Seismic Shock carries a guest article about the BNP’s Rev Robert West, highlighting my blog entries about his recent appearance in the pulpit at a village Baptist chapel. The chapel is part of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), which in turn is part of a grouping called Affinity. I tried to get the FIEC (which has website banner suggesting support for a multi-racial society) to make a public statement about the incident, without success. Others, however, have apparently had more luck:
British Messianic Jews had expressed grave anxiety over the FIEC’s slow response, first blogged by Bartholomew, to the BNP priest’s meeting at an FIEC church. However one concerned Messianic Jew was told that the “FIEC is entirely opposed to any BNP spokesman or representative being used to forward their cause in our churches.” Messianic Jews would say of BNP support of Israel, with friends like these who needs enemies!
Well, that’s a nice start, although it is still nothing more than a private statement made to a particular individual; there is nothing on the FIEC website.
The BNP decided to downplay anti-Semitism for strategic reasons several years ago; Nick Griffin (author of an anti-Jewish pamphlet called Who Are the Mind-Benders?) realised that attacking Muslims was more likely to yield results, and he is quoted as having said that “The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat.” Jewish groups, however, remain unimpressed.
Rev West was interviewed at home on the East Midlands local edition of the BBC Politics Show a few weeks ago (I also made a brief contribution); behind his chair he had been careful to place both an Israeli flag and a British flag. West showed the camera a certificate dating from the 1970s which confirmed his association with a Welsh Pentecostal denomination called the Apostolic Church; the certificate had been signed by Omri Bowen, who was a theologian within the group. The Apostolic Church made a private statement to a blogger repudiating West’s views a while ago; however, as with the FIEC, there has been no formal or public statement on the subject.
(Name vars.: Omri C. Bowen; O. C. Bowen)
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