Bartholomew's Notes

Agape Press wheels out yet another rightist pundit to “explain” the situation in Israel:

IDF spokesman feels Annan’s advice detrimental to Israel

is the front page lead-in, which takes us to:

…United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan is demanding that Israel end its blockade of Lebanon, a move critics claim would be disastrous for the Jewish state. Jeremy Gimpel of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claims any relaxation of the blockade will lead to hostilities flaring up once again between Israel and the Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah.

…In his estimation, the cease-fire is only allowing Hezbollah to re-arm and re-group for the next round of the war.

Gimpel is an American immigrant to Israel who serves as a reservist in the Israeli army and co-hosts a radio show with his associate Ari Abramowitz – that hardly makes him an “IDF spokesman”. Arutz Sheva gives some extra detail:

Together they founded Admil – a Hebrew acronym for “The Land of Israel.” Admil is a team of new immigrants who have come ‘home’ to Israel. Members of the group regularly address youth groups, solidarity missions, and Christian Zionist groups. “It is an honor and a merit to live in this beautiful Land and I feel it is my obligation to share my passion and perspective on the physical and spiritual connection of the Jewish people to our land,” said Gimpel, who lives in the Gush Etzion town of Efrat…

Efrat, it should be noted, is a West Bank settlement that for some years has been encroaching on the nearby Palestinian village of Artas. The Palestinian land swallowed by the town – in part to accommodate more and more Americans and other immigrants like Gimpel, but also probably to make a point – includes areas belonging to a Roman Catholic convent. Gimpel and Abramowitz also run “Heartland to Heartland” in order to justify this kind of thing:

Heartland to Heartland is an organization dedicated to mobilizing grassroots Jewish and Christian support for the Biblical Land of Israel. Inspired by Member of Knesset Rabbi Benny Elon, Heartland to Heartland’s mission is to ensure that the world know and understand that Judea and Samaria are Israel’s biblical and geographical heartland, and are integral parts of the Land G-d granted to the Children of Israel. HL2HL seeks to strengthen the emotional and spiritual connection of Jews and Christians around the world to the Land of Israel and to create an active body of bible believing people with the commitment to act based on that belief.

Benny Elon, as is well-known, was Ariel Sharon’s far-right tourism minister, notorious for his advocacy of the “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians.

Gimpel is currently in New Orleans, where he’s taking part in a seminar:

A Labor-Day weekend seminar, combining the Teaching of international speaker, Maggid ben Yoseif, (Torahvoice.org) with Israeli Radio personality and IDF soldier Jeremy Gimpel. For 3 exciting days Maggid ben Yoseif will share the truths regarding the remarriage of God and Israel, the promises to Rachael’s children, the current Israeli – Hezbollah conflict, and much more! The last evening, Jeremy Gimpel will share the vision of Judah reaching out to his brothers, the church, as well as, the eye witness account of the current events in Israel, from the displacement of settlers, to the efforts to reconcile differences with today’s church!

Gimpel was booked to speak at “Manna from Heaven Ministries”, a Messianic congregation whose website includes a curious essay explaining that Christian use of the cross symbol is pagan and a Satanic deception. Maggid ben Yoseif, meanwhile, has been noted on this blog before – formerly known as Dell Griffin, ben Yoseif is a “Joe”; someone who has an inner conviction that he is a member of the lost tribes of Israel, and destined to replace the Palestinians in the West Bank (although he’s happy to allow a Palestinian state in Gaza). As he explained to me in a comment he sent:

Those who remain in the fields of the Shomron and the fields of Samaria, will unfortunately become as stubble. I do not say this. The prophet Obadiah wrote it.

Gimpel is also a big fan of the new “Sanhedrin”, a group of Israeli rabbis (many associated with the far-right Kahanist movement) who have a plan for theocratic rule in Israel. As was reported last November (and which I blogged at the time):

A conference this week unveiled the Sanhedrin project to the public, shifting away from euphoric satisfaction with the launch of the Court one year ago and moving toward broadening participation.

…One of those who took the day off from work to attend the conference was Efrat resident Jeremy Gimpel. “I had read everything written about the renewed Sanhedrin with such excitement, I had to see for myself,” Gimpel said. “What struck me is that ever since Mt. Sinai, there were always 70 elders leading the Jewish people and I believe that G-d, in His infinite wisdom, knew the Jews would be dispersed among the 70 nations. To see all these rabbis and leaders gathered back in the land of Israel, bringing with them different traditions, cultures and approaches to Torah is a humbling experience and an answer to our daily prayer of Hashiva shofteinu k’varishona, Return our judges as of old.”

However, while Gimpel is happy to drum up support for Israel among US Christians, and even apparently to attend Messianic meetings, he’s less pleased at the thought of missionaries in Israel:

IsraelNationalRadio “Light Unto the Nations” co-host Jeremy Gimpel says, “Over the last few months, I’ve seen several different missionary groups in Jerusalem – more than I remember in the past. They claim to love us and support us unconditionally, but their actions prove their hatred and their desire to destroy the Jewish Nation. I always tell them that if every Jew converted to Christianity and gave up their belief in One G-d, there would be no Jewish Nation to love and bless, as they claim to want to do.”

This quote came after Christian tourists (possibly missionaries; reports were unclear) were attacked in an ultra-Orthodox area of Jerusalem, an incident I blogged here. Gimpel’s complaint reveals a central tension in the Christian Zionist-Israeli alliance: conservative Christians, such as those behind Agape Press, believe that all must “receive Jesus” in order to be saved. Some Christian Zionists have created a bit of wiggle room, suggesting that the return of Jesus will convert the Jews, and so Jewish evangelism is not a priority (bad luck for Jews who die in the meantime). There is also a “dual covenant” view, which argues that Christianity and Judaism are equally valid, but despite attempts to push prominent Christian Zionists into this position, it remains highly controversial.

The Gimpel and Abramowitz US roadshow plans to take them across the country by 20 Sept; further details can be seen here.

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After contributing a few diary items to Talk to Action, I’ve now been invited to provide a regular “front page” story for them. My debut effort – a follow-up to my blog post on religious politics in Nunavut, northern Quebec – can be seen here.

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Private Eye magazine has an interesting article (not online, issue 1166) about the investigations into the murder of “Adam”, the unidentified African child whose dismembered torso was found next to the Thames five years ago, and into the abuse of children identified as suffering from possession in some churches. The Eye examines the influence of supposed experts in “Satanic ritual abuse” (SRA) in the investigation into the Adam killing:

…Initially key advocates tried to persuade the Metropolitan police investigating the murder…that it was a case of ritual abuse. They hoped the case would vindicate their claims and restore their credibility.

Early in the police investigation into the case of Adam, one of the most active believers in satanic abuse, Valerie Sinason…, a Harley Street pstchotherapist and psychoanalyst, offered her expertise to the police.

…In February 2000 the Metropolitan Police seconded Acting Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll to investigate her claims to have interviewed 76 children and adult victims who, she said, had made allegations of satanic sexual abuse and murder. Although no forensic evidence was found to substantiate her allegations, Driscoll was evidently a believer.

The Eye, which has cast a sceptical eye over “Satanic ritual abuse” previously, notes Driscoll’s involvement with the Ritual Abuse Information Network and Support (RAINS), where he shared a platform with Kobus Jonker. Jonker, whom I’ve discussed before on this blog, used to run an “Occult-Related Crime Unit” in the South African police force, to which only Christians like himself were allowed to join (According to a quote in the Financial Times: “The ordinary guy cannot investigate occult crimes. There are things you see and experiences you have as a result of the supernatural. You must be strong in faith to be in the occult unit”). Jonker became a consultant to the “Adam” case:

…Officers travelled to South Africa to meet him. Thereafter the police referred to the torso in the Thames case, as it became known, as a “ritual” killing and spoke of black magic rituals.

This is an oversimplification: the link between “Adam’s” death and some sort of ritual rests on stronger grounds than just the dubious expertise of Jonkers and the SRA crowd. The Toronto Star interviewed Richard Hoskins, a specialist in African religions based at King’s College, London, in 2003:

The cut in Adam’s neck led Hoskins to believe the ritual was more likely from the west of Africa than the south.

“It was done in a very specific and deliberate way, clearly to bleed him to death in a relatively quick way. The point was to spill blood on the ground as an offering,” he says.

Hoskins says the orange colour of Adam’s shorts, and the dumping of his torso in the river is also ritually significant. He believes the murder or murderers sacrificed Adam to gain some sort of power or good luck for an undertaking in Britain.

…Also in his lower intestine were tiny clay pellets with specks of pure gold embedded on their surface, along with what appeared to be finely ground up bones…Hoskins says the concoction in Adam’s stomach is typical of the potions used to prepare victims for ritual killings in sub-Sahara Africa.

…”The case of Adam is definitely a ritualistic killing. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Hoskins says. “The remarkable thing is that he was brought from Africa to the U.K. specifically for the purpose.”

The Eye report goes on to note that in October 2004, 30 officers were sent on a one-day course on satanic ritual abuse organised by Lee Moore of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers.

…Then in June last year a report commissioned by the Met was leaked to a [BBC] reporter…which claimed that young African boys were being trafficked to the UK and murdered as human sacrifices in churches after being labelled by pastors as “witches,” possessed by the devil. The sensational story was linked to a previous statement from the Metropolitan Police…saying 300 African boys had gone “missing” from school rolls over a four-month period.

This led to the Evening Standard running a headline that declared “Children sacrificed in London churches”, to the anger of black communities. More details appear in this BBC report, which shows that two issues were being conflated quite carelessly – “Adam’s” apparently ritual death is a very different matter than the problem of children being abused in violent exorcisms in some African (and other) churches.

The latter problem has come to the attention of the British media due to two high-profile crimes. The first was the 2000 murder of Victoria Climbié, a girl from the Ivory Coast who was tortured to death over a long period by sadistic relatives. However, although at one point an African pastor diagnosed her injuries as a sign of possession, her abuse does not appear to have been primarily inspired by religion. More recently, last summer saw the conviction of three people who had abused and nearly killed an Angolan girl – known as “Child B” by the media – in order to “beat the devil out of her”. This case has highlighted a growing phenomenon in central and southern Africa, where chaotic conditions and extreme poverty have led to traditional beliefs about witches metastasising into an extreme form directed mainly against unwanted orphans. But even in these cases, while exorcisms may be violent and dangerous, the aim is not to kill the child, much less to perform a “sacrifice”.

Hoskins, as I blogged a few months ago, has also been at the forefront of exposing this problem (taking a certain amount of flak for his efforts), and UK African pastors have now drawn up new guidelines concerning child protection. One question that I’ve had, though, is to what extent these new beliefs about evil powers have been influenced by outside forces, such as western Charismatic Christian teachings on demons and deliverance.

According to the Eye, the Met’s unpublished report was “shelved”, and a new report has been published by the Department for Education and Skills, entitled Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of “Possession” and “Witchcraft”. Sinason apparently offered to contribute to this report, but was rebuffed by the author, Eleanor Stobart. Stobart’s report doesn’t answer my particular question, but it does look at a wider context:

The author…concluded that belief in possession, witchcraft and exorcism was widespread in the UK and around the world, in African churches which had been influenced by evangelical Christianity, in Anglican churches in the UK but also in other religions which involved a belief in good and evil.

(Graham Dow, now the Bishop of Carlisle, is perhaps the most senior member of the Church of England to stress exorcism and the dangers of demons – his pamphlet Explaining Deliverance is helpfully summarised here).

She identified 38 cases [of abuse] involving 47 children mainly from Africa but also from South Asia, the Caribbean, Mauritius and also from a white English background.

…The abuse consisted of “severe beatings and other premeditated cruelties…” None involved sacrifice.

However, the Eye fails to note that although the report was published in June, it was actually ready in January. The Times reported:

The education department maintains that publication of the findings, which were delivered to Whitehall in January, has been delayed because they are being “studied by ministers”.

Critics insist the real reason is that the government is fearful of upsetting race relations. “They have found this quite hot to handle,” said Richard Hoskins, visiting research fellow in the sociology of religion at King’s College London and an expert witness in several court cases involving witchcraft claims.

I think it is almost as crude as white, liberal, middle-class people thinking they can’t be seen to be telling black people what they are doing wrong. It is ridiculous when you are dealing with children’s rights.”

So, on the one hand we’ve got politicians apparently reluctant to address a problem due to liberal squeamishness, and on the other a police force whose investigations are apparently being muddied by dubious “Satanic conspiracy” theorists. Not encouraging.

UPDATE: The Pagan Prattle directs us to a posting of the whole article at the Pagan Anti-Defamation Network, and available here.

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Theology “not based on end time prophecy”

Last week, mainline Palestinian Christian leaders issued a “Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism“, which slammed the theology and practice of the movement for linking the Gospel to “the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism.”

Now the Christian Zionists have hit back, in a statement of their own reported by Reuters:

The three main Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said in a statement that they were concerned at the declaration’s “inflammatory language” and that it was far from the truth.

Reuters doesn’t tell us who the three groups are, but it’s probably the International Christian Embassy, Bridges for Peace, and perhaps Christians for Israel. I haven’t been able to find the counter-statement itself online anywhere, but Reuters gives us some pointers:

“We pray for peace. But we note with sadness that the present Palestinian government is totally dedicated to the destruction of Israel…The problem in the region is not as simple as the Jerusalem Declaration makes out,”…The Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said they had no “thirst for Armageddon” and do not base their theological position on “end time prophecy.” They called for dialogue with the clerics behind the declaration that condemned them.

It’s true that not all Christian Zionists are apocalyptic Christian Zionists – Ted Haggard’s powerful church, for instance, supports an Israeli settlement on the West Bank more for political reasons than because of eschatological fervour, and there’s a general Judeophilia among sections of the evangelical movement. But it’s very curious to see the role of  “end time prophecy” so completely downgraded. After all, the Christian bestseller lists are currently headed by John Hagee, whose next tome is entitled From Daniel to Doomsday: The Countdown Has Begun – and that’s just the latest from a significant Christian paperback genre presided over by influential evangelists. I’ve argued that Christian Zionism should not be reduced to apocalypticism, but this is just as unbalanced.

The report also soft-pedals some other Christian Zionist beliefs:

Christian Zionists stress Christianity’s Jewish roots. Some back the movement to settle the occupied West Bank, the cradle of Jewish civilization, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state…Some also believe Jews themselves will have to become Christians or perish.

“Some”, eh? Well, I’ve never yet come across a Christian Zionist who supported Palestinian statehood in any form or under any conditions whatsoever, although I suppose that some of the wider pool of pro-Israel Christians might go along with it should an agreement be made. And the belief that Jews must accept Jesus (like everyone else) is also central – Jerry Falwell was recently forced to repudiate a Jerusalem Post report that he believed in a “dual covenant” position that sees Judaism and Christianity as equally valid (see my blog entry here). Some downplay this by suggesting that Jesus himself will convert the Jews in the very near future, and so Jewish evangelism is not really necessary – but that’s an appeal to the very “end times prophecy” which supposedly is not so important after all…

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