Creationists and Christian Zionists to Hold Conference in California

WND touts the upcoming “Southern California Strategic Perspectives Conference“:

WND founder Joseph Farah joins “Left Behind” author Tim LaHaye, former terrorist Walid Shoebat, evangelist Ray Comfort, best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, Koinonia Institute founder Chuck Missler and more…

Other presenters will include Gen. Shimon Erem of the Israel Defense Forces, radio commentator and author Paul McGuire and archeologist Bob Cornuke.

The conference takes place at Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills and is jointly sponsored by the Koinonia Institute and radio station KBRT.

Most of these characters, of course, need no introduction, although it’s fun to see them lined up together. Perhaps there will be a learned debate between LaHaye and Cornuke on the location of Noah’s ark: LaHaye once wrote a paperback entitled The Ark on Ararat, while Cornuke (whose archaeological qualifications come from Louisiana Baptist University) insists that he found it on Mount Suleiman in Iran. Maybe someone will give Shoebat the chance to clarify some of the weird inconsistencies in his account of his past as a terrorist, or ask him about his recent threats to sue those who have suggested he made it all up. And if we’re really lucky, Ray Comfort will be bringing along his banana to compare with Chuck Missler’s jar of peanut butter; both men have argued that these foodstuffs refute the theory of evolution (see here).

The elderly Shimon Erem, meanwhile, is apparently “considered by many as the ‘patriarch’ of the L.A. Israeli community”, and he liaises with Christian Zionists through the “Israel Christian Nexus“, through which he exhorts Christians to support Israel because “we are on the side of God — and God supports Israel”. According to the programme he will speak on “Israel at 60 what does the future hold” (sic for punctuation); this could be interesting, since unlike LaHaye he presumably doesn’t believe “the future” involves Israel being tricked by the anti-Christ, millions of Jews being slaughtered during the Last Days, and the survivors becoming Christians.

I covered Rosenberg’s apocalyptic ruminations just recently, while Chuck Missler’s Koinonia Institute organised the Christian Zionist tour to Israel which I blogged on a few months ago.

3 Responses

  1. now you’re having too much fun, B! a little more decorum please for our most vocal conspiracy theorists in Christendom. :)

  2. […] Missler is perhaps most famous for his argument that the failure of creatures to emerge from a jar of peanut butter refutes evolutionary theory; Matsen is a pastor at Calvary Chapel. LaHaye, Farah, and Shoebat need no introduction. I blogged on a subsequent Koinonia conference here. […]

  3. […] is off to Ethiopia next week. As I blogged here, Cornuke, whose archaeological qualifications come from Louisiana Baptist University, already […]

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