Bartholomew's Notes

Thanks to a tip-off from a reader, I have learned that the interviewer in the English Defence League leadership videos posted by Paul Ray (and blogged by me here) is Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network, a Christian Right outfit based in Virginia. According to his bio blurb:

Christian Action Network (CAN) was founded in 1990 by Martin Mawyer. He based the organization on biblical principles, values, traditions and truths…An activist in the religious community for over two decades, Mr. Mawyer began as a free-lance journalist for various Christian publications and then served as editor of Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority Report.”

…Since its inception in 1989, the Christian Action Network has strongly supported the right to life for the unborn; voluntary prayer in public schools and restoring religious liberties; has lobbied in favor of legislation that would defend traditional marriage; has worked to expose “Gay Days at Walt Disney World” to protect children and families; and has advocated an end to taxpayer-funded “hate art” through the National Endowment for the Arts.

…Among Mr. Mawyer’s numerous radio and television appearances are CNN’s Larry King Live, Sonya Live and Talk Back Live, NBC’s Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, C-SPAN’s Viewer Call-In, FOX’s  Morning News, Hannity & Colmes and The O’Reilly Factor, Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, Jerry Falwell’s Pastor’s Study, Dr. D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries.

Mawyer claims that there is a network of jihadi terror-training camps across the USA, where plans are underway to launch attacks using weapons of mass destruction; however, an interview he gave on the subject to Sean Hannity on Fox a few months ago was somewhat underwhelming:

Mawyer: They have weapons of mass destruction…    

Hannity: What kind of weapons of mass destruction?    

Mawyer: Well, in some cases I can’t uh, even tell you, Sean.

As indicated from the bio, before his move onto the “anti-jihadi” bandwagon, Mawyer was known for other typical Christian Right issues, in particular anti-gay activism. As a good Christian, in 2000 he considered it important to spread the rumour that Hilary Clinton is a lesbian; Church and State reported that:

The Christian Action Network (CAN), a Religious Right group based in Forest, Va., held a press conference in New York City Sept. 7 to announce plans to place ads in the New York media suggesting that Clinton is gay. The organization freely admitted that it had no hard evidence for the allegation but cited ongoing “rumors.”

…CAN’s fund-raising letters encourage hatred of homosexuals, make outrageous claims about public education and other targets and float improbable scenarios about a possible United Nations takeover of America.

…A March 2000 letter written by Mawyer’s wife, Bonnie, blasted Disney for allowing gay groups to visit Disney World. The letter asserts, “Now I have learned that the radical, perverted homosexuals and lesbians are already promoting their ‘2000 Disney Gay Day’ – with Disney’s help! And they are timing it to occur in June – right when children out of school will be flocking to Disneyowned parks! This proves the true intent of these homosexuals: they are after our children!!”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has further details:

In his “dirty and dangerous” battle against “militant homosexual groups,” Mawyer has not held back. In 1997, after Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian on her TV sitcom, Mawyer accused her of “DUMPING HER FILTHY LESBIAN LIFESTYLE RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF YOUR LIVING ROOM!! … If we allow the tidal wave of gay and lesbian smut to continue to pour into our homes, it will utterly consume us in no time at all!”

…A 2000 Mawyer mailing incorporated militia-like paranoia: “I am not ready to give this great nation over to one-world government extremists … radical, disease-carrying homosexuals … anti-family lesbian feminists … or anti-American U.N. globalists!”

CAN activists today are familiar faces at Gay Days, videotaping “bad behavior.” In 2003, CAN turned its footage of “homosexual kissing, hugging and fondling” into a video tour of the Southeast, warning parents about the perils of Gay Days and warning that “homosexuals live in a pattern of sin and debauchery.”

The Christian Action Network was apparently in the UK as part of a tour with none other than Robert Spencer. In an August posting on Jihad Watch, Spencer tells us that:

I had a most illuminating dinner with a group including Douglas Murray that offered a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: we had to move our dinner at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant didn’t like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises…When not getting bounced out of pubs, the intrepid Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network and I took strolls into a few mosques…

However, a commentator at the posting adds the detail that “Tensions between some of the anti-jihadist factions who had all been kindly invited by Jason to a meal caused splitting of the groups and confusion.”

So, who comes off worse?  The English Defence League hanging out with a man known primarily for his alarmist hatemongering against gays and lesbians? Or the head of the Christian Action Network hanging out with some anonymous men in paramilitary-style balaclavas from an organisation which has described itself as “the most ruthless street army in the country”, and which has not quite succeeded in showing it has no truck with the far-right?

UPDATE: Douglas Murray’s Centre for Social Cohesion has sent me a message asking me to publicise the following:

CAN asked Douglas to do an interview with them – upon seeing the presence of the EDL at the CAN discussion he refused to deal with them and left the venue. He did however give an interview to CAN at another location on the water front. He didn’t actually know who the CAN were, and always says yes to interviews, hence his appearances on other dubious channels such as the Islam Channel.  

He also did have dinner only with Spencer in a personal capacity later that evening.

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Oh, come off it…

Background here. And more on Pastor Steve Hill here.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, a pastor who knows her from Ohio, named Jamal Jivanjee, tells us that “The Lord has used her to physically and spiritually heal people”.

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A YouTube channel belonging to Paul Ray carries a three-part interview with three men in balaclavas who are apparently the leadership of the “English Defence League“. The interview takes place in what appears to be the ruins of a castle or abbey; this is doubtless another bit of romantic Crusader medievalism (an obsession of the “anti-Jihadi” movement as a whole), but it means that the microphone is seriously affected by wind, making parts of the video virtually inaudible. [UPDATE:  The interviewer is Martin Mawyer, who runs the Christian Action Network – see here]. The speaker on the right does most of the talking, with occasional input from the guy in the middle. The person on the left doesn’t have anything to say.

The main speaker complains that his home town is being taken over by Muslims, who, he claims, have a birth rate of 10 children per family. He says that on occasions of one minute silences in the town “any Asians” will deliberately make noise, and that they yearly celebrate 9/11.  He also objects to Muslims “infiltrating” the local council and government, and suggests that they make decisions to close down churches and turn them into mosques, and to ban St. George’s Day parades while allowing extremist events. Further, he alleges that the police arrested protestors from across all the local estates as a strategy in order to discourage further protests, and that the arrests were in the form of raids in which doors were smashed open.

He also describes the antics of Anjem Choudary, in particular the recent incident in which a bewildered white 11-year-old passerby was “persuaded” to convert to Islam at one of Choudary’s roadshow events. In particular, he believes Choudary should be arrested for incitement for having a banner which reads “Jesus was a Muslim”. The speaker in the middle, meanwhile, says that his friend had been stabbed to death by 10 “Pakistani Muslims”. He also complains that while white locals know better than to use the word “Paki”, local Muslims use the word “kaffir”. This is unlike Paul Ray’s view: Ray insists that “Paki” is neutral, like “Brit”, and the only people claiming it to be offensive are Muslim extemists.

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An altercation between young Asian Muslims and the police in Luton over the weekend hands it on a plate to local anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray (aka “Lionheart“):

No media frenzy over this incident because it was not white people  involved who can be savaged by the left wing media and held up as sacrifices on the alter [sic] of appeasement for the Moslem block vote.

The government controlled mainstream media were ‘hush hush’ yet again on Moslem aggression in Luton!

United people of Luton, along with the main protest group the English Defence League led by Tommy Robinson, accompanied by Casuals United, all showed their respects for the rule of law within Great Britain over the weekend and did not turn out in Luton as had been originally planned for the bank holiday weekend after the Home Office banned any gatherings in the town through fear of trouble.

Local Asians had been bracing themselves for a re-run of earlier disturbances in the town; back in May a protest ostensibly against Muslim extremists turned violent, with local Asian businesses being attacked by – as the Sun put it – “banner-waving drunks, some disguised under balaclavas”. When the “anti-extremist” protestors failed to show up this time, it seems that some young Asians instead took their frustations out on the police. The BBC – apparently unaware of the Muslim-appeasing government directive to suppress the news – reported that:

Police have condemned a mob of 200 Asian youths who attacked officers and threw fireworks in Luton.

Riot police were called to Bury Park after youths attacked local police on Sunday. Two people were arrested.

Local officers were there at the request of the Asian community to protect the group from a right wing march, but no protesters turned up.

Ch Supt Andy Frost said he was “extremely disappointed” his officers had been attacked.

It’s not much fun being in the police in Luton; back in May, the “anti-extremist” protestors goaded police officers with the expressed opinion that they were “fucking left-wing fucking cunts”.

Ray also embeds a video showing footage from the disturbance, posted by a certain “6MadeInEngland9”, who shares Ray’s fetish for medieval Crusader imagery. Alas, however, “6MadeInEngland9” is also an old-school BNP supporter: on his YouTube channel’s homepage, he rails against Searchlight as “Marxists + jewish”, and against the Commission for Equality and Human Rights as the “Race Gestapo”. Wittingly or not, by embedding such a video without any kind of warning Ray has made his site into a “gateway” to the far right.

Curiously, Ray has also deleted his previous couple of posts, concerning the disturbances in Birmingham and denouncing a former associate named Chris Renton as an “imposter” (I blogged the spat here). However, these postings have been preserved on another blog, which was set up by someone pretending to be Ray in order to link him with the far right. The author of this other blog also sent me a private email, from an address similar to Ray’s but not quite the same. I ignored it as an obvious fake (although I also informed Ray); the identity and motive of its creator remains unknown.

Crusader images are very popular among “anti-jihadi” types on-line, particularly on YouTube.

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WorldNetDaily and Joel Richardson report on Muslim conspiracy theories:

A small Muslim production company has made a big splash with its 52-part documentary called “The Arrivals.”

Since being posted on YouTube in June, the documentary has gone viral with over a quarter million views to date. According to sources in the U.K., the documentary has become extremely popular among Britain’s Muslim youth population. According to the documentary’s self-description, its purpose is to: “explore the revelations in world religions regarding the arrivals of the Antichrist Dajjal, Imam Al-Mahdi, and the Second Coming of The Christ.”

The documentary is a whirlwind tour of Muslim apocalyptic narratives intermixed liberally with anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist themes. Although clearly home-spun, “The Arrivals” is a magnetic kitchen mix of every conspiracy imaginable, with a solid thread of Islamic apocalyptic sermonizing throughout. Images are rhythmically flashed before the viewer of Illuminati and Freemasonry symbols along with the inevitable “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” anti-Semitic conspiracy themes…the viewer is immediately swept up into an ancient cosmic struggle with the heroic Muslim community fighting for truth against the plotting and scheming Zionists, Christians, Bilderbergers, Illuminati and the Club of Rome. The camera pans over the back of the American dollar bill with its prominent, all-seeing eye too many times to count…

Of course, it’s incredibly rich reading this on WorldNetDaily – a site which promotes all manner of absurd conspiracy theories when it suits editor Joseph Farah. One book WorldNetDaily has continually promoted is Stanley Monteith’s Brotherhood of Darkness; we’re told that

If the establishment news media leaves you feeling like you’ve only heard part of the story, if you’ve ever wondered why groups like the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers – groups whose members are obviously powerful with connections to wealth and political influence – are never the subject of the evening news, then you need to read “Brotherhood of Darkness.”

The story in this book is incredible but true. It is about secret societies, how they have directed the course of civilization, and how they influence your life today.

In this book, Dr. Monteith reveals the amazing facts he discovered in his nearly 40 years of research. He reveals the identity of the mysterious forces behind the men who rule the world, and why some of our leaders have dedicated their lives to destroying our nation. After reading “Brotherhood of Darkness,” you will never look at the world the same way again.

The Arrivals seems to  be a Muslim repackaging of exactly the same paranoid theories, albeit with classic anti-Jewish elements that modern American conspiracy theorists have either dropped or shifted onto “bankers”.

Further,

I want to highlight what “The Arrivals” teaches with regard to the coming of Jesus Christ. While the information may be rather new and quite strange to many, having seen these themes emerge repeatedly in various Islamic works, both in print and online, I can assure you that these types of beliefs are not fringe within the Islamic community.

According to the documentary, Jesus Christ as He has been worshipped by Christians throughout history is merely a Christianized version of Ra, the Egyptian Sun god. Accordingly, the video makes the following claim about Jesus (aka Ra):

The “one-eyed” sun god was referred to as “the son of god,” “the light of the world” and “the ruler of all.” Has the church deceived its followers into worshipping a one-eyed sun god? Has there been a worldwide conspiracy that is preparing the world to accept the one-eyed Dajjal as the true messiah?

The screen is then flooded with images of James Caviezel playing the part of Jesus in “The Passion.” After having been severely beaten, one of his eyes is swollen shut. And then the question is answered. Has the church deceived its followers into worshipping Ra?

Of course, this is totally unlike the common Christian fundamentalist assertion that Muslims “really” worship the moon – and the idea of a Christian “Dajjal” can in no way be compared with Richardson’s ramblings about a Muslim anti-Christ.

The people behind The Arrivals are somewhat mysterious; it was created by an organisation called “The Wake Up Project“, which has a website registered to Lebanon. No names are given, although we’re told that

Our team is lead by a group of talented and aspiring directors, media developers, animators, composers, internet moderators, and network and community leaders, committed to use their talents towards our constructive goals and objectives.

Various obscure outfits are listed as associated, some of which have YouTube channels. They are: Noreaga Productions (YouTube channel, as “Noreagaaa”, here); Achernahr Productions (YouTube channel here, claims to be based in British Indian Ocean Territory); Ripple Effect Productions; Freedomtou Pictures (here; supposedly in Canada); SolidSnake Productions; and “More”. As well as these, there is a certain “Hashemsfilms”, which unlike the others, is also known from other contexts, and has an actual person associated with it: this is Abdullah Hashem, who infiltrated the Raelians in 2005; he is also said to have tried to provoke a “cult war” between the Raelians and none other than Prophet Yahweh, whom I blogged here. Whether he is really involved with this “Wake Up Project” or not is anyone’s guess.

This website has further purported background:

The Wake Up Project is mainly identified with the Shia sect of Islam. Having said that, it has a universal approach and many Sunnis and even non-Muslims are now part of the movement. This author, being from a Sunni family has no problems identifying with the general philosophy and ideas, and has found the documentaries most significant. But the Wake Up Project has also been under attack from extremist “Sunni” organizations. Whether these are genuinely “our” madmen or they are Zionist fifth columns like the Abu Nidal, etc, is a matter that is not clear completely but it is in all probability non-Muslims pretending to be Muslims…What is also clear is that the Wake Up Project has united not only Muslims, but also many others – Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and others.

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The Rifqa Bary bandwagon shows no sign of losing steam, with various conservative groups and outfits using the opportunity to issue statements. Americans for a Safe Israel thunders:

Rifqa Bary is a seventeen year old girl who faces danger, abuse and possibly death if she is forced to return to her parents. Her crime under American standards of law? None. Her disrespect for American law? None. Anti-social behavior as dictated by the mores of our society? None.

Why then does Rifqa Bary fear her parents so that on Thursday September 3rd, a Florida Circuit Judge will decide whether to send her home to her family or be given a haven and freedom?

What do her parents and her mosque and Islam see as her crime and violation of law and social behavior and honor? Her conversion to Christianity four years ago. While her conversion remained secret her parents thrived economically in Columbus, Ohio where they worshipped in a local mosque where sermons offered the strictest interpretation of the Koran.

When the mosque, which has been under suspicion for abetting terrrism deliberately “outed” Rifqa’s conversion to her family she was subjected to bruises and death threats and fled from her home. In Florida, an Evangelical church gave her shelter and guidance in filing for restraint.

While the Institute for Religion and Democracy warns that the girl has

committed a crime against the Ummah, or nation state of Islam.

 …those who have been “quick” to believe Rifqa Bary are not interested in proving a point about Muslims, but in protecting a vulnerable girl, convinced that when it comes to honor killing and apostasy it is better to err on the side of caution than to add another name and face to the list of the dead. The best assessment of most of the American Christian church’s comprehension of life under Islamic law came from Rifqa herself. Trying to explain the danger she faces from her Muslim parents, the Islamic community in the Columbus, Ohio area, and the entire Ummah, she exclaimed despairingly, “I’m fighting for my life, you guys don’t understand. You don’t understand.”

Not to be outdone, Herbert London of the Hudson Institute has composed a pompous and risible “Letter to Judge Dawson”, comparing the girl to Joan of Arc:

…this case involves more than one youthful life; it represents a defense of our Constitution and our way of life. Just as a Christian can covert to Islam, a Muslim should be free to covert to Christianity whatever her parents think and whatever the Koran indicates.

To suggest anything else is to allow Islam to be superordinated over our law and tradition. If there was ever a time to assert our beliefs and customs, this is it. Americans are increasingly unsure about what this nation stands for. But there really isn’t ambiguity about this matter. Sharia is not our custom or our law, and you, sir, should not recognize it as dispositive in your legal judgment.

Rifqa’s cause should prevail because this recent immigrant is fighting for the most basic of American principles. She is our Joan of Arc, and I ardently hope you will recognize the need to assert traditional jurisprudential precedent in this case.

Meanwhile, journalists who remain unconvinced get short shrift. Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinal raised some reasonable doubts and suggested that the custody case ought to be held in the girl’s home state of Ohio. For Pamela Geller, this means that the Sentinel is actually advocating murder, and that Thomas “ought to be charged with incitement to violent honor killing” – a clear sign that we’re dealing with someone drunk on the power of incendiary rhetoric to rabble-rouse rather than a person with any interest in considering the truth of a situation. Geller has also rooted around the internet to find evidence that Bary’s father has wound up his jewellery business as part of plan to “flee” to Sri Lanka, either before or after bumping off his daughter, and to get tax-payer funds to fight his case. Meanwhile, the anti-Muslim Jawa Report has found shocking evidence that an article in the Ohio Columbus Dispatch was written by a journalist who wore a headscarf when she visited Bary’s father’s mosque!

The same website also touts an article in the Florida Baptist Witness:

According to Ergun Mehmet Caner, the threat to Rifqa for her rejection of Islam and conversion to Christianity is real. “There’s no question,” Caner said in an Aug. 27 interview with the Witness.

Caner, who converted to Christianity as a 16-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, grew-up in the mosque, the Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, out of which the Bary family mosque, Noor Islamic Cultural Center, was started and remains connected.

Now a Baptist minister and president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., Caner is a well-known apologist for the Christian faith – activity for which a fatwa, an Islamic religious ruling calling for his death, was issued last year “that put us on the road for a while.”

Because of his outspoken repudiation of Islam and defense of Christianity, Caner said he has to take special security precautions.

Caner and his two brothers, who became Christians within 14 months of his conversion, were disowned by their father, who was the architect of their Columbus mosque.

Rather than sending his sons back to their home country of Turkey, the decision of the eldest Caner to disown his children “was an act of mercy,” Caner told the Witness. Caner said his father died in 1999 as a Muslim, while his mother is now a Christian.

“When someone says, ‘Oh, it’s horrible what happened to you.’ No, what my father did was merciful,” Caner explained, noting his fate could have been much worse.

The risk of an “honor killing” – an obligation under Islamic law for those who reject Islam – is routine in Muslim nations.

So, the fact that Caner’s father didn’t kill his sons is simply evidence that he might have done so! (Incidentally, this is the first we’ve heard of a “fatwa” against Caner, although it wouldn’t be surprising if, as an anti-Muslim polemicist, he has received death threats from extremists. Caner’s Swedish mother was born a Christian, and his parents divorced when he was 16)

The Orlando Sentinal has also interviewed Bary’s parents, which will doubtless inspire a further round of frothing. The article includes some input from people who know the family:

“There is no way this man would hurt his daughter,” said Neil Javery, 52, a Hindu and family friend in Westerville, the Columbus suburb where the Barys live.

Mohamed Bary, 47, is a kind, gentle man who loves his daughter, takes great pride in Rifqa’s school accomplishments.

He sells jewelry and Amway products, friends say.

Aysha Bary is a stay-at-home mom who speaks little English but breaks into tears over what has happened.

“My heart goes out to them,” said Holly Easton of Plain City, Ohio, who owns a wedding gown business and pays Rifqa’s mother to stitch beads onto gowns. “It’s horrible. … I hope they’re able to reconcile, and she comes home and they can be a family again.”

By contrast, tales of the father as cruel and abusive being pasted around the internet have come from anonymous sources.

The focus has also been put back Pastor Blake Lorenz, who took her in for several weeks before the authorities became aware of her location; the St. Petersburg Times explains that:

Florida law says you can’t shelter an unmarried minor for more than 24 hours without calling either the authorities or the parents or guardians of the minor.

…”The 21/2 weeks that Rifqa was missing were a living hell for the parents. Was she dead? Was she alive?” said Shayan Elahi, an Orlando lawyer who’s serving as a spokesman for the family. “The Lorenzes, under the statute, had the obligation to go to the authorities and they did not.

“They didn’t follow the law,” Elahi said.

However, Lorenz did use Bary, under an assumed name, as a sermon topic on 9 August, as WDBO Radio notes:

“The persecution is here already. Anna’s been living this out. Anna is a wonderful young woman of God. 17-years-old tomorrow,” Lorenz told his followers. “She is a dynamo, where the spirit loves Jesus. She was a Muslim. Gave her life to Christ, fell in love with Jesus. She fled for her life, threatened to be killed because she gave her life to Jesus. Renounce Jesus, and we’ll let you live.”

Lorenz told the church Bary had been staying with him and his wife, Beverly, at their home for 2-and-a-half weeks.

“The fear we live with is the police are going to show up, take us off, arrest us,” Lorenz said. “Oh that couldn’t happen? It happened to the man that baptized her!”

Lorenz was referring to a young pastor in Kansas City, Missouri who helped Columbus police track down where Bary had gone, after they threatened to arrest him.

“The police showed up at his apartment in Kansas City to arrest him. Illegally searched his apartment and all the apartments there looking for her, convinced she was there. Don’t say it can’t happen in America!” Lorenz preached.

Before fleeing to Florida, Bary was involved with “Xenos Christian Fellowship, a megachurch that emphasizes small groups meeting at home”, and which has a website here. Back in February, it was in the news when a woman claimed it had “brainwashed” her formerly Roman Catholic son:

Online, she makes allegations of alcohol abuse, vandalism and brainwashing of young children. She calls the church leader and his family “Devil man,” “Devil wife” and “Devil son.”

…The local Xenos leader, Keith McCallum, a bearded former software writer, accuses Smith of a “terror campaign” and threatening to shoot him. He said her allegations have no merit.

In a quarter century of ministry, he said, “we’ve never had any lawsuits, crimes or misdemeanors filed against us.”

This website has further details that rebut the “cult” accuation. There has also been an anonymous attempt to link Xenos with Brian L. Williams, a pastor currently in prison for sexual abuse; this seems to be a deliberate ploy to mislead, as there is no connection.

Just in case anyone is interested in what I think: on the one hand, the case has some obvious problematic aspects. Bary believes her father wants to kill her because it would be “a great honour” for him and would show his love for Allah. But this is a misunderstanding of what honour killing is, and we have to suppose it has been put into her head by one of her Christian associates. “Honour killing” is also being deliberately conflated with the formal traditional punishment of capital punishment for apostasy. The IRD’s claim that they are “not interested in proving a point about Muslims” is an insult to our intelligence – of course this is all about publicising the idea that American Muslims are horrible and brutal people who will scheme at any length in order to kill their own children in circumstances when their religion commands it, and perhaps letting Muslims know that if they live in America they can expect the authorities to remove their children simply because of the nature of Islam. The hucksters and demagogues who are using this case for political ends add nothing to the cause of Bary’s welfare, and Lorenz has behaved like a fool in not going at once to the authorities (his poor judgment is compounded by creepy pictures of her hugging him for protection). But on the other hand, when a minor makes a serious allegation against a parent the authorities have to take it seriously, so it’s difficult to see how she can be returned to her parents against her will while she maintains that her life is in danger – even though the father looks like a very unlikely Islamic extremist, and “honour killing” is rare in Sri Lanka. And at 17 years old, is it really worth the bother of a drawn-out legal process that will be moot in year anyway?

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The official website of the Fiji police force carries a remarkable report, published in June:

Suva wakes up to heavenly noises as Fiji’s Police Force Band and officers excite the Fijian Public with Gospel music and dancing and sharing a common bond- Jesus Christ.

And this is the ‘Only strategy’ the Fiji Police Force is now implementing in the hope of changing the lives of people whose lives have led them to live a hurtful, troubled, criminal resulting in making irrational choices.

A recent article in the Brisbane Times gives a bit of background:

A “Jesus crusade” led by Fiji’s police force has been compared to the rule of the Taliban.

Editor in Chief of the Fiji Times, Mr Netani Rika, addressed journalism and communications students at the University of Queensland yesterday, telling them of life under the illegal rule of interim Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

Mr Rika said police converts to the fundamentalist New Methodist Church had replaced military personnel as in-house censors in newsrooms.

…The head of the new Methodist Church is the brother of the Police Commissioner, a close friend of Mr Bainimarama and former Fiji Navy Commander. The Police Commissioner is regarded as the second most powerful position in Fiji.

…An Associate Director of `Uniting World’, a Uniting Church body operating in the Pacific, said he was investigating reports that preachers from Australian pentacostal [sic] churches were funding the New Methodist Church in Fiji and were sending people to preach there.

A piece in the Fiji Times itself explains that:

WHEN Atu and Raijeli Vulaono registered the New-Methodist Christian Fellowship on August 5, 2002, they caused little more than a stir in the Christian movement in Fiji.

…Today, the General Superintendent of the New-Methodist Christian Fellowship, Senior Pastor Atu Vulaono says they have 20,000 members in Fiji and abroad, mainly Australia and Europe.

There is not much evidence of connections with foreign evangelists; Atu was apparently converted while listening to a sermon from Calvary Temple on the radio, and the brothers were influenced by a certain “Reverend Doctor Kim of Korea” when he visited the country in the 1990s, but there are no visible connections to the wider global Pentecostal “scene”. The church’s European branch has a rather uninformative website here.

The church’s link with the police is also stressed in an article published today, following another conference:

“Their vision and our vision are the same,” Mr Vulaono said.

He said he and Police Commissioner Esala Teleni were brothers and that no one could take it away from them.

“Looking for souls, when the police came up with this vision, we fully supported it,” he said.

“I already said so many times that we support police work 110 per cent because the two organisations have the same vision.”

Teleni was in the news in February, when he attacked non-Christian ethnic Indian police officers; Stuff.co.nz reported that:

One of Fiji’s top coup plotters, Police Commissioner Esala Teleni, has launched an attack on Indians in his force, calling them backstabbers and liars.

And he says any of them who oppose his Christian mission will be booted out of the force.

…”I don’t know what’s wrong with you people,” he told the Indians.

Teleni recently launched a high profile Christian police crusade and at the meeting he says he never forced the Indian police to join it, only he encouraged them.

…”I have a list of people; I’m going to start terminating their services. I am not hesitant to do that… No one is going to deter me and my Jesus. I never talk about your religions. I never discuss your religions because I respect it. But at the same time you just respect my religion. You do not go to the press.”

Fiji TV said Teleni then issued what sounded like a warning: “You’ve never seen my…my other side.”

An unsourced report at a blog entitled Soli Vakasama tells us that:

While speaking at the Assemblies of God Church Conference, Commodore Esala Teleni said he dismissed some police officers after the Holy Spirit spoke to him that these officers were transporting drugs to Sigatoka and were involved in some major robberies.

Commodore Teleni stressed that he has told all the members of the force that he wants full transformation.

He said the Holy Spirit has spoken to him that the only way to modernize the force is through the crusade.

And a blog entitled Coup Four And A Half, which publishes news censored by the government, alleges that in May

…all those based at the Central Police Station in Suva were called to parade in the CPS car park. What was supposed to be a normal weekly parade turned into a religious sermon of 10 minutes by a preacher of the New Methodist Church, a non-police officer. The sermon was done in the Fijian language, so Indians and others who have little understanding of the language were confused.

In his opening remarks, the preacher told 300 officers and ordinary policemen and policewomen that Jesus Christ is the “only way and only truth”. The preacher added that Christianity is the only true religion and that other religions are untrue.

On the other hand, another Fiji Times report suggests that the church does not want to be antagonistic against other religious groups:

CLOSE to 4000 youths marched the streets of Suva yesterday to declare God in their lives.

…It is not only for our church but also for all believers because in the kingdom we are all one.

“We don’t want to declare war against any other religion or any other race but against the dark force that is our enemy.”

The church has links with other establishment figures, as well as with sportsmen. In April, the Fiji Times reported on a “Be A Man” Conference organised by the church:

It has become a nationwide conference that has captured the attention of many and its growing popularity includes the participation of public figures like France-based rugby winger Filimoni Delasau, former national rugby 15s skipper Ro Alifereti Doviverata and Navy Commander, Francis Kean.

Meanwhile, the old Methodist Church is facing restrictions on its activites – in particular, its conference has been banned by the military government. The August issue of Touchstone, a New Zealand Methodist publication, is available as a pdf from here and has further details:

The government put an indefinite ban on Methodist Conference after a motion for discussion was circulated within the Church on the current political situation. The motion rejected the moral authority of the military government, and made 10 demands, including that the 1997 Constitution be reinstated and elections be held by the end of 2009.

Further:

One reason leaders of the Methodist Church in Fiji (MCF) have decided to take a confrontational approach against the government over its annual Conference may be that they believethe government is promoting analternative Methodist Church in orderto undermine them.

…The New Methodist Church has taken a prominent role in a new initiative the Fiji Police have taken to reduce crime by promoting religious values both within the police force and in the community. Waisea Vulaono says he split from the MCF and established the New Methodist Church 10 years ago.

The reasons given for the split are differences over worship practices – in particular music and Pentecostal phenomena – as well as the MCF’s lack of fundraising initiatives and its willingness to indulge the chewing of kava. Waisea (the article’s name for Raijeli), explains that:

“The old Methodist Church is more concerned with the things of this world than the word of God. They want to uphold Fijian culture rather than the Holy Spirit”

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Claims police also searching for UK Observer journalist and Sophie Okonedo

Nigerian evangelist Helen Ukpabio has a threatening message for the state governor of Akwa Ibom (Nigeria), Godswill Akpabio:

“Governor Akpabio should note that Charles Taylor once held sway in Liberia but today is on trial for crime he committed while in office. He should also remember what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and therefore we want him to remember that he would be held accountable for his actions while he was in power,” the evangelist said.

Ukpabio and her lawyer Victor Ukutt are upset because Akpabio had intervened to protect the headquarters of the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), which was recently raided by the police – with Ukutt in attendance. CRARN has in recent months gained international recognition for its work protecting children who have been accused of witchcraft by local evangelists, following the broadcast of an award-winning Channel 4 documentary in December.  This documentary went viral worldwide (it was also recently broadcast in Australia), and Akpabio has been under serious pressure to improve the situation. Helen Ukpabio, however, maintains thar CRARN’s president Sam Itauma is a “wizard”, and that the children CRARN protects really are witches who need “deliverance”. She also alleges fraud, and that she has been unfairly villified – in particular, she was abused on a trip to London shortly after the programme aired. The programme also featured a secretly-filmed interview with her, in which she warned the programme-makers that she was a powerful person.

The threat against the state governor appears in This Day. The report adds:

Ukpabio accused the governor of using his position to frustrate attempts by detectives from the Police Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos to arrest one Sam Ita Uma, his wife and some British nationals namely Gary Foxcroft, Tracey Macvey, MagGaven and Sophie Okonedo who were being sought by the police over allegations of counterfeiting, and pirating of Ukpabi’’s film/home video entitled “End of The Wicked” as well as sending threat signals to her.

This is somewhat garbled; Gary Foxcroft is a British citizen who works with CRARN, and he was the main guide for the documentary-makers. Sophie Okonedo is a famous British actress whose father was Nigerian; her only connection to the story is that Channel 4 hired her to narrate the programme. Tracy McVeigh, meanwhile, is a journalist who wrote a story on the subject for the Observer back in 2007, which I blogged on here. “MagGaven” is Mags Gavan, who made the documentary. Ukpabio also complains that her horror film End of the Wicked – which shows witch-children flying around at night and causing a man’s eyes to drop out – was “pirated” by the documentary-makers when they used short extracts in the programme.

Meanwhile, footage has emerged of the conference on the subject which was held in Nigeria last month, which was invaded by more than a hundred of Ukpabio’s followers in orange T-shirts; the conference’s organiser, Leo Igwe, provided me with a guest-post here.

(Video hat tip: The Teapost Atheist)

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Sombre news from the website of the Order of St. Stanislas:

Count Juliusz Nowina Sokolnicki,  President of Poland in Exile, 8th Grand Master of the Order of St Stanislas passed away at 0300 GMT today [17 August].

I blogged on the Count back in January, when I wrote an entry on various “Chivalric Orders”. He had been a member of the UK-based Polish Government in Exile (PGIE), of which he created a rival faction in 1971 that never recognised the post-Communist regimes in Poland. A 1996 essay by a certain Mark Harrison gives some interesting purported background, including a statement supposedly made by the official PGIE in 1987:

A certain Juliusz Sokolnicki declared himself President of the Republic of Poland and has been active for more than 10 years in the Polish exile community. He nominated prime ministers, generals (even on Field Marshal of a non-existent army), ambassadors and consuls. He confers awards and bestows decorations. In 1984 he created the Order of St Stanislas, the recipients of which have to pay sums varying from $100 to $1,000 according to the class of the order. Awarding orders is, therefore, a source of Mr Sokolnicki’s income…The activities and titles of this usurper would seem to be taken out of a burlesque or an operetta and would be highly amusing if they were not so harmful. Some foreigners have no understanding of the activities of the Polish emigrés led by their legal President and Government in Exile and accept Mr Sokolnicki’s fictitious nominations and awards. Apparantly some even support him financially. Unfortunately there are some Poles, although not many, who are eager to receive distinctions from him.

Poles in Poland should also be warned against the pernicious activities of this usurper. By his “decree” of 5 March 1985 he announced the formation of a “Special Penal Tribunal” in Warsaw with jurisdiction over the whole country. Its aim is to pass judgement on “political crimes perpetrated by the Communists and their collaborators, for physical and mental cruelty against citizens, and for betrayal of national interests”. These crimes will carry the eath penalty and there will be no right of appeal. A “special underground operative unit” will be entrusted with execution of sentences.

We have no intention of defending the Communist rulers of Poland but the formation of such a “tribunal” is against all principles of law and order and must be condemned as a provocative diversion.

A second essay, by Rafal Heydel-Mankoo, adds further claims:

In 2001 the Order of St. Stanislas was featured on a Canadian (CBC TV) investigative journalism show. Part of the exposé dealt with the Order’s offer of membership to the expansionist Russian war-hawk Vladimir Zhirinovsky (a rather bizarre offer for an allegedly patriotic Polish group).

Sokolnicki lives modestly in Colchester, Essex…In addition to describing himself as former President of the Polish Republic, and Grand Master of Saint Stanislas, he also claims other dubious “honours.” Sokolnicki claims to have given the grand collar of his Order to the late Pope – a letter from the retired Bishop of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg diocese dated 4 April 1995 confirmed that he was given several gifts to pass on to His Holiness on the occasion of his 1991 Polish visit, including a “Diploma and Insignia of the Order of St Stanislas”. The Bishop states that he “gave all those gifts to the Vatican delegation … some were taken to Rome some were left in Koszalin. The grand collar of the Order was left in Koszalin and it is in diocesan collection of Holy Father visit souvenirs”. Saint Stanislas also has branches across the world and, for some reason, appears to be particularly active in New Zealand…

In New Zealand, the Order is represented by a veteran of the Rhodesian Light Infantry. The “Order of St. Stanislas” appears to appeal to anti-Communist types; perhaps its most famous member was Gen William Westmoreland, the US war commander in Vietnam who became notorious for his dismissal of civilian casualties on the grounds that “death is not a big deal” in the “Orient”.

Meanwhile, a third piece, by “Dr. Pangloss”, informs us that:

There is also a whimsical side to the count as evidenced by his close collaboration with Mr. George King, aka “His Serene Highness Prince Doctor George King de Santorini, Count of Florina, Prince and Grand Master of the Mystic Order of St. Peter”…and president of the “Aetherius Society”, which maintains extra-planetary contacts with the inhabitants of the planet Saturn!

Apparently, there was a schism in 2004, which led to the head of the Ukrainian branch, Pavlo V’yalov, forming a rival organisation of the same name.

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Also: Church teaches that “mixing of races” is forbidden by Bible as “fornication”

WorldNetDaily attempts to resurrect the “Obama’s Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya” story:

Although no other evidence has surfaced placing Barack Obama’s mother in Kenya at the time of the president’s birth, a taped telephone conversation in which his Kenyan step-grandmother purportedly claims he was born in the coastal city of Mombasa has become an Internet hit since its submission as evidence in a lawsuit challenging the president’s eligibility.

…The Oct. 16, 2008, telephone interview was conducted by American Christian minister Ron McRae, who describes himself in his affidavit as an overseer of the Anabaptist Churches in North America and a “Presiding Elder on the African Presbytery.”

…A second affidavit was sworn by Kenyan Anabaptist minister Rev. Kweli Shuhubia, a pseudonym chosen to protect his safety.

The claim is that Sarah Obama admitted that she was present at the birth in Kenya, but that her translators and others with her quickly scrambled to change her answer. Further,

Shuhubia also testified in his affidavit that Sarah Obama “never changed her reply” that she was present in person when Senator Obama was born in Kenya.

He further testified that he traveled to Mombasa, Kenya, where he interviewed personnel at Coast Provincial Hospital.

“I then had meetings with the Provincial Civil Registrar,” he swore. “I learned there were records of Ann Dunham giving birth to Barack Hussein Obama, III, in Mombasa, Kenya, on Aug. 4, 1961.

“I spoke directly with an Official, the Principal Registrar, who openly confirmed the birthing records of Senator Barack H. Obama Jr. and his mother were present, however the file on Barack H. Obama Jr.’s birth in Kenya is top secret,” he stated.

Ron McRae is a founder of the “Street Preachers’ Fellowship“; another SPF member is Rueben Israel, who also runs the “Official Steet Preachers” – this latter group held a protest outside a mosque in Tampa in February  and has personally rebuked me as a “beer-guzzling liberal”. McRae was previously in the news propounding the view that the Flight 93 memorial was a secret message of support for terrorism; the Tribune-Democrat reported in 2005:

The Rev. Ron McRae, self-proclaimed bishop of Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, brought the controversy to the forefront a day after the design was unveiled last week in Washington.

McRae said Street Preachers Fellowship, based in Lancaster, is preparing to file for an injunction to stop the design.

“I’m not the only one in America that sees that,” he said. “Americans are fed up with terrorism, and we’re not stupid. We’re not all politically correct in trying to appease our enemies.”

A hostile profile in the Post-Gazette adds that:

McRae is a self-proclaimed Anabaptist bishop and, as such, has felt it his calling to disrupt the lives of gays, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses and whatever other among the citizenry he considers the future entree at the Almighty’s celestial barbecue come Judgment Day. He has been found with a sign and Bible and loud denunciations at such venues as the convention of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the annual Rosary Rally in Johnstown. A former police officer from Houston, Texas, his earlier career gave him a keen eye for the line between protected dissent and prosecutable harassment. Thus, in his subsequent life as an evangelistic nuisance, he has always been able to win civil liberties cases against the police when they get fed up enough to cart him off to the hoosegow.

His church has a website here; it includes a long account of how McRae and some other preachers visited Africa and how, as a result “the Anabaptists Churches of Africa were officially established in December of 2007”, with no fewer than four “National Bishops” for DRC, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya; the Kenyan bishop is a certain “Bishop Constant Makoka”. Further,

The Presbytery along with Bishop McRae are already working with  preachers in the Ivory Coasts, Nigeria and Ethiopia, with Brother Kweli Shuhubia from Kenya having just returned from a preaching tour in the Sudan.

Judging from the captions under the accompanying photographs, just about every child McRae’s team met was “an orphan”, and we’re told that he was the first white man seen by some of the natives he encountered. There’s also a toe-curling discussion of the significance of the early Christian teacher “Simeon that was called Niger”, who appears in Acts 13:1:

One of the Apostle Paul’s ordaining elders was black. They called him “Niger” (Acts 13:1), from which comes the words Nigerian, Niger, Negro, Neger and the infamous American word “nigger”. The word simply means “black”. It wasn’t the preacher’s name. His name was Simeon, but he was called “Niger”. They called him that. His Christian brothers called him that. God called him that (vs. 1), and wrote it down in the everlasting word of God. The word means “black”, like in the Latin “Niger” (pronounced “Neger” with a short e sound) and Spanish “negro”. In America the blacks and the whites use such terminology to divide. In the Bible and in the church of the Living God they used it to unite as one body in Christ Jesus. The church at Antioch had no racial prejudices, nor ecclesiastical boundaries though they maintained habitational boundaries (Acts 17:16), and adhered to the Biblical prohibition against mixing of the races, since the Bible calls such sin “fornication” (see Revelation 2:14/ c.f. Numbers 25:1/ 31:16).

The verses cited against “mixing of the races” in fact refer to stories in which foreign women led astray Israelite men into “idolatory”; the issue is not one of “race” but of religious purity. It is difficult to judge how far McRae pushes this doctrine of racial separation, although the church website also carries some articles which are password-protected for “members only”. The teaching does not appear in the extensive Articles of Faith section. It may or may not be a factor in his hatred for Obama, which is expounded on here at interminable length:

 …in these last days, Government now forces upon us an unbearable injustice, and trampling of the Constitution of the United States, in thinking to force the people to accept a foreigner as the President of this Republic, ignoring the single most important qualification for the highest office in our land, that such a one, not just gain such “power by the consent of the governed”, but that he be naturally born amongst us as one of us. There has never been an alternative option to replace “a natural born citizen” as the President of these United States. The Constitution knows no such option. Howbeit, the Federal Courts have repeatedly refused the people’s right to challenge such unprecedented trampling and violation of what the Constitution clearly says, and to date refuses to require such an Imposter to prove his “natural born” citizenship…Yet in these last days, where Tyrants’ minds have “devised liberal things”, and uttered so much error before the Creator of all men, that the liberal, vile cacophony resounds throughout the land to drown out doubtful voices, whose only authority rests in the Document now being trampled under foot of Tyrants with the innocent blood of their citizens dripping from their hands…

McRae also has some recently-formed churches in Burma and Pakistan, and his evangelism has in the past brought him to the UK. Bedford comes off badly:

It was abundantly clear that the citizens of Bedford had not changed, but rather grew worse than they were when John Bunyan preached here 400 years ago. Less than 50 tracts were accepted among over 15,000 Bedford villagers walking past, and it was seen in the countenances of their faces why Bunyan called this place, “The City of Destruction”.

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