better than expected 4.1% of growth.

However, he also reported that as part of the CBR’ efforts to bring down sticky inflation that was 9.5% at the end of last year, the regulator had stamped on both corporate and retail lending that were both falling at the end of 2024 thanks to non-monetary policy methods adopted by the CBR to cool the economy, and this would “temporarily slow growth” in 2025.

Ironically, Russia is seeing an internal investment for the first time in almost 20 years. As bne IntelliNews reported, the Kremlin has reversed its Putinomics two-decade long policy of hoarding cash and paying down external debt to sanction-proof the economy, and started pouring money into industry after the economy was put on a war footing, which led to the unexpected growth.

But it’s the “wrong kind of growth”, analysts at Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) argued in a recent paper. “Russia’s wartime economic growth, however, is financed by mortgaging the country’s future,” said Alexander Kolyandr, a non-resident senior fellow with the Democratic Resilience Programme at CEPA. “The main destinations for the country’s hitherto-unseen investment are import substitution, eastward infrastructure and military production. Mechanical engineering, which includes manufacturing finished metal products (weapons), computers, optics and electronics and electrical equipment, was one of the fastest-growing areas for investment in 2022 and 2023/4. None of that investment would support Russia’s long-term productivity growth.”

Banks issued preferential loans worth more than $150bn in 2024 that some have suggested are state-directed lending and will cause a credit crisis, and overall corporate credit expanded by almost 20% in 2024. This money was mostly allocated to the construction, agricultural and retail sectors, as well as to the military-industrial complex, a key driver of economic growth. Manufacturing industries – the sector to which the military-industrial complex belongs – grew by 7.6% in the first nine months of 2024, according to official statistics. Consumption, another big driver of growth, was also up 8% year on year.

"RosStat has provided the first estimate, according to which Russia's gross domestic product grew 4.1%, or 0.2% more than expected in the official forecast. This exceeds our expectations. By the way, we saw 4.5% growth in December," Mishustin told Putin, adding that the nominal GDP reached an all-time high of RUB200 trillion ($2 trillion) last year.

Putin is aware of the problems of maintaining balanced economic growth in a time of massive military, but ultimately unproductive, war spending and told the leaders of Russia’s six military districts last year that they needed to balance investment into the defence sector with investments into the civil sector too in his “guns and butter” speech.

However, economists have argued that even if a widely anticipated ceasefire deal is agreed in the coming months, the Kremlin will have to continue heavy military spending for at least eight years to rebuild Russia’s military capabilities after the war, both to restock and prepare for a potential conflict with Nato, but also to provide jobs to demobilised soldier and avoid the economic post-war hangover that normally accompanies the end of wars.

As a result Russia’s government will be trapped into a long-term commitment to non-productive investment that will contribute to stagflation that is widely anticipated by economists unless the Kremlin can work out how to delivery on Putin’s demand for investment into both the civil and military parts of the economy and if his bet on the Putin’s big bet on the Global South Century pays off.

Christ in the Classroom?

by Vern Loomis / February 8th, 2025

Lawyers and judges know it all too well: If parsed with proper eloquence, the intent of words and phrases can be twisted to one’s own purpose or made meaningless. It’s no secret that particular judicial interpreters (judges/justices) are championed by special interest groups and then appointed by politicians in anticipation of how eloquently the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights will be argued in support of a desired position. To that end, a state court in Texas or even the Supreme Court of the United States may soon be called upon to exercise their interpretive powers.

According to the Texas Board of Education, it seems the First Amendment’s “freedom of religion” phrase should not be understood as meaning the same as “freedom from religion.” So, while the First Amendment does allow Texans the freedom of whatever religion they wish to practice, it apparently does not protect them from whatever religion the state might wish to impose. Will the courts agree? Are the desired judges in place?

The Texas Board of Education’s proposal won’t force cash-strapped public-school systems to insert Christian concepts into their curriculums, but schools that do comply will be rewarded with supplemental funding. That’s right, participation will be completely voluntary, but if a school wants to receive the needed funding, it better come to Jesus.

Hey, there’s no need to fear. The Christian based foray shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to lure little children into their fold. No, it’s not that at all; it’s really just meant to be an educational tool to familiarize young minds with Biblical phraseology:

“It is said that there are close to 300 common-day phrases that actually come from the Bible,” said Mary Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a right-leaning advocacy group. “So students will benefit from being able to understand a lot of these references that are in literature and have a way to be able to comprehend them.”

Obviously then, the completely voluntary compliance has nothing to do with indoctrination; it’s all about etymology. Yeah, for sure, but couldn’t the laudable goal of understanding also be said of exposure to expressions from the Tanakh, the Quran, Dharma, astrology, or even witchcraft? If the intent is simply to familiarize children with phrases that might later be encountered in scholastic pursuits, why limit exposure to Christianity?

Be that as it may, it will be interesting to see which Biblical phrases (verses) are deemed helpful to a child’s developmental comprehension. Will the chosen common-day phrases be confined to pat-on-the-back good Christian concepts (like, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” – Mathew 22:39), or will they also include some less palatable Biblical phrases (such as, “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” – Psalm 137:9)?

And will the young children in compliant schools be shown the common Biblical phrases that opportunistic Christians have seized upon to justify slavery (Genesis 9:18-27) or even genocide (1 Samuel 15:3)? Will their beneficial understanding be limited to the merciful God who has prepared a blissful and eternal life in Heaven for those who are fortunate enough to be born in the land of the faithful, or will they also learn how to comprehend the merciless God who has created a Hell of eternal suffering for those guilty of nothing more than being born into non-Christian cultures?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a strong supporter of the Board’s proposal to teach Christian concepts in public schools. Abbott is an even stronger advocate of unrestricted Second Amendment rights. Rather than focusing his evangelical attention on young school children, might not the virtuous Governor’s Christian energy be better spent on a “coming-to-Jesus” campaign with the NRA, the gun-makers, and the gun-clutchers that so conveniently support him? If they were to become familiar with (and take to heart) some of the common-day phrases attributed to Jesus, perhaps some meaningful gun regulation could be enacted, and another “Uvalde” avoided. However, should it happen that the Governor finds it unproductive to familiarize his adult Christian gun supporters with common-day Christian phrases, then sticking it to the kids might indeed be a good fallback approach: The little ones can be taught some comforting Christian phrases to insert in prayer while huddling under their desks.

Gov. Abbott and Texas aren’t alone in trying to replace secular neutrality with Christian ideology. Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters has mandated the inclusion of Bible studies for grades 5 through 12 in all public schools. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed legislation that will require the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in all public classrooms from kindergarten all the way to state-funded universities. Over the past two years, at least 19 states have considered legislation to back Christian initiatives in public schools.

Why the recent push? A couple of current motivators present themselves: fear and opportunity.

While defined as a secular democracy, the United States has long been a Christian stronghold. From the country’s inception, Christianity has held an ascendant position. It’s always been the most popular and influential “kid on the block.” Now, however, its popularity is slipping. In 1972’s General Social Survey, 90% of the U.S. respondents identified as Christian, while only 5% were religiously unaffiliated. By 2022, the unaffiliated had grown to 29%. People seem to be losing interest. Church pews have become less crowded on Sundays and thousands of churches host real-estate signs. Christianity is visibly losing its long-held position of preeminence; Church adherents understandably fear the loss of prestige, power, and popularity.

As a 2016 presidential candidate, Donald Trump picked up on that fear and made Christians a promise:

“Christianity will have power,” he said. “If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”

Trump provides the opportunity; he is the means through which Christians hope to regain lost power and relevancy. He’s promised to make them feel strong and popular again. Under Trump’s guidance, initiatives like those in Texas and Oklahoma will flourish. Christian ideology will be publicly manifested in schools and governmental settings. Its tenets will be displayed everywhere and a resurgence in popularity must surely follow.

But there’s a catch to the opportunity: Donald Trump’s persona is antithetical to proclaimed Christian values. He’s shown himself to be an unapologetic lying, greedy, racist, misogynistic, and philandering adulterer. There’s no way that good Christians could condone providing him their support and seeking his favor. Or, maybe there could be a way: if Donald Trump was chosen by God, then faithful Christians could indeed support him. And so, he was! Opportunity knocked (twice), and Evangelical leaders opened the door to a president chosen by God. Lance Wallnau and Jerry Falwell Jr. are just two of the prominent leaders (there are others) who have declared the Lord’s handiwork in Donald Trump’s successful campaign. Trump, as God’s exemplar, will make Christians feel powerful and popular again. Therefore, there’s no need for Christian apprehension in regards to his dubious character; they can be proud and confident in their support of a president who has been chosen by God.

But actually chosen by God? Do they really believe it? In spite of the distinguished declarations of Trump’s anointment, many Evangelical congregants remain skeptical of Trump’s spiritual bona fides. Although more than 80% of Evangelicals voted for Trump, only 49% attested to a belief in his appointment by God (and attesting to a belief doesn’t necessarily confirm having a belief). So, less than half of Trump’s most fervent supporters actually believe the assertion that he was chosen by God. They hear and like his promise, but don’t quite see God’s handiwork in Trump’s glorification. It seems that “Chosen by God” would be nice, but it’s not really required; the majority of good Christians just need to know that Trump will restore their power.

Is the desire for prestige, power, and popularity even necessary? As long as the nation remains secular, Christians (as well as non-Christians), are completely free to observe and worship as they desire. But it’s not freedom of religion that Christians seek; it’s the power to impose their religion on others. The imposition runs counter to the nation’s founding principle of secularism. The power that Donald Trump understands and offers is the power of domination. He and his appointees may indeed be able to deliver on a promise to impose at least an appearance of Christian domination, but it will be superficial and likely counterproductive. Forcing Christianity’s presence upon others may restore a semblance of power, but it won’t restore its popularity. It’s more apt to have the opposite effect; imposition will breed resentment and a further turning away from Christianity. When the party’s over, there will be more empty pews.

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Vern Loomis lives in the Detroit area and occasionally likes to comment on news and events that interest him in whatever capacity available. Besides Dissident Voice, his other musings can be found at Transcend Media Service, ZNetwork, CounterPunch, The Humanist, and The Apathetic Agnostic. Read other articles by Vern.

Religious freedom is routinely curbed in Central Asia – but you won’t often see it making international news

(The Conversation) — Forum 18, a site based in Norway, is one of the few media outlets specializing in coverage of religious freedom.

A majority of citizens in Central Asian countries practice Islam, but Muslims still face restrictions on religious expression. (AP Photo/Theodore Kaye)
Eric Freedman
February 7, 2025

(The Conversation) — Freedom of worship is tenuous around the globe. The Pew Research Center’s latest annual report found “high” or “very high” levels of government constraints on religion in 59 of the 198 countries and territories it analyzed – a new record. When Pew began releasing reports on the issue in 2007, just 40 countries’ restrictions on religion were classified that way.

And trampling of religious practices is a taboo subject for domestic news media in many, if not most, of such countries.

As a journalism professor, I’ve studied international press practices and obstacles to fair, balanced, ethical and independent reporting for more than two decades. Much of my work is about press rights in “repressitarian” countries, meaning repressive in human rights practices and authoritarian in governance. I see overlaps among a range of human rights abuses – of freedom of expression, of religion, of political affiliation – and how the absence of press freedom shields those abuses from public scrutiny

The latest study I did with my undergraduate research assistant, Eleanor Pugh, examined how one news organization, Forum 18, covers constraints on religion in the five post-Soviet countries of remote but strategically important Central Asia. Based in Norway, the independent site is named after Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes a fundamental right to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

Forum 18 appears to be the only news outlet that specializes in coverage of the rights of diverse faiths across the former Soviet Union. Its journalism demonstrates the challenges media outlets have in covering and influencing treatment of religious affiliations and observances in the region.
Taboo topic

The five countries of Central Asia – Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan – pursue harsh policies and practices that frequently curtail freedom of faith. This is especially true for minority religions and sects, but even for practitioners of Islam, the region’s predominant faith. All are rated “Not Free” in the 2024 annual report on global political rights and civil liberties issued by Freedom House, a democracy advocacy group based in Washington.

Government tactics include censorship and seizure of religious materials, trumped-up charges and prison terms for believers, prohibiting schoolchildren from wearing hijabs or attending worship services, and imprisoning Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse compulsory military service. One recent law in Kyrgyzstan, which took effect Feb. 1, 2025, prohibits faith communities with fewer than 500 adult members and bans unregistered religious activities or places of worship.

International news outlets generally devote little attention to religious freedom almost anywhere around the world, except for large-scale tragedies such as the repression of Muslim Uyghurs in western China and the genocidal suppression of Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar.

Foreign journalists find it tough, sometimes impossible, to report on religious issues from inside authoritarian countries.

Peter Leonard, the former Central Asia editor of the news outlet Eurasianet, told me in March 2024 that officials’ willingness to even talk with international journalists varies from country to country. At best, journalists are “greeted with a little bit of suspicion” in a capital city, while in rural areas and villages they “can expect to be booted out or harassed,” he said, adding, “Religion is a minefield area.”

Ethnic Russian Kyrgyz citizens wait for a Sunday service at the Church of Archistrategos of God Mikhail – Archangel Michael of God Orthodox Church – in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in 2010.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

When limits on worship do make domestic news, they’re often presented as part of a fight against “terrorism” – a common way authoritarian regimes masquerade crackdowns on religious freedoms.

Darkhan Umirbekov, an editor at Radio Fee Europe/Radio Liberty, told me that in Kazakhstan – where most media are owned, controlled or financially dependent on the regime and its allies – most such coverage is “in the context of extremism,” as when “security forces detain members of a religious sect or group.”
Protecting sources

We chose to study Forum 18 because its reporting follows traditional journalistic values such as fairness and balance, seeking comments and information from government and nongovernmental sources. One of the outlet’s key underlying motives, however, is advocacy in support of religious freedom.

Although founded by a group of Christians, its coverage spans a wide spectrum of faiths. Recent topics included police raids on Jehovah’s Witnesses meetings in Kyrgyzstan, threats to punish a Muslim actor in Kazakhstan for quoting from the Quran in a video about Islam posted on Instagram, and the demolition of a mosque and Baptist church in Uzbekistan.

Our analysis, which we presented at a 2024 conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, found that almost two-thirds of Central Asian stories in 2023 focused on broad topics such as fines, government policies and jail terms for believers. The remainder focused on one-off events such as particular arrests, raids or seizures of religious books.

We also found that nonofficial news sources – frequently anonymous – outnumber named sources. Many of the site’s reporters’ sources have been developed over the years from the ranks of religious leaders, human rights activists, dissidents and legal scholars. Some live in the region, and others in exile.

In light of the serious risk of retaliation, it is unsurprising that so many sources require anonymity. While their identities are known to reporters and editors, their names are not disclosed to audiences for protection from threats, attacks and intimidation. Sometimes these sources are described generically, such as “one Protestant” or “independent religious expert” or “local resident.”

Forum 18 editor and co-founder Felix Corley told me in an interview: “What we’re concerned about is people that we talk to, that we don’t land them in trouble, so we have to be very careful to do everything we can to avoid endangering anyone by clumsy behavior on our part.”

In addition, the site’s stories detail names and titles of officials responsible for anti-faith policies and practices – among them prosecutors, judges and agency heads, most of whom refuse to comment or even respond to media inquiries.

Astana Grand Mosque in Kazakhstan, the largest mosque in Central Asia.
Aytac Unal/Anadolu via Getty Images

Small but significant

Forum 18’s audience is primarily outside the region. It includes Central Asians living abroad, human rights activists, nongovernmental organizations, foreign governments, faith leaders and other news organizations that may cite or re-report its stories.

For example, a 2019 U.S. State Department human rights report on Uzbekistan makes references to a Forum 18 story on the torture of a “prisoner of conscience” incarcerated for meeting with fellow Muslims and participating in religious activities without government permission.

Religious freedom advocates hope such coverage can inform and influence world opinion. Reporting abroad can spotlight otherwise-unaccountable officials, especially when censorship, self-censorship and threats of prosecution preclude domestic media from reporting.

Realistically, we recognize that external media coverage is unlikely to prompt meaningful protections of religious freedom in authoritarian countries.

Even so, such journalism may be seen as a step – albeit a small, symbolic one – toward holding individuals, governments, social groups and other enablers accountable for violations of a fundamental human right.

(Eric Freedman, Professor of Journalism and Chair, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


The Conversation religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Conversation is solely responsible for this content.

A New Zealand mountain is granted personhood, recognizing it as sacred for Māori

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain’s theft from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized.

Charlotte Graham-mclay
February 3, 2025

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A mountain in New Zealand considered an ancestor by Indigenous people was recognized as a legal person on Thursday after a new law granted it all the rights and responsibilities of a human being.

Mount Taranaki — now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Māori name — is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand, which has ruled that a river and a stretch of sacred land are people before. The pristine, snow-capped dormant volcano is the second highest on New Zealand’s North Island at 2,518 meters (8,261 feet) and a popular spot for tourism, hiking and snow sports.

The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain’s theft from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized. It fulfills an agreement of redress from the country’s government to Indigenous people for harms perpetrated against the land since.

How can a mountain be a person?

The law passed Thursday gives Taranaki Maunga all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities and liabilities of a person. Its legal personality has a name: Te Kāhui Tupua, which the law views as “a living and indivisible whole.” It includes Taranaki and its surrounding peaks and land, “incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements.”

A newly created entity will be “the face and voice” of the mountain, the law says, with four members from local Māori iwi, or tribes, and four members appointed by the country’s Conservation Minister.
Why is this mountain special?

“The mountain has long been an honored ancestor, a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance and a final resting place,” Paul Goldsmith, the lawmaker responsible for the settlements between the government and Māori tribes, told Parliament in a speech on Thursday.

But colonizers of New Zealand in the 18th and 19th centuries took first the name of Taranaki and then the mountain itself. In 1770, the British explorer Captain James Cook spotted the peak from his ship and named it Mount Egmont.

In 1840, Māori tribes and representatives of the British crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi — New Zealand’s founding document — in which the Crown promised Māori would retain rights to their land and resources. But the Māori and English versions of the treaty differed — and Crown breaches of both began immediately.

In 1865, a vast swathe of Taranaki land, including the mountain, was confiscated to punish Māori for rebeling against the Crown. Over the next century hunting and sports groups had a say in the mountain’s management — but Māori did not.

“Traditional Māori practices associated with the mountain were banned while tourism was promoted,” Goldsmith said. But a Māori protest movement of the 1970s and ’80s has led to a surge of recognition for the Māori language, culture and rights in New Zealand law.

Redress has included billions of dollars in Treaty of Waitangi settlements — such as the agreement with the eight tribes of Taranaki, signed in 2023.

How will the mountain use its rights?

“Today, Taranaki, our maunga, our maunga tupuna, is released from the shackles, the shackles of injustice, of ignorance, of hate,” said Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, a co-leader of the political party Te Pāti Māori and a descendant of the Taranaki tribes, using a phrase that means ancestral mountain.

“We grew up knowing there was nothing anyone could do to make us any less connected,” she added.

The mountain’s legal rights are intended to uphold its health and wellbeing. They will be employed to stop forced sales, restore its traditional uses and allow conservation work to protect the native wildlife that flourishes there. Public access will remain.
Do other parts of New Zealand have personhood?

New Zealand was the first country in the world to recognize natural features as people when a law passed in 2014 granted personhood to Te Urewera, a vast native forest on the North Island. Government ownership ceased and the tribe Tūhoe became its guardian.

“Te Urewera is ancient and enduring, a fortress of nature, alive with history; its scenery is abundant with mystery, adventure, and remote beauty,” the law begins, before describing its spiritual significance to Māori. In 2017, New Zealand recognized the Whanganui River as human, as part of a settlement with its local iwi.
How much support did the law receive?

The bill recognizing the mountain’s personhood was affirmed unanimously by Parliament’s 123 lawmakers. The vote was greeted by a ringing waiata — a Māori song — from the public gallery, packed with dozens who had traveled to the capital, Wellington, from Taranaki.

The unity provided brief respite in a tense period for race relations in New Zealand. In November, tens of thousands of people marched to Parliament to protest a law that would reshape the Treaty of Waitangi by setting rigid legal definitions for each clause. Detractors say the law — which is not expected to pass — would strip Māori of legal rights and dramatically reverse progress from the past five decades.

HOMOSEXUAL AGAPE

Friendship, a covenant, romance – no matter what you call it, David’s love for Jonathan is one of the Bible’s most beautiful

The Bible describes the two men meeting and sharing an instant connection.

An illustration of David and Jonathan from 'Sunday at Home – A Family Magazine for Sabbath reading, 1883,' published by the Religious Tract Society in London. (whitemay/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images)

Jacob F. Love
February 6, 2025

(The Conversation) — For the idea of love, biblical Hebrew has precious few synonyms. Yet the Hebrew of the Bible can communicate a rich sensation of love: the love of a man for a woman, the love of any human being for their fellow human, the love of Israel for Israel’s God, and the love of God for all people.

As a religion scholar, however, I believe one of the greatest loves in the Bible is a story of friendship: the intense devotion between the warrior Jonathan and David, who later became king of Israel and Judah. For many readers, their relationship represents a platonic ideal, while others see something more.
‘With all your heart’

The main word for expressing love in the Hebrew Bible is “ahavah,” from the root “ahav.” It appears, for example, in the classic description of the relationship between God and Israel in the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 6: “You shall love (v’ahavta) the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

There are several places in the Hebrew Bible that demand that people care for one another, regardless of membership in any group, such as a tribe. Consider Leviticus 19:34, which invokes the Israelites’ suffering as slaves in Egypt: “you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

The word “ahav” is also used to express emotional, romantic and sexual love, as in Genesis 29, the story of Jacob and Rachel. The young man serves Laban, Rachel’s father, for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage – which seem “but a few days because of his love for her.” But Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, first – then working another seven years for Rachel.
A steadfast love

Among the more passionate poems in the Hebrew Bible is one David is said to have pronounced for Jonathan and his father, Saul, the Israelite king.

A 14th century illustration of David and Jonathan’s first meeting.

National Manuscript Center/Wikmedia Commons

The three first meet when David, portrayed as a young shepherd, volunteers to fight Goliath, who is portrayed as a towering giant of a soldier, a champion of the Philistines battling Israel. Shockingly, David slays him with a simple sling and stone, and Saul meets with the boy.

“After David finished speaking to Saul,” the author of 1 Samuel relates, “the body of Jonathan was bound to the body of David, and Jonathan loved him as he loved his own self.” The Hebrew word I translate as “body” here is a famously ambiguous one, “nefesh,” usually rendered as “soul,” “life” or “personality.”

Many translators read this passage to mean that Jonathan and David form a covenant, a pact. Jonathan immediately removes his clothing and weapons and gives them to the other young man.

Their loyalty is tested as Saul becomes jealous of David’s increasing success. Yet the young men’s bond is steadfast.

Jonathan eventually dies in battle, and Saul commits suicide. David composes a beautiful eulogy poem mourning both men, but his description of Jonathan is particularly striking:

Jonathan lies slain upon your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!

The passage uses a rare synonym for “ahav” when it describes Jonathan as “greatly beloved”: “na’am,” suggesting “love,” “affection” or “pleasantness.”
Labeling love

What could David have meant by “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women”? It is not surprising that many have wondered whether this suggests an intimate relationship.

That would appear to contradict prohibitions on homosexuality found in the Book of Leviticus. One thing to consider, however, is that Leviticus is devoted to priestly concerns. The prohibition is not found in the Book of Deuteronomy, which repeats so many of the prohibitions found in Leviticus. Another question is whether we really know what the Levitical language means: What exactly is being prohibited here?

Rembrandt’s painting of the pair, after Jonathan warns David of Saul’s plan to kill him.
Hermitage Museum via Wikimedia Commons

One thing we can say with certainty is that LGBTQ+ love and identities have existed throughout human history, regardless of what they are called. Various cultures have been more or less sympathetic to sexual variation, but that variation has always been there.

David had many wives. Indeed, one of the most famous stories about him is his depravity in condemning a soldier, Uriah the Hittite, to a brutal death so that David could take Uriah’s wife, Bat-Sheva, as his own. But who’s to say whether David might have been open to an intimate relationship with a man he essentially called his lover?

David’s life was fraught with tragedy, and his family infamous for scandal – perhaps none greater than the tale of his son Amnon raping his half-sister Tamar. Nevertheless, tradition reveres him as the greatest king of Israel and Judah, the author of beautiful poetry and the father of King Solomon, who is credited with the ultimate biblical love poem, the Song of Songs.

I’d like to give the final word to the sages of the Mishnah, rabbinic literature written around the year 250 C.E.:

“All love that depends on something, when that something ceases, the love fails; but all love that does not depend on anything will never cease. What is an example of love that depended on something? Such was the love of Amnon for Tamar. And what is an example of love that did not depend on anything? Such was the love of David and Jonathan.”

(Jacob F. Love, Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Tennessee. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

THE BANQUET OF PLATO : PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

 THE BANQUET OF PLATO. by: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. PDF download
 Percy Bysshe Shelley's translation of Plato's dialogue, 

THE BANQUET (more commonly known as The Symposium).

Witty, sexy and radiantly beautiful, the Shelley translation of Plato's great Dialogue on Love is by far the best in the English language. It has been described as conveying "much of the vivid life, the grace of movement, and the luminous beauty of Plato" -- "the poetry of a philosopher rendered by the prose of a poet".

Although a masterpiece in its own right, the Shelley translation is unknown even to most students of English literature. Amazingly, it was suppressed and then bowdlerized for well over a century. In 19th century Britain, male love -- at the heart of the dialogue -- was unmentionable.

THE BANQUET and Shelley's accompanying essay, "A Discourse on the Manners of the Antient Greeks", were not published in their entirety until 1931, and then in an edition of 100 copies intended "for private circulation only".

For many years, the Shelley translation has been unobtainable, new or used. Pagan Press now offers a new edition, which is complete, authentic and readable.

John Lauritsen, editor and publisher of the new edition, has stated:

"In the canon of great books dealing with male love, Shelley's translation of Plato's BANQUET belongs at the head of the list. It is deplorable that this masterpiece has suffered first suppression, then bowdlerization, and finally neglect. I believe it should be available to readers now, and for so long as the English language lives."

CONSIDER IT TITHING FOR THE RELIGION OF FOOTBAL

Americans will bet more than a billion on the Super Bowl. Do faith leaders care?

(RNS)— Legal betting is bad for bettors and society alike, said gambling critic Kathleen Benfield. 'It's a house of cards,' she said. 'And it’s going to fall.'

Betting odds for Super Bowl LIX are displayed on monitors at the Circa resort and casino sports book Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bob Smietana
February 7, 2025


(RNS) — Les Bernal has a message for the millions of Americans who will bet on this year’s Super Bowl using betting apps and other legal sports books.

The house always wins.

Which means you will likely lose.

“We laugh it off and say, oh the house always wins,” said Bernal, national director of Stop Predatory Gambling, an anti-gambling nonprofit founded by a Methodist minister in the 1990s. But Americans lose billions gambling, he said, while sports-betting companies rack up profits.

Once considered a vice and the realm of Vegas casinos and organized crime, legal commercial sports betting has become America’s favorite pastime. Americans are expected to bet $1.39 billion with commercial gaming companies during Sunday’s Super Bowl — to be held Feb. 9 in New Orleans, pitting the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles — according to projections from the American Gaming Association.

Since the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that limited legal sports betting to Nevada in 2018, $450 billion has been wagered on sporting events in the United States, according to Legal Sports Report, a website that covers the sports-gaming industry. Sports-betting company revenues have reached nearly $40 billion. Much of that growth has been driven by online and mobile betting, which essentially turn cell phones into sports-betting windows, say critics like Bernal.

RELATED: Why faith leaders lost the battle against online sports betting

Les Bernal. (Courtesy photo)

Data from a 2024 AGA survey found that 88% of Americans see gambling as an acceptable form of entertainment, and many (76%) see gambling as good for the economy. Gaming industry officials see rising revenue as a sign that Americans love to bet — and that legal betting is a good thing.

“No single event unites sports fans like the Super Bowl, and that excitement extends to sports betting, with this year’s record legal handle reflecting its widespread appeal,” Bill Miller, AGA president and CEO, said in a recent press release, referring to the total amount bet on the big game.

The success of the gaming industry has critics like Bernal and faith leaders who oppose sports betting often fighting an uphill battle. They have little money to work with — Stop Predatory Gambling, for example, has a budget of $138,000. And because the gaming industry is regulated by states, there’s not a national coalition of gambling critics. (Thirty-nine states currently allow legal sports betting, though some, like Wisconsin and Washington, restrict wagers to in-person betting sites.)

Bernal, who is Catholic, said commercialized gambling is the only business where the relationship with customers is “adversarial and predatory.”

“They want to take you down,” he said.

The advent of smart phone apps and online betting and the growth of parlay bets — where bettors wager on a series of outcomes in a game, like which player scores the first touchdown — has changed the nature of sports betting, he said, allowing customers to place repeated bets on the same game.

“They made sports gambling like playing a slot machine,” he said, and have made betting more addictive and socially harmful. He’s particularly concerned about the overall business model of gaming companies, where customers with gambling problems provide most of the profits.

For example, at PointsBet, a sportsbook owned by Fanatics, a major company, 70% of the revenue came from less than 1% of the customers in 2019 and 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal.

THE TRUE BELIEVERS

A 2024 report from the University of Massachusetts found that 90% of revenue at that state’s casinos came from only 10% of customers, which researchers found problematic.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles participate during Super Bowl 59 Opening Night, Feb. 3, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, ahead of the NFL championship game this Sunday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

“There needs to be a reduction of the industry’s financial reliance on at-risk and problem gamblers, as the 90% of revenue from this 9.9% of the population is much too high,” researchers wrote in the report’s recommendation. (That report looked at casinos, not online sports betting.)

As a Catholic, Bernal said he was concerned that state governments are essentially benefiting from problem gamblers in the form of tax revenue. “We’re talking about loving our neighbors like God loves us,” he said. “This public policy is the complete opposite.”

In Minnesota, where mobile sports betting is illegal, the state’s Catholic bishops wrote to Governor Tim Walz recently, urging him to oppose making such betting legal. Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice for Catholics in that state, said expanding gambling is not worth the cost.

Adkins said Catholics don’t see all games of chance, such as raffles or bingo, as unethical, but commercial sports betting is something different, with little social benefit and a great deal of harm due to gambling addictions.

“When you put a sports book in the cell phone of every person and give them 24/7 access to the most addictive forms of gambling and then make it easy to chase their losses with in-game betting, we think this is a serious problem,” he told Religion News Service in an interview.


Kathleen Benfield. (Photo courtesy Louisiana Family Forum)

Kathleen Benfield, legislative director for the Louisiana Family Forum, said her organization has long opposed legalized gambling — seeing it as a public health risk. She pointed to a recent study in The Lancet, which outlines the social harms of gambling.

“Gambling is not an ordinary kind of leisure; it can be a health-harming, addictive behaviour,” the summary of the Lancet study read. “The harms associated with gambling are wide-ranging, affecting not only an individual’s health and wellbeing, but also their wealth and relationships, families and communities, and deepening health and societal inequalities.”

Benfield believes nothing good will come from legalized gambling in the long run.

“It’s a house of cards,” she said. “And it’s going to fall.”

A new national survey of sports fans by Sport Spectrum, a faith-based magazine, found that few people saw sports betting in a negative light. Only 23% said they felt negative about sports betting, while 43 percent said they felt positive about sports betting. A third (35%) felt neutral. A third (32%) said they had bet on sports. Twenty-seven percent said they know of someone who’d been negatively impacted by sports betting

Few sports fans felt enthusiastic about betting being part of sports broadcasts, with 28% seeing that as positive, and 40% seeing it as negative. A third (32%) were neutral.

Andy Konigsmark, a Presbyterian minister from Colorado, is among those who think that sports gambling can be an enjoyable experience, if done within limits. Konigsmark said that his parents, conservative Christians who taught Sunday school, would take him to a dog track while on vacation and give him a few dollars. He said betting made watching the race more exciting — and having only $5 meant the stakes were low.

Konigsmark said these days, he occasionally places a bet on a sports-betting app.

“I could spend $20 a month on this — and that’s it,” he said. “It’s the same as going to the movies.”


(Image from Pixabay/Creative Commons)

If he were betting every day, or for larger amounts of money, that would be a problem, said Konigsmark. And he’d like to see fewer gambling ads on television and more limits on what people can bet. He also said faith leaders could do more to help their people think through the issue. This past fall, he wrote an online article entitled, “A Christian Minister’s Guide to Gambling with Wisdom,” to do just that.

Benjamin Watson, an author and college football commentator who played 16 years in the NFL, said the rise of sports gambling has had little effect on players so far. Fans have time to think about gambling and fantasy sports, he said, while players are focused on trying to win. While pro sports teams and broadcasters have ties to gaming companies, he said, for the most part players are isolated from those concerns.

“It doesn’t impact what we do on the field,” Watson said.

Watson, who played in a pair of Super Bowls — winning with the Patriots in 2004, losing with the same team in 2007 — said he’d learned to be grateful in both outcomes. Winning and losing is part of life, he said, adding that “losing is terrible.”

“God is in control,” he said. “My goal is to glorify Him, whether I win or whether I lose, there’s still growth that happens across the board.”

Watson, who comments on college games for the SEC Network and other sports media, said he does not bet on sports — in part because he hates to lose. And he has no interest in promoting gambling.

“There’s a lot of data that’s come out, a lot of studies, showing that gambling is not beneficial on a cultural or a wholesale level,” he said. Those studies, he said, show increases in bankruptcies and addictions. So much so that ads for sports betting often come with a warning about those addictions.

“I’d just rather stay away from it,” said Watson, who is known for his outspoken advocacy of social issues like racial reconciliation and his opposition to abortion. “I don’t see the benefit.”

Flunking Sainthood

Is it OK for Mormons to bet on the Super Bowl?

(RNS) — U.S. Latter-day Saints seem more accepting of gambling than in the past, according to a recent survey, despite the church’s consistent and total opposition.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles participate during Super Bowl 59 Opening Night, Feb. 3, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, ahead of the NFL championship game this Sunday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Jana Riess
February 6, 2025

(RNS) — This coming Sunday (Feb. 9), as the Kansas City Chiefs battle the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, many Americans will wager on the game for money. ESPN is reporting legal bets on the game should amount to $1.39 billion, to say nothing of the billions more that will be wagered informally (and sometimes illegally).

Utah is not one of the 38 states that now permit some form of legal sports betting. In fact, the historically majority-Mormon state has no forms of legal gambling at all — not so much as a state lottery.

This can largely be attributed to the deep and long-standing influence The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has in the state, where it is headquartered. Even if self-identified Latter-day Saints/Mormons are no longer the majority in Utah’s state population, their influence runs deep.

The church has had a consistent, even unequivocal policy against gambling. Its website states that “gambling is motivated by a desire to get something for nothing. This desire is spiritually destructive. It leads participants away from the savior’s teachings of love and service and toward the selfishness of the Adversary. It undermines the virtues of work and thrift and the desire to give honest effort in all we do.”

The policy then jumps very quickly to the worst-case scenario, saying those who gamble waste money, sacrifice their own honor and lose the respect of friends and family. “Deceived and addicted, they often gamble with funds they should use for other purposes, such as meeting the basic needs of their families. Gamblers sometimes become so enslaved and so desperate to pay gambling debts that they turn to stealing, giving up their own good name.”

Not a lot of wiggle room there. The church is clear that gambling is wrong, and doesn’t seem to make any distinction between dilettantes who play the lottery on occasion and hard-core gamblers who lose everything to full-blown addiction.

What’s interesting is that a growing number of U.S. Latter-day Saints seem to be adopting more of a live-and-let-live approach to the question. In the 2016 Next Mormons Survey, only 14% of Latter-day Saint respondents put gambling in the “morally acceptable” category, with 56% saying it was “morally wrong” and 30% considering it “not a moral issue.” A majority, then, agreed with the church’s position that gambling as immoral.

The 2022–23 NMS2, by contrast, showed 19% saying it is morally acceptable, 44% calling it morally wrong and 37% not seeing it as a moral issue.

So the share of those who believe gambling to be immoral dropped by 12 points. Those points are nearly evenly distributed between those who think gambling is moral and those who don’t consider it a moral issue.

Some of the expected findings apply here. Latter-day Saints outside Utah are more accepting of gambling than those who live in the Beehive State; men are more accepting than women; and younger people are more accepting than the oldest respondents.

But the overall finding — that fewer than half of LDS respondents now see gambling as morally wrong — surprised me. (Perhaps that’s because I personally agree with the church here in that I don’t see much good in gambling. I have personally witnessed some very sad stories of how it’s done harm. In my mind, however, there’s a world of moral difference between Grandma buying a Lotto ticket and someone going full-on Al Capone.)

We did not have a survey question about whether respondents engaged in gambling or sports betting themselves, so the survey can’t shed light on Latter-day Saints’ actual behavior on this issue. But the softening of disapproval is interesting.

One possible reading is that this is a clear sign of secularization: As U.S. society becomes more accepting of gambling and less tied to religious leaders’ old-school condemnations of it, Mormons are affected by that too. “Cohort replacement” — which is a nice way of pointing to the presence of younger people in surveys as older people die — is a factor too.

But there’s another possible interpretation, and it’s the exact opposite of the secularization thesis, which is that in this matter, as in many others, Latter-day Saints are playing Follow the Leader. By this I mean that even though the church’s anti-gambling policy has not changed and is clearly posted on its website, it hasn’t been emphasized for a long time.

As a General Conference topic, the high points of gambling or betting being mentioned were in the 1940s and 1950s, and again in the 1990s. That corresponds well to times when gambling was very much in the news — in the midcentury period because of a string of gambling scandals, and in the 1990s and early 2000s because of the growing trend of state legalizations and riverboat casinos.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, in particular, hammered home this concern, including in a hard-hitting 2005 conference talk in the men’s priesthood session. Bemoaning the growing proliferation of different kinds of gambling, Hinckley reiterated the dangers of getting involved in it in any way, however innocuous.

In the 1990s and 2000s, gambling was mentioned 42 times in General Conference. In the 2010s and so far in the 2020s, it’s only come up six times. Given that reality, it’s possible that some younger members of the church don’t even know about the church’s long-standing opposition to gambling, or whether something like betting on the Super Bowl would “count.”

Sorry to be a literal spoilsport, but it does: Section 38.8.17 of the church’s Handbook specifies that its opposition “includes sports betting and government-sponsored lotteries.” There goes your Super Bowl loophole.