Bartholomew's Notes

Reuters reports on a new resolution from the sixty-first session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights:

The 53-member state forum adopted a resolution, presented by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), deploring the intensification of a “campaign of defamation” against Muslims following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

…”Stereotyping of any religion as propagating violence or its association with terrorism constitutes defamation of religion. It unfortunately breeds a culture of hatred, disharmony and discrimination,” Pakistan’s envoy, Masood Khan, said in a speech on behalf of the OIC, which links 57 Islamic nations.

Nice words, Khan, and I agree. But I wonder if the notorious use of blasphemy laws to persecute Pakistani Christians also “unfortunately breeds a culture of hatred, disharmony and discrimination”? Or all those jihadi madrassas? But back to Reuters:

…In a recent report, the U.N. special investigator on racism, Doudou Diene, cited examples including “Islamophobic violence” after the murder last November of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh, and an “alarming number of expulsions of imams” in Europe.

This is probably from one of these two reports noted by UNPO:

the Commission will have before it the report of the High Commissioner on combating defamation of religions (E/CN.4/2005/15) and the progress report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diene, on the situation of Muslim and Arab peoples in various parts of the world in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 (E/CN.4/2005/19).

So, just what has the UNHCR resolved to do? Unfortunately, the resolution itself does not appear to be in public domain. It’s listed on the CHR website under “human rights documents” as number E/CN.4/2005/L.12, but clicking on the link irritatingly brings up a “NO AUTHORIZATION” page; the same happens if you want to read Diene’s report, as linked from here (brilliant public relations – talk about handing it on a plate to the wingers). The resolution is not featured on the OIC’s website, either.

However, some details can be gleaned from the UNHCR Newsroom, which relates a summary of the debate. Since there does not appear to be a permalink, I’ll quote the opening in full:

In a resolution (E/CN.4/2005/L.12) on combating defamation of religions, adopted by a roll-call vote of 31 in favour to 16 against, with five abstentions, the Commission expressed deep concern at negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief still in evidence in some regions of the world; strongly deplored physical attacks and assaults on businesses, cultural centres and places of worship of all religions as well as targeting of religious symbols; noted with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions, and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities, in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001; expressed deep concern that Islam was frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism; and further expressed deep concern at programmes and agendas pursued by extremist organizations and groups aimed at the defamation of religions, in particular when supported by Governments. The Commission stressed the need to take resolute action to prohibit the dissemination of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers through political institutions and organizations, that constituted incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence; urged States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions; and urged States to ensure equal access to education for all without discrimination of any kind. The Commission also called on the international community to initiate a global dialogue to promote a culture of tolerance and peace based on respect for human rights and religious diversity and urged States, non-governmental organizations, religious bodies and the print and electronic media to support and promote such a dialogue. It also requested the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance to continue to present a report on the situation of Muslims and Arab peoples in various parts of the world and the discrimination faced by them.

The resolution was opposed by both the USA and the EU, among others. Leonard Leo of the USA stated that:

The United States supported the concept of the resolution and agreed with its intent. The resolution was, however, incomplete in that it failed to address attacks against all religions and must also include language pertaining to education and the use of media in the defamation of religion.

While Ian de Jong, for the EU, added that:

The aim of the European Union would have been to achieve a broader, more balanced text, based on the right to freedom of religion or belief and of expression.

De Jong, who is Dutch, seems to have been the only speaker calling for “freedom of expression” to be also included in the resolution. This is a shame – I’m as appalled as Diene about Islamophobic violence in Holland, but it is somewhat perverse to concentrate solely on that violence without acknowledging also the assault on the freedom to criticise religion that van Gogh’s murder represented (my own views on van Gogh’s film can be read here). And with the British government currently backing off from its own proposed new legislation concerning incitement to religious hatred, it’s worrying to see that the UNCHR seems unaware of the problematics.

Among those backing the resolution was China, which informed the forum that “The Government of China was against the defamation of any religion, including Islam”. This will perhaps evoke some hollow laughs from Tibetan Buddhists, Chinese Christians, and adherents of the “evil cult” of Falun Gong.

UPDATE: I found the resolution! I went to this site, where I had to request a password. Although the site where the report is available is described as “for OHCHR staff around the world”, I was given a password, no questions asked, a couple of hours later.

The document has some good points – with groups like LGF and JihadWatch inciting hatred against Muslims, it is quite reasonable that the resolution (at point 16) should make the specific request that

…the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance to continue to examine the situation of Muslims and Arab peoples in various parts of the world, the discrimination faced by them with regard to access to justice, political participation, respect of cultures, physical assaults and attacks against their places of worship, cultural centres, businesses and properties in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 and to report on his findings to the Commission at its sixty-second session, and to make recommendations to improve their situation.

On the other hand, passages like this are both vague and disturbing:

…Noting with deep concern the increasing trend in recent years of statements attacking religions, Islam and Muslims in particular, especially in human rights forums…

Saudi Arabia, which voted in favour of the resolution, must have loved that bit…But there is a particular context here: in 2004 the OIC opposed efforts led by Brazil to have the United Nations recognise the rights of homosexuals. Speaking before the UN, secretary-general Abdelouahed Belkeziz stated that:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference has amongst its consecrated traditions, the respect of the cultural specificities of every human community, and it feels in return that the cultural and faith-related specificities of the Islamic communities should also meet with due respect.

The full text of Belkeziz’s speech can be seen here.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

A possible new pin-up for the Christian Right: Ayn Rand. Writes Mike Adams in his latest Townhall column (via World O’Crap):

The modern socialists [“socialists” here meaning anyone to the left of Bush] also attack our Christian heritage with a zeal inspired by Marx’s mordent declaration that “religion is the opiate of the masses.” They know that capitalism can never fall as long as our nation retains that Christian heritage.

So what’s the answer? Get your kids to read We The Living, The Anthem, and The Fountainhead; Adams’ website has also featured Atlas Shrugged.

The big question, of course, is how the work of a militant atheist can be pressed to the cause of protecting the alleged “Christian heritage” of the USA. According to Rand herself:

Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism — the inviolate sanctity of man’s soul, and the salvation of one’s soul as one’s first concern and highest goal; this means — one’s ego and the integrity of one’s ego. But when it came to the next question, a code of ethics to observe for the salvation of one’s soul — (this means: what must one do in actual practice in order to save one’s soul?) — Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one’s soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one’s soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one’s soul to the souls of others. This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved.

But that’s not really the point. Rand’s economics are capitalist, and apparently that’s more important than what you believe about Jesus (an impression confirmed when Jack Heller took a couple of Christian right “worldview tests” last year); and her belief in individualism currently appeals to the politics of resentment pushing so much of the Christian right agenda (plus it could be said that there’s not much of the “altruism” that Rand disliked on the Christian right anyway). Adams is not, though, the first Christian to get something out of Rand’s ideas: most work in this area has been undertaken by Fr Robert Sirico, an ex-Pentecostal turned Roman Catholic priest (profiled by Bill Berkowitz here). Sirico’s Acton Institute blends conservative Catholicism with Rand’s Objectivism, while rejecting her critique of Christianity. No doubt Adams picks and chooses in the same way, while simultaneously insisting that anyone who invokes Marx in any positive context must be a full-on Stalinist.

Quite a while back, Sirico caught the attention of paleolibertarian Lew Rockwell, who is no fan of Rand but who wrote approvingly of Sirico’s “Christian Libertarianism” in a 1990 essay since posted by the Freepers (link added):

The leviathan state’s systematic attack on the family goes beyond the promotion of unwed motherhood through welfare programs, and secular humanism through the government schools-the welfare state cuts to the heart of the family by arrogating to itself the authority of the father as protector and provider. In view of this, David Gordon of the Ludwig von Mises Institute points out that, contrary to the common impression that libertarians are free-thinkers and libertines, “Many libertarians … are libertarians precisely because they wish to protect traditional values and culture from the state.”

…”Many Christian conservatives have been put off by what seemed to be libertarianism’s irreligiousness, moral relativism, and belief in gay rights,”‘ says Joseph Sobran. “But the emergence, or rather re-emergence, of Christian libertarianism-which rejects all of this-makes it possible for us to join together to limit the giant state. We are all libertarians when it comes to the Federal Government. And we are all conservatives in our cultural and moral values.”

In the last year or so, this blog has noted how “Christian libertarianism” has been invoked to call for the end of public education, the establishment of a Christian theocracy in South Carolina, and for women to be denied the vote. Its rhetoric has even been used to call for the end of science, as this recent tirade from Gary North shows:

Darwinists are well aware of this truth: Their opinions regarding man’s origins are not shared by the vast majority of Americans. This fact bothers them, but not enough to surrender control over tax-funded education to the will of the people. It bothers them because they have lost the intellectual battle for the minds of men, despite their century-long monopoly over public education. The public still isn’t buying the Darwinists’ tuition-subsidized product.

Rockwell hosts a regular column for North – Rockwell is the intellectual heir of libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises, and North shares Rockwell’s enthusiasm for the Austrian. But this is the same Gary North who believes in stoning as a fit punishment for those who fail to submit to the commands of the Old Testament. North’s “libertarian” argument about the unpopularity of “Darwinism” is demagogic and in bad faith: because a majority of Americans prefer not to accept evolutionary theory, there is some mileage in whining about how unfair it all is; but if North had his way, biologists would be persecuted in the name of Christian “Truth”. The appeal of Ayn Rand to some on the Christian right probably has the same strategic value.

At the end of last year, the anti-war Rockwell (despite enthusiasm for the Iraq war expressed by so much of the Christian right, North is also anti-war, in paleocon stlye) argued that:

…If you follow hate-filled sites such as Free Republic, you know that the populist right in this country has been advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now. The militarism and nationalism dwarfs anything I saw at any point during the Cold War. It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth – not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.

Quite right: but this would ring truer if one did not suspect that Rockwell is some sort of useful idiot for a Christian Dominionism that talks libertarianism now, but lusts after theocracy.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Back in March, WorldNetDaily‘s Aaron Klein wrote enthusiastically about the Israeli far right’s plan to storm the Temple Mount with 10,000 supporters. Klein conducted sympathetic interviews with David Ha’ivri, one of the main organisers, without bothering to tell his readership of starry-eyed Christian Zionists that Ha’ivri is a virulently racist fanatic who detests Israeli democracy and is reviled by most people in his own country. While Klein was looking forward to the Temple Mount being “reclaimed” from the Muslims who so unfairly have control of the site, I wrote:

Let’s just hope Ha’ivri is no more than a self-aggrandising fool who has duped a stupid journalist about how much support he has. Klein and WND’s editor Joseph Farah are playing with fire: Klein has encouraged Ha’ivri and his followers in their delusions, and given them a massive free advert; WND readers have been encouraged to identify Israel with a bunch of religious fanatics rather than to understand the complexities of Israeli society.

So, today’s D-Day. And what do we find? Over to Klein:

As of noon, only a few hundred protestors amassed near the Temple Mount, a trickle of the 10,000 Revava had hoped for.

A “few hundred”? Not according to the BBC:

In the event, only a few dozen Jewish ultranationalists tried to get to the area, police said.

Haaretz concurs with the smaller estimate.

But I shouldn’t be too smug: Ha’ivri never realistically expected to take the Temple Mount. All he really wanted to do was to stir up some hatred and unrest in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world, and with large numbers of Palestinians now riled up he appears to have succeeded. And all along he’s had two partners in this ignoble plot: Aaron Klein and Joseph Farah.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

A double-whammy of prophetic losers today. We’ve just had Hal Lindsey (of course); now, courtesy of the AFP,  it’s the turn of Gonzalo Echeverri Uruburu, a Colombian ex-investigating judge and author of a book on Nostradamus:

“The next pope elected will be subsequently murdered in central Italy. Then comes pope number 112, who will flee Rome because of an attack by Muslims,”

…According to Echeverri, the pope will base himself in Avignon, France and another pontiff will take control in Italy, splitting the Catholic church in two.

“There is a very clear prophecy that says the holy father will move to another place, even warning that the French pope will not be able to stay in Avignon due to the Muslim invasion and will flee again to Lyon, where he will be attacked, according to Nostradamus,” Mr Echeverri said.

The clownishness would be amusing, were not for the dangerous Islamophobia and deliberate profiteering from people’s fear and uncertainty. The report notes that Avignon was the home of the Popes in the Fourteenth Century, but makes no comment about the unlikelihood of medieval history repeating itself. Also irritating is the fact Echeverri has been shown up as an opportunistic hustler in the past. Here’s a report from July of last year:

Aseguran que Nostradamus predijo atentado en Atenas

El médico francés Miguel de Nostradamus habría vaticinado en sus escritos un atentado a los Juegos Olímpicos de Atenas que comienzan en agosto próximo, aseguró el experto colombiano en los textos del astrólogo, Gonzalo Echeverri.

In English, Echeverri was using Nostradamus to predict that there would be a massacre during the last Olympics. And as we all know, the only untoward event that actually occurred was an intervention from yet another end-of-the-world crackpot, a mentally disturbed Roman Catholic priest named Cornelius Horan.

Both “prophecies” appear in Echeverri’s book Nostradamus y la guerra Islam-occidente, which can be seen here (along with author pic), and with further details here.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Hal Lindsey’s latest ramblings on WorldNetDaily:

As I studied the many Bible prophecies of the Last Days, I found a most unusual extra-biblical prophecy made by an Irish Catholic bishop in the 12th century.

Or, if Lindsey is truly honest: “As I was surfing Newsmax last week, I found an article I could rip off” –  Lindsey’s  “borrowings” are extensive, and unattributed.

According to his biographer, St. Malachy was visiting Rome in 1139 when he went into a trance and received a vision. Malachy wrote down this extraordinary vision in which he claims to have foreseen all of the popes from the death of Innocent II until the destruction of the church and the return of Christ. He named exactly 112 popes from that time until the end.

Lindsey’s lifted that virtually word-for-word from Newsmax, but both sources are inaccurate, as the on-line Catholic Encylopedia makes clear:

The silence of 400 years on the part of so many learned authors who had written about the popes, and the silence of St. Bernard especially, who wrote the “Life of St. Malachy”, is a strong argument against their authenticity…

So, that should be “not according to his biographer”. But, like Ed Wood, Lindsey is interested in the big picture, not the details:

St. Malachy wrote a few prophetically descriptive words in Latin about each one of the popes. He then gave the manuscript to Pope Innocent II and it was deposited in the Vatican Archives where it was forgotten for several centuries. Then in 1590, it was rediscovered and published.

Here Lindsey has decided to drop a qualification at the end of the Newsmax version:

Afterward he wrote a few words about each pope and gave the manuscript to Pope Innocent II, who is said to have deposited it in Vatican Archives, where it lay forgotten until it was discovered in 1590 and published. At the time, some questioned its authenticity and it has been the subject of debate ever since.

The document attributed to Malachy consists of obscure mystical titles used to describe the future Popes, although he does not give their actual names or dates. Many commentators note that the “prophecies” about supposed future Popes between 1139 and 1590 are rather more impressive than those given for Popes after the document’s publication; readers can judge for themselves on this site. Newsmax and Lindsey then relate standard interpretations by believers for the most recent Popes (The Catholic Encyclopedia also notes that Malachy supposedly prophesied England being reconverted to Roman Catholicism).

Lindsey does add a bit of his own stuff, and he brings in the Book of Daniel (his more usual topic). He then gives his own view about the last Pope:

…But it is the prophecy of the 112th and last pope that is most fascinating. St. Malachy predicts, “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign “Petrus Romanus” (Peter the Roman), who will feed his flock amid many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.”

…Now one last and extremely important detail. The “Prince who is to come”  [in the Book of Daniel] will be of the same people that destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. They were Romans…John Paul II was a great and good man. But the coming popes will seize upon the popularity he created with the world. With the help of the media, it is easy to foresee how “Peter the Roman” will be able to mesmerize the world to follow his counterfeit of Christ.

But what the hell is he on about? According to the document (and according to some sites I ploughed through, this bit was added in 1820 anyway), Petrus Romanus will “feed his flock”; but at the same time, he’s going to be the “false Prophet” who acts as the sidekick to the Anti-Christ. How does that work?

The bigger question, though, is why Lindsey, a fundamentalist Protestant, is suddenly raving over medieval Roman Catholic prophecy. Surely Mel Gibson hasn’t been that effective? The reason, of course, is that Lindsey is opportunistic. When Immanuel Velikovsky was popular, he used some of his ideas; and in the 1990s he jumped on the Y2K bandwagon. He also promoted the cause of Mike Warnke, a pathological liar whose stories about Satanism helped to create the Satanic panic of the 1980s; Lindsey denounced the Christian journalists who uncovered Warnke’s falsehoods on the grounds that his tales had led to conversions (see this book). But should we really expect anything more from a man willing to lionise the terrorists of the Israeli far-right?

(Newsmax link from Conwebwatch)

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Peru Tribune (via Religion News Blog) reports on Christian apologists going boldly where few have gone before, and asking the question:

What if UFOs were really angels and demons?

Actually, this idea has been around in Christian fundamentalist circles for a while, and one book on the subject has been promoted on WorldNetDaily (the opposite idea, that demons were actually aliens, inspired Spock’s ears in Star Trek; Leonard Nimoy baulked at a tail, though). But three Christian apologists (with a lot to apologise for) have produced a new presentation on the topic:

The movie is a companion to “Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men” by astronomer Hugh Ross, philosopher/theologian Kenneth Samples and national security expert Mark Clark.

…between one and five percent of UFO sightings or abductions cannot be explained…These the authors called residual UFOs. Ross said abductions are suspect because the experiments done on people are not based on good science and it does not appear the aliens are that much more technologically advanced, as they should be.

For example, in the 1950s people said they were visited by beings from the moon, Ross said. Later when more was learned about the moon the aliens were from Venus, then Mars and later Jupiter and Saturn.

So could it be that people were imagining stuff, based on sci-fi movies and pulp fiction? Nope:

“The intent was on deceiving us and the science knowledge was inaccurate,” Ross said.

…Samples believes alien abductions and UFO sightings have occult origins and only people who have participated in occult activity have these UFO experiences. Examples of occult activity can include involvement in astrology, using tarot cards or a Ouija board, being a medium between the living and the dead, divination or predicting the future.

The reasoning is brilliant: demons wished to deceive the world about science, so they decided that the best way to do this was to persuade some flaky New Agers that there are aliens on the moon. When that belief was shown to be inaccurate, that somehow served a masterplan of scientific disinformation. And although the news report does not spell it out, I think we can safely guess that this is all somehow leading towards an explanation for why PZ Myers gets more respect from intelligent people than Ken Ham. The credulous report concludes:

For more information on or to purchase the movie “The RUFO Hypothesis,” log onto www.reasons.org.

Reasons.org is Hugh Ross’s organisation. The trinity of space cadets behind the movie is also connected to NAVPRESS, which provides handy short biogs:

HUGH ROSS earned a B.Sc. in physics from the University of British Columbia and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Toronto. He directs the efforts of Reasons To Believe, an institute founded to research and proclaim the factual basis for faith in God and His Word, the Bible. Dr. Ross has authored many books, including The Creator and the Cosmos and The Genesis Question.

KENNETH SAMPLES holds undergraduate degrees in philosophy and social science and a master’s degree in theological studies. He is currently vice president of Philosophical and Theological Apologetics at Reasons To Believe and an adjunct instructor of philosophy and religion. Kenneth is also the founder and president of the Augustine Institute, a nonprofit educational center for philosophical and religious studies.

MARK CLARK received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Southern California. He is a professor of political science and the chair of that department, as well as director of the National Security Studies program at California State University, San Bernardino. Mark is an adjunct fellow at the Claremont Institute and a consultant to TRW on strategic nuclear forces.

Mark Perakh discusses Hugh Ross here. Samples (or “Professor Kenneth Richard Samples, Founder”, as he prefers) actually runs the Augustine Fellowship Study Center – the Augustine Institute is an unrelated Roman Catholic organisation. And Mark Clark’s university page can be seen here, although links to his selected works and course syllabi are sadly broken (the page is still worth looking at, for the scary photo). I suppose it#s good that his presence must make the Claremont Institute look silly, but his association with TRW is somewhat worrying…

But I shouldn’t mock. As Criswell says in Plan 9 from Outer Space: “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Not being completely obsessed with religious news, I sometimes find myself researching other items. Usually I restrain myself from going off-topic on this blog, but in this case the amusement factor is too high. From the AP, via Snopes:

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – Orange County’s sheriff used driver’s license records to contact a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper criticizing his staff’s use of Taser stun guns and describing him as fat.

Some say Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary violated federal privacy law when he had his aides use the records to get the address of Alice Gawronski. He sent her a letter accusing her of slander.

…In her letter, she referred to a news conference when Beary allowed himself to be zapped with one to demonstrate its safety. Seeing Beary “in an obvious state of duress” convinced her the stun guns should not be used, she wrote.

Gawronski also wrote that Beary appeared overweight and suggested that if deputies were more fit, they might not need to resort to zapping suspects.

Such a delightful combination of arrogance, vanity and stupidity deserves maximum world-wide exposure, and I figured that as a Brit living in Japan I ought to do my small bit to make sure that this puffed-up bully is shamed globally.

But actually, it turns out that there is a religion angle after all, as we peruse the official bio from the Sheriff’s Office:

Sheriff Beary holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University and a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida.

The former qualification is, of course, completely worthless: Liberty University is run by Jerry Falwell and is rabidly anti-science, as this advert for Liberty’s upcoming Creationist Mega Conference demonstrates. And this website, set up by someone who doesn’t much care for Beary or his department, gives us this very unexpected titbit (click on “Abuse of Power”), recounting events from 1996:

Two commanders have been fired, a volunteer reserve deputy resigned, and three other officers were suspended following an investigation by the Orange County, Fla., Sheriff’s Department into allegations that members of the department abused their power while working as security guards for televangelist Benny Hinn and his World Outreach Center.

The two members of Sheriff Kevin Beary’s “inner circle” fired were Commander I Rusty Smallwood and Commander II Roger Clark. They were fired for falsifying off-duty records while working at the World Outreach Center, lying to investigators and abusing their positions as commanders. Smallwood also was charged with destroying records he kept on the protesters. The officers would travel with Hinn to his out-of-town healing crusades while still on the county payroll. Smallwood also admitted that he would make an additional $4,000-$5,000 a night selling tapes of his music at Hinn’s crusades.

Reserve deputy Christopher Hinn, the televangelist’s younger brother, voluntarily resigned.

Space Coast Web Journal also recounts this Orlando Sentinal column:

Scott Maxwell, in his Taking Names column, (March 25, Orlando Sentinel,) recounts Orange County Undersheriff Malone Stewart’s characterizion of [rival Sheriff] candidate John Tegg as a “Judas Iscariot” and Democratic rival Rick Staley [sic – should be “Staly”] as “the Antichrist.”  Does this mean that Stewart believes that Sheriff Kevin Beary is Christ?

Staly’s website (still up, although Beary was reelected) has much more on Beary’s shenanigans, including his getting of federal cash for safety literature that went to a company owned by his parents. The Orlando Weekly News also has this profile. Seems that is well as doling out a debased science education, Liberty wasn’t even able to instil some basic Christian ethics…

UPDATE: Jesus’ General offers the good Sheriff some words of comfort.

UPDATE 2: The Sheriff denies any wrongdoing in an “apology“.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

WorldNetDaily‘s Jerusalem correspondent Aaron Klein has a follow-up to his earlier pieces publicising a plan by Israeli radicals to hold a mass rally at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is the site of the old Jewish Temple (destroyed in 70CE), and now the location of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque. Klein warns that Muslims are not happy:

Several thousand demonstrated Friday in Cairo against a plan by Revava, a Jewish organization with the stated mission of ”restoring self-esteem to the state of Israel by restoring national pride and values,” to bring 10,000 Jews to the heavily restricted Temple Mount April 10 to spark Israeli dialogue about reclaiming the holy site from its Islamic custodians.

i.e. “spark Israeli dialogue about whether Israeli forces should illegally invade and take over the sacred space of another religion despite the bloodshed and international strife that would follow, for the benefit of a bunch of religious fundamentalists who detest Israeli democracy and whose understanding of Judaism is widely rejected anyway.” But that’s just the start of Klein’s weasel-speak:

…The Palestinian media have been portraying the Revava visit as an attempt by Jews to attack the Al Aqsa Mosque to spark a confrontation that can be used to delay Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to vacate Jewish settlements this summer from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

That damned Palestinian media! But the moronic Klein then continues:

A police official said Israel also is concerned the Jewish visit will prompt an outbreak of violence, and said police are worried some Jews will use the visit to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount in hopes of disrupting the Gaza withdrawal.

“This visit cannot happen. It will cause violence on the Temple Mount and will result in a deterioration of the security situation in Israel,” the official said. “It is just an excuse by Jewish extremists to start a conflict and try to stop [the Gaza withdrawal].”

So, the way the “Palestinian media” has been “portraying” the planned visit has actually been confirmed by the Israeli police.

As I have noted on this blog previously, there is a gaping hole at the heart of Klein’s reporting on this issue: the very obvious way he declines to tell us anything about the background of Revava or of its leader, David Ha’ivri (or “David Haivri”). This is because that background is very unpleasant, and Klein knows that WND’s readership of Christian Zionists would rather imagine pious Israelis on a religious pilgrimage than the reality of thuggish fanatics (who, by the way, also hate Christians). Here’s a report from the New York Daily News, published last August:

Violence-spewing Jewish radicals are raising big bucks in New York even though they’re tied to groups identified by the U.S. as terror organizations.

…Among the pro-settler Jews raising thousands in New York is David Haivri, who has long ties to the movement founded by Meir Kahane, the radical Brooklyn-born rabbi slain by an Egyptian Islamist in New York in 1990.

Haivri denies that he advocates violence, and:

…Haivri, cited by Israel as one of the Kahane movement’s central figures, noted that his recent fund-raising was done under the auspices of a new group called Revava, which is not on the U.S. terror groups list.

But Haivri has long been affiliated with Kahane Chai and the Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea, two banned groups.

The two groups, and about 50 others, are aliases for Kahane Chai, the Treasury Department says.

The groups are linked to violence against Palestinians and have also been called terror groups in Israel.

“If you’re an American Jew, or for that matter a Christian evangelical contributing to them, you’re contributing to a group very likely to use violence against Israeli security forces,” warned Yossi Alpher, a former official of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.

Of course, a large chunk of Klein’s readership believe that Jews must build a new Temple as prelude for the return of Christ; if Israelis who fail to play along with this fantasy get hurt, that’s their own look out. But if Klein really believes that Haivri and his cronies are the good guys, why won’t he tell the whole story?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

The one-time actor Pope John Paul II bowed out with impressive timing. Ron Dreher of the Dallas Morning News on Saturday:

A few years ago [in 2000], Pope John Paul II canonized Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who died in 1938. St. Faustina was a mystic who claimed to have received apparitions and messages from Jesus in her lifetime. She kept a long diary in which she inscribed messages she allegedly received from Jesus. I hasten to say that though Faustina is a recognized saint of the Roman Catholic Church, no Catholic is bound to believe that her apparitions were real. Personally, I don’t know what to think about them, and I don’t really think about them.

Still, as we approach Divine Mercy Sunday, the feast that Faustina said Jesus asked to be established on the first Sunday after Easter, and which John Paul did in fact institute, I can’t help but recall this particular entry of Faustina’s diary. It comes from 1937, the year before she died. Faustina wrote:

As I was praying, I heard Jesus’ words: ‘I bear a special love for Poland, and if she will be obedient to My Will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming.’

It does not seem likely at this point that the Pope will survive this day. But if he held on until Sunday, that would be, um, interesting.

Dreher is also reported on Get Religion as having noted that “Divine Mercy Sunday” had been popular in Krakow for some time – where, of course, the future Pope was Archbishop in the 1960s.

Faustina not only heard Jesus, but saw him as well; apparently the famous picture above was produced under her direction. It should be noted that Dreher’s quote comes from an English translation made in 1987; the Polish text itself was published properly only in 1981. A 2002 report by John L Allen has some further details (hyperlink added):

In 1959, the Holy Office (the Vatican’s doctrinal agency, today known as the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith) issued a cease and desist order against Faustina’s diary and the devotion to Divine Mercy, a ban that was to last almost 20 years, until 1978. Wojtyla had long been working to reverse the verdict, having launched the beatification process for Faustina in 1965 while he was archbishop of Krakow.

Officially, the 20-year ban [ended by Pope Paul VI] is now attributed to misunderstandings created by a faulty Italian translation of the Diary, but in fact there were serious theological reservations–Faustina’s claim that Jesus had promised a complete remission of sin for certain devotional acts that only the sacraments can offer, for example, or what Vatican evaluators felt to be an excessive focus on Faustina herself.

John Paul has pushed no devotion further or faster. His second encyclical, 1980’s Dives in Misericordia, was inspired by Faustina. He beatified her in 1993, and canonized her in April 2000 as the first saint of the third Christian millennium. He approved a special Divine Mercy Mass for the Sunday after Easter in 1994, and celebrated it himself in St. Peter’s Square before a crowd of 200,000 in April 2001. He assigned the Church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia in Rome as a headquarters for the Divine Mercy movement in 1994, and just this month approved a special indulgence for taking part in Divine Mercy Sunday.

A few extracts from Faustina’s 700-page diary are available on-line at this website (as well as a short history of the text itself). Here’s the “spark” passage in context:

Today I was awakened by a great storm. The wind was raging, and it was raining in torrents, thunderbolts striking again and again. I began to pray that the storm would do no harm, when I heard the words: Say the chaplet I have taught you, and the storm will cease. I began immediately to say the chaplet and hadn’t even finished it when the storm suddenly ceased, and I heard the words: Through the chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask will be compatible with My will.As I was praying for Poland, I heard the words: I bear a special love for Poland, and if she will be obedient to My will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming.Welcome, hidden Love, life of my soul! I welcome You, Jesus, under these insignificant forms of bread. Welcome, sweetest Mercy, who pour yourself out for souls. Welcome, Infinite Goodness, who pour out everywhere torrents of Your graces. Welcome, O veiled Brightness, the Light of souls. Welcome, O Fount of inexhaustible mercy, O purest Spring from which life and holiness gush forth for us. Welcome, Delight of pure souls. Welcome, only hope of sinful souls.

Poland appears a few other times:

September. First Friday. In the evening, I saw the Mother of God, with Her breast bared and pierced with a sword. She was shedding bitter tears and shielding us against God’s terrible punishment. God want to inflict terrible punishment on us, but He cannot because the Mother of God is shielding us. Horrible fear seized my soul. I kept praying incessantly for Poland, for my dear Poland, which is so lacking in gratitude for the Mother of God. If it were not for the Mother of God, all our efforts would be of little use. I intensified my prayers and sacrifices for our dear native land, but I see that I am a drop before the wave of evil.

…My beloved native land, Poland, if only you knew how many sacrifices and prayers I offer to God for you! But be watchful and give glory to God, who lifts you up and singles you out in a special way. But know how to be grateful.

…I saw the anger of God hanging heavy over Poland. And now I see that if God were to visit our country with the greatest chastisements, that would still be great mercy because, for such grave transgressions, He could punish is with eternal annihilation. I was paralyzed with fear when the Lord lifted the veil a little for me. Now I see clearly that chosen souls keep the world in existence to fulfill [sic] the measure (of justice).

Faustina’s confessor, who instructed her to keep her diary, was Father Michael Sopocko, a former army chaplain. At the time of her messages, Poland had been independent for less than twenty years, and was a shaky dictatorship squeezed between Hitler and the USSR. I’m sure that an expert on the religion and culture of 1930s Poland would be able to make far more of Faustina’s writings than I (and my look at the subject has been very cursory), but it seems to me that Faustina is cautiously optimistic about Poland’s future; if Poland remains faithful, it will outshine the two totalitarian regimes. That seems to be what the “spark” passage is suggesting.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

“Religion: Conflict and Peace” was the theme of the International Association for the History of Religions’ 19th World Congress, which was held in Tokyo last week with participants from more than sixty countries. The IAHR is affiliated with UNESCO, and meets every five years in a different location. Despite the “History” part of the Congress’s name, scholars of contemporary religion are also included, and many of the top names in the Study of Religion were present. And since I currently live in Japan, I figured I ought to go along.

The Congress ran from 24-30 March, and met in the exceptionally plush Takanawa Prince Hotel. It kicked off with an opening ceremony; various speakers said the kind of things you might expect, mentioning religion’s return to the public scene, the need to deconstruct the dualism of east and west, and so on. There were few words from Prince Mikasa, the Honorary Congress Chair and 90-year old younger brother of the late Emperor Hirohito, and a (rather bland) message from Prime Minister Koizumi. There were also a couple of cultural elements, including a performance of Buddhist chanting.

The Prince

Things then got a bit peculiar, with four hours of keynote addresses that seemed somewhat…off-key. The themes were the need for dialogue between religions and cultures and for religious leaders to serve as “public intellectuals”. What this has to do with the serious analytical study of religion was unclear – one speaker even made a bizarre call for a “new religion” to counter ecological problems. Everyone clapped politely, but this weird sermonizing appeared to cause a certain amount of discomfort in some; at the closing General Assembly on March 30 a couple of scholars called for the IAHR to re-affirm that although it may be global, it is not “ecumenical”. Fortunately, these theological ramblings were eventually relieved by a pretty decent reception.

Business proper commenced the next day: a plenary meeting followed by dozens of panels in various conference and seminar rooms around the hotel. Naturally, the hundreds of papers on offer covered all kinds of topics, creating a dilemma: should I go to papers that dove-tail with my particular interests, or check out brand new subjects? Should I take the opportunity to see famous scholars, or go to younger researchers or those from less familiar countries?

As expected, with such a large gathering quality was variable (I, by the way, registered too late to present a paper myself). There were some complex and original papers presented with great eloquence; others were good, but undermined by poor presentation skills; others again were a bit vague and descriptive, but were nevertheless useful introductions to various subjects. Far from all the papers actually addressed the Congress topic.

Unsurprisingly, 9/11 and subsequent events formed part of several discussions: there was a plenary session led Mark Juergensmeyer (author of Terror in the Mind of God), and a lecture by Hans Kippenberg on the documents left behind by the 9/11 hijackers. Juergensmeyer, who has interviewed various terrorists and has visited post-invasion Iraq, had some interesting anecdotes and was congenial, but was slightly disappointing as he explicated the reasoning of religious terrorists in fairly obvious and general terms (it’s cosmic warfare, wouldn’t you know?).

Kippenberg’s presentation was meatier stuff, in which he went through the hijackers’ documents (described as a “manual”) and placed them in Islamic context. He also dealt with issues of authenticity which had been raised by Robert Fisk. Kippenberg discussed the hijackers’ “theology of fear”, in which their act of terror showed up the West as fearful of something other than Allah, and so as pagan and infidel. He also complained that while the American secret services present al-Qaeda as a hierarchical organisation, it is in fact bottom-up, with various groups and individuals making contact with bin Laden. The American reaction to Islamist terror thus tries to present the conflict as “a classic war”, but at the same time eschews the Geneva Convention. Kippenberg also called for al-Qaeda operatives in custody to be put on public trial, where the radicals would be obliged to defend their Koranic interpretations; presumably this would reveal to the Islamic world their shortcomings. Unfortunately, this fascinating presentation was followed by several rambling and grandstanding questions from members of the audience…

There was also a general consensus, made explicit in Juergensmeyer’s presentation but which popped up in various other discussions I attended, that Bush’s post-9/11 actions have been all wrong. Whatever my own views on that subject, I was troubled by the complacent way in which this assumption taken for granted and was dropped into the discourse as if there was no serious counter-view to be overcome. I saw one paper that briefly touched on Bernard Lewis, but that was about it.

But the conference was much, much more than a discussion of 9/11. Of course, with hundreds of papers being delivered there is no way I can give a comprehensive review of the event, but I have a few personal highlights: a paper on how rural Finns responded to globalisation with apocalyptic folk tales; a discussion of how various religions are currently faring in the Ukraine (apparently, the Crimea is now “Ukraine’s California”); a Study of Religions consideration of the medical Jerusalem Syndrome; a presentation on Nigerian Pentecostals in Germany. There was also an exceptional plenary lecture from Ibrahim Moosa that ranged from Muslim bio-ethics to Neil Postman, which much else in between (unfortunately, I missed a couple of other plenaries that might have been interesting, including one by Talal Asad). Nothing on blogs, alas, but I met loads of interesting people; it was the perfect opportunity for me “to keep abreast of my ignorance.”

UPDATE [this slipped my mind until now]: There was one unhappy and murky note at the end though; for political reasons that were not spelt out, the Taiwan branch of the IAHR was disaffiliated as a national affiliate, and made into a “corresponding member”

**********

My trip to Tokyo was not spent entirely in the hotel; on Sunday I went on an excursion, and on Monday I slipped away for a bit of tourism of my own (in the pouring rain). Naturally, I took in the two big shrines – the Meiji Shrine, where the Emperor Meiji and his wife are enthroned as deities, and the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The Meiji Shrine is pleasantly located in a large park, although the buildings are not particularly distinctive.

The Yasukuni Shrine is more impressive, and you approach it by passing under a series of huge torii gates. Here the Japanese war dead are enshrined as deities. As is well known, these deified dead include several convicted war criminals; the shrine is also controversial for enshrining particular soldiers against the wishes of relatives. There is a museum attached, which has some moving items – in particular, there is a collection bride dolls which were presented for soldiers who had died unmarried. On the other hand, there is a fair bit of famously dodgy commentary (in English – I cannot read Japanese): Japan only entered Korea to rescue it from China. Roosevelt had to convince America to go to war against Hitler, so he forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbour. Peace offers from the Japanese were continually rebuffed. Japan was an inspiration for post-war anti-colonialism in Asia, particularly Gandhi. The only reference to Japanese war crimes in the whole building so far as I could see was a book for sale called The Alleged “Nanking Massacre”: Japan’s rebuttal to China’s forged claims. All a bit depressing, but I suppose most countries get by without really coming to terms with the crap things their ancestors did.

Torii at Yakusuni

Nationalist anti-American fly-post nearby

The conference ended on Wednesday. As I was leaving, I happened to pass by a crowd of young women with their cameras at the ready just outside the lobby. A limo pulled up, which I ignored, supposing it to contain a Japanese pop star. However, the screams that followed made me curious enough to look back; and there was Richard Gere, of all people…

Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »