Bartholomew's Notes

News from the JTA:

The U.S. government will fund a new initiative that will examine bringing peace to the Middle East through faith and economics.

The plan was initiated by Rep Frank Wolf, who clearly has his finger on the pulse:

“If you’re Jewish, you have the Western Wall. If you’re Christian, you have the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. If you’re Muslim, you have the Dome of the Rock,” he said. “We cannot work toward peace in the Middle East without taking into account the religious roots of its people. The U.S. government doesn’t have the capacity to deal with this reality in the lives of those who live in that region. That is why I have put together an initiative that includes the faith component.”

Ambassador Tony Hall will deal with the faith, while Dennis Ross will take care of the economics. And

…The program will be run under the auspices of a think tank, the Center for the Study of the Presidency.

USAID has apparently offered the Center a $1 million grant, with the backing of Condoleezza Rice.

But what will the programme do? Wolf’s website has some further details:

Dr. Bob Cooley, president emeritus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, recently provided me some insightful observations about the faith dynamics in the Middle East. He has worked with Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, and Israelis during his 48 years of pursuing Hebrew Studies and Syro-Palestinian Archeology. He points out that the three major religious groups in the land are “all Sons of Abraham, who share a common understood relationship that serves as a basis for living together in harmony today.”

It is largely the past 50 years of failed politics that have undermined communal harmony in the region and modified the relationships between these groups. A complete copy of Dr. Cooley’s remarks about the relationships between these groups is attached to my statement.

(“Modified the relationships”?!)

Cooley’s remarks include the following deep insights:

It is true that religion can divide a society. This is no more true than in the Holy Land and the Middle East. Religious differences are sharp and deep.

…The veneration of holy sites and places is fundamental to identities, and they are multiple. The only solution is an open and free society that must be the goal of peace.

Tony Hall also explains his role:

…Our service is to support and encourage the people of faith who bear influence in the region. We are connecting with people of faith because as leaders of these communities they can either encourage the way of compassion, sacrifice and grace in this process – which is necessary to support a political outcome, or they can incite their people in the hopeless path of the status quo…The Abrahamic faiths have been in conflict for so long, that most of us have forgotten that at the core of them lies that universal commandment to “Love your neighbor.”

As well as explaining to faith leaders what the “core” of their religious traditions is, the Center for the Study of the Presidency will look at “medical and public health” issues. Also (link added)

…CSP will examine the possibility of using the Internet, interactive gaming (such as the recently released educational videogame on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict entitled Peacemaker), and the development of telehealth projects to further the Middle East peace process.

The overall aim, says Hall, is to

…construct some good will that we hope may support a political settlement.

I can’t help feeling that this is all rather vague and platitudinous, and while a recognition of truly religious motivations is welcome, the message that the conflict is about “holy sites” and “religious identities” rather than military occupation and Palestinian dispossession makes one sceptical.

Wolf’s views on the role of religion in US foreign policy were laid out in an interview he gave last September to the PCR Project:

When asked how American policymakers use and understand religion in international relations, Wolf responded: “I think the government fears religion.” That fear makes American diplomats avoid thinking and talking about people’s religious motivations. Wolf believes that this avoidance of key issues prevents us from engaging strategically in conflict-prone settings. “If it’s true that these guys are blowing themselves up because of their faith, you have to deal with it.”

The Congressman said that addressing issues of faith does not mean proselytizing, but rather working on a faith-based level in order to build trust and open dialogue.

…”What we need within the government is a real faith dialogue.” Wolf spoke of the National Prayer Breakfast, and noted that a Moroccan leader who attended a recent Breakfast raved about the experience. He also praised friends and leaders who speak openly about their faiths and the faiths of others.

Wolf is known as an advocate of religious freedom, and in 1997 he pushed for the creation of an “Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring”, which eventually evolved into the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. This 2001 article takes a sceptical view of Wolf’s political motivations:

In 1999, he delivered a number of harsh speeches accusing President Clinton of neglecting the Commission by delaying his appointments to it and by failing to include funds in his budget proposal (even though the latter had been prepared before IRFA was enacted).

But when the Bush administration let nine months pass without appointing an Ambassador-at-Large, Wolf remained silent. Nor did he react when the president was tardy in appointing Commission members. Nor did he or others complain, as they had during the Clinton administration, when the State Department failed to designate its “countries of particular concern” in a timely way.

However strongly Wolf and the religious right felt about religious freedom as a moral issue, one cannot help but observe their interest in exploiting it as a partisan wedge issue as long as they had a political opponent in the White House.

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I’m slightly late with this:

Procter & Gamble Co. has won a jury award of $19.25 million in a civil lawsuit filed against four former Amway distributors accused of spreading false rumors linking the company to Satanism to advance their own business.

…Rumors had begun circulating as early as 1981 that the company’s logo — a bearded, crescent man-in-moon looking over a field of 13 stars — was a symbol of Satanism.

…The former Amway distributors thought they’d be exonerated and were shocked by the jury’s verdict late Friday, said Randy L. Haugen, one of the defendants.

…The company alleged that Amway Corp. distributors revived those rumors in 1995, using a voice mail system to tell thousands of customers that part of Procter & Gamble profits went to satanic cults.

…P&G spokesman Terry Loftus said Monday that the corporation brought a handful of cases against various individuals — not just Amway distributors — through the 1980s, with the last one prior to this case filed in 1990.

This particular case has been rumbling along for a long time; back in 1999, P&G had the whole of Amway in its sights, and was after much more:

Procter & Gamble claimed that Amway “fomented the satanic rumors” since the early 70’s , including the assertion that the Procter & Gamble trademark incorporates satanic symbols. Dating back to the 1850’s the trademark shows a bearded “man in the moon” looking over 13 stars, representing the 13 original colonies. Although the company has kept the trademark as part of its corporate identity, it did remove it from more than 300 of its products in 1985.

Seeking $595 million in damages, Procter & Gamble’s suit centered around a 1995 voice mail from a prominent Amway distributor to other distributors, claiming that Procter & Gamble’s president, while appearing on a national talk show, said that a portion of P & G’s profits went to the “Church of Satan”. The Amway distributor, who admitted sending the message, testified that he thought it was true. Although he issued two retractions the week following the voice mail, Procter & Gamble claimed its hotline was flooded with calls from angry consumers. Amway attorneys said the company did not encourage the rumor, and in fact tried to help Procter & Gamble stop it.

The Reuters story notes that in their opening arguments, Amway attorneys accused Procter & Gamble of filing the suit “because of concerns that Amway was eating into its sales in Asia.”

The claim was dismissed, and an appeal by P&G failed in 2003:

An appeals court has ruled that a federal judge in Utah was correct in dismissing a lawsuit by Procter & Gamble accusing Amway Corp. of spreading rumors linking P&G with the Church of Satan and devil worship.

The unanimous decision Jan. 6 by a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld a 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball, who held that the rumors were not defamatory and that Procter & Gamble had not made a case for specific damages.

In its 25-page opinion upholding Kimball’s decision, the 10th Circuit panel concluded that throughout its “protracted and duplicative litigation, P&G has tried to evade the law of the case doctrine, and has squandered scarce judicial resources.”

P&G then went after Haugen and some other individuals. Some of the earlier court documents explain the origin of the saga. One, from 1998, claims that

In April of 1995, [Roger] Patton, living in Woodlands, passed the rumor to [Jeffrey] Musgrove, living in Katy, who allegedly passed the message to Randall Walker in Houston, who in turn, passed the message to Randy Haugen in Ogden, Utah. Haugen and his immediate upline sponsor, Don Wilson, live in Ogden and conduct their Amway businesses there.

Meanwhile, here we read that

Defendant Randy L. Haugen is a citizen of the State of Utah and a “Diamond” level distributor of Amway consumer products  in the distribution chain of The Amway Corporation. Defendant Haugen is a past co-chairman of the Business Operation Committee of the Amway Distributors Association Council  (hereinafter “ADAC”) Thirty Amway ditributors serve on the ADAC. Fifteen of the thirty distributors on the ADAC are appointed by The Amway Corporation. The “mission” of the  ADAC is to “advise and consult” with The Amway Corporation “on all aspects of the business and to take an active role in shaping Amway’s future.”…As announced in The Amway Corporation’s May 1995 AMAGRAM publication…Defendant Haugen is presently and at the time of the actions giving rise to this Complaint a member of the Executive Committee of the ADAC. The Executive Committee establishes goals and objectives for the Business Operations and the Legal and Ethics Committees of the ADAC. Defendant Haugen also conducts business as Freedom Associates, Inc. and Freedom Tools Incorporated, both of which are Utah corporations involving or related to the distribution of Amway products.

A transcript of Haugen’s Amvox message can be seen here; a blog that supports Haugen claims that he “accidentally disseminated” the story (actually, the blog says “accidentally decimated”, but we get what was meant).

Amway is now known as Quixtar, and this site claims that the lawsuit against Haugen brought other issues into the public domain, leading to the name-change.

Meanwhile, one wonders how the millions awarded to P&G compare with compensation given to those whose lives have been blighted by false allegations of Satanic activity. And let’s not forget the reason why the story about P&G was able to gain currency in the first place: because of popular Christian paperbacks that pushed lurid Satanic conspiracy theories. I’ve discussed some of those responsible before.

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MediaWatchWatch draws attention to lawsuit in Spain over a book of anti-religious photographs

…depicting Christian religious figures in various states of undress and arousal (scroll down for more NSFW images). The photos include a masturbating Jesus, a depiction of the Annunciation with a naked Mary being approached by a visibly-excited Angel Gabriel, and, bizarrely, a turd hovering above a chalice.

The Centro Jurídico Tomás Moro (CJTM) sees the book as an attack on constitutionally-protected religious feelings, and so it has turned to the courts. Its president, Javier Perez-Roldán, apparently complained that

Those responsible for these books demonstrate an intolerance which we all hoped had disappeared and which led Europe, between the years 1939-1945, to the worst atrocities in memory.

But will Perez-Roldán get satisfaction? A year ago his target was comedian Leo Bassi and his show “Revelation”. The Catholic News Agency reported that

The intention of the theatrical production, according to Bassi himself, is to offend anyone who holds religious beliefs, which is forbidden under Spanish law. The [Thomas More Legal] Center is calling for the show to be immediately suspended.

A spokesman for the Catholic legal association, Javier Perez-Roldan, denounced artists who “are bent on gratuitously offending the deepest sentiments of the vast majority of the public.”

For those who can read Spanish, Perez-Roldán explained his rationale in an interview for Minuto Digital – actually, he wanted Bassi imprisoned rather than just banned. However, he does not appear to have been successful.

In 2004, the CJTM opposed an anti-religious play entitled Me cago en Dios. A report from the time notes that

El Centro Jurídico Tomás Moro (CJTM) es una asociación civil sin ánimo de lucro que agrupa a juristas de toda España y de todas las ramas del Derecho. Entidad asociada a la plataforma HazteOir.org.

In order words, “The Thomas More Legal Centre (CJTM) is a non-profit organization which brings together lawyers from all over Spain and from all branches of the law” (thanks to Fragano Ledgister for the correct translation), and is associated with the HazteOir website. HazteOir was founded by Ignacio Arsuaga on American lines. As he told Religious and Ethics Newsweekly last summer:

They [Americans] have a very clear view about how to influence politics, and also they know how to use the media. I think it is very good that groups like the Christian Coalition, that here in Spain or in Europe would represent many million people, would have also a voice in public life.

This website offers a critical perspective.

In 2004, the CJTM and HazteOir worked together against the broadcaster Canal+, over the broadcast of an old 1978 programme which apparently showed how to cook a Christ for two people. Once again, the CJTM demanded a criminal penalty.

Despite the name and similarity of purpose, I couldn’t find any links between the CJTM and pizza tycoon Thomas Monaghan’s US-based Thomas More Law Center.

UPDATE: A similar story in Russia:

Society should give an appropriate legal and moral assessment to the actions of those who have organized and taken part in the Forbidden Art-2006 exhibition at the Sakharov Museum in Moscow, a spokesman of the Russian Orthodox Church has stated.

…[Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin] also noted that, judging by mass media reports on this exhibition, the exhibits presented insult religious feelings and at the least fall under Article 26 of the Russian Federation Administrative Violations Code envisaging penalty for outrage against citizens’ religious feelings or objects, symbols and emblems they venerate.

‘That is to say, it is a legal offence that must be stopped. Incitement of religious discord is also a possible charge’, Father Vsevolod stressed, ‘I will not be surprised if Orthodox believers will send in appropriate applications to the prosecutor’s office’.

I looked at an earlier controversy concerning the Sakharov Museum back in 2004.

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Numerous news sources have noted the role of church leaders and religious events in the current protests against Robert Mugabe; however, it’s also worth remembering that he does enjoy some religious support. A week ago the Zim Daily reported that

President Robert Mugabe has at last handsomely rewarded ZANU PF apologist self-proclaimed Reverend and founder of Destiny for Africa Network (Danet), Obadiah Msindo for the role he played in the controversial 2005 Parliamentary Elections.

Msindo, accused of raping his maid on five different occasions in July 2004 and has presided over several state functions at the Heroes Acre is now the proud owner of an S600 Mercedes Benz and a Lexus which he got from President Mugabe as ‘a token of appreciation’ for the role he played in the elections.

Msindo’s organisation has been lavished with funds and equipment, and a helpful police chief is blocking the rape investigation (which I blogged here). This is all pay-back for his notorious 2004 sermon in which he declared that

“Leadership comes from God and we must recognise that His Excellency is a black political, economic and cultural Moses. The President is fighting to break the dominance of the demons of neo-colonialism and imperialism.”

As I noted at the time, Msindo has also promised that Mugube would “raise millionaires and billionaires”, and he has proffered the opinion that George Bush is the “earthly representative of the Anti-Christ and the devil on earth”.

Meanwhile, Mugube’s Anglican stooge Rev Norbert Kunonga of Harare is coming under pressure. The Living Church Foundation noted a few days ago that

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Primate of Central Africa, the Most Rev. Bernard Malango, have pressed the Bishop of Harare to distance himself from the regime of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

…Thirty Harare priests, representing at least half of the active clergy and all of the white members of the clericus, have been forced to leave the country since 2003. Bishop Kunonga has replaced them by ordaining officials of President Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, including the country’s vice president and two cabinet ministers, none of whom have theological training.

As I’ve blogged previously, Kunonga is universally known as “His Disgrace”, and in 2002 he declared that Mugabe was “more merciful than God Himself”, which won him a farm from the aged tyrant. The fact that Malango has turned against him may be of some significance; when Kunonga was facing an ecclesiastical trial for corruption last year, Malango dismissed the prosecutor, causing the trial to collapse. Kunonga boasted that Archbishop Malango was his good friend and that he was now free to “baptise children in the Zanu-PF way” (Malango took a tougher line against Gene Robinson, cutting links with New Hampshire).

Mugabe is also enjoying the support of Pentecostal Bishop Trevor Manhanga. The Zimbabwe Independent reports:

Those who suspected Bishop Trevor Manhanga was closer to the regime than was healthy for a Pentecostal minister will have had those suspicions confirmed by a letter in the Johannesburg Sunday Times last weekend… Using arguments that the Office of the President would applaud, Manhanga says that while “we have made grave errors in the manner in which we have managed our affairs, we must not underplay the role played by powerful outside forces whose interests were threatened by events around the land redistribution exercise”.

So a brutal and lawless assault on law-abiding farmers and their workers by thugs directed by a regime avenging electoral losses can be justified in terms of “outside forces”? And this from a church minister!

He warns South Africans that Zimbabwe’s land-grab was a Sunday school picnic compared to what will transpire in their country.

…Let’s hope the US embassy notes the contents of Manhanga’s letter. For some reason he is held in high regard there. Here is a bishop who watches while his own people are crushed but wants South Africans to know that Zimbabwe can solve its own problems without their help. Whose agenda is this? And how would South Africa have managed without external help?

Mugabe’s manipulation of Manhanga and some other figures was noted by the Daily Telegraph last June.

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As John Hagee regales AIPAC with his views on why Christians should back Israel, the Knesset considers a new anti-missionary bill. Y-Net reports:

A war on missionaries was declared Tuesday when Shas faction head MK Yakov Margi proposed a bill stating that Israel’s laws against proselytism should be aggravated.

Backed by six other faction members and in concordance with Shas’ spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s instructions, Margi proposed the sentence for preaching conversion should be one year imprisonment.

…Currently, Israeli law deals with conversion on two levels. Firstly, anyone offering money or material products in exchange for conversion faces five years in prison or a monetary fine. The person on the accepting end of the offer also faces a certain punishment.

On the second level, regarding minors, anyone acting in favor of or conducting a conversion ceremony on a minor, faces six month in jail.

Israeli officialdom has also sought to discourage Jewish-Israelis from converting to Islam. Y-Net links to another report, which it published last year:

…In the past, the Religious Affairs and Interior Ministries made it very difficult for Jews to convert to Islam. “They are giving me the runaround, sending me back and forth from office to office. They made me see a psychiatrist, to ‘make sure I wasn’t brainwashed.’ They did everything so that I would despair and return to Judaism,” one convert related.

Shas argues that the proposed bill is not discriminatory as it also “applies to Jewish sects bringing Muslims from the Old City to convert to Judaism”. Margi is a big fan of banning things – last year he wrote an opinion piece against the proposed gay pride march in Jerusalem (“Social perversions should be kept in the dark, not put on display for all to see”). Ovadia Yosef, meanwhile, has featured on this blog before, and his many surprising statements have brought him international notoriety (that hurricane Katrina was caused by “blacks” failing to read the Torah is probably his best-known).

Margi’s call comes as the harassment of Jewish converts to Christianity continues. The Baptist Press reports:

BEER SHEVA, Israel (BP)–The arrest of a Messianic Jewish evangelist in Israel reflects the strife that often confronts Messianic Jews despite Israel’s guarantees of religious liberty and without any repercussion from law enforcement officials, the leader of a Messianic congregation told Baptist Press.

Messianic evangelist Eddie Beckford was arrested outside his business, the Chess and Bible Shop in Arad, after a mob of ultra-Orthodox Haradim Jews surrounded his van in the parking lot and beat him Feb. 25.

…Jim Sibley, director of the Pasche Institute for Jewish Studies at Criswell College in Dallas, told Baptist Press the word needs to get out about the harassment of Messianic Jews in Israel.

“It really is intolerable, and I think a lot more attention needs to be given to it,” Sibley said. “That’s the only way that the Israeli government is going to really do anything to protect the rights of believers.”

I covered the situation in Beersheeva in December 2005. The Messianic leader there, Howard Bass, is now taking legal action, although he warns that “It is not to be used in any way to foment or promote anti-Israel or anti-Jewish actions or reactions”.

As it happens, the JTA has just reported on conversions to Christianity among Ethiopian immigrants:

…Recent Ethiopian olim [immigrants] are easy prey for Christian missionaries. They come to Israel with little knowledge of Judaism; some have Christian roots. Most practiced some form of Christianity in Ethiopia before filing their aliyah petitions and moving to the Ethiopian cities of Gondar and Addis Ababa.

Some veteran Ethiopian Israeli leaders are warning that the ongoing Ethiopian aliyah is making matters worse, bringing to Israel many Christians who either are married to Ethiopians of Jewish origin or fraudulently claim to be related to Jews.

“Today the aliyah of the Falash Mura has turned into a business,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Zagay, an Ethiopian Israeli rabbi in Rehovot and director of the National Committee of Ethiopian Jews, formed recently to combat missionary activity.

…”This aliyah is causing irreversible damage to the State of Israel,” one Ethiopian Israeli leader in Jerusalem told JTA. “These people aren’t Jewish. It is tearing apart the Ethiopian and Israeli community…”

Similar complaints have long been made against Russian immigrants, who have been described by Shas as “hundreds of thousands of Gentiles flooding the land with pork, prostitution, impurity and filth” (a fringe of these immigrants has responded in kind, forming the neo-Nazi “White Israeli Union“). Of course, such mass migrations must particularly upsetting to Palestinian refugees, who have long been told that their return to Israel proper would undermine the Jewish character of Israel, and that therefore anyone who supports them must be anti-Semitic.

The consequences of mass immigration were the subject of a 1999 academic article by Ian Lustick, entitled “Israel as a non-Arab State”. Roger Owen briefly summarized the findings in Al-Ahram in 2000. Among them:

…First, no meaningful debate on the question of the Jewishness of the Russian immigrants can be carried on without raising the whole notion of the Right of Return and so, by extension, one of the main rationales for the Zionist project in the twentieth century. Second, given the demographic struggle between Israeli Jews and the Palestinians, the Jewish Israelis would be unhappy about any diminution in the numbers they claim for their side. This also makes sense if one considers that the non-Jewish Russians are just as likely to be anti-Palestinian as their Jewish compatriots.

Seen from this point of view, the construction of Russian Orthodox churches in the communities where there is a heavy concentration of Russian immigrants makes perfect sense. So too does the increasing unwillingness to question people’s religion and ethnic origins. According to Lustick, the 1995 census was the first in Israeli history not to ask questions about what is obviously becoming an increasingly contentious, but also increasingly blurred, situation regarding individual religious and ethnic identity.

Meanwhile, far away in the USA, the alliance of Israel and the Christian right continues to grow. The JTA reports on John Hagee’s recent speech at AIPAC:

…The popular TV preacher went straight for the heart, and if there were doubts that an evangelical could cast aside concerns about proselytizing and make his case based simply on love of Israel, they were quickly dispersed.

“What we have in common is far greater than the things that have separated us over the years,” Hagee said to applause.

“We must stop Iran’s nuclear threat, and stop it now, and stand boldly with Israel!” he said to even greater applause.

…”There will never be another Holocaust, not on our watch and never again!” Hagee continued.

Unless, of course, the Jews annoy God, which is why Hagee believes the Holocaust occurred. Although he had the good sense not say this at AIPAC, Max Blumenthal notes that Hagee’s book Jerusalem Countdown (which I blogged here) contains the following:

It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day…(pp. 92-93)

Hagee has also railed against international bankers and the “Illuminati” in ways that obviously recall anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. This video, which is also from Blumenthal’s page, consists of a Hagee sermon with some interesting images and music added. I’m sceptical that the video is an official Hagee production, but the words are his own, and the pictures do seem to fit. The resulting production borders on the camp.

(Some links from Christianity Today Weblog and Talk to Action)

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Morris Cerullo to Face Tax Trial

Two decades on from the infamous events of 1987, this year looks like it’s shaping up as a bit of an annus horribilis for those US evangelists who practice and preach the Prosperity Gospel. WCNC reports:

The onetime leader of the Inspiration Network, now based in Fort Mill, S.C., is in court next week in San Diego on tax evasion charges.

…Cerullo’s attorney says “Dr. Cerullo is extremely disappointed that the charges were filed and believes they are without merit (and) the charges will be proven false.”

But, the federal prosecutor said that the money in question came from offerings at breakthrough rallies and speaking fees. The feds tells us Cerullo used that money as his own.

Cerullo’s previous legal difficulties were reported in Christianity Today last year:

…he was sued twice in 2000 by employees who said they were punished for raising questions about fundraising. The more prominent of these came from John Paul Warren, who said he was fired for confronting Cerullo about “unethical and fraudulent fund raising techniques.”

A California appeals court in December 2001 said that the courts could not get involved in the case since it involved employment at a religious organization, and that state involvement would violate both the Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. (The Supreme Court in 2002 decided not to hear an appeal.)

Meanwhile, February saw Kenneth Copeland coming under scrutiny:

The Copelands are regarded by many as the most successful televangelists in the world, and they certainly look the part these days—jetting about in their new Cessna Citation, operated, they say, in exact accordance with federal tax law and used solely for ministry purposes.

But flight records News 8 obtained raise questions.

…According to flight records obtained by News 8, the Copeland jet, on its way to an evangelical seminar in Australia last October, made a two-day layover in Maui. Then it was on to the Fiji islands for another stop.

After seven days in Australia, the Copelands headed to Honolulu for another three days of what they called “eating and rest.”

Last December, amid other evangelical stops, there was a jet ride to the Yampa Valley Airport in Colorado, just a few miles away from Steamboat Springs Ski Resort.

This was announced as the Minnesota Star Tribune published its investigations into the finances of another Prosperity preacher, Mac Hammond:

Last week, a Washington watchdog group filed a formal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against Hammond’s Living Word Christian Center, which now has nearly 10,000 members, broadcasts weekly services to local and national television audience, and runs an array of businesses.

The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says the church gave loans to Hammond at favorable rates and created a sweetheart deal on a plane lease, possibly violating federal tax law that forbids insiders from benefiting from a charitable organization. But church officials said they are confident that they are complying with tax laws.

Hammond’s church’s board of directors includes Copeland’s son and “Texas minister Dennis Burke.”

The very idea of the Prosperity Gospel has also recently come under attack in a new book:

Dr. Robert M. Franklin, author of newly released Crisis in the Village, says the achievements of the African American community are losing ground, especially among church leaders who have shifted more focus onto individual achievement.

…”I am convinced that the single greatest threat to the historical legacy and core values of the contemporary black church tradition is posed by what is known as the ‘prosperity gospel’ movement,” he writes, explaining that the black church has assimilated into a culture that is hostile to marginalized people, such as the poor, the HIV-infected, homosexuals and immigrants.

According to Franklin, one-fourth of the black community lives in poverty. But many churches are devoting more time to “building their local kingdoms” and less time aiding and uplifting the poor.

Last month, Cerullo was in Nigeria for a rally. The Tide reported:

An American Evangelist, Morris Cerullo, has urged Nigerian leaders to ensure a sustainable economic empowerment for all Nigerians

“God is in control of politics, oil, education and other facets of the economy,” Cerullo said. …He said Nigerians needed honest and upright men of integrity to move the country forward, noting that “the church provides men of integrity, but the greed of some won’t allow credible people to rule”.

UPDATE: Commentator Jason Spaceman notes another case, that of the Prayer Palace in Toronto:

…the three white pastors – Paul Melnichuk and his 40-year-old twin sons, Tim and Tom – lead lavish lives in contrast to the mainly working-class black families that make up the bulk of the church.

Between them, the pastors have amassed a real estate fortune worth about $12 million. Each owns a multi-million-dollar country estate north of Toronto (Tim’s is worth as much as $5.5 million), they share a Florida vacation villa, and the pastors and their wives drive luxurious cars – among them a Porsche Cayenne SUV, a Lexus RX 330 SUV and a Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 convertible.

Further,

…charitable works, like a promised orphanage in Brazil, either dried up or never materialized.

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From an Italian news report:

Martedi’ prossimo, alle ore 21.00, presso la Casa della Pace, l’Assessorato alla Partecipazione, Pace e Cooperazione Internazionale della Provincia di Milano in collaborazione con la Upf-Italia accogliera’ la delegazione Israeliana, composta dai Parlamentari Talab El Sana e Ran Cohen, dal Segretario Generale Upf – Israele Hod Ben Zvi e dal Shuki Yariv Ben-Ami, politologo ed esperto di mass media.

Unfortunately, I don’t actually know any Italian, but we can get the gist: two Israeli parliamentarians – Ran Cohen and (Arab-Israeli) Talab El Sana – have held a meeting in Milan under the auspices of Upf-Italia and an Italian peace organisation. The Knesset members were accompanied by Hod Ben Zvi (the General Secretary of Upf), and with Shuki Yariv Ben-Ami.

Ben-Ami has featured on this blog before – back in 2004 he took part in a remarkable ritual in a US senate office, during which he placed a crown upon the head (“with my ten fingers, with white gloves”, he later boasted) of Rev Sun Myung Moon, who was declared to be “humanity’s saviour, messiah, returning lord and true parent”. “Upf” of course, is the Universal Peace Federation, which was founded by Rev Moon in 2003. Hod Ben Zvi, meanwhile, is one the founders of the Association for Jewish Unificationists, which happens to be based in the illegal West Bank settlement of Maale-Adumim.

I’ve been following Rev Moon’s interest in the “Holy Land” for some time, and last December I noted his plans for an interfaith centre in Galilee. One wonders what the strategic significance of this latest event might be.

(A second report, also in Italian, can be seen here)

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From the AP:

The Hamas-run Education Ministry on Saturday rescinded its decision to pull an anthology of Palestinian folk tales from school libraries and destroy copies, reportedly over mild sexual innuendo, following a widespread public outcry…Some 1,500 copies of the book were destroyed – the most direct attempt by the militant Muslim group to impose its beliefs on Palestinian society.

The restrictions on the book (whether the copies were actually destroys appears to be a matter of some dispute) had appalled many Palestinians, and the Christian Science Monitor reports that the Palestinian public may be getting fed up with Hamas:

“We can say now that Hamas is being revealed to the Palestinian people,” says [Yahya] Yakhlef [the former minister of culture]. “I think the popularity of Hamas has dropped.”

The Monitor also quotes the reasons given for the banning:

“The book was withdrawn because of the problems with offensive language which contradicts our beliefs and morals,” says Sheikh Yazid Khader, who is the director-general of the PA’s Ministry of Education.

…”Our society depends on Islamic values and has for hundreds of years,” continues Sheikh Khader…”The Israeli occupation is interested in introducing us to Western values that work to destroy our Arab and Muslim values.”

Interestingly, Sheikh Khader has himself been on the receiving end of attempts to suppress writings: he was formerly the editor of the Hamas newspaper, and in June 2006 he was attacked in his office by Fatah gunmen.

The book, Speak Bird, Speak Again, was compiled by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana, and the English-language edition has a foreword by the late Alan Dundes. A substantial chunk of the text can be read here (one footnote mentions a mouse who “dangles his penis in the water”). The book was reviewed in American Ethnologist by Dwight Reynolds back in 1990, and this gives us some clues as to why Hamas might have found it so subversive:

All of the narratives presented in Speak, Bird, Speak Again were recorded by the editors in 1978-80 on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in the Galilee…Most of the narrators are older women,…for the Palestinian folktale tradition…is primarily a women’s tradition (in opposition to the public recitations of epic and romance dominated by men). Women are the major transmitters of folktales and often constitute a large portion of the audience. All of the female narrators are housewives, none of whom are literate, of both Muslim and Christian cultures.

The prominence of women, both as narrators and as heroines, may be surprising to many readers. In seeming contradiction to the restricted public role of women in real life, many of these tales concern women who act, who decide, and who wield power. At times the heroines of the tales act openly as women, and at times they do so disguised as men. Several of the tales deal explicitly with sexual conflicts and the problematics of gender roles including the “feminization” of male spouses and lovers by the female heroines…and the incestuous desires of fathers…More than one tale is remarkable for the bluntness with which sexual issues are presented or parodied. The tales are not direct reflections of Palestinian Arab norms, of course, but rather represent a traditional discourse which wrestles with and negotiates the strictures of female public modesty and subordination. They are tales which, after all, are heard and appreciated by male as well as female children as they grow up, and even at times as adults.

Meanwhile, in the USA school pupils in New York have recently been suspended after saying aloud the word “vagina” while reading from the Vagina Monologues, and Christian conservatives in Michigan (in the form of the Livingston Organization for Values in Education) have been trying to have a school board arrested on obscenity charges over assigned readings that included such “pornographic” material as a book by Toni Morrison.

Name variation: Yazeeb Khader

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The former Agape Press has made a change to one of its old stories:

On July 25, 2005, AgapePress published a report documenting allegations made against Bethel World Outreach Center’s “Victory Club” youth program. The allegations have been withdrawn and the report has, therefore, been removed from this page.

Additionally, the original report indicated that Bethel World Outreach Center, which is a member of the “Every Nation” family of churches, was affiliated with the “New Order of the Latter Rain.” That portion of the report was mistaken and AgapePress regrets the error.

The allegations, which I blogged on here, concerned “brainwashing”, pressure allegedly put on two school pupils to speak in tongues, and a claim that one was encouraged not to take medication. The parents of the two pupils subsequently brought a lawsuit against Bethel. Agape added the details about the supposed links to the NOLR, which were formulated by Agape in a rather peculiar way that recalled old-fashioned Christian fundamentalist antagonism against Pentecostalism.

The Bethel World Outreach website now carries a sworn letter from the plaintiffs (who are now named), in which they withdraw all their allegations:

TO: Bethel Church, Every Nation Churches, Inc., Victory Clubs of America, Inc., Steve Hollander, Rice Broocks, Jr.

FROM: Maria and Felicia Vega, Laurie Noyes and Jill Gustafson

…The Plaintiffs are persuaded that members of Bethel Church, its pastors and the Bethel Parties have sincere beliefs which can be a positive influence in the world. The Plaintiffs are also persuaded that the vast and overwhelming majority of the members of Bethel Church, its pastors and the Bethel Parties are good and decent people motivated by the spirit of Christ, who try to live Christ’s teachings, and who desire to help young people in need.

…The Plaintiffs hold no ill will towards members of Bethel Church or the Bethel Parties in general. Further, the Plaintiffs absolve the Bethel Parties and their officers as well as members who are not currently parties to the litigation, of any fault or responsibility for any injuries suffered by the Plaintiffs in the course of their association with the Bethel Parties or their members. The Plaintiffs agree to dismiss their claims against the Bethel Parties with prejudice such that those claims may never be brought again, and release the Bethel Parties from any responsibility for damages or injuries suffered by the Plaintiffs arising from or related to the events which are, or could have been, the subject of the lawsuit.

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Swazi Pastor Justice Dlamini of the Mbabane Worship Centre has explained how God will deal with a couple of journalists who he thinks have damaged his reputation:

Dlamini shocked a church gathering, which also included Cabinet Ministers, when he declared from the pulpit that he was praying for the death of two journalists, “Times of Swaziland” Managing Editor Martin Dlamini and reporter Nhlanhla Mathunjwa, whom he claims wrote badly about him.

…This followed a story published by the “Times” of February 27, 2007, in which the pastor was said to have been involved a squabble over a church vehicle with one of his subordinate pastors.

Pastor Dlamini claimed the story lowered his dignity and said he has prayed to God to remove the two journalists from the face of the earth “to teach the media a lesson”. He said this would also be a lesson to other journalists not to write ‘badly’ about church ministers.

The reports that caused the pastor to curse the two journalists can be seen here. A taster:

The businessman caught in the crossfire of a wrangle over a car between Worship Centre’s Pastor Justice Dlamini and departed Pastor Ndumiso Dlamini has come out to clarify that he did not give the vehicle to Pastor Justice, but to Ndumiso without any conditions attached. This effectively settles whatever confusion there was that the car belongs to Pastor Ndumiso.

The businessman, Abner Shongwe, said he presented the car as an offering to the church in the first place.

Shongwe said he gave the car to Pastor Ndumiso to use until he decided to leave Christianity, not until he left Justice’s church, Worship Centre.

Shongwe added:

“I never thought that this time the offering I thought I had secretly given to God would end up in papers in this manner…”

This is a bit of a turnaround for Pastor Justice, who in 2003 was trying to resurrect a journalist. The Swaziland Times reported at the time:

Despite the embarrassment that he has been subjected to, controversial pastor Justice Dlamini insists that deceased former editor of the Times Sunday Vusie Ginindza will rise from the dead. The pastor, without being specific, maintained that the miracle he had promised the Ginindza family would be fullfilled when Vusie finally rises from the dead. Dlamini said people should not persecute him because he believes that God can raise people from the dead but should have faith in His word. “It is not me who will say when and how Vusie will rise from the dead but it  was my responsibility to go there and pray as he (God) had ordered me to. “I cannot also tell his family not to bury him and wait for the miracle,” he said. The pastor acknowledged the fact the public will label him as being insane because of his actions. To that he said, it was not a problem to him that he was publicly embarrassed because he was serving God as he had been told to.”

(Ginindza, by the way, appears to have been a much-commended writer. He died aged 35)

Although Pastor Justice now wants prying journalists dead, he was himself the victim of an attempt to suppress free speech back in 2002:

The Swaziland Royal Police, acting on a court order on Thursday, 2002 invaded ‘Channel S’, the only privately owned television station in the country, and confiscated a video tape containing a sermon that has been termed by the Swazi government as “threatening the foundations of the kingdom”.

According to local sources the footage was of a sermon broadcast nationally and regionally (Southern African Development Community – SADC) on Friday, 6 September 2002, in which pastor Justice Dlamini of the Swaziland Association of Christian Ministries (SACM) suggested that some of the cultural practices in the country are “ungodly”. Mr Dlamini was referring to the “Incwala”, an annual cultural celebration.

…During the Incwala, tens of thousands of Swazis in traditional attire converge on the Queen Mother’s village, and petition the national ancestral spirits to endow the king with wisdom, and the nation with good rains and fortune.

…[The Media Institute of Southern Africa] further reported that Mr Dlamini has since suffered harassment by policy makers in the country, ostensibly in the name of protecting culture and the monarchy.

Pastor Justice has also ;spoken out against condoms, which he believes to be “full of holes”.

One enthusiast of the pastor is Swazi businessman Bongani Mashwama:

Mashwama’s long route to success was detailed out at the dinner graced by Minister of Housing and Urban Development Mabili Dlamini who was representing the PM Themba Dlamini as well as the Economic Planning Minister. The BNM Director urged participants at the dinner to put God first in whatever they engaged in for their businesses to succeed.

Quoting from the Holy Book, Mashwama said he had to start in very humble beginnings, preaching in hospitals and other areas after his resignation from SEB before the Lord assisted him open the consultancy engineering business in 2002. He paid glowing tribute to Pastor Justice Dlamini of the Mbabane Worship Centre whom he said taught him business principles and unveiled to him the secret of success.

Luckily for us, though, Dlamini spilt some of the secret to the Swazi Observer in December:

According to pastor Justice Dlamini people fail to receive their miracles form God because they do not know how to position themselves for the miracles.

“It is after when people do not position themselves where the devil then take advantage,” he said.

The pastor added that things never materialise for people, not because God fails but because they fail to meet God’s terms.

“God is a God of principles and his principles should not be violated. If God’s principles are violated there is no way people can receive blessings and miracles,” Dlamini said.

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