Bartholomew's Notes

The Swedish Local reports on a controversial religious group:

A southern Swedish religious congregation based at a cowboy-themed conference centre has been accused of harbouring a violent and extreme religious sect.

…A show aired on Tuesday by public service broadcaster SVT contained interviews with former Kingdom Center members who accuse the group of being a sect, guilty of performing violent exorcism ceremonies and using child labour, Expressen reports.

…The cowboy-theme park may look like a line-dancing paradise, but according to defectors, life under parish pastor Christer Segerliv is far from heavenly.

Segerliv denies the claims, and in fairness it should be noted that there is often some hostility towards American-style Christian groups in Sweden (noted in Simon Coleman’s study of Ulf Ekman, The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity). And Kingdom Center certainly is American-style, looking more like a Tex-Mex restaurant than a church and with Segerliv apparently known as “the Sheriff of Lone Star”. The Center’s website has some background:

Pastor Christer Segerliv is under the covering of Pastor Sunday Adelaja, pastor of the Embassy of the blessed Kingdom of God in Kiev, Ukraine and travels with him frequently around the globe. Kingdom Center is also connected to the emerging Cowboy Church movement in America, one of the leaders in this movement is Pastor Coy Huffman (Kingdom Cowboys).

The Associated Baptist Press reported on “Cowboy Churches” just a few weeks ago:

…boots placed at the back of the worship space as receptacles sometimes replace collection plates and offertories. Baptisms often take place in horse troughs. And, of course, country/Western, Southern gospel and bluegrass music often feature prominently in worship services.

…The cowboy-church movement has its roots in Pentecostal ministries from the middle of the 20th century, but has spread significantly among evangelicals — and especially Southern Baptists in rural areas — in the last 10 years.

…Cowboy-church leaders from other states have, with Texas leaders’ help, recently organized an American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches…There are also cowboy churches popping up under the Cowboy Church Network of North America, which was started in 2004. It became affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board in 2005.

The reporter seemed surprised that the movement had reached Canada, let alone Sweden.

Sunday Adelaja, meanwhile, was featured on this blog here. Adelaja, a Nigerian immigrant who has been phenomenally successful in Ukraine, apparently has hundreds of Ukrainian pastors under him, and he enjoys some support from politicians. During the “Orange Revolution” he and Ted Haggard collaborated on a CD on the subject which was distributed in the USA by Focus on the Family.

Segerliv also founded a school, which in July won an appeal against a decision to close it down.

(Hat tip: Cult News Network)

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WorldNetDaily puffs another apocalyptic book, under the headline: “Surprise! Russia not about to invade Mideast, says new prophecy theory”:

Even though Russia has advanced south into Georgia, a best-selling new Bible prophecy book says suggestions this signals an imminent march into the Middle East are mistaken. Instead, says Bill Salus, author of “Isralestine,” the world is about to be surprised by a different kind of devastating regional war involving Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Conflict in the middle east? Who could have guessed it? Salus explains:

“The stage is not adequately set for the highly publicized Ezekiel 38 and 39 Russian-Iranian nuclear-equipped consortia of nations to invade Israel. Psalm 83 comes first, and then Ezekiel 38 follows on its heels like a Goliath shadow. There are two distinct invasions of Israel, one building upon the other, with both occurring sequentially in the Middle East.”

Psalm 83 is a prayer by Asaph for God to destroy Israel’s enemies, who are plotting together. The New Jerusalem Bible notes that the Psalm “enumerates ten traditional enemies of Israel whose hostility was maintained to a late date, see 2 Ch 20:1seq; Ne 2:19; 1 M 5:3seq”. However, while Biblical scholars see the “late date” as some time during the Biblical period, Salus, like many other Anglo-American Biblical literalists over the past few hundred years, reads such passages as prophecies referring to our near future.

Salus’s book is Isralestine: The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East. A blurb can be found on Amazon.com:

…As per Psalm 83, destinys [sic] design for this great army is a head to head confrontation with a formidable Arab confederacy consisting of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and Egyptians. This Arab coalition has been developing in its fledgling stages since 1948 and will climax and officially confederate in the very near future. The Israeli Defense Force will decisively defeat this offensive and prove to be the exceedingly great army of Ezekiel 3710. They will expand their territory, become regionally superior, take prisoners of war and exploit the resources of these conquered Arab nations. In that condition they will become one of, if not the wealthiest nations on earth. It is from that position of empowerment that the Jews will dwell securely in the Middle East. Subsequently the world stage is set for the Russian Iranian led coalition of nations, which will form against Israel as prophesied in the book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39. This nonfiction thriller is carefully designed to cautiously navigate the reader through the end times calendar.

Salus also provides a modest profile (link added):

Bill is the up and coming talent, whose author styling appeals to scholars and laymen alike…Bill Salus is an expert at explaining the prophetic relevance of current Middle East and world events. Readers appreciate his unique insights, and sensible, rather than sensational approach to understanding the Bible. He allows prophecy to speak for itself, rather than modernizing it into newspaper exegesis… After the events of September 11, 2001, along with the encouragement of Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum the founder of Ariel Ministries, Bill embarked upon a tireless path of discerning prophecies that apply today…People all over the world are learning through his steadfast efforts, that prophecy is not just for the scholarly, but also for every common man, woman, and child…EXPERIENCE 1992 to present Author of Christian Prophecy Books and Devotional Articles 1972 to 1992 Professional Musician EDUCATION Degree in Business Administration Cypress College…

Fruchtenbaum is a Messianic Jewish speaker and writer; like Hal Lindsey, he is a graduate of the Dallas Theological Seminary.

Salus had the good idea of putting a website address on the cover; alas, however, it has a “.net” suffix when it should be “.org”. The actual website is here. It carries several endorsements: as well as Fruchtenbaum, support comes from David Reagan of Lamb & Lion Ministries, Tom Horn of RaidersNewsNetwork, Terry James of Rapture Ready and – curiously – from Penny Usherwood, Post Grad Professor in Middle East History and Current Events at Cal State University (“Thanks to unprecedented research by eschatology expert Bill Salus, and an amazing prophecy that has been hidden from most until now, the world is in for a surprise that could effect every man, woman and child. Groundbreaking!”).

Salus’s approach dovetails to some extent with that of Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat, who warn of a “Muslim anti-Christ” and of an Islamic “Beast empire”. However, he also has a slightly different perspective:

The Hebrew prophets Jeremiah and Zephaniah declared approximately 2600 years ago, that their God Jehovah would someday destroy “all the gods of the earth”. Perched atop a lofty god-list inclusive of Satan, Shiva, Vishnu, and hundreds of other imposters, sits Allah. Part two of this three-part study explores the two primary prophetic episodes that extinguish Allah, and expire Islam. In essence we will discover how Allah surrenders his Akbar (i.e.- greatness)…Prior to issuing this decree against the false gods, Zephaniah 2:4-10 describes the I.D.F. takeover of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as parts of Northern and Central Jordan. As my book Isralestine, The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East points out, additional Arab soil is annexed by the I.D.F. at this time.

Amazon says the book is published by “HighWay”, but in fact it comes to us through Tom Horn’s Anomalos Publishers. Anomalos’s other authors include Hilmar von Campe, whom I introduced here.

There appears to be some confusion over how to spell Salus’s name: the book calls him “Bill Salus”, but in some places – such as this RaidersNewsNetwork article – he is “Bill Salhus”. This is the same Bill Salhus who works as a mortgage broker with a firm which offers 40-year mortgages, so presumably we don’t need to worry about the end of the world until at least 2048.

Appropriately, Amazon has a special offer if you buy the book with The Temple At The Center Of Time.

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OneNewsNow has a scandalous revelation:

Truly shocking. Of course, OneNewsNow would ever stoop to such a thing…

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The Kampala New Vision gives details of a speech given by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni at the consecration of Patrick Gidudu as the new bishop of Mbale Diocese.

“I salute the Archbishop and bishops of Africa for resisting disorientation and a decadent culture, which he said was being passed by Western nations.”

Describing homosexuality as mtumbavu (Swahili for stupid), the President said: “Don’t fear, resist and do not compromise on that. It is a danger not only to the believers but to the whole of Africa. It is bad if our children become complacent and think that people who are not in order are alright…These foreigners should go and practice their nonsense elsewhere. That is the minimum demand.”

Further:

“When I learnt that the bishop was being consecrated I thought of shoes for the bishop. Since walking is now outdated, I thought I should give him a car, which is parked outside,” he said as he handed the keys to the bishop, prompting cheers from the fully packed church.

It is not clear whether this was a personal donation cast from Museveni’s own abundance, or whether Ugandan taxpayers had shelled out. Gidudu was consecrated by Archbishop Patrick Orombi, who, according to a recent report, says “he fears for his life because of the campaign he has waged against homosexuals”.

The situation for gays and lesbians in Uganda is bleak, as I have blogged in the past: as well as the practice being illegal, religious rallies and government officials have called for media censorship against any pro-gay statements. One Ugandan lesbian is seeking asylum in the UK after allegedly being raped by police (VirtueOnline mocked a journalist who raised this at GAFCON as “whiny”), and Human Rights Watch reported just a few weeks ago on a gay-rights activist being tortured in police custody:

The abduction and torture of a Ugandan HIV/AIDS activist who faces trial for holding a peaceful protest reveals the danger to those who challenge the government’s policies, Human Rights Watch, and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders said today.

…Police arrested Usaam “Auf” Mukwaya, Onziema Patience, and Valentine Kalende on June 4 after a peaceful protest at the 2008 “HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting” in Kampala against the government’s lack of response to HIV/AIDS among the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. The three human rights defenders were charged with criminal trespass and freed on bail on June.

On July 25, a few hours after a hearing in the case, Kampala policemen abducted Auf, as he is known to his friends, on his way back to the Speke Hotel.

…According to Auf, three police officers (one man and two women) pushed him through a dark corridor into a room where they made him sit on a chair. Auf saw four other men around his age in the room. One had a broken leg and the other three appeared to have been beaten. One of the women officers scraped his knuckles with a razor-like object; later, the man tied him to a machine that stretched his arms. At dawn, before releasing him, they forced him to strip to his underwear, asked him if he was a man or a woman, and made him walk around the room in his underwear. The following day, they dropped him at Mulago round-about in central Kampala. Auf told Human Rights Watch that he could identify his attackers if he saw them again.  

One American who has reportedly backed Museveni’s crack-down is Rick Warren, the media-savvy and “safe” Christian right leader whom Barak Obama and John McCain were recently so keen to be seen with after their Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee fiascos. According to a March report in the Kampala Monitor, Warren had

said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.

The bishop’s consecration seems to have been an excuse for various Ugandan politicians to grandstand:

Dr. Kizza Besigye, the head of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Miria Obote of the Uganda People’s Congress also attended. When the President entered the church, the congregation stood up except Nandala Mafabi (FDC) and Besigye who walked out shortly after amid murmurs.

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An interesting Diary piece by Hugh Muir in the Guardian:

Back with discomforting news about discord within the Swinton Circle, the group that inhabits the murky ground between the crazies on the far right and the outer reaches of David Cameron’s Conservative party…There was, it seems, a furore about the alleged infiltration of the meeting and of the group itself by NF/BNP types who only serve to lower the tone. Bad blood between Alan Harvey, the London chair, and Gregory Lauder-Frost, the former political secretary of the Monday Club, appeared to sour everything – reflecting what one web poster described as “scenes more redolent of a bear garden than a meeting of a respected Conservative organisation”…

Both Harvey and Lauder-Frost have appeared on this blog in the past: Harvey is a former National Front (NF) activist who used to edit SA [i.e. South Africa] Patriot magazine, and he maintains that examples of racism in the magazine only slipped through because he didn’t realise what they meant. As well as chairing the Swinton Circle, he also runs the Springbok Club, which agitates for a return for imperialist rule over Africa. As I noted last year, the Club came under journalistic scrutiny when journalist Johann Hari noted in the New Republic that right-wing historian Andrew Roberts had spoken to the group (Roberts, inevitably, made noises about “libel”). Harvey also has links with WorldNetDaily‘s South African correspondent, Anthony LoBaido.

Lauder-Frost has also been involved in a number of groups: in the mid-1980s he helped to found the British branch of Western Goals (see here), which had links with the World Anti-Communist League and with the John Birch Society. After the demise of the US parent organisation in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, this British branch became the Western Goals Institute, and it became increasingly controversial, forging links with Jean-Marie Le Pen and with Clive Derby-Lewis of the Conservative Party of South Africa. More recently, Lauder-Frost took part in the Right Now! conferences held at the Mark Masons’ Hall in central London; Searchlight reported in December 2006 that

The usual suspects were there in force. They included Allan Robertson (London Swinton Circle), Gregory Lauder-Frost (Traditional Britain Group)…[and] Dr Sean Gabb (Libertarian Alliance)…There was a large British National Party contingent too, numbering around 20. (1)

The British National Party attendees included the absurd Rev. Robert West, whom I blogged here. One BNP member

…sat in from his colleagues nestled between Mike Smith of the Conservative Democratic Alliance (CDA) and Right Now! columnist Robert Henderson…

Many delegates were extremely well disposed to the BNP contingent, who in turn were clearly delighted to be hobnobbing with figures such as Gregory Lauder-Frost and an array of individuals from the Freedom Association and UKIP, all of whom knew exactly whom they were talking to.

Mike Smith is better-known as Mike Keith-Smith, and he was the victor in a 2006 libel case which I blogged here. He shares Lauder-Frost’s enmity towards Harvey, which he expresses on a discussion site:

Personally I don’t see this as seriously damaging the Tories but Harvey is a loose cannon. If I were Cameron I would expel him.

Lauder-Frost adds:

Not being a Guardian reader I did not see that article. But it should be on record that I said nothing at that meeting. Absolutely nothing. My behaviour was impeccable.

It is certainly wise to be as accurate as possible when writing about these kinds of groups; discussing one blog which had written something negative about Lauder-Frost, Keith-Smith warned that if the site concerned ever mentioned him he would “leave them without a pot to piss in.”

(1) David Williams, “Right Here, Right Now!“, in Searchlight, Dec 2006 pp. 14-15.

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From the Botswana Sunday Standard:

Deported Zimbabwean priest, Edmore Chaka, is suspected to have used his church, Abundant Life Ministries, in a racket to rob HIV Batswana of their ARV medication and sell it on Zimbabwe black market.Police started investigating Chaka after a number of his followers who were HIV positive died after he told them to surrender their ARV drugs to him and, instead, use the suspicious concoction that he sold to them. It has not been established where Chaka took the ARV drugs that his followers surrendered. It is, however, suspected that he sold them in the Zimbabwe black-market where they are on high demand…

Chaka was deported alongside Pastor Chris Chissana, who was allegedly running an unregistered branch of the Christ Embassy (a Nigerian church, which I blogged here), and none other than Caesar Zvayi, former editor of the Zimbabwe Herald and notorious pro-Robert Mugabe hack (see here). Zvayi has now written an account of his “ordeal”, in typical form:

…the campaign was directed to the House of Chiefs, of which Ian Khama (Khama IV) is a member, having descended from Khama III, one of the Kgosi (chiefs), who along with two others — Bathoen 1 and Sebele 1 — approached the Queen of England, Queen Victoria, in October 1895, to ask for protection from Boer encroachment as other African countries selflessly fought colonialism in the region.

The trio’s actions saw Botswana become a British protectorate sworn to the politics of Western appeasement, and the trio venerated as Batswana heroes to this day.

Zvayi claims that one of the pastors was in fact deported because “opposition BNF members” attended his church.

Zvayi’s account has some differences from other reports: “Edmore Chaka” has become “Edmore Chijena”, and he, rather than Chissana, is named as running a “Christ Embassy” church.

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Joseph Farah in WorldNetDaily, April:

My friend Michael Savage is [suing the Council on American-Islamic Relations] and I commend him for it. But I know the sacrifice he is making by getting down into the gutter with these people. I would urge you to contribute to his legal defense fund so he can pursue his lawsuit against CAIR for as long as it takes to win.

The San Francisco Chronicle, August:

Conservative talk show host Michael Savage has changed his mind and is reluctantly dropping his lawsuit against an Islamic rights group that launched an advertisers’ boycott after he attacked Islam and the Quran on the air, his lawyer said Thursday…In an unusual court filing, attorney Daniel Horowitz, who had earlier promised a new suit that would pass legal muster, said Thursday that Savage has a legitimate case but has decided not to pursue it.

We look forward to learning how much exactly Savage raised from all his supporters, and how exactly the money was spent.

The lawsuit has received considerable media attention. The idea was, of course, doomed from the beginning: CAIR used clips of Savage’s vulgar radio rants against Muslims to urge an advertiser boycott, and Savage claimed copyright infringement. That had to fail under fair-usage provisions – as was demonstrated years ago in a case concerning Jerry Falwell’s use of materials copyrighted to Larry Flynt. Realising this, Savage opportunistically added a “racketeering” claim to his lawsuit, which allowed him to grandstand as someone opposing terrorist-supporters. The lawsuit was tossed in March, and again a few days ago, at which point WND‘s Aaron Klein predictably rumbled darkly about how the judge had been “nominated to her position by President Bill Clinton”.

Klein also quoted Savage, who was then in bullish mood:

“I’m going to open up this case. I’m going to sue CAIR. I’m bringing a lawsuit back against them. It’s going to cost me a fortune,” Savage said. “And when Judge Illston rejects it again, which she will do because she’s a minion of the Bill Clinton crowd, I’m going to take it over her head and I’m going to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where again I’m going to hit a stonewall. And then I’m going to take it to the Supreme Court until eventually I force CAIR to describe who their funding sources are…First they came for Michel Savage, and you didn’t raise your voice and you laughed. Then they came after Abercrombie and Fitch, and you didn’t raise your voice because you weren’t in the retail business. Tomorrow they’ll come after you and your business.”

You wouldn’t think that it was Savage who had gone to court to try to stop CAIR from criticising him, rather than the other way round – and  Aaron Klein is hardly going to put the record straight (nor Farah, with his “defense fund” nonsense). Klein added:

The top radio host urged listeners to make online donations at his website to help fund his lawsuit.

Presumably these will now be returned.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Horowitz insists that

Savage can prove the Islamic organization engaged in a conspiracy that harmed him financially

The “proof” being that when people heard what Savage had to say, they found him to be repellent. Some “conspiracy” – Savage has managed to put most people off without CAIR’s assistance.

Horowitz also gives us a reason for the sudden change of heart. Apparently he

said he feared his client would be in danger if he continued the case. The attorney said he has no evidence that CAIR commits violent acts but alleged that the Islamic group is out to silence Savage and conducts campaigns that may stir up violence by others.

So Savage is suddenly too scared to continue? Come off it. But such an excuse must disgust what’s left of Savage’s core audience of bigots – even those who didn’t hand over cash for a case he was going to take all the way to the Supreme Court. And surely this must be a huge embarrassment for Joseph Farah, who urged his readers to contribute?

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From Arutz Sheva:

Baptist preacher and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee soon will be accompanied by religious Jewish New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind on a two-day visit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall (Kotel) and the rocket-battered southern town of Sderot…During their visit to the Western Wall, where Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama recently toured, Huckabee and Hikind will be escorted by leaders of Ateret Kohanim Yeshiva, located in the Old Jewish Quarter of the Old City, now populated predominantly by Arabs…Huckabee, who was introduced by Hikind at the Jerusalem Reclamation Project dinner in June, has visited Israel nine times.

Ateret Kohanim is a militant settler movement, and it has has featured on this blog in the past: its chief backer, an American businessman named Irwin Moskowitz, has reportedly defended Baruch Goldstein (perpetrator of the 1994 Hebron massacre) and there are claims that he is sympathetic to the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin. In 2000 it was reported that a website registered to the name of his wife contained a game which featured then-prime minister Ehud Barak exploding. Moskowitz’s son-in-law, Aryeh King, co-ordinates Ateret Kohanim and other settler groups working in Palestinian areas of Jerusalem through an organisation called the “Jerusalem Forum”, which also includes groups planning to build the “Third Temple”.

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Tim LaHaye speaks:

I can see by the language he uses why people think [Obama] could be the antichrist, but from my reading of scripture, he doesn’t meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American.

Actually, there’s “no indication” that Bible authors had any knowledge at all of the western hemisphere, but we’ll leave that aside. Snopes has more on the subject here.

The owner of this blog will doubtless be unimpressed.

(Hat tip: Ed Brayton)

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WorldNetDaily offers up one of its more absurd “exclusives”: a puff-piece for a book entitled Temple at the Center of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Deciphered and the Year 2012. The author, David Flynn, argues that the relative distances of various cities from the site of the Jerusalem Temple is a key to history. Prepare to be mind-numbed:

Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians on the 16th day of Tishri of the Jewish calendar, which correlates to Oct. 12, 539 B.C. Curiously, the number 539 is also the distance in statute miles between the temple of Jerusalem’s foundation stone to the palace of Balthazar, as confirmed by modern satellite measurement.

…In the 17th century, Christopher Wren was able to observe the foundations of the London Stone underneath Cannon Street during the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. With this information, it is possible to extend a measuring line from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the exact center of ancient London, and by fixing a point on the site of the temple mount, a measuring line extended over Jerusalem to the center of London produces 1,948.40 nautical miles…Israel became a nation again May 14th, 1948…

And so on. Why switch from “statue miles” to “nautical miles”? Why use measurements that were unknown to Biblical authors? Why base everything around 1CE, when this is simply a conventional date for the birth of Jesus, rather than historically exact? Just a few of the questions with which the WND hack is blissfully unconcerned.

Further details appear in a review in the California Chronicle:

“Temple at the Center of Time” discusses the significance of the number 33. For instance, 33% of [I think he means “or” – RB] one third of an hour is 19 minutes and 48 seconds. Yes, 1948…

Unless you want one third of an hour, which gives you twenty minutes, but that wouldn’t fit.

…Amazing also is Avebury Circle…”The latitude of the Avebury Circle was established with such precision that it underscores the importance of ‘2520’ as key to the circle´s intended message…If 2,520 years are counted forward from the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. and the 33 years that Christ walked the Earth are subtracted, the year is A.D. 1948, the rebirth of Israel.

This is all in a grand tradition of crackpot interpretations of ancient monuments; significantly, WorldNetDaily has also promoted the pseudo-science of pyramidology.

However, the WND piece fails to note how all this fits into Flynn’s wider theories, or to tell us much about him at all. A short bio appears on this site:

In 1991 after completing his education at Carroll College in Montana, David Flynn created the “watcher Website” combining his background in Theology and Clinical Psychology in the research of biblical ufology. David’s website is a repository for research dealing with UFOs, the Monuments of Cydonia on Mars, Angels, Aliens & End Time Prophecy.David has written popular articles on Mars and of the Biblical significance of the Cydonian Monuments. His decidedly alternative views on Cydonia were presented on the television programs “Strange Universe”, and the PAX TV’s -“Encounters with the Unexplained: What is Really on Mars,” which explored the meaning behind the Pyramids and Sphinx-face found in NASA images of the surface of Cydonia Mars. David’s Flynn’s new book discusses knowledge that was previously known only by the highest ranking members of Mystery Schools.

Another site calls him “a well known crypto-archaeologist in the Christian community”. Some of his ideas are laid out on his own website. One essay he appears particularly proud of is “An Occult Translation of the Roswell Event: Count down to 2012”, where he tells us that

It is significant that the United States recovered the debris and “alien” bodies of the Roswell crash on the 4th of July 1947. America itself was founded on the same date in 1776. This year was chosen by the occult elite behind the formation of America for a special reason.

888 is the sum of the letters in Greek of the name Jesus (each Greek letter represents a number). A second “messiah” (888) plus the first messiah (888) = 1776…We know that 33 degrees of earth’s circumference is 2012 miles and that 33 is a prominent number in the Roswell message. 33 is also prominently featured in the location of the first descent of angelic forces to Mt. Hermon. Might this numeric connection indicate a similar type event occurring in the year 2012?…

However, while this silliness is mostly all good fun, the references to “Mystery Schools” and an “occult elite” show that Flynn is also tapping into the kind of darker conspiracy-mongering seen in the likes of John Hagee. Here’s another essay, entitled “Babylon Revisited”:

In America’s modern colleges, though there are 360 degrees in a complete circle, a student’s four years of intellectual labor and thousands of dollars produce only the graduation of one degree. This accomplishment earns the student a Bacchus laurel, for this is really what “bachelor” means. Bacchus is the Roman version of Dionysus, Greek god of wine revelry and facades, lies, and drunkenness.

During the ritual of graduation, the degree candidate wears a symbolic hat–a mortarboard. The mortarboard represents the common person’s function in a world system controlled by the occult elite, to carry the cement for building to the stonemasons…The academic system of the West was designed by the occult elite from the beginning, and it is still under their control. The highest members of the “occult Brotherhood” past and present consider themselves graduates of 33 degrees. 2 It would not be possible to acquire 33 degrees through the academic institutions of Europe and America in one lifetime. Only through the membership in the secret fraternal institutions of the occult can 33 degrees be obtained.

One point that struck me: America was founded in 1776 due to an “occult elite”, yet Israel was founded in 1948 presumably due to God’s plan (as with Christian Zionism). But what’s to prevent someone from tweaking this so that 1948 is also the result of a conspiracy? As with David Icke, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and others who go down this road of seeing secret patterns in history, the potential for anti-Semitism remains, whatever their own intentions. This essay by Chip Berlet provides some useful context.

Earlier this year WND carried an attack on the Bible Literacy Project. The BLP is a syllabus for studying the Bible in schools, looking at historical context and drawing on the work of serious Biblical and literary scholars. But while WND objects to a historical-critical look at the Bible, a man who uses the Bible to create a bizarre mash of paranoia and fantasy that has absolutely no respect for the intended meanings of the Biblical text apparently deserves a puff piece.

One blogger casts a sceptical eye over Flynn’s ideas here.

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