Bartholomew's Notes

As is being widely reported, Bishop David Oyedepo has come under fire after a video was posted to YouTube showing him slapping a young girl across the face during a public “deliverance” service at his Faith Tabernacle mega-church in Ota, a suburb in Lagos.

The video shows the young girl telling Oyedepo that she was a “witch for Jesus”, and this – along with the fact that she’s a young girl unlikely to respond in kind – was what provoked Oyedepo to violence. It’s not clear what she meant by her self-identification: perhaps she’s a member of some syncretic religious group (unlikely), or perhaps she’s developed her own ideas based on the cultural mix around her. However, it’s also  possible that she’s simply someone who was accused of being a witch and was acting out the role expected of her – I’ve noted other incidents of this. A follow-up video shows Oyedepo boasting that the girl had later come to him to ask for his forgiveness for being a witch.

Oyedepo’s behaviour is particularly troubling given the context of on-going violence against children accused of witchcraft in Nigeria and elsewhere and his status within African Neo-Pentecostalism. Oyedepo is not just another successful evangelist: according to Forbes he is “Nigeria’s wealthiest preacher”, and he enjoys international connections. In particular, he is close to Kenneth Copeland, who is a major player in the US Christian Right; Copeland has spoken at Oyedepo’s church, and Oyedepo has addressed Kenneth Copeland Ministries in the USA. According to Copeland’s newsletter,

In 2008, David Oyedepo was an honored speaker at KCM’s Ministers’ Conference. “I give glory to God for Kenneth and Gloria Copeland,” Oyedepo says. “The revelation through their books taught me how to walk in kingdom prosperity, and now countless thousands are walking in that revelation as well.”

Oyedepo also attends events in London (where his son has a franchise church) – about a year ago, I saw an advert for him on the side of a taxi passing along Aldwych.

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From the Charlotte Business Journal, September 2008:

Plans to rebuild the long-vacant hotel tower that was the centerpiece of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s failed Heritage USA have moved beyond a hope and a prayer.

One of Charlotte’s largest general contractors is on the job, heading a $40 million redevelopment of the building for MorningStar Fellowship Church. The 21-story structure is getting new life as an age-restricted condo building that will cater to Christians.

The massive renovation, headed by Choate Construction Co., is expected to start in January. The tower could have its first residents by mid-2010, says Patrick Selvey, MorningStar construction manager.

From WBTV, December 2011:

FORT MILL, SC (WBTV) – It’s been standing in Fort Mill for 20 years falling apart since the downfall of the Jim Bakker.  Morning star ministries bought the old PTL tower eight years ago with the promise to fix it up into retirement community. 

Money and legal battles have clouded the future of what neighbors call an eye sore.

However those same residents around the tower say they may found a loop hole in the system, and filed a petition on a little known county ordinance hoping the law will finally get something done.

…The county ordnance was written in 2002.  Morning Star took over the building in 2004 with plans to repair it and sell the apartments.  So since the building is technically a dwelling it falls under the regulations of the ordinance.

The ordinance goes on to state if the owner can’t repair the property the county can take over and demolish it.

Morning Star’s leader Rick Joyner explained the reason for the continuing delays back in March 2010:

Joyner acknowledges construction hasn’t started. The credit crisis has trimmed the number of banks interested in financing the deal to four from the original 14, he says.

This raises a particular difficulty: Joyner has for a long time claimed to have received messages from God warning of the imminent economic collapse of the USA, with the populace reduced to bartering for survival. Joyner’s original plan back in 2004, when he bought 52 acres from developer Earl Coulston, was “to try to hire a movie production company to demolish” the building, but it seems that he quickly decided that it would be better instead to restore the tower. This was during the height of the property bubble, so why didn’t God warn Joyner about the financing problems he would face? And to what extent does Joyner’s current business plan take account of economic armageddon being around the corner?

Although the tower remains dilapidated, Joyner has restored part of Jim Bakker’s former property, creating the Heritage Grand Hotel. The hotel has been the venue for at least one event held by the Order of Saint John (or “The Knights of Malta: The Ecumenical Order”). This is the chivalric order of which Joyner is “Deputy Member of the Supreme Council” and Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin is the “Grand Chancellor”.

(H/T: Right Wing Watch)

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From the website of Russia Today, 13 December:

With international rhetoric hardening against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, peace activist Dr Maher Salloum tells RT the West is not really seeking a dialogue with the Syrian regime.

…The world community is not doing enough to ensure a dialogue between Damascus and its opponents, believes Dr Maher Salloum, the ambassador for the Universal Peace Federation.

“It seems that the West has been concentrating on the position that there can be no dialogue with such a president as Bashar Assad. I believe there is still a gap between the Syrian regime and its opponents within and outside the country,” he told RT.

A comment below the story makes a pertinent point:

I am very interested in Maher Salloum’s full qualifications. I am sure he is qualified but the only qualification presented here is that he is an Ambassador of the Universal Peace Federation.(UPF)

… If, as the report reflects, Maher Salloum’s primary qualification is the blessing of Sun Myung Moon as representative of the UPF, the viewers and readers should be told what the UPF is.

Indeed. The UPF is a subject I’ve blogged on a number of times, both here and on my spin-off blog (see link at top of page)

Salloum has also made a number of appearances on Iran’s Press TV, which on several occasions has noted his “Ambassador for Peace” title. Press TV has also described him variously as “Professor of International Relations from the Lebanese International University” and as a “Political Analyst”; however, according to his Facebook page (as Mack Salloum) he’s recently become Associate Professor of Marketing and Management at the Islamic University of Lebanon.

Salloum is strong advocate of the Palestinian cause, and he regards US actions in the Middle East as being at the behest of Israel:

Because of the results of the invasions and the attacks by the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and all the areas they have been involved in as an international army right now. I mean the Israeli army has been given weapons and intelligence support technically, militarily, financially, and this has been used as an American intellectual property. It has been used against the Lebanese and other Arabs such as the Palestinians and even the Iraqis. So the real goal here is to disrupt the Arab world through the US administration whether it is Obama or anyone else. But the real message is to benefit Israel’s interests in the area. 

The real enemy of the Arab world is Israel. It is not the US. The US is acting as a tool in order to deliver the message by Israel. 

That doesn’t seem quite on-message with the UPF’s “Middle East Peace Initiative“.

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As we approach the festive season, it is in the spirit of Christmas that we remember those less fortunate than ourselves. This year, I would like to highlight the plight of families in the UK who don’t have enough to eat.

Nadine Dorries MP has the distressing and poignant details:

“I was with an MP the other day, and his wife rang him. She was at the supermarket checkout and her debit card had been refused. They had no money in their account. He was just distraught, and all because he’s too scared to claim travel expenses, scared of what the local paper will write if he does. People are starving, poor things.”

Sometimes I despair for our society: care assistants in need of medical treatment are allowed off work despite being able to use Twitter, yet genuine public servants go hungry, despite what Edwina Currie might have to say on the subject.

Fortunately, Dorries’ own “local paper” fully understands that investigating MPs’ expenses is a form of stalking and to be deplored, and this means that she herself is able to be an activist for reform. She led the way in July 2010, when her copy of the expenses guidelines for MPs “accidentally” fell from her office window onto a nearby roof – she posted a photo of this on her blog, as a rebuke to busy-body officials and ungrateful elements of the general public.

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A couple of Swedish-language reports show attempts by the Sweden Democrat (SD) Party and by Kent Ekeroth to distance themselves from Alan Lake, the former English Defence League activist; meanings can be gleaned from Google Translate (slightly tidied-up as used here).

On Wednesday, a documentary strand on STV called Uppdrag Granskning had a general overview of the EDL in the context of “counterjihad” activism and the Utøya massacre, including an interview with Lake (from 36:23). Lake’s “chickens come home roost” statement was put to him; he admitted this sounded like a “justification”, but insisted that this had not been his intent – it was supposed to be a “statement of causality”.

In the same programme, the SD’s Mattias Karlsson described statements made by Lake as “very unpleasant. And it’s so far from what we as a party stands for as you can get” (1).

Regarding a meeting in Malmo in 2009 which involved Lake and the SD’s Kent Ekeroth, Karlsson stressed that:

What I want to emphasize is that we as a party never sent out Ekeroth on official mission to participate in these meetings and we have not funded them. (2)

Expo, meanwhile, is sceptical of this, noting that the SD newspaper had published a report in which the meeting was described as having been organised by the party and as having been a success. Further:

Ekeroth did not want to answer more questions but said he would not have invited the Lake if he had known what statements he would make in the future. (3)

***

(1) From the documentary website: “Det är väldigt obehagligt. Och det är ju så långt ifrån vad vi som parti står för som man kan komma.”

(2) As transcribed by Expo: “Det jag vill poängtera är att vi som parti aldrig skickat ut Ekeroth på officiella uppdrag att delta på de här mötena och vi har inte finansierat dem. Det är något som han gjort på eget bevåg.”

(3) “Ekeroth vill inte svara på fler frågor men säger att han inte hade bjudit in Lake om han hade känt till vilka uttalanden han skulle göra i framtiden.”

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WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a new enthusiasm – a book entitled Harbinger, by Jonathan Cahn of the Jerusalem Center-Beth Israel Congregation in Wayne, N.J. Cahn has found examples of a couple of (Democratic) politicians using a Bible verse out of context, in a way that Farah believes (or purports to believe) is of wider spiritual significance:

“…I am persuaded God is trying to tell America something and Rabbi Cahn has found the key to unlocking the message.”

The misused text is Isaiah 9:10:

“The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”

These words were first uttered by leaders in Israel and in response to a limited strike by Assyria on the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali – an attack the prophet makes clear is actually part of a limited judgment by God against apostasy. It wasn’t meant to destroy the nation, but to awaken it, according to most commentaries.

But, says Cahn, Israel didn’t take the cue. Instead, the response from the people in Isaiah 9:10 is one of defiance. The brick buildings were toppled, but they vowed to build bigger and better. The little sycamore trees may have been uprooted, but they vowed to plant bigger and better cedars in their place.

In the wake of 9/11, the verse was quoted by Tom Daschle, and three years later by Senator Jonathan Edwards:

“Like Daschle, Edwards thinks he’s invoking inspirational and comforting words from the Bible, but he’s actually inviting judgment on America,” says Cahn. “He’s repeating the vow that provoked God to bring calamity on ancient Israel.”

WND helpfully provides footage of both quotes, overlaid some with brooding Philip Glass music for extra sinister effect.

Of course, quote-mining the Bible in a way that does violence to authorial intent and context is a commonplace vice (indeed, Farah is himself a frequent offender), although it’s depressing to see such a howler from supposedly well-educated public figures. One could make a sensible point about the shallowness and self-serving nature of what passes for a good deal of public religion. However, Farah and Cahn tell us that it’s more than that, as they read occult significance into a couple of details around the redevelopment of Ground Zero:

There was actually a very famous sycamore tree felled in the attack on the World Trade Center. It was replaced by trees in the same genus as the cedar. There have been many plans made to rebuild the twin towers bigger and better and a large “hewn stone” was actually quarried out of the Adirondack Mountains in New York and brought to Ground Zero as a cornerstone.

The new trees at the site are pines are rather cedars, and it’s unclear how they “replace” the famous sycamore that stood near St Paul’s Chapel, but apparently we can dispense with literalism when it suits.

UPDATE: WND has now knocked out a second article on the subject. The article clarifies that the apocalyptic tree is a conifer planted in St Paul’s Churchyard as a “Tree of Hope” in 2003, and that the Hebrew word erez, usually translated as “cedar”, is also used to mean the pine tree. It’s still moronic, though: the Biblical verse refers to trees in the plural, yet Cahn can’t make his mind up whether the “Tree of Hope” in particular or the pine trees in the general vicinity are of eschatological significance.

Perhaps its also worth spelling out a more general point: Isaiah 9:10 and its adjacent verses are an interpretation of the destruction of the ancient northern kingdom of Israel. The author is not interested in a terrorist attack happening thousands of years later on a distant land mass he had no inkling even existed.

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Release International reports from Pakistan:

A Pakistan Christian has received death threats for blasphemy after speaking out against the assassination of a government minister, himself killed for opposing the blasphemy laws. This latest death threat ratchets up the risk to Christians in Pakistan, where militants regard even questioning the blasphemy laws as blasphemous.

36-year-old Arif Ferguson and his entire family have had to go into hiding, following death threats by the Pakistan Taliban and others.

…Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for killing Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, describing him as a blasphemer of Mohammed. The same group is now threatening to kill Arif Ferguson.

This is, of course, just one incident among many in Pakistan, where the blasphemy laws and blasphemy accusations regularly lead to state repression and vigilante violence. Just a few days ago, the Express Tribune reported that

Shahdara police have arrested a Christian man after a charged mob blocked GT Road for three hours demanding that he be booked in a blasphemy case for burning pages of the Holy Quran.

The police registered an FIR under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code against Khurram Masih on the complaint of Zulfiqar Ali and arrested him on Monday night. Masih was produced before a judicial magistrate on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody.

A mob of about a thousand people wielding sticks took to GT Road at Shahdara Chowk and blocked traffic with burning tyres on both sides of the road.

Being left to the mob or taken into custody can be equally dangerous; in September it was also reported that

A Christian man accused of blasphemy died in a Pakistani prison on Sept. 9, the International Christian Concern announced Tuesday.

Aslam Masih died of a “treatable disease” after officials denied him proper medical care, ICC reported.

He had reportedly died of Dengue virus, an infectious tropical disease.

…Masih was reportedly arrested in 2010 after having been accused of blasphemy by two members of the Tablighi Jammat, an Islamic missionary group.

…The incident added to a row of deaths and arrests related to the persecution of Christians in Pakistan. According to ICC, another Christian man, Qamar David, died in the Pakistani prison in March. Though the authorities cited a heart attack as an official cause, it is believed that he might have been murdered, according to ICC.

In some cases, blasphemy accusations are levelled against a Christian business rival or in relation to a private dispute. Other cases, however, reveal anti-Christian animus or even a Salem-like hysteria at work; in September it was reported that a 13-year-old Christian schoolgirl and her family had gone into hiding over a spelling mistake:

[She] was sitting an Urdu exam which involved a poem about the prophet Muhammad when she dropped a dot on the Urdu word naat (a devotional hymn to the prophet), accidentally turning it into lanaat, or damnation. Spotting the error, her teacher scolded her, beat her and reported the matter to the principal. The news soon flamed through her community in Havelian, 30 miles north of Islamabad.

Mullahs raged against Bhatti in their sermons; a school inquiry was hastily convened to examine the matter. Bhatti was expelled; her mother, a government nurse, was banished to another town, and the family has since fled Havelian in fear of their lives. All over a missing dot.

However, Christians are not the only victims of blasphemy accusations; last month it was reported that

An Ahmadi student from Lahore (Punjab) was expelled from her university in her senior after she was accused of blasphemy. Students affiliated with Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwwat (TKN) accused Rabia Saleem of ripping up a poster with anti-Ahmadi content.

…TKN-affiliated students announced that “Ahmadi students would not be allowed” on campus, and that anybody who tried to resist them would be killed. The university and the education ministry reacted to the threat with total silence.

Inevitably, accusations are also now even deployed opportunistically against mainstream Muslims; at the weekend the Express Tribune reported that

Complainant Hafiz Ghulam Hasan, the prayer leader at Jasmia Masjid Chiragh Din, Hundal village, has accused Amjad alias Haji Toka and his wife Samreena in a complaint filed at the Saddar police station of blaspheming about the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

…Saddar police station house officer, Inspector Hameedullah, told The Express Tribune the suspects were sent to a prison on a judicial remand to avoid an untoward incident that could have occurred had they been held at the police station.

He said an investigation into the incident had revealed that the complainant and several other villagers had obtained loans from the suspects and defaulted on repayment. He said Hafiz Hasan had recently leased a motorcycle from Amjad’s business.

Islamists organised a national strike in defence of the blasphemy laws at the end of last year; the New York Times noted commentary from Mehdi Hasan of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan:

“I call it a natural result of religious extremism that is on the rise in Pakistani society… The liberal and democratic forces in the country have retreated so much that it has created an ideological vacuum that is now being filled by the religious extremists.”

Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was murdered a short time after this, and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti two months after that; both had criticised the blasphemy laws and defended the Christian Asia Bibi, who remains on death row following a blasphemy conviction (and even she were to be freed, she risks being murdered). The Muslim judge who sentenced Taseer’s killer to death has reportedly fled to Saudi Arabia with his family, although there is some dispute over whether this is correct or whether he has gone there on hajj.

The appointment of Sherry Rehman as the new ambassador to the USA also highlights how difficult it is to change the law; Tom Wright at the Wall Street Journal reports:

…Ms. Rehman… has been in the spotlight in recent months for her championing of efforts to overturn Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which sanction the death penalty for people found guilty of blasphemy against Muhammad, Islam’s holy prophet. For a while this year, she went into hiding after receiving death threats for her plans to bring legislation to parliament to amend the laws. She later withdrew her amendments, which [Mohammad Waseem, a professor of political sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences] said happened under pressure from the government as it was fearful of stirring up protests from Islamist groups.

Yesterday, Wright reported that the International Crisis Group in Brussels has published a report with recommendations for curtailing Islamist power:

The problem is that few in Pakistan are listening.

To an outsider, the report’s recommendations seem common sense: regulate better the network of “madrassas,” or religious schools, these parties run; prosecute people for speeches that incite violence against religious minorities; require Islamist parties to disband their militant wings; and, most importantly, work to repeal the blasphemy law and other legislation that discriminates against non-Muslims.

But Pakistan’s secular political parties, including the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, remain cowed by what they view as the power of the Islamist parties to wreak havoc through violent protests across the country in defense of their religious prerogatives.

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Back in October, I blogged on a feud between three former Defence League activists: Alan Lake, Lena Andreassen, and Paul Ray. Lake has accused Andreassen of giving his real name to a journalist, and Lake and Ray have accused each other of influencing Anders Behring Breivik. Ray has also used his blog to publicise Lake’s real name – Alan Ayling – and to give alleged details of early English Defence League planning meetings which were held in Lake’s flat in London. Ray was one of the founders of the EDL in 2009, but he was quickly sidelined.

Ray returned to public attention in the wake of Breivik’s massacre; his blog postings apparently caught the eye of the Sunday Times, which yesterday published a report by Dipesh Gadher and Robin Henry entitled “Unmasked: Wealthy Backers Behind Far-Right League”:

A Sunday Times investigation has revealed that Ann Marchini, a mother from Highgate, north London, and Alan Ayling, a former director of an investment fund, have sought to mould the thuggish anti-Muslim group into a credible political force.

They are both linked to the murky world of the online “counter-jihad” movement from which Anders Behring Breivik drew ideological inspiration before committing his massacre in Norway in July. They have remained in the shadows until now by using aliases on the internet to mask their true identities.

…Ayling, 57, has been operating under the alias “Alan Lake”. He is an IT expert and was a director of Pacific Capital Investment Management until January this year. The fund was dissolved in August. (1)

Lake’s flat was the location of an EDL planning meeting in July 2009:

Ray regards the… meeting as “pivotal”. “It was the key people being brought together,” he said. “It was bringing together the ideological and political side with the boots on the ground.”

Ray has had further details on his blog since July 2011:

The very first meeting in London when Steven Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy” assumed the leadership role of the English Defence League with Chris Knowles (CLA) and others present whose names I have, Jeff Marsh [see here  -RB] aka Joe Cardiff from Wales was due to attend the meeting but Chris Renton EDL alias John Sheridan prevented him from attending by arranging to meet him about buying hooligan books on the same day.

…It is not going to be very long until the Norwegian police know everyone in Alan Lakes little London flat that day, and who the professor talking about military strategies was. I am sure he was not English, I might be mistaken though, but I think he came from a Scandanavian Country. Chris Knowles of Civil Liberties Alliance knows each of them because I invited him and he invited them, which includes him inviting Lake to the EDL table. 

Somewhat confusingly, Ray also describes two meetings as having taken place:

Ann/Gaia, Alan Lake, Kinana, ‘Richard the Lionheart’ and myself were all present at that first discussion strategy meeting in Alan Lakes flat.

At the second meeting there was Gandalf of the Up Pompeii blog, who is the military strategist/tactician professor, Kinana, Alan Lake, Chris Knowles, Ann/Gaia, myself and Yaxley/Tommy, Kevin Carroll and another one of their family members.

“Kinana” is a friend of Lake, as discussed here. The reference to a “Richard the Lionheart” being present is  a new development:

Below is a screen shot of an email sent to me by Kinana in July 2009 after the first meeting in Lake/Ayling’s London flat before the founding EDL meeting a couple of weeks later.

…As you will see there was a man present at that meeting who called himself ‘Richard the Lionheart’, it is the same man who posts on Jihad Watch under that alias. He is a big ginger haired guy from London, and if my memory serves me correctly he was more militant about the anti-jihad movement…

It was whilst going through my emails to confirm the dates, events taking place and certain individuals being present at the meetings that I came across Kinana’s email. I was shocked and stunned at what I read and amazed how I had totally forgotten.

This is of some interest because Breivik claims to have had a “mentor” who uses the name Richard the Lionheart; however, the name is an obvious moniker for anyone interested in drawing on Templar and Crusader imagery (indeed, Ray himself uses the name “Lionheart”).

Returning to the Sunday Times report:

Two days after the meeting, Ray received an email from “Dominique Devaux”, using the account “gaia2600@hotmail.com”. “Still very interested in helping EDF [sic] grow as a movement,” it stated. It was signed off by “Ann”.

Ann Marchini denies that she is this person, although the Times presents circumstantial evidence to the contrary. She lives in London and owns a number of buy-to-let properties; Ray “says he had previously stayed for ‘a few months’ at one of her rental flats [in]… east London.” “Gaia” recently posted a report at Gates of Vienna about the EDL’s new link-up with the British Freedom Party.

UPDATE: Dagbladet has picked up on Ray’s publication of the Kinana email which mentions “Richard the Lionheart”; the police are looking into it, but not giving any details.

Footnote

(1) A 2008 report from Business Today shows that PCIM was involved in multi-million pound “convertible note” dealings in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. However, although Sunday Times reveals that Lake lives in a flat in a desirable part of central London, it looks to me that previous reports calling him the “millionaire financier” for EDL were indeed exaggerated – he maintains that he only ever donated £200 or so to the EDL, and documents relating to PCIM confirm his occupation as being an IT manager (as he stated to  Dagbladet last week).

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From the Ocean City (Maryland) Dispatch:

The commander of the infamous Black Hawk Down has been announced as this year’s Ocean City Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast speaker.

Ocean City Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast Director Bruce Spangler expressed excitement this week about Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin of the US Army, retired coming to Ocean City next month.

“Talking to people that know this guy, they say he’s a soldiers-soldier … he isn’t somebody that lives from behind but is upfront leading,” Spangler said.

…“He is an expert on Islamic history,” Spangler said.

Right Wing Watch adds a bit more context to this report:

In reality, Boykin is an anti-Islam activist who believes that Muslims do not deserve First Amendment protections and should not be allowed to build mosques in America. He also says that not only can there be no interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims, but that Christians must go on the offensive against Islam.

He also believes that George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations intentionally collapsed the US economy in order to help elect President Obama, who is now using health care reform legislation to create an army of Brownshirt soldiers loyal only to him.

Boykin is particularly associated with the neo-Pentecostal evangelist Rick Joyner, and with Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries and Oak Initiative.

The Dispatch also gives a bit of general background:

Twenty-two years ago, Spangler was approached by two friends of his who organized the Easton Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast and the Delaware Governors Prayer Breakfast. After approaching Ocean City’s mayor at the time, Fish Powell, the concept of the resort’s Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast was created.

(“Fish” was apparently a nickname). In 2010, the speaker was Steve Young from Campus Crusade for Christ International; according to the Dispatch,

“We have in between 400 to 500 people who attend,” Spangler said. “Professional people, business people, people in the community. People come to me and say, what a great way to start a day.”

…Tickets can be purchased at City Hall, Long and Foster Realty on 120th street, Cropper Oil Company on Route 50 in Berlin, and the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce on Route 50 in Ocean City.

That last detail caught the attention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which made a  complaint to current Mayor Rick Meehan

…urging the city to discontinue the use of city resources and taxpayer funds to “plan, organize and promote” a Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

…A city attorney responded that tickets will no longer be available for purchase at city hall.

According to a 2009 report in Ocean City Today,

Past speakers have included a missionary injured in Iraq, a firefighter injured in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and a man who was on death row for murder.

The reference to a “man who was on death row” was perhaps a botched reference to Maury Davis, who spoke at the Prayer Breakfast in 2008; the young Davis killed a middle-aged woman in 1975 (almost decapitating her with a knife), but thanks to an insanity plea and a juror who believed in demonic possession he was found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. Now a wealthy evangelist, Davis recently hosted an “anti-Shariah conference” in Nashville, as I blogged here.

Spangler told Ocean City Today that he

started the annual breakfasts because he wanted to bring the word of God back to the Ocean City and Worcester County community, not in a church setting but in the real world where real people could share their experiences. Every year he searches for engaging speakers with interesting stories of how the Lord touched their lives.

“You can see the miracles the Lord has done through our speakers. I think it gives people hope and helps them to develop a relationship with God,” Spangler said.

Spangler is the co-director of Peninsula Professional Services, an investigative agency; his business partner, Doug Cymek, is a member of the City Council and supportive of the Prayer Breakfast.

In April, Boykin will be the Keynote Speaker at the NRA Prayer Breakfast in St Louis.

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A few days ago, Dagbladet published an interview with Alan Lake, an activist formerly associated with the English Defence League. Lake has come to wider attention after being identified as a possible ideological influence on the mass killer Anders Behring Breivik; Breivik claimed to have been part of a larger group and to have had a mysterious “mentor”, and Lake and Paul Ray have both accused each another of having had this role.

However, it is most likely that the “mentor” is a figment of Breivik’s imagination, and even if such a person exists neither Ray nor Lake fit the profile. This may not be immediately evident to journalists delving into unfamiliar territory, but I have explained here why Ray could not be the mentor, and Lake has no interest in Breivik’s “Templar” fetishism. Ray travelled to Norway to be interviewed by police there during the summer, and Lake has now been interviewed by British police with a Norwegian observer present. As I wrote in October, these counter-accusations may seem farcical, but it should be remembered that they are clogging up an extremely serious and distressing police investigation.

The Dagbladet interview (published in Norwegian – see note below) begins with Lake discussing his interaction with police:

They asked me about [being Breivik’s mentor], but also about much else. I have to say we had a long and interesting conversation. We talked for several hours. I find it flattering that they believe that I’m so important and view me as a kind of expert witness.

The self-regarding tone here is perhaps unfortunate, but he goes on to confirm that he has never had any contact with Breivik, and he claims that had he done so he would have been able to “crush” him through argument:

If I inspired him, he misunderstood. I’m not responsible for how people stupidly misinterpret what I write.

He also believes that Breivik ought to be executed as a murderer.

However, Lake also ruminates on Breivik’s motivation, in a way that appears sympathetic:

I believe Breivik looked around and wondered what he should do. Then he thought “Talking doesn’t help – what I say will be abused. The media will make me look like a villain. And I’ll lose my job.” That’s why he skipped the democratic process and discovered that this was the only way he could get things done. My point is; if you gag people, worse things can happen.”

…Because it’s no longer possible to discuss nation’s right to preserve their own culture, we end up with a Breivik. But he’s special. There aren’t many people who are intelligent, have access to money and instead of impressing beautiful women, retreat to a remote place and make bombs. Rather than a superterrorist like Breivik, we’re going to see hundreds of others who carry out less spectacular actions. Because they can’t think of any other way to express their frustration.

In conclusion, Lake again clarifies that rather than having been the EDL’s “millionaire businessman financier”, he in fact donated just £100-200 to the organisation and is a salaried IT worker.

The interview does not touch on Lake’s disputes with Ray or with Lena Andreassen, former head of the Norwegian Defence League.

UPDATE: On a 4Freedoms discussion page, Lake writes that:

Surprisingly, a correspondent told me that the article went down well in Norway.  Well, I just told it like it is, if people like it or not, its up to them.  It must have been funny to read someone speaking in such a politically incorrect way as mine!

NOTE: Because the interview was published in Norwegian, the quotes may not be Lake’s exact words. I made use of an unofficial translation back into English (cross-referenced with Google Translate) here.

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