Australian Psychologist who Promoted Satanic Panic Banned

“‘The majority of the Illuminati infants go through induced premature birth, from 26 weeks onwards.”

The Australian Daily Telegraph reports:

A PSYCHOLOGIST who helped perform exorcisms on his patients and believed in “satanic abuse” has been banned from practising by the state’s health watchdog.

Father-of-six Mark Edward Tynan, of the western Sydney-based Christian group Servants of Jesus, was found to have blurred his spiritual beliefs and professional duties, placing clients in “grave risk of harm”.

…The clients, who were also part of the 500-member community, were forced to discuss satanic abuse and supernatural events.

…Three of his patients complained about their treatment while he was working for Community Care Inc, a non-government funded charity set up by the Servants of Jesus.

The full report of the tribunal can be seen here. It explains that the Servants of Jesus is an ecumenical Christian community, 90 per cent Catholic, and that (link added)

Within The Community is the Bread of Life Fellowship (BOLF), part of the international Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships and answerable to the Bishop of the Diocese.

The bishop is Kevin Manning of Parramatta.

The tribunal report also tells us that Tynan had been influenced by Clare Harris, a fellow counselor at Community Care Inc,  and a certain Sally Grant:

The Tribunal notes that a number of papers the Respondent says he received from Mrs Grant were attached to his October statement. The main document is called ‘Healing from Trauma’ published by the River of Life Ministries… Another document details the manner in which ‘Illuminati’ children are ‘programmed’ from eight weeks past conception in a document headed ‘Prenatal Primal Dissociation’. The document states that ‘programming’ of a fetus (sic) can commence from eight weeks after conception by exposure to ‘hostile chemicals’ by ingestion by the mother or by injecting it into the amniotic fluid and poking with needles. Under a sub-heading of ‘15 to 20 weeks’ it is noted that experiences such as high voltage shock and injection of hot or cold fluids may overwhelm a foetus and produce the ‘child’s first death/near death experience and the first sense of intense fear or terror’. The document states that ‘The majority of the Illuminati infants go through induced premature birth, from 26 weeks onwards.’

…Some of the content of these documents is best described as sinister, bizarre, sadistic and without scientific basis or psychological merit.

He was also “influenced” by the teachings of a Baptist minister named Ed Smith, who promotes a “Theophostic ministry”; however, Tynan denied that he employs Smith’s methods.

Tynan also allowed a person named Julie Chircop to attend therapy sessions; according to Tynan’s statement:

Mrs Chircop was asked to be involved when it was clear significant spiritual/demonic realities were present. Mrs Chircop has had long experience and significant expertise in dealing with realities such as these as well as being a gifted and insightful counsellor in her own right. Clare and I have experience and expertise of our own in this area but we though Mrs Chircop’s particular gifts would be beneficial to [Client A].

This was seen to have compromised confidentiality – and we learn that Chircop liaised with the Bishop about an exorcism. Chircop is the wife of the co-founder of the community, Joe Chircop.

The report ends by suggesting that Tynan should have a “full psychological, neuropsychological and psychiatric assessment” before he can be reinstated.

Friends of the “Cheerleaders” Wade in with Evasions

More comments have been received regarding my posts on Charlie Flowers and the “Cheerleaders”. As any regular readers will know, this is the gang of semi-anonymous cyber-vigilantes who last year decided to post Tim Ireland’s home address all over the internet, without regard for his family’s safety, in the stated hope that he would be forced to flee the country. Threats of violence were also received, including “machete to your throat”. Tim has asked various associated people to account for this behaviour: these include a member of Flowers’ “Fighting Cocks” band named Dan Wilde; Gina Khan, who is listed on a “Cheerleadered” Facebook page as an officer; and several friends whom Flowers cc-ed into an email threat he sent to Tim.

Remarkably, not one of these persons contacted has responded wishing to disassociate themselves from Flowers’ behaviour; instead, aggrieved messages are coming in from Flowers’ associates complaining about my coverage of the subject. Here are the main points, with brief responses:

(1) It was just a joke.
Response: Would you find it funny to be on the receiving end of a campaign of harassment of this sort? To receive the message “machete to your throat”? To have to consider moving home to protect your family after your address has been maliciously publicised?

(2) I spend too much time on the computer.
Response: So what?

(3) I haven’t met Flowers and his friends.
Response: If Flowers and the “Cheerleaders” have some sort of justification for their shameful behaviour, it’s up to them to make it known. The idea that I have to travel to some location of their choosing in order to hear some sort of rationalisation in person before I can make a judgement is just an evasion.

(4) I ought to be willing to “justify” myself by being filmed.
Response: This makes no sense – although I’ve had a similar demand before. The idea is that what I have say cannot be valid unless I do it through a particular medium of their choosing. It’s simply weird.

(5)  There’s no evidence that Flowes and the “Cheerleaders” have in fact harassed Tim Ireland.
Response: By that, what is meant is that the evidence is being ignored. Here’s a screenshot for starters.

(6) I haven’t mentioned anything about Flowers’ support for groups like British Muslims for secular Democracy.
Response: What’s that got to do with a campaign of illegal harassment against Tim? There are doubtless various political issues on which I have no argument at all with Flowers and the “Cheerleaders”. My main problem is with their utterly unwarranted threats against Tim Ireland.

However, one message in particular stands out for its whining hypocrisy, although it does contain some corrective points – step forward Darren Marsh, responding to my post about this picture:

F.A.O. Bullshitter Bartholomew

Whilst you are busy accusing all and sundry of lies and deception perhaps your readers might also be interested in seeing yet more proof of where you too have been blowing it out of your rather ample arse.

1) You have made the assertion that I am “Darren Marsh of the English Democratic Party” or whoever they are supposed to be when they’re at home. I have been a fully paid-up member of the United Kingdom Independence Party since June 2009 and as such I still have 4 months left to run. Therefore I have no idea who supplied you with such misinformation but my only guess is you have a team of monkeys working around the clock on discovering such revelations.

2) The lad in the red panda shirt is just another poor unfortunate who has fallen into your cowardly sights (even more amusing is that you feel he actually looks like an active EDL member when he’s about as Irish as Beamish). He is in fact an English Literature student who popped down to the pub with one of his mates that evening.

3) Do you not feel the slightest bit guilty in posting the images and identities of unknown females who are entirely unconnected to your ‘rage against Flowers’ but by your disgusting assertions could now be open to reprisals purely because of the sick propaganda you peddle and the information you are renowned for passing on to extremists? It would seem that your megalomania is worth far more to you than the safety and security of those members of the public whom you have never met in your life but whose lives you are privileged enough to play God with from afar. Just how far are you prepared to go with your blatant self-promotion?

So there we have it. Let’s have no more self-aggrandising comments and pretentious bullshit. Just accept that you are indeed wrong where these 3 points are concerned…

As for point 1, I do concede that I got Marsh’s fringe party membership wrong. I also concede that I meant to write “English Democrats Party” rather than the “English Democratic Party”, which is apparently another organisation (although Marsh’s pretence at not knowing what I mean is just silly). My identification was based on Marsh’s public association with English Democrat paraphernalia and websites. Unsurprisingly, I’m not a particular fan of this party, but it’s a lot better than some of the other “nationalist” alternatives.

As for point 2, I did misidentify, albeit in good faith, the man on the right of the photograph as the EDL’s Matthew Kaplan, who is ally of Joel Titus. A “Cheerleader” sock-puppet named “Barry G.” put me right on that point, but then made a misleading comment about how this person’s name could not be revealed to me lest I pass it on to “jihadis”. I took that to mean that this person was someone else who is politically involved with Titus’ “moderate” EDL strand. Flowers chose to bring this person into the picture – literally.

And as for point 3, this really is a joke. (1) The picture was posted by the “Cheerleaders” themselves, not by me. If anyone in the picture wanted privacy, they should make their complaint to “Shooter Kirpachi”, the “Cheerleader” who put it on-line; (2) One of those two women is in fact a “Cheerleader” friend of Flowers – that means she identifies with the harassment against Tim Ireland; (3) Flowers decided to run a campaign of harassment – he can’t now complain that a torchlight is being shone in his direction, and that this might also mean publicity for the various friends and associates he has co-opted into his gang of bullies; (4) given that Marsh’s comment contains the lie – derived from Dominic Wightman and publicised by the “Cheerleaders” – that I share information with extremists (see here), talk about “reprisals” caused by my “misinformation” and “disgusting assertions” is utterly hollow.

Why is this so difficult to understand? Flowers and his friends have conducted a campaign of harassment against an innocent man – indeed, it’s still on-going. That’s the simple fact that has set all this in train. All the bluster and indignation about my supposed faults (either real or imagined) is no more than a smokescreen for those who don’t wish to talk about that – and would rather no-one else did either.

UPDATE: “Shooter Kirpachi” sounds off – not here, but on Facebook. For some reason the goading banter she used to indulge in has slipped away; all that’s left is some slightly desperate-looking coarse abuse:

Such bravery behind a fake name.

Michael Gove vs Creationism

From the BBC:

Shadow Children’s Secretary Michael Gove…told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show he wanted to give state schools the same “freedom” as fee-paying schools to set their own curriculums, which he claimed would boost the chances of pupils from poorer backgrounds reaching top universities.

…And he stressed that he did not want to see schools teaching “creationism”, which rejects scientific explanations for life on earth in favour of religious beliefs.

“To my mind you cannot have a school which teaches creationism and one thing that we will make absolutely clear is that you cannot have schools which are set up, which teach people things which are clearly at variance with what we know to be scientific fact.”

That would mean a rejection of Accelerated Christian Education – a US-based Creationist syllabus adopted by around fifty independent Christian schools in the UK. However, at least one school using ACE has been praised by senior Conservatives: in 2006 I noted that the Tabernacle School in Kensington has Iain Duncan Smith as its patron, and that it had been endorsed by David Willetts (then Shadow Education Secretary) as providing ” a high quality education to children outside of the state system and for lower income parents”.

The teaching of creationism at the school has also been praised in a piece published by the Social Affairs Unit, which sniffed that

Darwin’s theory… is a heresy, a heresy of Anglicanism so Anglican in flavour as to have become the Official Faith of England. Tabernacle School is better off without it.

The Social Affairs Unit has published other attacks on evolutionary biology, such as this 2005 piece by Myles Harris (there’s a take-down from PZ Myers here).

Crusader Fetishism Used to Taunt Muslims in Graffiti Incidents in UK and USA

Luton, UK:

Nashville, USA:

I blogged on the top image in October; the graffiti had been sprayed onto the side of an Indian Restaurant supposedly owned by Muslims, and the photo was taken by Paul Ray (who by a remarkable coincidence has a tattoo of the same type of cross). Ray is unconnected with the main body of the English Defence League following a feud, but it seems the EDL liked the photo enough to use it anyway.

The second image shows a vandalised mosque; the cross to the left is a “Jerusalem Cross”. Both crosses in these pictures are particularly associated with Crusaders, and the incidents reflect a wide fetishism for Crusader imagery and iconography among anti-Islamic nationalists.

Think Progress has some background to the second incident:

Last year, the right-wing Christian Action Network and PRB films produced a “documentary” called “Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around U.S.” It claims to expose 35 “Islamic terrorist training compounds” devoted to “radical Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani.” (Watch the trailer here.) In February 2009, CBS News reviewed the film and dismissed it as nothing more than “sensationalistic” fear-mongering… Nevertheless, a year later, the Nashville CBS affiliate (Channel 5) decided to give the film legitimacy by conducting an “EXCLUSIVE” investigation into a Muslim community in rural Tennessee called Islamville, which is featured in the movie. “Some believe it is a secret Islamic terrorist training camp,” reads the Channel 5 article…

Just a week after Channel 5’s reports aired, the Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Nashville has been vandalized with anti-Muslim graffiti.

As it happens, I blogged on a interview between the Christian Action Network and members of the English Defence League here.

Support for Helen Ukpabio against “Anti-Child Witchcraft” Campaign

Nigerian Evangelist praises attack on conference about children accused of witchcraft

The ranting video above shows Bishop N. E. Moses of Overcomers Church World Outreach praising members of Liberty Gospel Church for physically attacking a conference on the subject of children who have been accused of witchcraft by evangelists:

…entering into Calabar I was told how some people had organised themselves to come and blackmail – as a matter of fact I have the document – to come and blackmail the Liberty Church. But you know what the people of Liberty did? They did not fold their hands. They did not fold their hands. One telephone call overnight, men and women of Liberty Foundation jumped on [?] the hall and took over. Took over. Guess what? Took over! Took over! Come on, took over! You did the right thing. Listen, you did the right thing. We shall not run and get into our bedrooms. We shall not allow the enemy to take over. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Moses is refering to the event I blogged about here, at which the Nigerian humanist Leo Igwe was assaulted. As was reported at the time:

As the anti-witchcraft conference began at around 10.30am…religious protestors dressed in orange raided the venue and began protesting loudly. The exremists were carrying a number of banners with slogans such as, “This protest is organised by The Akwa Ibim Government”, “We give freedom to the witches” and “Stepping Stone is not a registered organisation”.

Liberty Gospel Church is headed by Helen Ukpabio, who can be seen in the video above, standing smugly behind Moses and bobbing up and down with excitement. Ukpabio – as has been widely reported – is just one evangelist who teaches that children can become witches, and will be dangerous to their families unless they are “delivered” through a form of exorcism, but she has been particularly influential due to her horror films and books on the subject. This belief in “child witches” has led to a major hysteria, with children being abandoned by their families and subjected to abuse; there have also been deaths. Channel 4 in the UK has run two documentaries on the subject (see here and here).

Ukpabio claims that these outcomes are not her fault – but as well as sending her followers to attack Leo’s conference, she has also tried to shut down a hostel for children who have been accused of witchcraft, again by force (the man who runs it is “a wizard”, she insists), and she has fired off lawsuits in all directions – although one against Leo was dismissed just recently. She has also threatened the life of state governor Godswill Akpabio, who has passed legislation against accusing children of witchcraft, by warning him to “remember what happened to Saddam Hussein”.

Moses goes on to rail against government support for “atheists” who intend to “cripple the work of God”, reaching a crescendo:

The enemy is attacking! Witches attacking! Wizards attacking! Atheists attacking!

A second video shows more of the same.

Bishop Moses consecrated Ukpabio as an “apostle” in August. Newswatch reported at the time that

The consecration service led by Bishop Nnadi E Moses, president of Apostolic Impact Global Outreach, Nigeria and bishop of Overcomers Faith Mission, Lagos, [was] held at the Palace Temple headquarters, Calabar.

A second report adds:

The two-day event, which held elaborately at the Palace Temple headquarters of the Liberty Gospel Church, was well attended by top government officials, royal fathers, Nollywood stars, celebrities, diplomats, Nigerians in the Diaspora, family members and well-wishers… In their thought-provoking good will/congratulatory message, the Cross River State chapter of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), where Ukpabio holds sway as its Treasurer, congratulated the celebrant, saying that her consecration as a lady apostle of the most High, was an honour well-deserved.

Moses also publicly gave his backing to Ukpabio a few days ago;  This Day reported:

A Lagos-based clergy, Nnadi E. Moses, has described film producer and General Overseer of Liberty Gospel Church, Calabar, Apostle Helen Ukpabio, as an exceedingly gifted woman whose ministry has brought a lot of hope to families around the country.

Moses, bishop of Overcomers Faith Mission, Lagos, who was a guest speaker at the recently concluded convention of Liberty Gospel Church, held in the premises of Government Secondary School, Ikot Ansa, Calabar, said over the years, Ukpabio had battled spiritual forces that held men and women bondage. She has helped to deliver many from demonic powers, hardship, poverty and death occasioned by the demons, witches and wizards, Moses said…The Overcomers leader called on the nation to celebrate Ukpabio’s rare apostolic gifts.

…Among ministers of God who officiated at the event were pastors Eyo Nkute, Louis Oku, Excellence Sambo, and Alobi Ofuka – superintendents of the church in Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abuja, and Enugu, respectively.

Moses has a website here. It tells us that

Bishop Moses, Being a man called of God and under assignment has for several years played a host to the overcomers’ power encounter network (Open), a weekly programme on the Nigerian most popular television (NTA 10). This Programme has massively blessed millions of viewers across the nation.

His burden for souls has resulted in planting several satellite parishes of the overcomers church world outreach in several states of Nigeria, London and South Africa respectively.

He is the president of “Apostolic Impact Global Outreach” (AIG), a network of over one thousand pastors from diverse denominations in Nigeria.

His wife, meanwhile, has her own ministry, “Deliverance by Fire“:

In 1993, Virgy Moses was ordained a pastor at the Reach Out for Christ International Ministries in the U.S.A. It was in 2003, however, that this woman of God answered the call of God to serve as a full time minister at the Overcomer Church World Outreach… Rev. Mrs. Virgy Moses is happily married to Bishop N.E Moses, a thought provoking preacher of the word who ministers with deep biblical insight and revelation. He is the founder of Overcomers Church World Outreach and also the facilitator of Apostolic Impact Global Outreach where God is mightily using him to encourage pastors.

Bishop Moses also enjoys the support of the Faith World Outreach Church, based in Bartlett, Illinois. According to this church’s website:

We have been supporting churches in Nigeria for over 15 years! Bishop Moses is diligently working to share the gospel with everyone who will listen. They have began many churches in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, and continue to pave the way for more.

FWO is run by Pastor Ed Weiss; this site mentions that he was with Bishop Moses and a team in Warri in 2004.

As well as encouraging Christians attack conferences, Bishop Moses’ “gospel” includes a particular revelation about the spiritual causes behind air accidents.  The Daily Sun reported on this in 2006:

“I used to believe before now that most air tragedies are as a result of either pilot error, aircraft technical faults, bad weather and lack of maintenance especially in Africa. However, when God spoke to me late last year (December 2005) to take a prayer conference round the nation to saturate the air space of Nigeria with ‘His Arm of Grace’, I got to know then that there is more to air and road accidents than humanly thought of,” says Bishop Nnadi Egochukwu Moses, the presiding bishop of Overcomers Church and president, Grace and Truth Ministries Aguda, Surulere, Lagos…. Satan operates in the air too!

…When God therefore spoke to me to take up the challenge to stand in the gap for Nigeria air travellers and safeguard the aviation industry, it dawned on me that this bastard called Satan is at war with Nigeria. He is not only ready to totally corrupt our political system, destroy our economy by the use of militants groups everywhere but also out to reduce the elite population to nothing. He knows that it is the elite and those in power that fly. You can see how dangerous his plans are.

Cheerleaders Send a Threat: Back Off or “They Will Mess You Up”

A comment arrives, supposedly from “Justin”, concerning the gang of cyber-bullies known as the “Cheerleaders”:

Richard;
I’ve met this bunch. They genuinely don’t give a flying one about anything or anyone, no one manipulates them, and they laugh at legal and police business. Ireland was an absolute fool to go up against them and I’d advise you lot not to either because they will mess you up. In the same way you’d be a bit daft to conduct a campaign against the Reading branch of the Hell’s Angels, I’d advise you not to needle the Cheerleaders.
Just a thought, and I enjoy your blog Richard. When are you going to post some more Subgenius stuff?

This comment refers to the campaign of harassment which the “Cheerleaders” have been undertaking for the last few months against the blogger Tim Ireland. There’s some revisionist history here: Tim didn’t “go up against them” – the Cheerleaders attacked him, for reasons which still have not been properly explained, starting from when he wrote a blog entry showing how the self-styled “terror-tracker” Dominic Wightman had lied to us in an attempt to get us to attack a man against whom he has a grudge (Wightman denies any link, although he knows one of these “Cheerleaders” – a man named Charlie Flowers – and the “Cheerleaders” have stated that they have done things for him). The harassment against Tim has included publicising his home address and send threats of violence.

The “Cheerleaders”, as I have blogged on numerous occasions, see themselves as vigilantes against Islamic extremism. Aside from Flowers, they use a variety of fake IDs, although evidence suggests that they are members of Flowers’ music band and perhaps some other hangers-on.

“Justin” is one such fake ID; the email came from an IP proxy which I have only ever had from comments left by the “Cheerleaders” and, more recently, by a commentator named “Barry G”. And – what a surprise – “Barry G.” also shows inside knowledge about these “Cheerleaders” and what they’ve been up to. “Barry G.” left several comments preceding the one from “Justin”. “Barry G.” began by dismissing my research on the subject, but when I responded to his various points, he turned to this:

your and Ireland’s sites have a reputation for passing on peoples’ details to jihadists. And please do not deny that.

As I responded in the comment following, I do not pass on “people’s details” to “jihadis”. In fact, I corresponded with the administrator of a Muslim forum in order to get information about IP addresses and other details in order to track down fake postings made to Muslim web forums by Glen Jenvey; in January last year, Tim showed how Jenvey had used a posting which he himself had made to create a bogus tabloid scare story about a terrorist threat against British Jews. My communication with a Muslim forum to get information wasn’t a secret, but Wightman used it as a later justification for his admitted lies. He also forwarded a private email I had sent to him to Flowers – whose “Cheerleaders” created this silly graphic.

I further added:

What “information” did I have that could I pass to Bukhari? For what purpose? I got information from MPAC via Ummah about an IP address, but you can see that from my blog entry on the subject – no secret, no story, nothing to lie about. And the reason I needed the information was to find out about fake postings made by Jenvey and perhaps others – a subject you clearly don’t want people investigating. Now, why is that?

“Barry” responded by repeating himself, and I concluded on this note:

Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself with your repetitions. This isn’t going to go away: Flowers and his friends conducted a campaign of harassment against someone for no justifiable reason, and that’s going to tarnish anyone they work with. It may also eventually lead to legal consquences.

The warning from “Justin” came after that.

So, we can see a downward arc here: goading and cocky messages received from the “Cheerleaders”, followed by more soberly-written messages from someone advancing an argument to rationalise what the “Cheerleaders” have done. When that fails to make an impression, we move on to a veiled threat.

Ugandan Police: Source for Newsnight Child Sacrifice Story told “Pack of Lies”

Ugandan Police investigating Newsnight journalist’s “professional record”

From the Uganda New Vision:

THE Police have dismissed claims by Angello Pollino, a Catholic Evangelist in northern Uganda, that he sacrificed over 70 people.

Pollino 60, a resident of Adoki-Imeldi village in Apac district, who claimed that he sacrificed people, including his own son, was broadcast on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) last month.

“The information Pollino gave to BBC about his involvement in child sacrifice was ‘a pack of lies’ which has tarnished the image of the country,” Moses Binoga, the head of the anti-human sacrifice and trafficking task force, said yesterday.

I blogged on the January Newsnight report – and raised some concerns about it – here. A sceptical piece also appeared in the London Review of Books blog, by anthropologist Adam Kuper, and the BBC responded to criticisms in the comments section.

The Newsnight piece was an exposé of a supposed upsurge of killings by witchdoctors in Uganda to acquire human body-parts; Pollino (in other reports named as “Polino Angela”) was featured as ex witch-doctor who had converted to Christianity. Why had he not been arrested before now? Uganda’s Minister for Ethics,  James Nsaba Buturo, told the BBC it was because

To punish retrospectively would cause a problem… if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past.

The programme also featured journalist Tim Whewall visiting a shrine and being shown a liver which he told us may or may not have been human; but we’ll never know for sure because Pollino persuaded the witch-doctor there to change his ways and to burn everything. This seemed to me rather alarming as the shrine ought to have been regarded as a potential crime scene – unless the whole thing was overhyped nonsense.

According to the New Vision, Pollino remains in custody while “further investigations” take place, and the police are “investigating Whewel’s professional record and the purpose of his visit to Uganda.”

WorldNetDaily Sees Muslim Conspiracy against Churches

WorldNetDaily gathers together some disparate bits and pieces to present its fearful readers with evidence that

Christian churches fed ‘Islam lite’: Experts say Muslim Brotherhood carrying out domination strategy in U.S.

The “experts” are Steve Emerson and some unnamed sources. We learn of a church “where an Islamic speaker was a guest”, and that “Hartford Seminary’s website displays photos of smiling, hijab-wearing young women standing arm-in-arm with clergy women in clerical collars”. Among other bits and pieces, we read that

Even high-profile leaders such as megachurch pastor Rick Warren of Saddelback Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., have spoken to organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim Brotherhood group.

WND editor Joseph Farah hates his fellow-Christian Rick Warren, so it’s easy to see why that’s there.

But these are the silliest bits:

The effort to co-opt Christian churches includes an attempt to water down Christian theology.

Islamization Watch published a photo on its website of a British Muslim banner on a railing in the Wood Green section of London. The banner, which read “Jesus was a Muslim,” stalled traffic and created near-riot conditions so that police had to be called.

P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry write in their WND book, “Muslim Mafia” that Muslims want to Islamize Jesus.

The banner was in fact part of an “roadshow” under the control of the British Islamist Anjem Choudary. Choudary is deservedly one of the most unpopular persons in the UK, and he regularly performs publicity stunts calculated to cause outrage. But a banner reading “Jesus was a Muslim” is hardly in itself going to “stall traffic” and create “near-riot conditions” in a largely secularised country like the UK – the public disturbance in Wood Green that his antics provoked had other causes. And the idea that this was an attempt to “co-opt Christian churches” is just laughable.

As for “Muslims want to Islamize Jesus”, that’s not news: Muslims have always regarded Jesus as a prophet, and rejected the Christian idea of the incarnation as a blunder. Given all the characters from the Hebrew Bible who have been “Christianized”  – indeed, the text itself has been appropriated by Christians as the “Old Testament” – this is hardly an isolated phenomenon.

Finally:

One Islamic expert who formerly worked with the U.S. government on terror said Muslims even use the writings of disaffected Christian.

“Muslims are making use of Bart Ehrman’s commentaries on the New Testament, books that now deny the authority of the New Testament and portray Jesus as simply a man,” he said. “You will never hear a Muslim say that Jesus is the Son of God.”

But Ehrman is hardly writing for Muslims, however they may be using his writings for their own purposes; the Christian website Answering Islam acknowledges that, and suggests Ehrman can be used to counter Muslim beliefs about Jesus. However, WND hates real Biblical scholarship as much as it detests scientists – and just as it likes to promote the idea that “Darwinists” are Nazis and Communists, it’s useful to create an impression that Bible scholars are somehow in league with Muslims.

Of course New Testament scholars are primarily concerned with the historical human Jesus. Some of these scholars are Christians who also have theological views about Jesus as God, others are secular, some – like Geza Vermes – practice Judaism, and doubtless others follow other religions. All of them, though, apply a scholarly method which requires assessing the New Testament as a historical text like any other. “Authority” as a theological concept is neither here nor there – although Biblical fundamentalism inspires numerous cranks who are regularly showcased by WND. To include Ehrman in an article about the “Muslim Brotherhood’s domination strategy” is simply bad faith.

There have been cases where Muslims have downplayed extreme views and connections for PR reasons, and have as a result enjoyed access to institutions and individuals who should have shown more discernment. I blogged on one such example just yesterday. But WND‘s foolish and dishonest posturing is of no help in identifying situations where this occured.

Amnesty International Worker Suspended after Publicly Criticising Links to Islamist Group

As is being widely reported, Gita Sahgal, the head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International UK, has been suspended from work after an article was published in today’s Sunday Times describing her warnings of possible damage to Amnesty’s reputation due to links with a former Guantanamo inmate named Moazzam Begg and his Cageprisoners organisation:

Sahgal, who has researched religious fundamentalism for 20 years, has decided to go public because she feels Amnesty has ignored her warnings for the past two years about the involvement of Begg in the charity’s Counter Terror With Justice campaign.

“I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights,” Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation’s leaders on January 30. “To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.”

 …”As a former Guantanamo detainee it was legitimate to hear his experiences, but as a supporter of the Taliban it was absolutely wrong to legitimise him as a partner,” Sahgal told The Sunday Times.

The article includes a lame response from Amnesty:

Asked if she thought Begg was a human rights advocate, [Anne] Fitzgerald [policy director of Amnesty’s international secretariat] said: “It’s something you’d have to speak to him about. I don’t have the information to answer that.”

This seems negligent to me: surely Amnesty should have looked into Begg’s views and the nature of his activist activities before deciding how much involvement to have with him? Fitzgerald is not being asked how Begg regards himself – she’s being asked how Amnesty regards him. A statement on the Amnesty website is similarly evasive:

…Today, Amnesty International is being criticised for speaking alongside [Begg] and for being “soft” on the Taleban, when our record is one of unreserved opposition to their abuses over the years. 

Interestingly, the US and other governments that have violated human rights standards in the name of countering terrorism justify those violations by saying that our security can only be protected by violating the rights of others.  Mr Begg is one of the people that the US government defined as “other.”

But there is no place for the “other” in human rights because to argue that some people are more ‘deserving’ than others of having their rights protected is to argue that some beings are less than human.

To make the obvious point: just because Begg had his rights violated by the USA, it does not therefore follow it is a good idea to work with him. The wretched David Irving had his rights violated in Austria, but I can’t imagine him going on tour as part of an Amnesty freedom of speech campaign.

Cageprisoners has been under critical scrutiny for a while; Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens has written several pieces for Standpoint on the subject, noting, for example, Begg’s unconvincing efforts to play down his links to Anwar al-Awlaki, and the site’s reproduction of a letter from Abdul Muhid, who was jailed in the UK for incitement following protests over the Danish Muhammad cartoons. In his letter, Muhid thanks Cageprisoners for arranging for Muslims to write to him, including children. From looking around the Cageprisoners website, it seems to me that it goes beyond calling for due process and humane conditions for prisoners, to misrepresenting some dangerous characters as prisoners of conscience.

Sahgal’s suspension does not bode well – and disciplining an employee as a response to what might regarded as “whistle-blowing” is a likely to bring not just bad publicity, but also a costly employment tribunal.

Alan Lake vs Charles Darwin

While researching another subject I had reason to cast an eye over Alan Lake’s “4 Freedoms Worldwide” website. Lake, as has been widely reported, is a businessman who has supported the English Defence League in various ways, and his “4 Freedoms” website is a discussion forum for criticising Islam in the name of defending Western civilisation.

Here’a a diagram he posted on the subject of “Left Wing vs Right Wing”. Oh dear:

The spelling shows that this has come from an American source; the reference to “Liberal Democrats”  – placed close to “Totalitarianism”  – clearly refers to the liberal end of the US Democratic Party than to the centre-left UK party of that name. The fun stuff is the descriptions of the three dictators, with Stalin, Mao and Hitler all described as “Socialist Darwinist Communist killers”. At the base we read:

All of these Dictators believed in a so called “Master Race” which stems from Darwin’s so-called higher level of Evolution.