Here’s one I missed from last month, via the Times:
Dr Bridget McConnell, head of Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG), the £100 million charity in charge of the city’s culture, says she is alarmed by what she describes as a “personal witchhunt” against her.
…Since July, when a row broke out over an art exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) featuring homosexuality and religion in which comments were written on a Bible, Dr McConnell — whose organisation funded the exhibition — has been targeted by an organised group of protesters.
…Police are known to be concerned at the targeting of Dr McConnell and on at least one occasion officers had to be called to demonstrations outside the art gallery when staff were “seriously intimidated”.
Among those objecting to the exhibition are the Roman Catholic Church, a certain “Paul Mansbacher, a fundamentalist Protestant who has been banned from the Free Church of Scotland” and a group called Christian Watch:
On the website set up by Christian Watch, www.csgwatch.com, the protesters state their aim is to stop the city supporting events and programmes that insult Christ, the Bible, Christians and to “have Bridget McConnell removed from her position”.
Mansbacher has a website here, where he poses several questions. It would be superfluous for me to give his answers:
Is Roman Catholicism Truly Christian?
Are Modern Versions the Word of God – or the Work of Satan?
Does Tony Campolo Preach a Biblical Christ?
We’re also urged to read “Evidence from the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” concerning the following:
Thousands of people have reported that they have been abducted by strange beings, and many women report that they have been fertilised and abducted again at a later date when the foetus had been removed. Is the reason that Greys look like overgrown human foetus’ because that is what they are? – human foetus’ extracted from the womb and then cultured to increase their size. These genetically engineered bodies are then inhabited by evil spirits. I do not know – but it is a possibility. However, I do know that the war in heaven will take place and that the world will perceive the result as an extra-terrestrial invasion of the earth. Christians need to be prepared.
As well as having been anathematized by the Free Church of Scotland, Mansbacher is also cast out from Christian Voice; this letter to the English Churchman reveals what happened when Roman Catholics and “ecumenists” showed up at a protest outside the BBC against Jerry Springer: The Opera:
…It was at this point that Rev. Hargreaves arrived. He set up his equipment and proceeded to address our gathering, informing us as to other protests outside various other BBC studios around the country.He then had the audacity to tell us that if the literature that we were handing out did not unite us then we should cease to give it out. Obviously the Roman Catholics had approached him with their complaints…
As far as I knew, the Rev. Hargreaves was there representing “Christian Voice” but it turned out that it was an ecumenical voice.
…The Rev. Hargreaves then moved to another location outside the BBC studios, taking with him the Romanists and other ecumenists. But I’m glad to say some Christians did return to where we were, complaining that the group with the Rev. Hargreaves had a statue of Mary. Shame on the Rev. Hargreaves and those “so called” Christians for compromising in this way!
…Paul Mansbacher, a Christian who stood with us during the whole protest, was apparently put out of membership of Christian Voice because he dared to speak out regarding the disgraceful ecumenical involvement of Christian Voice – so much for ecumenical love.
(Christian Voice is headed by the absurd Stephen Green, whom I last blogged on here; Rev Hargreaves is George “So Macho” Hargreaves, whom I blogged on just a few days ago)
Mansbacher describes himself as a member of Christian Watch, but he’s not part of the organisation’s committee, and the outfit seems concerned solely with the usual preoccupations of Reformed Protestant fundamentalism – giant demon-possessed fetuses masquerading as aliens are not on the agenda (and I’m sure they would repudiate Protocols conspiracy mongering). Christian Watch’s aims include familiar fare such as:
To appropriately lobby our National Government when it threatens the freedom of Christians and lowers biblical standards by the introduction of ungodly legislation.
To lobby against ministers of local churches who openly support godless lifestyles as being acceptable.
To expose dangerous teachings e.g.: The Alpha Course also the so-called ‘manifestations’ of the Toronto Blessing movement.
To identify and oppose those who embrace Roman Catholic principles, and the false doctrine of evolution.
The director of Christian Watch is David Crowter, and the group’s website promotes the sermons of Pastor Ralph Ovadal, of the Pilgrims Covenant Church and Wisconsin Christians United. Ovadal has been compared with Fred Phelps, and in 2003 Crowter attended Overdal’s “International Conference on Homo-Fascism”, in Milwaukee; as noted on Ovadal’s wonderfully Landoveresque website, Crowter spoke alongside Peter LaBarbera of the Illinois Family Institute and Peter Hammond of Frontline Fellowship (I blogged on Hammond, who is based in South Africa, here). According to information on this blog, it was “attended by a little over a dozen people”.
Alas, the audio sermons on Christian Watch’s website do not include Ovadal’s most famous recording; this was made in 2002 during a foray to a nudist beach (fully clothed), where he verbally abused a woman:
News 3 has obtained a surveillance video of the confrontation, showing Ovadal… calling the woman a “heifer” and a “whore,” News 3 reported.
“Women who act like whores (are) called whores,” Ovadal says on the tape. “You’re acting like a barnyard animal. Whore, whore, whore, whore.”
Crowter is involved with a plan to create a Christian Heritage Centre near Birmingham (UK), which is being headed by an American pastor named James Zenker. Zenker runs the UK branch of the Tennessee-based Crown College; he does not appear to share Crowter’s anti-gay focus. Crowter has also spoken alongside Ian Paisley.
Also involved with Christian Watch are Duncan Boyd of the Protestant Truth Society; Anthony Busk, who was Christian Watch’s representative at the March of Repentance (an event blogged by me here); and Michael de Semlyen, author of All Roads Lead to Rome? The Ecumenical Movement?.
In the campaign against McConnell and all her works, Christian Watch has joined forces with Scottish Christians, run by an elderly man named Bob Handyside. Alas, however, Handyside is a member of the Christian Party – making him an ally of the “ecumenist” Rev. Hargreaves!
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