Bartholomew's Notes

Religion Dispatches has an interesting article by Jonathan Fitzgerald on the fall-out from Christianity Today‘s August investigation into David Jang, a Korean evangelical leader who is increasingly influential in the USA. The article, by CT editor Ted Olsen and an independent journalist named Ken Smith:

…investigated claims that members of David Jang’s ministries were encouraged to believe that Jang embodies a “Second Coming Christ,” an act of blasphemy for Christians. In addition to drawing further ties between Jang and Rev. Moon, who famously declared himself the messiah, this recent controversy hits close to home for evangelicals because of Jang’s ties to many parachurch organizations with seemingly orthodox beliefs.

While Olsen and Smith are careful to cite sources who both confirm and deny that members are led to believe that Jang is the second coming of Christ, the article leaves the reader with the sense that, at least for a time, many of Jang’s followers did believe it.

Additionally, the CT article points out that the connections between Jang and the Unification Church go beyond surface similarities, noting that Jang taught at a UC seminary for 9 years (1989-1998), though in later interviews Jang claimed to be infiltrating the seminary with orthodox theology.

The suggestion is that some members of Jang’s movement were introduced to private teachings; according to the CT article:

Former member Ma Li, who says she began the lessons in China in 2002, said that when she finished, her instructor looked at her and another new member very seriously and asked, “Have you understood? All the content?”

“I answered firmly: ‘Yes,'” she said. “Then she asked me separately: ‘Who is Pastor David?’ I answered without thinking, just followed what I heard just now and answered: ‘The Second Coming Christ!’ She said, ‘Shhh,’ calmly, and then, ‘Don’t tell others.'”

CT also explains why this of international interest:

Over the last five years, ministries and organizations founded by or connected to Jang have gained influence in American and global evangelical ministries, including the World Evangelical Alliance.

…The first missionaries to China arrived in 1996 and formed the core of the Young Disciples of Jesus. The Christian Post and Christian Today have dated their founding to 2000 (on its website, The Christian Post recently changed the founding date to 2004). The Gospel Herald and the American body of the Evangelical Assembly of Presbyterian Churches (EAPC) launched in 2004, and the International Business Times in 2006. By 2002, Jang had recruited adherents in key cities throughout China, Japan, and Korea, and had begun expanding into the United States.

…Southern Baptists have played a prominent role on advisory boards of Jang’s organizations. The Christian Post, which bills itself as “the nation’s most comprehensive Christian news website,” lists as its chairman [William] Wagner, the president of Olivet University (OU) who ran for the Southern Baptist Convention presidency in 2008. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is the media outlet’s executive editor.

What, then, should we make of the Christian Post’s response to the CT story? Fitzgerald writes:

The day after CT’s article was published online, the Post published a long piece titled, “Sources in ‘Second Coming Christ Controversy’ Face Scrutiny,” followed days later by another with the less subtle headline, “Christianity Today Writer Ken Smith Is Founder of a Company Fined for Deceptive Business Practices; With Child Porn Ties.”

…Penned by the Post’s Katherine T. Phan, it highlights Smith’s work as the founder of the now defunct software company, Zango (which web-savvy readers may remember for their intrusive advertising in web browsers). 

Smith acknowledged that Zango “partnered with some people that we should never have partnered with” in a 2009 post on his blog—which the CP article cites—titled “What Zango Got Wrong.”

When I asked if he was aware of Smith’s history with Zango, Olsen told me that “The child porn thing really came out of the blue. It wasn’t an issue that was on my radar until CP ran the article.” He continued, “That headline was really shocking. Did he distribute child porn? was the question in the headline. If you read the article the answer is no. Zango is not a child porn company and never was.”

The truth of the accusations about Jang discussed by CT may remain murky, but the Post‘s reaction to those accusations is in itself very troubling: the “child porn” headline’s slant is manifestly misleading and repellently vicious. This kind of scorched-earth counter-attack is more the kind of thing that one associates with Scientology.

Fitzgerald also draws attention to some commentary by Timothy Dalrymple at Patheos. Dalrymple writes:

…what they issued was a full-throated defense of David Jang and an even more rip-roaring excoriation of Christianity Today and every person who criticized Jang within the piece.  They issued, in other words, a performative affirmation that they are, in fact, David Jang’s mouthpiece.

The purpose of the response was to defend David Jang.  If possible, however, the nature of the response was even worse — presented as journalism, it was actually a no-qualifications, no-holds-barred defense.  There was not a single criticism of Jang that possessed any merit whatsoever, and none of the figures cited in Christianity Today‘s article were anything but complete and utter liars.  Meanwhile, the people who defend Jang and who attack his critics, even if they themselves work for Jang-affiliated companies, possess unquestioned authority and good will.  This is not journalism; it’s public relations.  It’s not reporting, but spin.

The Post claims that Smith’s association with Zango was brought to its attention by “commentators” following the CT article. However, it seems that the Post planned a hit-pierce on Smith ahead of the CT piece; Smith himself writes

one of their emails to Christianity Today said that the “story is going to be about Ken’s involvement with an international network of pro-North Korean, anti-Christian and leftist groups that are attacking Christian organizations.”

That line of attack never materialised, but it just so happened that an alternative concern was raised by “commentators”.

Last month, CT ran a follow-up piece, with input from Edmond and Susan Chua, who used to run the Post‘s Singapore edition:

Edmond and Susan also confirmed what other sources have told CT: Before 2006, it was common for those who had confessed [to Jang as Christ] to send a letter of their confession to Jang. CT has independently obtained a document which, although it is not addressed to Jang, otherwise appears to be just such a written confession. (To protect the confidentiality of its source, CT was asked not to quote from the document directly.) The writer, a current employee of a Jang-associated organization, refers to Jang as “Christ” more than a dozen times in this document.

The Chuas also showed CT a transcript of a 2002 sermon suggesting that “Jang’s church constitutes the 144,000 sealed servants of God of Revelation 7”. There’s also the interesting Unifcation Church-tinged detail that

The two married on David Jang’s birthday, October 30, 2006—the 14th anniversary of the founding of Jang’s movement—along with 69 other couples, Susan said.

According to the Post, however, this was not a wedding, but rather “a Christian service for couples who desire to dedicate their family to God in front of other believers before marriage”.

CT also claims to have seen evidence suggestive that Jang is strangely secretive about his media empire:

In one email provided to CT, Johnathan Davis, the chief content officer of IBTimes, declined to participate in a Christian industry association being organized by leaders of other Jang-affiliated publications like The Christian Post, because, he said, “My commission is inherently covert.”

…In a different email thread discussing whether to include The Christian Post‘s history as part of its employee handbook, one senior leader wrote, “I don’t think we should include the history in the handbook. The issue is that PD [Pastor David] doesn’t want the history in written, audio or video form to fall into a non-members’ hands. Once you make a hard copy of something it is set in stone and he still wants some things to remain vague.”

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From the Guardian:

The Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska dramatically settled his long-running feud with the billionaire businessman Michael Cherney on Thursday when Deripaska announced both parties had reached an out of court settlement.

…Cherney claimed that during this period under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s he was Deripaska’s business partner….

According to Deripaska, the arrangement between the two men was simply one of “krysha” — the Russian word for “roof” — with Deripaska paying Cherney and his mafia partners huge sums of money in return for physical and political protection. Cherney denied this and said that without his help Deripaska – now a close ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – would never have become a major player in the industry.

The case was to be heard in London; Cherney was due to give evidence via video-link from Israel, because “authorities in Spain had issued an EU-wide arrest warrant for him” over money-laundering allegations. The “In the City” column of the latest Private Eye magazine (1324) has an account of the case, focusing in particular on evidence submitted about both men’s association with a third individual, Sergei Popov.

Cherney has featured in the blog in the past: his “Michael Cherney Foundation” sponsors an organisation called the “Jerusalem Summit”, which promotes the view that Palestinians ought to be given “relocation grants” to leave “Israeli-administered areas” (inevitably described as “Judea Samaria and Gaza”). The Summit’s “Presidium” includes Baroness Caroline Cox, Daniel Pipes, and Sam Brownback; other associates include the apocalyptic Christian Zionist Mike Evans and UKIP’s Lord Pearson, to whom Cherney presented an award in 2007 at an event held in Paraliment. The Summit has also promoted a short book called Universal Zionism, which contains a number of bizarre (and somewhat distasteful) religious ideas.

Cherney has always maintained that he has been the victim of smears by his enemies – these include an investigative journalist, whom Cherney accuses of having faked a gun attack against himself.  It must have been tricky to keep one’s distance from organised crime during the ruthless “Aluminium Wars” which made Cherney and Deripaska both incredibly wealthy, but Cherney nevertheless managed to rise to the top without resorting to anything reprehensible. I discussed the full background here.

In the UK, media interest is primarily focused on Deripaska, who is “a long-time friend of Peter Mandelson and financier Nat Rothschild”, and who has also received George Osborne on his yacht. However, although Deripaska may be a “close ally” of Putin, a 2009 incident demonstrates that he’s kept on a short leash

Over 20,000 people in Pikalyovo have been sitting without jobs, paychecks, heating and hot water for several months… Thinking of business and not social welfare, employers simply sent their workers into unpaid furloughs or laid them off.

…In a particularly remarkable episode which was shown by all national TV channels, Putin called billionaire Oleg Deripaska – the owner of one of the factories [in the town] – over to his desk and literally made the latter sign an agreement that would allow the plant to restart operation.

“I can’t see your signature here,” Putin’s voice was full of irritation, a very rare scene on Russian television. “Come over to me. Here is the agreement,” Putin said, throwing a pen on top of the document.

Looking somber, the unshaven tycoon… stooped over the desk with a demeanor of a schoolboy and signed the agreement, forgetting to return Putin’s pen. “And will you give me the pen back as well?” Putin reminded Deripaska without a trace of politeness.

(Name variations: Michael Chernoy; Mikhail Chernoy; Mikhail Chernoi)

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Last week, the UK far-left Morning Star newspaper attracted criticism and condemnation for publishing an article by the notorious figure of Israel Shamir on the subject of Pussy Riot. Shamir advanced the theory that the trial had been orchestrated as “a weapon against Putin” by “oligarchs, big business, the media lords, the pro-Western intelligentsia of Moscow, and Western interests which naturally prefer Russia divided against itself”, noting in particular the alleged role of “Marat Gelman, a Russian Jewish art collector”. Shamir further opined that:

The Russians proved that they care for Christ as much as the French care for Auschwitz, and this shocked the Europeans who apparently thought ‘hate laws’ may be applied only to protect Jews and gays.

This naturally brought to mind Shamir’s well-known denialist views about the Holocaust, and his conspiracy theories about Jews. The Morning Star removed the item a few hours after publication, and issued a statement explaining that the article had been “syndicated from Counterpunch in good faith without knowledge of the author’s background” and that the paper does not share Shamir’s opinions.

“Syndication” has the connotation of articles from one source being published in another through a more or less automatic arrangement. However, it was noted by Jim Denham that one particularly egregious sentence had been dropped from the Morning Star version of the article: this was that “Western governments call for more freedom for the anti-Christian Russians, while denying it for holocaust revisionists in their midst”. Further, Shamir has now published what purports to  be an email from the Morning Star asking him personally for permission to reproduce the article:

Unfortunately, we run on a shoestring so we’re unable to pay a fee but I hope you will agree as it will bring your challenging piece to a wider readership.

Inevitably, Shamir now attacks the Morning Star for having supposedly given in to “the pressure of the Jewish lobby”, and he goes on to identify “enemies of the Church in Russia” with a number of non-practising Jews who “apparently inherited their hatred to the Church from their forefathers”.

Shamir is a convert to Orthodoxy, having been baptised by the controversial and dubious Bishop Atallah Hanna. He is also well-known for his links with the authoritarian regime in Belarus; in December, Charter97 reported that he had met with Uladzimri Makei, Head of the Belarusian President’s Administration. Shamir has been described as “representing” Wikileaks in Russia and Belarus, and there is a concern that Wikileaks cables concerning opposition groups may have been brought to the attention of the authorities. It should be recalled that Belarus President Lukashenko also receives strong personal support from the Russian Patriarch.

Footnote

Shamir’s views on Pussy Riot put him at odds with Julian Assange. Assange, famously speaking from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, compared the sentencing of Pussy Riot with the extradition case against him:

There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.

However, this was just a couple of days after the Pussy Riot sentencing, and was perhaps opportunistic; the Guardian noted:

Some observers pointed out that Assange avoided any reference to dissidents or free speech campaigners in Russia while carrying out interviews with international figures as part of a series broadcast exclusively by Russia Today.

Evgeny Morozov, the author of the Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, tweeted sarcastically: “Great that Assange supports Pussy Riot. Perhaps, he can have them on his TV show. Oh wait….”

Shamir’s view of the rape allegations against Assange was noted by the Guardian in January 2011:

On 27 August, in Counterpunch, a small radical US publication, Shamir said Assange was framed by “spies” and “crazy feminists”. He alleged there had been a “honeytrap”. On 14 September, Shamir then attacked “castrating feminists and secret services”, writing that one of the women involved, whom he deliberately named, had once discussed the Cuban opposition to Castro in a Swedish academic publication “connected with” someone with “CIA ties”.

Meanwhile, Assange has also reportedly suggested – and then withdrawn – claims of a Jewish conspiracy against him, in an exchange via telephone with Ian Hislop.

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