A new tour service in Manipur revisits the forgotten Battle of Imphal through its historical sites, reports Joanna Lobo
The year was 1944. A battle was raging across Manipur, with the
British-led Allies defending themselves against the Japanese invasion.
The ultimate defeat of the Japanese at Imphal and Kohima, halted their
progress to Delhi and proved to be a turning point in the Burma Campaign
in World War II.
For Japan, this loss marked the end of its invincible
era and imperialist ambitions.
The battle of Imphal, which will complete 70 years next year, and the
battle of Kohima, were recently voted “Britain’s Greatest Battles” in a
contest run by Britain’s National Army Museum. And yet many Indians are
unaware of these battles, which involved soldiers of the Indian National
Army (INA). To change this, Eastern Heritage Trails (EHT), founded by
Hemant Singh Katoch and his friends, introduced the Battle of Imphal and
four other tours. “It is a half or full- day tour that takes you to all
the important sites in and around Imphal that are related to the
Battle,” shares Katoch.
The Victoria Cross Tour takes you to the battlefields
where five Victoria Crosses (the highest British military award for
bravery) were won in Manipur, and includes stories of the men who
displayed outstanding courage. It ends with a visit to the graves of two
Victoria Cross recipients in Second World War.
The Imphal Walk goes through Mapal Kangjeibung, the
world’s oldest polo ground where the game is still played; Khwairamband
Keithel or Ima Market, one of Asia’s largest markets run entirely by
women; the Kangla Fort, seat of an ancient Manipuri kingdom for 2000
years; and the lanes of Paona Bazaar.
The Tiddim Road Tour visits the only Japanese War
Memorial in India, battlefields such as Ningthoukhong’s where two
Victoria Crosses were awarded in June 1944; Loktak Lake, the largest
freshwater lake in north east India; Keibul Lamjao National Park, the
only floating national park in the world, and INA’s only Memorial
Complex in the world at Moirang.
The Battle of Imphal Tour is a half-day excursion that
covers a Second World War-era airfield (Koirengei or Imphal Main), two
war cemeteries, a battlefield (Nunshigum) and the colonial-era Slim
Cottage, which was once the headquarters of the British 14th Army in
charge of operations in Burma.
The Shenam Saddle Tour treats people to trenches and
spectacular views from Shenam Saddle, a series of hills, between the
villages of Shenam (Sinam) and Tengnoupal, along the road on which
British forces had established defensive positions to prevent the
Japanese from advancing towards the Imphal Valley.
Also included are the Kakching Garden and a visit to the Khongjom War Memorial.
Katoch, previously a project manager in a research organization, is the
only guide and has permanently moved to Manipur from Delhi.
He researched about Manipur and the battle for years, poring over
dozens of books related to the state, and visited all the places to see
their current condition. The research made him realise the enormity of
the war and inspired him to start the tour. He says, “It seemed like the
right time to put a spotlight on it, and a heritage tour in Imphal has
enormous advantages because the battle was mostly in the countryside and
the hills still look the same. Trees maybe fewer and one may sight the
odd mobile phone tower, but the sites are largely untouched.”
EHT has conducted nine Battle of Imphal tours, for 50 people, including
a man whose brother fought in Kohima and an old Japanese man who was
knowledgeable about their side of the war.
Katoch plans to encourage and train more locals to carry out the tours.
At present, Leishangthem Chengleinganba Meetei, pursuing Masters in
History, takes people for the Imphal Walks.
If you know of someone linked to the battle, Katoch will try and “retrace their steps.”
If Obama Can Do it, So can Putin Russian
President Vladimir Putin attends the launch ceremony of the Nyagan
power plant in Nyagan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace
Prize by an advocacy group for his efforts to prevent an attack on
Syria.
Putin was nominated by the International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World.
During a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, members of the group
said Putin was far more deserving of the peace prize than U.S. President
Barack Obama, who received it in 2009.
The group said while Obama had continued to lead American military
operations abroad, Putin has consistently opposed military intervention
throughout the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war, which was left more
than 115,000 dead according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Putin, a former KGB agent, is credited with commanding a war against
separatists in Chechnya and approving a full-scale attack on Georgia
over a minor border dispute.
The 2013 Peace Prize recipient will be announced in Oslo on Oct. 11;
nominations for this year’s prize had to be postmarked by Feb. 1.
Article on Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Nagaland by CHONCHUIRINMAYO LUITHUI received via Repeal AFSPA list
My
father was picked up from home by the Indian Army late one evening,
tortured till dawn, he was pushed down a slope and left for dead. It was
a miracle that he survived that night. I had just started kindergarten
and was learning the Alphabets. I remember screaming the A B Cs outside
the window of his room at the hospital so that he could hear me because I
was told not to make noise inside. I wanted him to know what I was
learning at school. I was a few months shy of my fourth birthday.
It was from that age that my idea of the ‘enemy’ was drawn. Any big
guys in uniform were the real life villains. Dogra Regiment, Sikh
Regiment, Assam Rifles, etc were common names. You could only hate them.
But this was not an exceptional situation. It was common to most of the
children from my generation in the Naga areas. We grew up knowing of,
at least, one person tortured or killed by the Indian army and
associated them with everything that we were scared of. Parents would
frighten us when we were out of line that the ‘shipai’ (soldiers) were
coming or that they would give us to the ‘shipai’. Not the best way to
discipline a child but it worked. We might never witness the violent
acts of the Indian army but we heard and knew when the grownups talked
in hush hush manner. Children are smart that way.
My father was targeted because of his human rights activism. I am
sure he was prudent enough to know the risk he was getting us all into.
He simply refused to have the choice of staying away. So, the Indian
Army became regular visitors, raiding our house all too frequently.
Probably, they knew more about its creaky floors and dark corners than
all our family members combined. This again was not uncommon. It was
happening to many ‘activist’ families. The ‘unlucky ones’ gets picked up
and beaten and some did not come back or come out alive. My father died
eleven years later because of internal injuries.
1980s and early ’90s were a time when the underground movement was at
its strongest. The Indian government responded with military power. The
army would go on a rampage: shot at anything and anyone, destroyed
property, burnt granaries, picked up anyone, beat and maimed them for
life, raped and sodomised. My maternal grandfather was killed in one of
their shooting sprees. He was cow herding. They seem to be doing all
these, as if by doing so, they would scare away even the scariest devil.
I know of families where the parents made their children put on their
school uniforms in the middle of the nights so that they won’t be
targeted when the army comes for ‘combing operation’ (another common
phrase). Even so, the army seldom spared anyone.
Looking back, I would say that the Indian army was probably more
terrified than us. Yet, my parents’ and my generations have been living
with a fear psychosis for a long time. It is not uncommon to see many of
us look for places to hide when we hear fire crackers during diwali in
the Indian cities (yeah that is where we go for studies, work and
entertainment). It is worst back home to hear any kind of bursting
sounds. There is never enough space to hide. Again, it is not uncommon
to hear on the public address system not to burst fire crackers. As much
as I hate to admit it, we are a terrified people.
All these happen because the Indian state sanctions it. It has
legalised and institutionalised army attrocities against civilians
through the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. For a nation built on
human dignity as one of its founding principles, AFSPA should be the
last legislation on its mind. No human should be forced to carry a life
long fear psychosis waiting for the next gun shots or for the army to
swarm your house destroying anything they want. Our mothers should not
be made to stay up all night worrying about losing their husbands and
sons to the Indian Army, afraid for their daughters of getting raped. No
four years old should be counting her ‘enemies’ and thinking of revenge
(I did that for a long time) because a law creates a space for that.
For all these and more, AFSPA has to go.
I recall having a conversation with a friend that the lack of sense
of humanity had given room to all those brutalities. On reflection, we
should give some credit to the army. They had the capacity to annihilate
the whole community, had all of them acted depravedly.
This did not
happen. So, I suppose there were a few nice guys in the army. But, this
does not make good the tyranny of the majority.
Our argument against AFSPA often gets diluted by or is lost in the
rhetoric played out in the media and public arena. Yet, it is cleared
that the movement against the Act is not born out of fiction but out of
realities that people from areas affected by it are living everyday. I
should know because everyday,
I imagine my life with my father and
struggle against anger that refuses to leave me. There has to be
something seriously wrong in a law that lets such thoughts to become
part of the collective imaginations.
Aizawl, Oct 3 : The second stage of repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura to Mamit district in Mizoram has been put on hold by Mamit deputy commissioner V. Lalremthanga till October 14.
The process, which was resumed after nearly one-and-a-half years on September 30, was halted after a Mizo student outfit, Mizo Zirlai Pawl (Mizo Students’ Front) raised an objection on the ground that many non-Mizoram Brus were moving to Mizoram along with the refugees.
Lalremthanga said over telephone from Mamit that he had asked Bru Co-ordination Committee convener Elvis Chorki to survey refugee facilitation centres at Kanhmun and Zomuantlang, along with Mizoram government officials to find out if any non-Mizoram Brus have managed to enlist themselves as refugees.
He said only those Bru refugees, whose names were in voters’ lists prepared between 1990 and 1995 in Mizoram or those who could trace their parents or forefathers in such lists, would be accepted as the genuine refugees.
The deputy commissioner said volunteers and government officials found 20 doubtful Bru evacuees in the facilitation camps after the first phase of repatriation on Monday.
In the first batch of evacuees, which crossed over to Mizoram from Tripura after 16 years on Monday, there were over 86 Bru families comprising 558 refugees.
Another batch is now waiting its turn to return to Mizoram.
The Centre has also arranged food and ration, for a year, for the returning refugees.
Nearly 34,000 refugees in North Tripura’s refugee camps were driven out of their homes in November 1997 from Mizoram in the aftermath of an ethnic riot between the majority Mizo population and minority Reang people, which was sparked off by the Bru militants.
Between 2009 and 2011, as many as 3,000 Bru refugees were repatriated to Mizoram from six relief camps in North Tripura.
By Adam Halliday Aizawl, Oct 2 : The Mizoram government has plans to buy plots of private land and donate them to landslide victims within Aizawl city so they can build houses there.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the State Disaster Management Authority headed by Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla Tuesday.
Officials in the state have often complained that the compensation package given to victims of natural calamities, especially those whose houses are damaged, does not factor in the situation peculiar to hilly areas where entire plots are often lost with no chance of rebuilding houses there.
In May, a landslide in Aizawl's Laipuitlang neighbourhood killed 17 people and swept away 11 buildings (nine were homes), leaving behind a near-vertical cliff where it would be impossible to construct any buildings.
The victims were, under the central scheme, entitled only to compensation for damaged houses but not loss of landholdings and residential plots.
The detention of Manipur activist i for close to 13 years for her dragging hunger strike betrays India's intolerance to dissent, Amnesty International India said Tuesday.
"Irom Sharmila is a Prisoner of Conscience, who is being held solely for her peaceful expression of her beliefs," said Shashikumar Velath of Amnesty International India. "Authorities must drop all charges against her, and release her immediately and unconditionally."
Irom Sharmila has been on an indefinite fast since November 2000, demanding the lifting of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, widely known as AFSPA.
She was arrested by Manipur Police shortly after she began her hunger strike and charged with attempting to commit suicide - a criminal offence under Indian law.
In March 2013, a Delhi court also charged Sharmila with attempting to commit suicide in October 2006, when she staged a protest in New Delhi for two days.
Irom Sharmila has never been convicted of attempting to commit suicide. However, as the offence is punishable with imprisonment for up to one year only, she has been regularly released after completing a year in judicial custody, only to be re-arrested shortly after as she continues her fast, Amnesty said.
Irom Sharmila is being detained in the security ward of a hospital in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, where she is force-fed a diet of liquids through her nose.
Anyone wishing to meet her, including her family and friends, have to go through a lengthy process of obtaining permission from the Manipur government.
"India has a long history of activists undertaking hunger strikes for noble causes. Authorities must consider the validity of Irom Sharmila's demands, not demean her protest by charging her with attempting to commit suicide," said Shashikumar Velath.
Indian
presence in Myanmar and its economy, especially after all the glib talk
of a “Great Game” on Myanmar involving China, Western powers and India.
By Subir Bhaumik
India should be looking to her neighbourhood to boost foreign trade and get the economy back in shape. But we are missing
out on Myanmar. The Pagoda nation is strategically located between
India and south-east Asia and is key to our "Look East" policy through
the north-east.
So, one would expect rising Indian presence in
Myanmar and its economy, especially after all the glib talk of a "Great
Game" on Myanmar involving China, Western powers and India.
But does India have the minimum economic footprint in Myanmar to play a Great Game? Total foreign investment ( FDI) in Myanmar crossed $43 billion in August 2013, according to the Myanmar Investment Commission.
"Myanmar has foreign investment from 32 countries in four major
sectors: energy, oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing," said an
official from the Myanmar Investment Commission. China is the biggest
investor in Myanmar, followed by Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea,
Britain, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Vietnam and India.
India's investment in Myanmar is now around $273.5 million. It is
expected to soar to $2.6 billion over the next few years. Indian
companies that have a presence in Myanmar include ONGC Videsh (OVL),
Jubilant Oil and Gas and the Century Ply-Star Cement group. Thailand is
the largest importer from Myanmar.
As much as 41% of Myanmar's
total exports went to Thailand last year, while 15% went to India and
14% to China. Myanmar imported mainly from China, as usual, in 2012. A
total of 37% of Myanmar's imports came from China, while 20% came from
Thailand, but just 3% from India. Myanmar's total trade volume in 2012
was $25.16 billion.
The trade deficit reached $5.76 billion
because total exports stood at $9.69 billion and total imports were
$15.46 billion. Myanmar enjoys a favourable trade balance with India,
but of its total trade of over $18 billion, India accounted for only
about 7.5% in 2011-12.
Whenever one asks a foreign trade
official for an explanation, one is bombarded with statistics. Like
India's bilateral trade with Myanmar has "expanded significantly" from
$12.4 million in 1980-81 to $1,070.88 million in 2010-11.
But
why should be looking at a progression over 20 years? Where was
Sino-Indian trade 20 years ago? Now China is India's biggest trade
partner, and it all happened in a few years.
India's exports
stand at $334.4 million, while it imports goods worth over $1 billion
from Myanmar. The main exports to Myanmar are pharmaceutical products,
iron and steel, electrical machinery and equipment. India imports large
amounts of vegetables, pulses and wood products from Myanmar.
The Indian IT industry and also the entertainment industry has not
really looked at Myanmar as a market. From an investment point of view,
healthcare and education beckon Indian players for large-scale
investment with possibilities of great returns and that will also ensure
an Indian presence with "winninghearts-and-minds" capabilities.
Even Indian media has possibilities of investments
in an untapped market, where a new democracy has increased an appetite
for news. The trouble is that India has generally looked at Myanmar for
its hydrocarbons.
Seven Indian companies figure among the 59
shortlisted foreign companies for the second round of bidding, among
them are the likes of ONGC-OVL, Jubilant and Cairn Energy.
But the real irony unfolds in this sector when OVL and Gail decide to
invest $1.33 billion in the China-Myanmar gas pipeline and Punj LloydBSE -0.44 %
wins a construction contract for two parallel pipelines for oil and gas
involving a Chinese investment of $475 million to build the 200-km
Kyaukphyu-Kunming oil and gas pipeline.
India lost out on this pipeline because we could not offer Myanmar a route to bring their gas from the Shwe fields. Bangladesh under Khaleda Zia
did not oblige by providing its territory for the proposed pipeline and
it was considered too expensive and risky to route it through India's
northeast.
India has requested Myanmar to start fresh
negotiations on the pipeline now that Delhi has a more friendly
government in Dhaka. But we can't guarantee that will be the case by the
time negotiations start.
Jesus Christ's Superstar (The Gospel According to Carl Lentz)
With the Lord as his
swagger coach, the 34-year-old pastor is turning Hillsong Church in New
York City into a Pentecostal powerhouse and a destination for the in
crowd. Drawn by his concertlike sermons and pop-idol looks, Lentz's fast
growing flock of groupies includes Justin Bieber, NBA superstars, and
young Hollywood celebs. But whom, exactly, is this new apostle of cool
seeking to glorify?
By Howie Kahn
Photographs By Robbie Fimmano
Carl Lentz steps into a cloud of
silver-blue
light and hits the stage at the venerable New York City concert venue
Irving Plaza, primed to bring the Word. The 34-year-old pastor of Hillsong Church NYC
is wearing his Sunday best: black YSL wing-tip boots, black Nudie
jeans, and a short-sleeved All Saints denim work shirt. He's backed by
an 11-piece rock band that sounds like a born-again Coldplay and a
neon-lettered projection: ALWAYS. ONLY. JESUS. Sweeping
back his mohawk as shreds of rainbow disco-ball light pass across his
bearded face, Lentz revs into his first 45-minute sermon of the day.
"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, just like going to Krispy
Kreme doesn't make you a doughnut"; then, "If you think I'm one of
those weird stalker pastors . . . you're right." Lentz scans the
two-tiered auditorium packed with congregants—they're mostly in their
twenties and thirties, with a smattering of recognizable actors and
athletes. But the range of true believers here also encompasses
suburbanites, hurricane-devastated families from the Rockaway section of
Queens, and people praying to beat cancer or to find financial
stability. They hang on Lentz's every word: "We're in the control-freak
capital of the world, where people want everything but want to give up
nothing. When it's always only Jesus, you're not the boss—He is."
As Lentz paces the stage
on this sweltering mid-July afternoon, balancing quick, sharp movements
with sudden moments of reflective stillness, he comes off as less
feverish holy roller than cool Pentecostal populist—his message being
that of love, acceptance, and total surrender. Lentz delivers it in
expressions of faith so pithy and catchy they play back in your head
like a pop song: "You don't have to believe to belong here." "It's not a
feel-better message, it's a be-better one." "We don't want your money, but God wants everything."
They drive his preaching style—what he calls his "homiletical
habitude." Lentz, who was born into a devout Christian family, spent his
early years in a white-collar suburb of Chicago, but when he was 11,
his dad, a television-ad salesman for Pat Robertson's Family Channel,
took a job at the network's headquarters in Virginia Beach—that's where
Lentz picked up his slight southern twang, which intensifies when he
preaches. "I'm going to say things that disrupt you," Lentz says,
wrapping up his sermon. "It's the full Gospel—I have to do it. I owe you
that as the pastor of this church." On cue, the house band strikes up,
and Lentz quickens his cadence to match the building bass line. "We're
going to sing our way out of here," Lentz says. The crowd sways to the
music, raising their hands in surrender. Lentz blesses them all, then
exits stage left.
"He is going to be huge," predicts today's guest speaker,
Priscilla Shirer, a 38-year-old minister. A rising star in her own
right, Shirer was flown in from Dallas to lighten Lentz's load. He
normally preaches at all six Irving Plaza services, beginning at 10 A.M.,
with lines of devotees wrapped around the block for each one. But today
he is leading only the last three services because he's running on
three hours of sleep, having just returned from the annual Hillsong
Conference in Sydney, Australia.
Hillsong NYC exudes a start-up vibe, but the church is actually a
franchise. It's an extension of the Australian Pentecostal megachurch
and multimedia conglomerate Hillsong, which has more than 20,000 members
in the Sydney area, chart-topping musical acts, DVDs, books, and
satellite churches in 11 countries—and took in $58.3 million in 2012
(including $25.9 million from tithes). After initially receiving
financial support from the mother ship, Lentz says, Hillsong NYC, which
passes around black donation buckets at every service, is now
self-sustaining. Lentz was educated in the early 2000s at Hillsong
International Leadership College, where he met his future Hillsong NYC
partners: Laura Lentz, his wife and fellow pastor, and Joel Houston, the
33-year-old son of Hillsong's cofounders, Brian and Bobbie Houston. But
it's Lentz, with his supernatural magnetism, who is the face of
Hillsong's first foray into American Christendom. "People call New York
the church-planting graveyard," Lentz says. And yet, just three years
after its launch, Hillsong NYC draws 6,000 people to its services every
Sunday and has just added two more at a chapel in the Gramercy Park
neighborhood. "I see our church taking ground in a major way," Lentz
says. "In five years, I want a giant version of what it is now."
Lentz has already shared the pulpit with megapastors like Joel Osteen
and T.D. Jakes at Christian conferences. This month, he'll preach to
sellout crowds at Hillsong's debut conferences in America, first at New
York's Radio City Music Hall, then at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Lentz's digital persona is going viral. He has 65,000 Instagram followers, who "like" it when he mugs beside a tank-topped Justin Bieber
(the two trade Scripture-based texts daily) or poses with the newly
baptized—by Lentz—NBA superstar Kevin Durant and Jay-Z (snapped on the
day Durant, with Lentz's spiritual counsel, signed with Roc Nation
Sports). Lentz conveys a hip, iconoclastic image: religion in a designer
wrapper.
"It's a reaction against the fundamentalist evangelical culture of
the eighties and nineties," says Brett McCracken, the author of Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide.
"Dynamic speakers have always risen to the top, from Charles Spurgeon
to Billy Graham. The difference now is pastors like Lentz wear skinny
jeans and beards and quote Jay-Z. They gain authenticity from caring
about the same things as you do. Part of the brand is saying you don't
think about the brand."
Lentz is aware that endorsements from Bieber and Durant, especially
when tweeted and Instagrammed, pay dividends. "I'm an advertiser," Lentz
reasons. "You are God's ambassador—as if He is making his appeal
through you. We're essentially His commercial."
• • •
In the Pentecostal worldview Carl Lentz subscribes to, all human
talents are expressions of the Holy Spirit. Lentz believes his swift
ascent is part of God's plan, his past full of portent. His earliest
memories involve working in a soup kitchen and ministering to prisoners
with his father. As a teenager, he says, he gradually turned away from
God—toward basketball, earning a walk-on spot as a shooting guard at
North Carolina State. "I was teammate of the year," Lentz says,
"breaking up fights, signing guys out of jail." But he left the team
during his sophomore season. "Something in my heart shifted," he
continues. "I felt like if I stayed, I couldn't serve God. I felt like I
was going to die."
At age 20, Lentz lit out for California, where he attended King's
Seminary in Van Nuys while working part-time at the Gucci store on Rodeo
Drive. His pastor in Virginia Beach, Wave Church's Steve Kelly,
suggested that Lentz check out Hillsong International Leadership
College. Attending Hillsong after King's, Lentz says, summoning a
basketball analogy, was "like going to UNLV instead of Princeton.
Princeton wins with backdoor cuts, whereas UNLV is running, gunning,
getting dunks, and popping their jerseys on the way back up the floor.
That's the way I wanted to relate to Jesus."
After marrying Laura and graduating in 2003, Lentz moved back to Virginia Beach and jumped into the ministry at Wave Church, where he rapidly built a following with his hip-hop-infused "Soul Central" services. Then, on New Year's Eve 2009, Lentz flew to New York to meet Joel Houston—who was already well known as the frontman of the Christian-rock band Hillsong United—to discuss a scenario that the two had dreamed about in Sydney: a Hillsong church in Manhattan. A couple of months later, when they got the go-ahead from Joel's parents, Lentz jumped at the opportunity, which he views as a manifestation of God's plan. The night Lentz, his wife, and their three young children pulled into Brooklyn, he says, the family car was broken into. "We couldn't find a place to live, because you have to prove you make, like, 900 grand a year," Lentz says. "So by God's grace, some real-estate agent, who just loved us, found us a spot in Williamsburg. It was a brand-new building, and the dude cut us a deal. We have a doorman, which was all my wife wanted to feel safe."
In the beginning, Hillsong NYC was less a church than a series of informal meetings on park benches and in pizza joints. Lentz recalls canvassing the streets with Houston, talking to whomever they could about Christ. The size of their meetings grew, and after one attendee fainted in an overcrowded TriBeCa apartment, Lentz decided it was time to seek a larger venue. A Hillsong contact who works for the concert-promoting group Live Nation helped Lentz secure Irving Plaza, and Hillsong NYC held the first of its weekly services there in February 2011.
As his church grows in numbers and notoriety, Lentz knows he'll be subjected to intense scrutiny—not least because of Hillsong HQ's controversial past. There was the admission from Joel Houston's grandfather Frank Houston, a leader in the Australian Pentecostal movement and Hillsong's patriarch, that he had sexually abused a boy in New Zealand. Hillsong Church is also the target of widespread allegations of homophobia. Lentz says gays are welcome at Hillsong NYC, but he declines to address the topic of same-sex marriage with me. It's clearly not worth the risk. Lentz maintains that his job is more about uniting people than dividing them. "It's harder to feel welcome in some local churches than it is to meet Jesus," Lentz says elliptically. "If Jesus walked into New York City, he wouldn't be able to get into some of the places they profess to worship him in."
• • •
What some people call swagger, Carl Lentz calls the grace of God. Justin Bieber's longtime manager, Scooter Braun, says Lentz "has that X-factor, that thing you're born with that makes people gravitate toward you. I'm a proud, practicing Jew, but you don't have to be Christian to be moved by Carl's words and his passion." When Braun and Bieber met Lentz for the first time—introduced by a mutual friend, the Seattle pastor Judah Smith, backstage at a Bieber concert in New Jersey—Braun was wary. "I'd had bad experiences with people claiming they were all about God," Braun says. "My reaction was just to get him out." But when they met again at a pickup basketball game at Shaquille O'Neal's house in L.A., the two men bonded. "Carl has never asked for anything other than friendship," Braun says, "and has given nothing but friendship in return."
Lentz has earned the trust of many young famous Christians. At that same 5 P.M. service in mid-July, the 24-year-old actress Vanessa Hudgens and her 21-year-old boyfriend, Austin Butler, were seated in the front row, with Butler's costar in The Carrie Diaries, AnnaSophia Robb, 19, a row back. As Lentz began to preach the Word, Robb tapped out notes on her iPhone. When the pastor left the stage, Robb, who recently moved into the same apartment building as the Lentzes, turned to me and said, "You can feel the favor of God in this church." After his sermon, upstairs in Irving Plaza's greenroom, Lentz meets with a grieving couple who just lost their 4-year-old son in a car accident. Lentz prays with them, huddling in a tight circle, finishing just in time to change back into his stage clothes and deliver again at the seven o'clock service. When Lentz hauls himself back to the greenroom 45 minutes later, he's gutted. He shuts the door and sits gingerly on a couch, alone, brushing his hair back. He leans forward, elbows on knees, hands joined, eyes closed. He's sweating and sniffling; a tear runs down his cheek. One more service to go.
Lentz quickly collects himself and opens the door to find Roc-A-Fella Records cofounder Damon Dash waiting, unannounced, with an entourage of two.
"That was like a rock concert with a message," Dash says, introducing Lentz to someone he refers to as "the biggest DJ in China."
"You mind if I get your details?" Lentz asks. "Give you a holler? Grab a coffee?" The two exchange numbers, and Lentz heads back downstairs to preach his final sermon of the night.
"Jesus," Lentz says, bathed again in silver-blue light, "I pray tonight you have your way. There will not be one of us who leaves here as we walked in."
• • •
Four days later, Lentz hits the road: There's Hillsong's European conference at London's O2 Arena; an event in Joplin, Missouri, called Project Restoration, to which Lentz was personally invited by a woman who'd driven to New York just to ask him to heal her tornado-ravaged town; and a trip to preach in New Zealand. On the day Lentz returns to New York, nearly three weeks later, he heads to Harlem to coach his church's basketball team in a game at storied Rucker Park. He rolls uptown in a caravan of Chevy Tahoes filled with former and current NBA talent, including the Golden State Warriors' All-Star forward David Lee. Justin Bieber's onetime "swagger coach" Ryan Aldred, a.k.a. Ryan Good, sits in the back of one SUV. "All the other teams are sponsored by rap labels and drug dealers," Lentz says. "We're the only church team in the history of the league."
During the game, Lentz, in a loose-fitting Ksubi Baddies tank top and a camouflage baseball cap, sits anxiously on the bench, eyes narrowed, turning his cap forward then backward. He appears even more intense than he does in church. By the fourth quarter, Lentz's squad of ringers, the Hillsong NYC Hustlers, have a 15-point lead. When Lee seals the deal with his third dunk in a row, Lentz shoots up off the bench and exchanges a flying body bump with his Warrior. His commitment to winning is total.
That was made clear four Sundays earlier, during his final sermon of
the night. Wiping sweat from his brow under the disco ball, Lentz cited
John 6:53 and spoke of a total commitment to Christ: "Unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in
you." He then explained the meaning of Jesus' words: "When you take a
bite of me, when you really follow me, everything in me goes in you—you can't pick and choose." Lentz leaned out over the edge of the stage, his voice rising. "You have to be consumed with this. I'm talking about flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, everything in me, in you, and if you're not about that, you need to go follow somebody else."
Lentz was ostensibly talking about his savior, but it almost sounded
like he meant himself. "Because this is not a game. I am not a circus. I
am not just traveling around doing cool things. I am after followers."
THE CIRCLE OF LOVE
Carl Lentz has a knack for making famous friends, from true believers to adoring admirers. 1. AnnaSophia Robb
The Colorado-raised Carrie Diaries star uses Hillsong NYC as a cure for homesickness and now lives in the same apartment building as Lentz. 2. Kevin Durant
Lentz baptized the NBA superstar and serves as his spiritual counselor;
the two hit the gym together whenever they're in the same city. 3. Scooter Braun
Braun's first reaction to Lentz? "That guy is definitely not a pastor!" Now Lentz has the full trust of Bieber's Svengali. 4. Damon Dash
The Roc-a-Fella Records cofounder recently visited Hillsong NYC, telling Lentz: "That was like a rock concert with a message." 5. Jeremy Lin
When he's back in New York, the former Knicks and current Houston Rockets point guard often attends Lentz's services. 6. Vanessa Hudgens
The Spring Breakers co-star and her actor boyfriend, Austin Butler, are Hillsong NYC regulars and friends with Lentz's whole family. 7. Justin Bieber
Last year, Lentz and the King of Teen Pop bonded over pickup b-ball; now they exchange texts about Scripture every day. 8. Tyson Chandler
With his wife, Kimberly, the Knicks' star center traveled with the
Lentzes to this year's Hillsong Conference in Sydney, Australia.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin attends the launch ceremony of the Nyagan
power plant in Nyagan.![AFSPA Nagaland_thumb[1]](http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/afspa-nagaland_thumb1.jpg?w=600)
