Bartholomew's Notes

From the UK’s National Secular Society:

The government recently gave thousands of pounds to a Christian group whose chair said Islam is “demonic” and “spiritual wickedness”, the National Secular Society has found.

Zion Projects, a Christian charity based in Eastleigh, Hampshire, is one of 16 religious organisations given a total of £1.3 million in public money as part of the government’s ‘Faith New Deal’ fund. Zion Projects was awarded £43,220 last year for a project entitled “As One Hampshire”.

A 2020 video… on Vimeo shows Danny Stupple, the chair and a trustee of Zion Projects, making anti-Islam comments during a Covid-19 lockdown meeting of the “Eastleigh Prophetic Hub”.

…In the same video, Stupple also suggests God is using the pandemic to “make the point of the value of life” because he anticipates “the same amount of babies being saved as the number of people who die” as a result of women being unable to get abortions during lockdown.

He also claims that Brexit is “important to the Lord” and that Dominic Cummings has an “anointing” to accomplish it.

According to Third Sector, the “government is urgently investigating” the matter, although it may be hampered by the fact that Stupple’s videos have disappeared from various streaming sites.

However, the segment discussed by the NSS has been reuploaded by a supporter on Bitchute. The context for Stupple’s discourse is Charismatic or Neo-Pentecostal “spritual warfare” beliefs, and he works his way through various “pillars” of society – this is instantly recognisable as the “Seven Mountain Mandate” of Christian dominionism, and they also feature on the Zion Projects website as “7 arenas”. Stupple believes that there is a “shaking” taking place in each “pillar”, but his observations do not necessarily all conform to right-wing conservatism; in particular, as regards the pillar of “business”, he is of the view that “legacy of slavery” is being exposed, and he refers negatively to “big business, represented by statues of people who made fortunes and built cities on the back of slavery”.

Despite the loss of output from streaming sites including Vimeo, Soundcloud and TuneIn, title listings remain visible. In 2021 discussions included “How History Informs Prophecy” in the British Isles from Phillip Quenby; a conversation with “Tomas Sandell Of The European Coalition For Israel”; “Eastleigh to Israel Bridge with Cody and Liat Archer in the Golan Heights”; and a guest appearance from Calvin Robinson. Stupple and his group have particular regard for a French evangelist named Pierre-Daniel Martin, who is based in Marseille (1) – the Bitchute video starts with Stupple referring to “four prophecies” that Martin had made. Zion Projects’ activities include the Annual Eastleigh Creation Conference, which promotes “open-minded scrutiny of the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis and related human ideas which challenge the Christian faith”.

As noted by the NSS, in 2013 Stupple stood as an independent candidate in a local by-election; an archive of his campaign is still available on YouTube. He is also chair of Harvest Vision, a charity that has a trustee Timothy Vince, who in 2019 stood as a Brexit Party candidate in South Thanet.

“Prophetic Hubs” are an initiative of Clifford Hill, assisted by Dr Peter Carruthers. Hill has been a well-known figure in the UK Christian Right for decades, particularly via his magazine Prophecy Today and a stream of books that claim to provide “prophetic insight” into modern Britain. I noted his involvement with the 1980s Satanic Panic here.

Note

1. P.-D. Martin’s background is discussed in a sociological paper here, which is primarily concerned with visits he has made to the island of Moorea in French Polynesia.

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