Bartholomew's Notes

Here’s one I missed, from a month ago:

Israeli Member of Knesset Professor Arieh Eldad (National Union) unveiled plans today for Facing Jihad, a summit of European parliamentarians united against the threat of Islamic expansion.

The summit, to be chaired by MK Eldad at the Knesset – Israel’s parliament – in Jerusalem on December 14-15, 2008, will play host to some 30 European parliamentarians from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K., who oppose Islamization as well as immigration policies that disrupt social cohesion.

…In addition to sessions expected to be led by European Parliamentarians and internationally renowned intellectuals, MK Eldad plans to hold a screening in the Knesset of Fitna, the controversial film by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders about the reality of Islam. Mr. Wilders will also speak at the conference.

Wilders is, of course, an attention-seeking humbug who has nothing sensible to say about the problem of Islamic extremism – and like all demagogues, all he has to offer are absurd and unworkable authoritarian measures (such as banning the Koran) and some overheated rhetoric. The idea that “internationally renowned intellectuals” would have any use for him is laughable.

Eldad’s conference has a website, although the content looks rather thin; this is unsurprising, since the its entire purpose can be summed up in one sentence: “Muslims are evil, and to stop them taking over the world you should support Greater Israel and bring in some anti-Muslim legislation”. Plus it’s been done before anyway – Eldad probably got the idea from last year’s “Counterjihad Brussels” event, where he charmed Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs. The schedule consists mainly of vague discussions about “various pieces of legislation”, leading up to what promises to be a self-important and vacuous “Jerusalem Declaration” before the delegates move on to dinner. And there are no signs of any “internationally renowned intellectuals” – all we have are the inevitable Daniel Pipes and yet another ex-Muslim-turned-Christian polemist, by the name of Sam Solomon. A report from the Jerusalem Post adds the name of Baroness Cox (1).

Back in March, Eldad called for the execution of Israeli politicians who concede Israeli territory. Naturally, he was careful to clarify that “he intended only to act within the confines of the justice system”, but only an idiot would fail to recognise this as a call for political violence, and a return of the same kind of rhetoric that led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

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(1) In recent years Cox has positioned herself as a champion of Christians facing persecution; those of us with longer memories will recall her 1980s meeting with Nicaraguan Contra leader Adolfo Calero, who had been brought to the UK by Jack Abramoff’s (South African-backed) International Freedom Foundation.

Name variation: Aryeh Eldad

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From Stuff:

Waikato University has abruptly pulled a student’s thesis from its library after complaints from the subject of the research – a right-wing extremist.

The thesis, exploring satanic and neo-Nazi themes, had already been marked and published, earning its author top marks.

It is a highly unusual move to remove a student’s work after publication.

The thesis, published six months ago and titled Dreamers of the Dark: Kerry Bolton and the Order of the Left Hand Path, a Case-study of a Satanic/Neo Nazi Synthesis, was submitted as part of a Masters degree by philosophy and religious studies student Roel Van Leeuwen.

Bolton describes the (MA level) thesis as “a poorly contrived smear-document” which, according to Stuff , “made him feel literally and physically [sic] sick”.

Some alleged background on Bolton is available from anti-racist website Fight Dem Back!, including the following:

• 1980 — Founded the Church of Odin. This was based on worship of the ancient Viking pantheon and stressed “Loyalty to Race and Culture”. Jews were explicitly banned from membership and material referred to “…a scummy tribe of Hebrews”. Left it after it wasn’t doing what he had hoped. He has also been a Mormon in the past and claims to be a Christian as of 2004….
• 1998 — Produced magazine The Nexus which contained adverts for Waffen SS patches, advert for Australian Occult Nazi Metal band “Spear of Longinus”, reviews of international Nazi mags, anti-Jewish articles, obituaries for Nazi general Otto Remer and Satanist La Vey etc….
• 2004 — Satanist.net still listed information about Bolton’s Satanic organisations Ordo Sinistra Vivendi, The Black Order and The Order of the Left Hand Path.

Bolton maintains a website, where he rails against “Zionist Smear-Mongering Posing as ‘Scholarship'” (Van Leeuwen’s supervisor, Dov Bing, is Jewish and pro-Israel). Bolton also publishes some correspondence with Van Leeuwen, in which Van Leeuwen agrees to remove certain passages from his thesis, while not conceding any libel.

Van Leeuwen, meanwhile, has a long-standing personal interest in the esoteric. According to this website,

Roel van Leeuwen is a graduate student in History, with a particular interest in military history and alternative spiritualities. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. thesis, ‘Child of Earth: the Legacy of Dr Robert Felkin’ and the History of Esoteric Societies in New Zealand. As well as his academic interests, Roel is, or has been, a member of various Orders and Societies in New Zealand since 1987. These include the Builders of the Adytum, SRIA and Order of the Table Round.

(Hat tip: Bulldada Newsblog)

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Rev Peter Mullen is in trouble; the BBC reports:

A Church of England clergyman has been ordered to remove comments about gay people from his blog, remarks described by his diocese as “highly offensive”.

The Rev Peter Mullen, who ministers in the City of London, said he had gay friends and the words were “satirical”.

He suggested in his internet blog that homosexuals should have their backsides tattooed with the slogan: “Sodomy can seriously damage your health”.

…The Diocese of London spokeswoman said officials had met Mr Mullen and it had been agreed that the comments should be removed.

Mullen’s outburst (which was on his blog for a couple of months) was provoked by comments from the gay atheist conservative journalist Matthew Parris. Mullen is a long-time controversial figure, and he is identified as belonging to the “libertarian” movement – as well as being Chaplain to the Stock Exchange, Mullen is also Chaplain to the Freedom Association . And while of course there is a genuine “libertarian” intellectual tradition, the label is often appropriated by posturing right-wing cranks who like to gloss over their actual authoritarianism with some middle-brow philosophizing – see my blog entry on David Marsland for an example of this kind of pseudo-libertarianism (As it happens, Marsland and Mullen have several political associations in common).

Here’s some more of that “satire” in context, from Mullen’s now-deleted blog:

…for [Matthew] Parris, the views of billions of Christians, Jews and Muslims worldwide are of no more consequence than a couple of obscure sectional interests. From what point of privileged judgement does he thus discount 4000 years of civilisation? The great world religions have survived the criticisms of far more intelligent and better informed opponents than the ignorant upstart Parris. There is a whole history and literature of distinguished apologetics for religious belief, but Parris will attend to none of it – sufficient only to attract his disdain is mainstream religion’s disapproval of homosexual acts.

Since Parris will not dirty his hands by entering theological discussions with his readers, perhaps I might answer for religious believers in the purely utilitarian terms which even the lofty Parris is bound to engage with. We disapprove of homosexuality because it is clearly unnatural, a perversion and corruption of natural instincts and affections, and because it is a cause of fatal disease. The AIDS pandemic was originally caused by promiscuous homosexual behaviour. Such promiscuity is itself an evil because its perpetrators merely use others indiscriminately for their own gratification, treating their fellows as sex objects and as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. I should have thought that Parris, having rejected religious belief, might want to construct his moral beliefs on this Kantian humanistic imperative. But I suspect he is not really interested in morality of any kind – except as a special plea to excuse his lust for gratification at whatever cost to human dignity and the sanctity of human life.

It is time that religious believers began to recommend specific utilitarian discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets: Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS. In addition the obscene “gay pride” parades and carnivals should be banned for they give rise to passive corruption, comparable to passive smoking. Young people forced to witness these excrescences are corrupted by them…

One wonders what Mullen’s sermons are like – I think I’d prefer going to the nearby St Paul’s Cathedral.

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When will the end of the world be? WorldNetDaily is currently pushing no fewer than three alternative armageddons on its credulous readership.

Here’s the closest:

The author of a unique best-selling book on the year 2012 and the return of biblical Nephilim claims mankind may be on the precipice of an earth-shaking event far beyond the imagination of most people…

Or, if you a bit more breathing space, there’s this:

In “Temple at the Center of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Deciphered and the Year 2012,” by David Flynn, a book that has skyrocketed up the best-seller charts following its release this month, the author makes a correction to Isaac Newton’s research, pointing to the year 2013 as “the time of the end.”

I blogged on Flynn and his book here.

A third imminent eschaton is expounded here:

Will Jesus Christ return to Earth in the year 2015?

And can studying NASA’s website provide evidence for such a scenario?

This is the theory of Pastor Mark Biltz, of El Shaddai Ministries, and it appears to be the one favoured by Farah, as Biltz has now produced a video series “in conjunction with WND Videos”. Biltz believes that the date of Jesus’ return can be determined by considering the yearly dates of Jewish feasts and relating them to lunar eclipses:

He noted a rare phenomenon of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, known as a tetrad.

He says during this century, tetrads occur at least six times, but what’s interesting is that the only string of four consecutive blood moons that coincide with God’s holy days of Passover in the spring and the autumn’s Feast of Tabernacles (also called Succoth) occurs between 2014 and 2015 on today’s Gregorian calendar.

…”What’s significant to me is that even before 1967, the next time that you had four blood red moons again was right after Israel became a nation in ’48, it happened again in 1949 and 1950 … on Passover and Succoth. You didn’t have any astronomical tetrads in the 1800s, the 1700s, the 1600s. In the 1500s, there were six, but none of those fell on Passover and Succoth.”

But what about the Biblical injunction against date-setting?

He responded by referring to the annual Feast of Trumpets holiday, saying Israelites never knew the precise moment it began, “because it was based on the sighting of the new moon.”

“When He (Jesus) says you won’t know the day or the hour, He’s telling you it’s the Feast of Trumpets because that was known as the feast where no one knew the day or the hour that it would begin,” said Biltz. “So it’s kind of like if I told you, ‘I’m not going to tell you when I’m coming, but “Gobble, gobble, gobble,'” [pointing to] Turkey Day.”

Maybe we should imagine Jesus winking and nudging Peter in the ribs… or consider the alternative, which is that Biltz’s Biblical interpretation has simply been pulled out of his backside and imposed on the text. However, Biltz has a get-out clause for when 2016 rolls around:

“We don’t know that that will be the concluding year of the tribulation period … so we’re not setting a date and saying this is a warning. We’re introducing the possibility of a watch.”

Biltz’s website is also sprinkled liberally with the word “IF”. WND is particularly keen on Biltz’s idea because it fits with an increasing evangelical desire to appropriate aspects of Judaism – a trend I blogged here. Under the heading “Yom Kippur not just for Jews”, WND gives more detail:

The spring and fall feasts, Biltz says, were not intended only for the children of Israel. They are, the Bible says, “the feasts of the Lord” – and they have special meaning with respect to the life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus…

The spring feasts – or appointed times – were fulfilled by the first coming of Yeshua, the Hebrew name of Jesus, which means “Salvation,” explains Biltz. The fall feasts will be fulfilled by His Second Coming – in the very near future…The video series pinpoints the specific day on the Hebrew calendar for the return of Jesus. The only unknown, according to Biltz, is which year that return will occur – though he makes the case it is very near.

Farah enthuses that those who watch the video series “will be stunned by what they learn about the meaning of these feasts in our lives”. Meanwhile, Hal Lindsey, who knows a thing or two about failed prophecy (he wrote The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon), cautions that all this is “pure speculation”.

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From an opinion piece in the Kampala Monitor, 11 September:

Corruption in Uganda has reached unacceptable levels. In a civilised nation, one would expect that law enforcement agencies would be useful in the fight against corruption. Now we know that the Police is one of the most corrupt institutions in Uganda…Some magistrates have also  been accused of forging court proceedings (for trials that never took place) leading to conviction of innocent persons at the behest of influential ‘clients’ who pay handsomely for the service…Parliament lost its respect when a large number of MPs in the 7th Parliament accepted a Shs5 million bribe to push through the obnoxious amendment that lifted presidential term limits…Now we run the risk of a military coup by a possibly opportunistic officer who would promise to rid the nation of corrupt people.

Fixing all this corruption is a tall order, but luckily Uganda has a designated Ethics and Integrity Minister, by the name of James Nsaba Buturo.

So what’s Buturo’s top priority?

“Who is going to occupy Uganda 20 years from now if we all become homosexuals. We know that homosexuals don’t reproduce,” James Nsaba Buturo told a press conference.

“There is now a globalisation of homosexuality and people in Uganda are attempting to take advantage of the globalisation,” he said. “It is an attempt to end civilisation. It is that serious.”

Buturo, a devout member of the Church of Uganda, part of the Anglican Communion, called for anti-gay legislation to be enacted.

I’ve blogged on Buturo’s anti-gay obsession before; his other ministerial efforts include banning The Vagina Monologues (“the idea was to promote lesbianism and glorify the vagina – even elevating it to god-like status”). Recently he called for mini-skirts to be banned on the grounds of “road safety”, resulting in a wonderful Monitor editorial entitled “Buturo Requires a Brain Transplant“:

Buturo said (and I assume he was not joking) that mini-kirts should be banned – because women wearing them distract drivers and cause traffic accidents! And, dear reader, I am afraid it gets worse, for he went on to say that wearing a miniskirt was like walking naked on the street!

Can you imagine a naked Mr Buturo walking along Kampala Road, manhood dangling and all of that? Well, you should try, because I assume he sometimes wears shorts, and the male equivalent of his comments is that Buturo wearing shorts is like Buturo walking naked on the street…

Buturo also recently unveiled a plan to tackle prostitution by “shaming” prostitutes.

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Failblog has an unfortunate newspaper cover from South Africa:

I last blogged on South African fears about Satanism here.

(Hat tip: Bulldada Newsblog)

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BBC Radio 4 has just broadcast an adaptation of Roger Crane’s 2007 play The Last Confession, dealing with the mystery and intrigue around the election and death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, and starring David Suchet as Cardinal Benelli – the plot will be familar to anyone who’s read David Yallop’s In God’s Name. The play contains some some nice exchanges, although the ecclesiastical cynicism and worldliness of most of the characters is somewhat two-dimensional, and when the identity of Benelli’s deathbed confessor is revealed at the end the dialogue that follows is less than credible.

The play can be listened to here for the next week. A excellent review of the stage production is provided on West End Whingers, and includes this gem:

…The first surprise of the evening was that the stalls at least were packed to bursting with coughing Poirot-lovers keen to see David Suchet in a completely different role – this time investigating a mysterious death with an unfeasibly large number of suspects.

…It’s a great story, but the problem is that it would appear that the author started off writing a whodunnit and – possibly under the advisement of his lawyers – thought better of it. Having failed to introduce any discernible coherent themes, Crane is obliged to wrap the play up with some rather woolly musings about “faith” and – sorry to spoil it for you – the rather lame conclusion that “We all killed the Pope”. At this point Neil – ever the card – leaned across and whispered, “No, he’s thinking of Murder on the Orient Express.”

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From the website of the Becket Fund:

The United Nations General Assembly, now in session in New York, is about to take up another “defamation of religion” resolution, which is another step toward criminalizing peaceful speech.Originally proposed by Pakistan and the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1999, a U.N. resolution condemning the “defamation of Islam” evolved into resolutions opposing the “defamation of religions.” Meant to curtail speech that some find offensive, the resolutions have the effect of stifling religious debate and discussion.

I’ve blogged on some of these efforts, here and here. The Becket Fund is now part of a “Coalition to Defend Free Speech” in opposition to religious anti-defamation laws:

“An anti-defamation law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In passing these resolutions, the United Nations is damaging its credibility in the name of protecting hurt feelings,” said [Becket Fund president Kevin] Hasson. “It is nothing but a gussied-up blasphemy law, and blasphemy laws ultimately hurt everyone and all believers, because they implicitly empower governments to decide which religious truth is right or wrong.”Coalition Honorary Chair Floyd Abrams, the nation’s preeminent free speech and free press advocate, agreed.

Alas, however, the Coalition so far hasn’t managed to put together a website, and beyond a few platitudes dispensed at a lunchtime National Press Club meeting details of what exactly it intends to do are somewhat vague. The Forward has a bit of extra detail from the Coalition’s honorary chair,  free-speech advocate Floyd Abrams:

“We want to raise public awareness and have an impact at home and abroad,” Abrams told the Forward. “Will this persuade the Muslim world? No. But it’s important for organizations to speak out, for instance, vis-à-vis the new U.S. administration.”

Is that it? The Forward gives more background to the Coalition’s background:

…It comprises the American Jewish Congress and the International Quranic Center; conservative groups such as Freedom House, American Values, the Becket Fund and The Rutherford Institute, and such liberal figures as former Clinton administration senior official Morton Halperin and prominent lawyer Floyd Abrams…

Promoters of the coalition are eager to avoid being branded as part of a Jewish and/or neoconservative effort to attack Muslims, especially given the central role the AJCommittee played in cobbling together the coalition over the past year.

Several free speech advocacy groups and leading liberal-leaning human rights groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, in fact have declined to join the coalition. “We have lots of trouble getting liberal groups who care a lot about free speech on board,” Abrams admitted. But he added that the promoters are still hopeful that some will join the effort, and that Jewish groups will do so as well, though none has yet been asked to do so.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the decision was not a political one.

“We’re fully on board with respect to the issue, but we rarely join coalitions of these kinds when the plan is to issue joint statements, since we find that we spend endless time editing and negotiating text without any commensurate reward,” he told the Forward.

In another unencouraging sign, a press release about the Coalition misspells the “Becket Fund” as the “Beckett Fund”.

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From an article reposted at Christian Zionist Jim Hutchens’s Jerusalem Connection (and distributed via his email newsletter), entitled “Obama, McCain and Israel”:

…According to Obama, the US needs to adopt the worldview of the Department of State bureaucracy (Israel’s staunchest critic in Washington,) pacify the knee-jerk-anti-Israel-UN, move closer to the Peace-at-any-Price-Western Europe and appease the Third World, which blames the West and Israel for the predicament of the Third World and the Arabs. On the other hand, McCain contends that the US should persist in defiance of global odds – in being the Free World’s Pillar of Fire, ideologically and militarily…

The Jerusalem Connection is a 501 (c)-(3) non-profit organization, so the above should be seen simply as “Nonpartisan Voter Education“.

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Centre Right reports from the UK Conservative Party conference in Birmingham:

On to the launch meeting of the Conservative Humanist Association […] I made my way to a remote upper corner of the ICC [International Convention Centre], the air among the gathering throng a mixture of apprehension and excitement. I made the mistake of telling the organiser that the atmosphere reminded me of the old Tory Homosexual Equality meetings, that used to take place at conference 20 years ago … you would slip into some unlit meeting room, grateful to be among friends, not quite sure if you were allowed to meet like that or not. Then Steve Norris would burst into the room and shout at you, berating you to stop being so quiet and to make some noise. Richard Dawkins did something similar last night [29 Sept]. It’s probably pointless to rehearse his argument: you either believe or you don’t, and we’ve debated these issues here often enough. But I was surprised at the number of Tories who’ve made a similar journey, from belief to atheism…

Tory Diary, meanwhile, gives us this pic:

The Conservative Humanist Association has a website here; it says the meeting was “electric” and promises a “fuller account later in the week”, which so far hasn’t arrived. In the meantime one audience member – none other than Mike Keith-Smith – gives his brief account on this (unsavoury) web forum:

…Best fringe meeting was the Conservative Humanist Society’s event with Richard Dawkins speaking.

I told Dawkins (and the meeting) that I liked going to church because I fancied the (female) vicar and it got me off to a flying start every Sunday morning, but as I am an agnostic did he really think I should say The Creed. Everybody roared with laughter.I then said if the Tory Party was not to be called the Stupid Party could it really be seen to support Mc Cain and his ghastly far-right running mate who thinks the world was created in 7 days and wants to declare nuclear war on Russia.

Keith-Smith is of course misinformed on one point: Creationists believe that the world was created in six days, not seven.

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