Bartholomew's Notes

Asia News provides the epilogue to a story that’s been running for several years:

The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land yesterday published the following statement: “On Saturday, 2 September, 2006, by prior arrangement, the lock was put back in the Main Door of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem – which had been illegally removed from it in the spring or summer of 2002…”

The lock had been removed by Greek Orthodox monks, in alleged defiance of the “Status Quo” – the old Ottoman law which decrees which Christian groups can control which parts of the various Christian holy sites. Monks and priests squabbling over their respective claims had kept local Muslims amused for centuries, but the fun had to end when great powers such as France and Russia began making demands with menaces on behalf of their particular confessional groups. The result was the “Status Quo”, issued in 1862 and re-confirming the situation as it stood in 1757. One of the best-known consequences of the decision is that the outside of the Holy Sepulchre now features an Armenian ladder on a Greek ledge that cannot legally be moved.

The “status quo” gave the Greeks control over the door to the Church of the Nativity, but also gave keys to the Armenians and Catholics. The Ecumenical News Service reported:

Archbishop Aristarchos said that the decision was triggered after the door was opened, by either (Roman Catholic) Franciscan or Armenian monks, without the permission of the Greek Orthodox Church.

“We insist on our rights,” said Aristarchos in a reference to the Greek Orthodox claim to be the only group with the right to take such an action.

Now, what possible reason might the others have had for opening the door?

A group of Palestinian militants fleeing from Israeli troops took refuge in the church and refused to give themselves up for weeks, before the two sides reached a negotiated settlement to the incident. Several of the Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during the siege, and their bodies were taken from the church by Franciscans. Unable to find their keys at the time, the Franciscans turned to the Armenians who lent them their own.

But the Greek Orthodox monks objected to the doors being opened without their permission to remove the corpses.

The Greek Orthodox monks were also reported to have been furious that their Franciscan counterparts allowed Muslim prayers to be recited over the dead Palestinians, within a section of the church that is controlled by the Greek Orthodox.

Hostility between the groups has also had other consequences, as the Telegraph reported last year:

Squabbling over crucial roof repairs between the three Christian communities who share custodianship of Jesus’s birthplace is endangering the 1,500-year-old basilica.

Large holes in the 500-year-old lead roof have let rainwater flood inside for years. It streams down the walls and threatens to wash away Crusader-era murals and destroy Byzantine mosaics.

Spokesmen for all three communities admit that the roof is in a deplorable state but talks on the issue have broken down, angering archaeologists and historians.

The dispute over the keys was blamed by the Armenian Patriarch on the Greek Patriarch Irineos, whom he described as “capricious and self-serving”.

Irineos – described by Asia News as “violently anti-Catholic” – was later deposed by his own synod. As I blogged at the time, the patriarch had orginally been held in suspicion by Israel and had been excoriated for anti-Semitism in Front Page (telling Arafat of his “disgust and disrespect…for the descendants of the crucifiers”). However, last year he was found to have been responsible for the sale of church property to a right-wing Israeli group which was attempting to increase the Israeli presence in Palestinian parts of Jerusalem. Irineos blamed his treasurer Nicholas Papadimas, who promptly went missing. The upshot was that Irineos, now supported by Israel (well, why let a little “disgust and disrespect” get in the way of things?), was fired and replaced by Theofilos. This turn of events was decried by WorldNetDaily‘s Jerusalem correspondent Aaron Klein – whose benign accounts of the Israeli far-right have been documented by both myself and ConWebWatch – on the predictable grounds that Theofilos’s unwillingness to sell property on Palestinian land to the Israeli occupiers was simply anti-Jewish.

Asia News gives a bit of political context to the return of the old lock:

The happy resolution of this affair, after more than four years, is significant for a number of reasons: It will encourage Catholics (and Armenians) everywhere to support even more emphatically the right of the Greek Orthodox to religious freedom in electing their own leaders; in fact, the Government of Israel is still refusing to “recognise” the canonical election of Theophilos.

…The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has gained merit by recognising in this case its obligations concerning the Holy Places, under the ‘Basic Agreement’ with the Holy See, and has thereby given a positive signal concerning the prospects of the Catholic Church in reference to the future Palestinian republic.

Irineos, meanwhile, has slipped into obscurity, and whether he now accepts his demotion to simple “monk” is not known. And as far as I can tell, his treasurer remains missing…

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Manchester school forced to pay for own security

House of Lords member told Jewish peer that getting rid of “your lot” would be next

Former Home Office Minister suggests downloading racist material should be illegal

The UK’s Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism has just been released. The 56-page report is divided into 8 short sections, which survey recent anti-Semitic incidents and discourse in the UK and offer recommendations as to what ought to be done about it. The inquiry was chaired by Denis MacShane, whom I found rather less than impressive when he spoke in advance of publication on BBC Radio 4 last week. However, despite that – and some problematic parts – the report is temperate and highlights some important developments.

The section on anti-Semitic incidents is largely a depressing but familiar log of human baseness and cowardice, as we read about Jews being attacked and cemeteries desecrated. It also, however, highlights a situation in Manchester which is nothing short of a scandal:

In the course of a visit to Manchester members of the panel visited the King David School, which more than one thousand Jewish children attend, and saw first hand the kind of security measures judged necessary based on advice from the police and the [Community Security Trust]. The campus is surrounded by reinforced fencing and monitored by CCTV cameras. The windows are fitted with anti-shatter glass and the wall nearest the road is reinforced. Access is controlled and limited to two entry points staffed by full-time security guards and parents are also asked to participate in a security rota. Bomb drills are conducted I addition to the standard fire drills. These measures cost the school around £130,000 annually and it receives no extra allowance from the Department for Education and Skills or the Local Authority. Parents are asked to make a termly contribution towards security but this does not cover the entire cost. We saw similar security precautions during our visit to Merkaz haTorah School in Paris, which was firebombed in 2003, but the French government contributes towards the school’s security costs.

The report also notes a low level of prosecutions, and recommends that the Crown Prosecution Service investigate the reason for this.

The section on anti-Semitic discourse, meanwhile, contains a report of an extraordinary incident:

Lord Janner of Braunstone submitted evidence describing some antisemitic remarks directed against him in Parliament including an incident after the arrest of Saddam Hussein. Lord Janner was approached by a fellow peer who said, “Well, we’ve got rid of Saddam Hussein now. Your lot are next.” In response to his questioning her use of “Your lot”, she said, “Yes, you cannot go on killing Palestinians for ever, you know”.

The name of Janner’s antagonist, though, is not provided.

There is also a foray into the world of the British far right:

A representative from Searchlight told us that the far right has started to use the language of ‘Zionists’ as a euphemism for ‘Jews’ in order to disguise its antisemitic agenda, a phenomenon that also occurs on the left and among Islamist extremists. We received numerous examples of this including an article in the BNP Voice of Freedom speaking of soldiers risking their lives in Iraq because “Tony Blair swapped British blood for donations from a clique of filthy-rich Zionist businessmen”…In its 2005 General Election manifesto, the BNP included a promise not to go to war for “neocon adventures on behalf of the Zionist government of Israel”.

BNP leader Nick Griffin’s notorious anti-Semitic statements are also highlighted, which, although always worth reminding the public about, are a bit old now. Islamists are also considered:

Extremist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and the now disbanded Al-Muhajiroun have a long history of publishing vicious and violent antisemitic propaganda…The activities of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, MPACUK, have given cause for concern. Although its rhetoric is often extremist, MPACUK identifies itself as part of the mainstream British Muslim community, describing itself as “the UK’s leading Muslim civil liberties group, empowering Muslims to focus on non-violent Jihad and political activism”…MPACUK has been criticised for publishing material on its website promoting the idea of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy, including the reproduction of articles originally published on neo-Nazi and Holocaust Denial websites, and is currently banned from university campuses under the [National Union of Students’] ‘No Platform’ policy.

Worrying links with some left-wing groups are also noted.

On the other hand, the report also notes efforts by religious groups to improve relations with Jews:

On our visit to Manchester we were told that the Lord Mayor, a Muslim Councillor, had taken a lead in promoting interfaith dialogue and was joint chair of the Manchester Muslim Jewish Forum…We received constructive written submissions from the Catholic Church, the Church of Scotland and the Church of England, all of which support a range of interfaith forums…The Catholic Conference of Bishops also submitted evidence that they try to combat antisemitism through education by presenting Jews and Judaism in a positive light.

As expected, a large chunk of the report also deals with Israel and the Palestinian conflict. The report treads carefully, explaining that

The committee unanimously recognised that criticism of Israel should not, in itself, be regarded as antisemitic but equally recognised that anti-Jewish prejudice in any context should not be overlooked.

Fair enough, and there’s also an attempt to get more than one perspective:

Some witnesses felt that it is misleading to characterise as antisemitic any contemporary attacks on Jews deriving from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They regard it as unhelpful to see such manifestations of anti-Jewish sentiment as a direct continuation of historical anti-Jewish prejudice…Rather than explaining the distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate criticism of the actions and policies of the Israeli government, we took the view that anti-Israel discourse can, at times, become polluted by antisemitism and it is more important in each case to identify whether or not this has occurred.

However, this is where the report becomes problematic:

The EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, quoted in full on page 6, identifies some of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (for example claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
• Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

The EUMC Definition goes on to state that criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

But how exactly do we define “double standards”? What does “self-determination” mean? For example, I support the right of return for Palestinian refugees, but I’m told by some that that would dilute the Jewish character of state, and therefore undermine Jewish “self-determination”. I think that’s probably the case, but I don’t see why justice for Palestinians should therefore de denied, since I would not accept this as a legitimate ground for my own dispossession. Does that make me an anti-Semite? And the “double standards” complaint is often no more than a smokescreen. Rather than deal with a criticism of Israel, the response is often: “ahh, but what about Islamist terrorism and anti-Semitism? Why do you criticise Israel when China occupies Tibet? etc. etc.” Yes, those injustices should also be opposed, and on some sort of scale may be “worse” than Israel’s behaviour. But why should it be necessary to reel off a litany of all these other ills before one can reasonably expect a complaint about Israel to be taken seriously?

The report goes on to quote Shalom Lappin:

Professor Shalom Lappin submitted to us that the conflict itself is not reported with the detachment applied to other areas of conflict such as Darfur or Chechnya:

“The Israel-Palestinian encounter has been largely denaturalised and removed from its political and regional context. It is no longer seen as a political and military struggle between two nations with a long and complex history…Instead, it has been endowed with the peculiar status of an iconic clash between good and evil. Israel has increasingly come to be construed as the purest embodiment of imperialism, racism and oppression whose sole national purpose is to dispossess the Palestinians.”

Such interpretations of the conflict no doubt do exist, and are regrettable – but shallow and “denaturalised” approaches do not, of course, invalidate analyses critical of Israel that do not share this flaw. And if we transpose the words “Israel” and “the Palestinians” in the last sentence, we have a reasonably useful description of the same vice as it appears a fair bit of pro-Israel discourse.

There’s also a section on the academic boycott debate, where all attempt at discursive discussion goes out the window. The inquiry takes the line of the “Engage” anti-boycott organisation, without seeking any input from academics such as Steven or Hilary Rose, the Jewish academics who first proposed the idea of breaking links with Israeli institutions (bold in original):

We conclude that calls to boycott contact with academics working in Israel are an assault on academic freedom and intellectual exchange. We recommend that lecturers in the new University and College Lecturers Union are given every support to combat such selective boycotts that are anti-Jewish in practice. We would urge the new union’s executive and leadership to oppose the boycott.

The boycott is termed “anti-Jewish in practice” because it would supposedly have its biggest impact on Jewish academics, and on the discipline of Jewish studies. But a bit more context is needed: one issue raised by the debate was links between Israel’s higher education system and the infrastructure of the occupation. The motion that was passed by the (now defunct) union NAFTHE was in the context of “academic responsibility”, and

invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies.

I think this formulation was flawed, and I would certainly have much preferred a more impersonal approach asking academics to consider how their links with particular institutions or projects might be ethically compromised through association with the occupation. But this is hardly “an assault on academic freedom”. Rather than deal with the text of the motion that was actually passed, the Inquiry instead relies on lurid accounts from Engage about Jewish academics facing the prospect of having their emails to foreign universities monitored.

There is also a more general discussion of the availability of racist and anti-Semitic material on the internet, and a disturbing suggestion from a former minister:

The former Home Office Minister Paul Goggins MP gave evidence of a model which could possibly be applied to racist material on the internet. In the case of child pornography it is now an offence to download images from the internet, and it may be possible to develop a similar law in regard to material which could incite racial or religious hatred.

As someone who has trawled through a few far-right websites for research purposes, that seems to me to be a very bad idea. And surely the current offence is not so much “downloading” child pornography as possessing it, whether electronically or on paper? Are the owners of racist books (or their own manuscripts, even) also to be targeted?

Of course, these are just a few of the things from the report I happened to find the most interesting: it’s worth reading the whole thing.

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News from Ghana:

The activities and operations of a group calling itself the gay and lesbian association of Ghana, coupled with their intention to play host to an international conference in Ghana, has met fierce condemnation and opposition from the Christian community.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday to state its position on the raging controversy, Right Reverend Dr. Paul Fynn, Chairman of the all-powerful council, condemned in no uncertain terms the activities and operations of the gays and lesbians.

…According to him, the fact that the constitution of the country guaranteed freedom of association, movement, speech, expression and worship did not mean it should provide the license and authority for people to misbehave and satanise the country, as that of the infamous Sodom and Gomorrah incident in the bible.

…For him, homosexuality, lesbianism, occultism and the raging cocaine issues that have beset this nation within the last couple of months are all signs of the bad seed sown by the devil amongst us; hence the need to uproot such acts without further delay.

(Fynn could also add “unionised workplaces” to his list of satanic influences: when he’s not running the council, or presiding as a Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Ghana, Fynn runs a fried chicken franchise; last year he was condemned by the Food and Allied Workers Union for “a strategy to frustrate trade union activities in the company by the systematic and arbitrary dismissal of workers”.)

Apostle Dr. Michael Ntumy, who could not fathom any kind of justification for such ungodly practices, said, “Homosexuality is an offence against God”, quoting Leviticus 20:13 in the Holy Scriptures, “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death”.

Ntumy is a leader in the World Pentecostal Council. He squared off against the gay and lesbian association on the radio recently:

Over a week ago, the president of the gays and lesbians association of Ghana, one Prince MacDonalds, came under immense attack from Ghanaians when he stormed the studious [sic] of Joy FM, an Accra-based private radio station, to justify their activities.

In fact, Prince MacDonald (not “MacDonalds”) appeared on a panel at the station, rather than “storming” the building. An earlier report explains (but gets his name even more wrong):

On Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, several such Ghanaians including the man of God with nine lives [a reference to a recent murder attempt – RB], Apostle Dr. Michael Ntumy, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost Worldwide, added their voices to the condemnation of the theory and practice of homosexuality and lesbianism.

Mr. Prince Madonna [sic!], President of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana, met with stiff opposition from the teeming Christian population who appeared to be shocked at his outburst.

Madonna appeared as a panelist on the live programme alongside Edmund Foli, a Human Rights lawyer of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, and another fellow of the University of Cape Coast to discuss this controversial topic.

MacDonald caused particular upset by referring to his own Christian faith. He also, according to another report, claimed that homosexuality was far from unknown in the country:

As their number in the country keeps swelling, the president of Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana has revealed that the association has currently been registering members including some who are in senior secondary school or have just left school.

Already, there are some top men and women in society, people with diverse professions including politicians flirting with the gay fraternity, he disclosed.

“We have the majority of gay men in Accra. During some of the small programmes we organise, we get about 400 to 500 gays attending and when we have big programmes we get thousands of people coming from other regions,” Prince McDonald, the president of the association told Joy FM – a local radio station in Accra on Thursday.

He noted: “There are a lot of people with this orientation when you move all over Ghana. When you go to Kumasi there is a large population, when you go to Sunyani, when you go to Techiman, in the North, in the Central, there are whole lot of young men and old men, young women and old women who are engaged in same sex attraction.”

MacDonald planned to hold a conference which would put pressure on the government to change the criminal law against male homosexuality. The government responded swiftly, as the BBC reported:

Ghana’s government has banned a conference for gay men and lesbians due to take place there later this month.

Information Minister Kwamena Bartels said as homosexuality was illegal in Ghana the gathering was not permitted.

“Government does not condone any such activity which violently offends the culture, morality and heritage of the entire people of Ghana,” he said.

…Mr Bartels urged the interior minister to investigate and punish those who had given initial permission to the organisers.

This follows a similar development in Nigeria, after the activities of a gay Anglican activist group were reported in the US press. The government responded by banning the “staging of Gay Rallies and Associations of whatever kind”, as I blogged here.

UPDATE: Direland has more – including the interesting detail that the proposed conference was actually a hoax.

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Agape Press wheels out yet another rightist pundit to “explain” the situation in Israel:

IDF spokesman feels Annan’s advice detrimental to Israel

is the front page lead-in, which takes us to:

…United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan is demanding that Israel end its blockade of Lebanon, a move critics claim would be disastrous for the Jewish state. Jeremy Gimpel of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claims any relaxation of the blockade will lead to hostilities flaring up once again between Israel and the Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah.

…In his estimation, the cease-fire is only allowing Hezbollah to re-arm and re-group for the next round of the war.

Gimpel is an American immigrant to Israel who serves as a reservist in the Israeli army and co-hosts a radio show with his associate Ari Abramowitz – that hardly makes him an “IDF spokesman”. Arutz Sheva gives some extra detail:

Together they founded Admil – a Hebrew acronym for “The Land of Israel.” Admil is a team of new immigrants who have come ‘home’ to Israel. Members of the group regularly address youth groups, solidarity missions, and Christian Zionist groups. “It is an honor and a merit to live in this beautiful Land and I feel it is my obligation to share my passion and perspective on the physical and spiritual connection of the Jewish people to our land,” said Gimpel, who lives in the Gush Etzion town of Efrat…

Efrat, it should be noted, is a West Bank settlement that for some years has been encroaching on the nearby Palestinian village of Artas. The Palestinian land swallowed by the town – in part to accommodate more and more Americans and other immigrants like Gimpel, but also probably to make a point – includes areas belonging to a Roman Catholic convent. Gimpel and Abramowitz also run “Heartland to Heartland” in order to justify this kind of thing:

Heartland to Heartland is an organization dedicated to mobilizing grassroots Jewish and Christian support for the Biblical Land of Israel. Inspired by Member of Knesset Rabbi Benny Elon, Heartland to Heartland’s mission is to ensure that the world know and understand that Judea and Samaria are Israel’s biblical and geographical heartland, and are integral parts of the Land G-d granted to the Children of Israel. HL2HL seeks to strengthen the emotional and spiritual connection of Jews and Christians around the world to the Land of Israel and to create an active body of bible believing people with the commitment to act based on that belief.

Benny Elon, as is well-known, was Ariel Sharon’s far-right tourism minister, notorious for his advocacy of the “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians.

Gimpel is currently in New Orleans, where he’s taking part in a seminar:

A Labor-Day weekend seminar, combining the Teaching of international speaker, Maggid ben Yoseif, (Torahvoice.org) with Israeli Radio personality and IDF soldier Jeremy Gimpel. For 3 exciting days Maggid ben Yoseif will share the truths regarding the remarriage of God and Israel, the promises to Rachael’s children, the current Israeli – Hezbollah conflict, and much more! The last evening, Jeremy Gimpel will share the vision of Judah reaching out to his brothers, the church, as well as, the eye witness account of the current events in Israel, from the displacement of settlers, to the efforts to reconcile differences with today’s church!

Gimpel was booked to speak at “Manna from Heaven Ministries”, a Messianic congregation whose website includes a curious essay explaining that Christian use of the cross symbol is pagan and a Satanic deception. Maggid ben Yoseif, meanwhile, has been noted on this blog before – formerly known as Dell Griffin, ben Yoseif is a “Joe”; someone who has an inner conviction that he is a member of the lost tribes of Israel, and destined to replace the Palestinians in the West Bank (although he’s happy to allow a Palestinian state in Gaza). As he explained to me in a comment he sent:

Those who remain in the fields of the Shomron and the fields of Samaria, will unfortunately become as stubble. I do not say this. The prophet Obadiah wrote it.

Gimpel is also a big fan of the new “Sanhedrin”, a group of Israeli rabbis (many associated with the far-right Kahanist movement) who have a plan for theocratic rule in Israel. As was reported last November (and which I blogged at the time):

A conference this week unveiled the Sanhedrin project to the public, shifting away from euphoric satisfaction with the launch of the Court one year ago and moving toward broadening participation.

…One of those who took the day off from work to attend the conference was Efrat resident Jeremy Gimpel. “I had read everything written about the renewed Sanhedrin with such excitement, I had to see for myself,” Gimpel said. “What struck me is that ever since Mt. Sinai, there were always 70 elders leading the Jewish people and I believe that G-d, in His infinite wisdom, knew the Jews would be dispersed among the 70 nations. To see all these rabbis and leaders gathered back in the land of Israel, bringing with them different traditions, cultures and approaches to Torah is a humbling experience and an answer to our daily prayer of Hashiva shofteinu k’varishona, Return our judges as of old.”

However, while Gimpel is happy to drum up support for Israel among US Christians, and even apparently to attend Messianic meetings, he’s less pleased at the thought of missionaries in Israel:

IsraelNationalRadio “Light Unto the Nations” co-host Jeremy Gimpel says, “Over the last few months, I’ve seen several different missionary groups in Jerusalem – more than I remember in the past. They claim to love us and support us unconditionally, but their actions prove their hatred and their desire to destroy the Jewish Nation. I always tell them that if every Jew converted to Christianity and gave up their belief in One G-d, there would be no Jewish Nation to love and bless, as they claim to want to do.”

This quote came after Christian tourists (possibly missionaries; reports were unclear) were attacked in an ultra-Orthodox area of Jerusalem, an incident I blogged here. Gimpel’s complaint reveals a central tension in the Christian Zionist-Israeli alliance: conservative Christians, such as those behind Agape Press, believe that all must “receive Jesus” in order to be saved. Some Christian Zionists have created a bit of wiggle room, suggesting that the return of Jesus will convert the Jews, and so Jewish evangelism is not a priority (bad luck for Jews who die in the meantime). There is also a “dual covenant” view, which argues that Christianity and Judaism are equally valid, but despite attempts to push prominent Christian Zionists into this position, it remains highly controversial.

The Gimpel and Abramowitz US roadshow plans to take them across the country by 20 Sept; further details can be seen here.

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After contributing a few diary items to Talk to Action, I’ve now been invited to provide a regular “front page” story for them. My debut effort – a follow-up to my blog post on religious politics in Nunavut, northern Quebec – can be seen here.

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Private Eye magazine has an interesting article (not online, issue 1166) about the investigations into the murder of “Adam”, the unidentified African child whose dismembered torso was found next to the Thames five years ago, and into the abuse of children identified as suffering from possession in some churches. The Eye examines the influence of supposed experts in “Satanic ritual abuse” (SRA) in the investigation into the Adam killing:

…Initially key advocates tried to persuade the Metropolitan police investigating the murder…that it was a case of ritual abuse. They hoped the case would vindicate their claims and restore their credibility.

Early in the police investigation into the case of Adam, one of the most active believers in satanic abuse, Valerie Sinason…, a Harley Street pstchotherapist and psychoanalyst, offered her expertise to the police.

…In February 2000 the Metropolitan Police seconded Acting Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll to investigate her claims to have interviewed 76 children and adult victims who, she said, had made allegations of satanic sexual abuse and murder. Although no forensic evidence was found to substantiate her allegations, Driscoll was evidently a believer.

The Eye, which has cast a sceptical eye over “Satanic ritual abuse” previously, notes Driscoll’s involvement with the Ritual Abuse Information Network and Support (RAINS), where he shared a platform with Kobus Jonker. Jonker, whom I’ve discussed before on this blog, used to run an “Occult-Related Crime Unit” in the South African police force, to which only Christians like himself were allowed to join (According to a quote in the Financial Times: “The ordinary guy cannot investigate occult crimes. There are things you see and experiences you have as a result of the supernatural. You must be strong in faith to be in the occult unit”). Jonker became a consultant to the “Adam” case:

…Officers travelled to South Africa to meet him. Thereafter the police referred to the torso in the Thames case, as it became known, as a “ritual” killing and spoke of black magic rituals.

This is an oversimplification: the link between “Adam’s” death and some sort of ritual rests on stronger grounds than just the dubious expertise of Jonkers and the SRA crowd. The Toronto Star interviewed Richard Hoskins, a specialist in African religions based at King’s College, London, in 2003:

The cut in Adam’s neck led Hoskins to believe the ritual was more likely from the west of Africa than the south.

“It was done in a very specific and deliberate way, clearly to bleed him to death in a relatively quick way. The point was to spill blood on the ground as an offering,” he says.

Hoskins says the orange colour of Adam’s shorts, and the dumping of his torso in the river is also ritually significant. He believes the murder or murderers sacrificed Adam to gain some sort of power or good luck for an undertaking in Britain.

…Also in his lower intestine were tiny clay pellets with specks of pure gold embedded on their surface, along with what appeared to be finely ground up bones…Hoskins says the concoction in Adam’s stomach is typical of the potions used to prepare victims for ritual killings in sub-Sahara Africa.

…”The case of Adam is definitely a ritualistic killing. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Hoskins says. “The remarkable thing is that he was brought from Africa to the U.K. specifically for the purpose.”

The Eye report goes on to note that in October 2004, 30 officers were sent on a one-day course on satanic ritual abuse organised by Lee Moore of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers.

…Then in June last year a report commissioned by the Met was leaked to a [BBC] reporter…which claimed that young African boys were being trafficked to the UK and murdered as human sacrifices in churches after being labelled by pastors as “witches,” possessed by the devil. The sensational story was linked to a previous statement from the Metropolitan Police…saying 300 African boys had gone “missing” from school rolls over a four-month period.

This led to the Evening Standard running a headline that declared “Children sacrificed in London churches”, to the anger of black communities. More details appear in this BBC report, which shows that two issues were being conflated quite carelessly – “Adam’s” apparently ritual death is a very different matter than the problem of children being abused in violent exorcisms in some African (and other) churches.

The latter problem has come to the attention of the British media due to two high-profile crimes. The first was the 2000 murder of Victoria Climbié, a girl from the Ivory Coast who was tortured to death over a long period by sadistic relatives. However, although at one point an African pastor diagnosed her injuries as a sign of possession, her abuse does not appear to have been primarily inspired by religion. More recently, last summer saw the conviction of three people who had abused and nearly killed an Angolan girl – known as “Child B” by the media – in order to “beat the devil out of her”. This case has highlighted a growing phenomenon in central and southern Africa, where chaotic conditions and extreme poverty have led to traditional beliefs about witches metastasising into an extreme form directed mainly against unwanted orphans. But even in these cases, while exorcisms may be violent and dangerous, the aim is not to kill the child, much less to perform a “sacrifice”.

Hoskins, as I blogged a few months ago, has also been at the forefront of exposing this problem (taking a certain amount of flak for his efforts), and UK African pastors have now drawn up new guidelines concerning child protection. One question that I’ve had, though, is to what extent these new beliefs about evil powers have been influenced by outside forces, such as western Charismatic Christian teachings on demons and deliverance.

According to the Eye, the Met’s unpublished report was “shelved”, and a new report has been published by the Department for Education and Skills, entitled Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of “Possession” and “Witchcraft”. Sinason apparently offered to contribute to this report, but was rebuffed by the author, Eleanor Stobart. Stobart’s report doesn’t answer my particular question, but it does look at a wider context:

The author…concluded that belief in possession, witchcraft and exorcism was widespread in the UK and around the world, in African churches which had been influenced by evangelical Christianity, in Anglican churches in the UK but also in other religions which involved a belief in good and evil.

(Graham Dow, now the Bishop of Carlisle, is perhaps the most senior member of the Church of England to stress exorcism and the dangers of demons – his pamphlet Explaining Deliverance is helpfully summarised here).

She identified 38 cases [of abuse] involving 47 children mainly from Africa but also from South Asia, the Caribbean, Mauritius and also from a white English background.

…The abuse consisted of “severe beatings and other premeditated cruelties…” None involved sacrifice.

However, the Eye fails to note that although the report was published in June, it was actually ready in January. The Times reported:

The education department maintains that publication of the findings, which were delivered to Whitehall in January, has been delayed because they are being “studied by ministers”.

Critics insist the real reason is that the government is fearful of upsetting race relations. “They have found this quite hot to handle,” said Richard Hoskins, visiting research fellow in the sociology of religion at King’s College London and an expert witness in several court cases involving witchcraft claims.

I think it is almost as crude as white, liberal, middle-class people thinking they can’t be seen to be telling black people what they are doing wrong. It is ridiculous when you are dealing with children’s rights.”

So, on the one hand we’ve got politicians apparently reluctant to address a problem due to liberal squeamishness, and on the other a police force whose investigations are apparently being muddied by dubious “Satanic conspiracy” theorists. Not encouraging.

UPDATE: The Pagan Prattle directs us to a posting of the whole article at the Pagan Anti-Defamation Network, and available here.

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Theology “not based on end time prophecy”

Last week, mainline Palestinian Christian leaders issued a “Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism“, which slammed the theology and practice of the movement for linking the Gospel to “the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism.”

Now the Christian Zionists have hit back, in a statement of their own reported by Reuters:

The three main Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said in a statement that they were concerned at the declaration’s “inflammatory language” and that it was far from the truth.

Reuters doesn’t tell us who the three groups are, but it’s probably the International Christian Embassy, Bridges for Peace, and perhaps Christians for Israel. I haven’t been able to find the counter-statement itself online anywhere, but Reuters gives us some pointers:

“We pray for peace. But we note with sadness that the present Palestinian government is totally dedicated to the destruction of Israel…The problem in the region is not as simple as the Jerusalem Declaration makes out,”…The Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said they had no “thirst for Armageddon” and do not base their theological position on “end time prophecy.” They called for dialogue with the clerics behind the declaration that condemned them.

It’s true that not all Christian Zionists are apocalyptic Christian Zionists – Ted Haggard’s powerful church, for instance, supports an Israeli settlement on the West Bank more for political reasons than because of eschatological fervour, and there’s a general Judeophilia among sections of the evangelical movement. But it’s very curious to see the role of  “end time prophecy” so completely downgraded. After all, the Christian bestseller lists are currently headed by John Hagee, whose next tome is entitled From Daniel to Doomsday: The Countdown Has Begun – and that’s just the latest from a significant Christian paperback genre presided over by influential evangelists. I’ve argued that Christian Zionism should not be reduced to apocalypticism, but this is just as unbalanced.

The report also soft-pedals some other Christian Zionist beliefs:

Christian Zionists stress Christianity’s Jewish roots. Some back the movement to settle the occupied West Bank, the cradle of Jewish civilization, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state…Some also believe Jews themselves will have to become Christians or perish.

“Some”, eh? Well, I’ve never yet come across a Christian Zionist who supported Palestinian statehood in any form or under any conditions whatsoever, although I suppose that some of the wider pool of pro-Israel Christians might go along with it should an agreement be made. And the belief that Jews must accept Jesus (like everyone else) is also central – Jerry Falwell was recently forced to repudiate a Jerusalem Post report that he believed in a “dual covenant” position that sees Judaism and Christianity as equally valid (see my blog entry here). Some downplay this by suggesting that Jesus himself will convert the Jews in the very near future, and so Jewish evangelism is not really necessary – but that’s an appeal to the very “end times prophecy” which supposedly is not so important after all…

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Book published by evangelical press accused of being “New Age”

A writer at Agape Press has apparently strayed off-message:

“On August 28, 2006, AgapePress, a news division of American Family Association, carried a positive review of the book Sacred Listening. The author of the book is James L. Wakefield. The person who reviewed the book is a contributing writer and not a staff person of AFA or AgapePress. AFA and AgapePress have received a number of e-mails from AgapePress readers and AFA supporters who believe this book promotes New Age practices and teachings. AgapePress and AFA regret running this review — and, while AFA works with many religious groups on matters of public policy, it maintains a traditional evangelical position with respect to theology and Christian doctrine.”

Tim Wildmon, President, American Family Association

Jody Brown, Editor, AgapePress

The review was by JoAnne Potter, and it currently remains available in the Google cache (links added):

“Achieve spirituality in 20 minutes a day.” “Seven ways to reconnect with God.” Do you ever wonder whether some guides to spiritual development make it all sound just a little too easy? If so, you aren’t alone.

Fortunately, Dr. James Wakefield has provided a welcome alternative in Sacred Listening (Baker Books, 2006), an adaptation for Protestants of the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola — a series of meditations on the Gospels that are often said in retreats. Dr. Wakefield, currently Associate Professor at Salt Lake Theological Seminary and formerly a self-proclaimed cynic, encountered the exercises in 1984 when he volunteered to be guided through them by his mother, then a Roman Catholic, as part of her Masters degree project.

…Dr. Wakefield replaced Roman Catholic doctrinal prayer patterns with direct scriptural references, encouraged participants to pray for personal discernment, and structured the daily pattern of reading and meditation around the strong step-by-step framework of the lectio divina.

…At first, the manuscript was refused as having “new age” associations, presumably because of its scripturally meditative nature.

“I have taken a lot of criticism over the years for leading people astray,” says the author. “But I have also received great encouragement from many people who found their spiritual [re]-grounding through this process. More recently, there has been very little resistance. I meet people with a deep hunger for contemplative prayer almost everyplace I go.”…

Baker Books is one of the best-known evangelical publishers in the US, and Wakefield’s book enjoys endorsements from high-profile evangelicals Eugene Peterson and (the somewhat controversial) Gregory A. Boyd.

Catholic-evangelical tensions are perhaps on the rise: the Roman Catholic Georgetown University has just expelled various evangelical ministries from its campus after apparently claiming to have received instruction from God.

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UPDATE: The archaeologist cited in the newspaper article below has since claimed he was misquoted, and that there has not in fact been a “pattern of previous attacks”. Please see my entry here for fuller details.

From the Canadian Leader-Post:

Canada’s only major Arctic petroglyph site — a 1,500-year-old gallery of mysterious faces carved into a soapstone ridge on a tiny island off of Quebec’s northern coast — has been ransacked by vandals in what the region’s top archeologist suspects was a religiously motivated attack by devout Christians from a nearby Inuit community.

The petroglyphs were created by the now-extinct Dorset culture, and it was hoped that the site would become a UNESCO world heritage site (all links in this post added):

Now, dreams of global renown for Qajartalik may be dashed after a visit to the island last month by Quebec cultural officials revealed extensive damage to the prehistoric drawings, including deep gouges across many of the faces.

…Daniel Gendron, chief archeologist with the Inukjuak-based Avataq Cultural Institute, the key promoter of indigenous history and identity in Nunavik, said the latest vandalism at Qajartalik follows the pattern of previous attacks by members of what he called “a very strong movement” of conservative Christians in Kangiqsujuaq and several other Inuit communities in northern Quebec.

The carvings were recently featured in the Nunatsiaq News, in an article which begins with some sadly prophetic words:

Anyone can pick up a piece of ancient mummified wood in Nunavut’s High Arctic, or write graffiti over Nunavik’s delicate rock carvings.

…Qajartalik is home to the only major rock carving site in the Canadian Arctic. The rocky island looks like a dark strip of soapstone. On its 130-metre-long kayak-shaped ridge, lichens camouflage what some have dubbed “devil’s faces.”

Qajartalik’s etchings resemble the tiny carved masks archeologists associate with Dorset culture, believed to have flourished in the Eastern Arctic 1,000 to 1,500 years ago.

Some display cat-like features, and appear to have horns. Lines radiate from many of the mouths, perhaps symbolizing the breath of a shaman, archeologists speculate.

The Christian “movement” mentioned by Gendron is a neo-Pentcostal revival which has been gaining strength for several years. Canadian Christianity has some details:

A “MOVE of the Spirit” in parts of northern Canada is moving south, and beginning to touch some troubled communities in Labrador, according to Roger Armbruster, director of Canadian missions with Maranatha Good News Centre in Niverville, Manitoba.

…Some Nunavut and Nunavik communities have undergone near total transformation, and many northern Inuit now see themselves as missionaries, says Armbruster. He recently accompanied 12 Inuit from northern Quebec and Nunavut on an outreach trip to Nain, Labrador, a community that has seen a large number of suicides — 22 since January, 1999.

During that visit, one of the women, Annie Tertiluk, declared that at one time some 90 percent of the adults in her community were alcoholics; and of those, she said, “we [she and her husband] were some of the worst.”

Today, however, Tertiluk can testify that in her community of Kangiqsujuaq in northern Quebec, the situation is exactly reversed. Now only about 10 percent of the adult community are alcoholics, and 90 percent have been set free by “the truth of the gospel, and the liberating power of the Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and that now lives within us,” reports Armbruster.

The revival, as expected, strongly stresses the supernatural. A 2004 report posted on Worldwide Religious News explains:

…After years of patient work, fundamentalist religious leaders across the eastern Arctic are about to join hands and their rapidly growing flocks to form a new church that combines speaking-in-tongues, cast-out-the-devil Christianity with Inuit cultural pride. “We are organizing,” says James Arreak, the cherubic, 36-year-old former bank employee who is now pastor of the Iqaluit Christian Fellowship and one of the movement’s shepherds.

…Pentecostal Christianity, brought in by southern evangelists, has been present in the North for at least two decades. But the advent of a new generation of Inuit preachers such as Arreak and Billy Arnaquq has made the difference, says Roger Armbruster of the Maranatha Good News Centre in Nivervillle, Man.

Arreak, along with his Anglican clergyman brother Joshua, believes that God revealed himself through a supernatural event while he was leading worship at a church in Pond Inlet, on Baffin lsland, in 1999; Christianity.ca reported:

It started like thunder, and at first no one knew what was happening. Moses Kyak, who was operating the sound system, turned the volume off but the noise kept getting louder. Then people began falling down without anyone touching them. James Arreak, who had been leading worship, began to shake. The building began to shake. For about a minute the noise continued to fill the church, like a mighty, rushing wind.

“It sounded like Niagara Falls,” says Rev. Joshua Arreak, who was helping lead an afternoon youth service at St. Timothy’s Anglican Church with his younger brother James. And then the sound went away.

The revival also has a political aspect, and the missionary Armbruster has given strong support to Tagak Curley, a local politician who is a “Christian gay-rights opponent”. The Nunatsiaq News explains:

In a section of his web site headed “Jesus is the Lord of Government,” Armbruster said, “Jesus proved his supremacy of his authority over the government when he rose from the dead.”

And he said that in Nunavut, “there is a real warfare over the government, as the enemy seeks to influence those in office to be controlled by deceptive thoughts or by humanistic thinking rather than by the Word of God.”

…Armbruster’s ministry, “Canada Awakening, “is devoted to “building the indigenous church in Canada’s north,” a church that respects Inuit traditional cultural values and Inuit leadership. It’s one of several ministries that have helped the Inuit Christian movement in Nunavut and Nunavik grow by leaps and bounds since the 1990s, sometimes with the help of municipal governments.

The Hamlet of Cape Dorset, for example, donated $25,000 last year [2003] for steel pylons for a new church built by the late John Spillenaar’s Arctic Missions Outreach, now headed by David and Joan Ellyat[t] of London, Ont.

…A bible conference last September in Baker Lake drew about 600 people, and cost $300,000 in charter fares alone. In April 2003, a conference in Kangirsuk drew hundreds of Inuit from 21 communities throughout Nunavut and Nunavik.

At the Baker Lake conference, participants such as Patterk Netser, then the newly elected member for Nanulik, held up signs saying “Jesus is Lord over Nunavut,” printed for them by a group called Prayer Canada, which encourages political activism on the part of fundamentalist Christians.

Armbruster also spreads the gospel of Christian Zionism, and has led solidarity tours to Israeli communities. He explains in a Christian newsletter:

From January 23 to February 3, 2005, the Inuit and First Nations of Canada made their sixth annual pilgrimage to the land of the Bible.

…The vision is therefore to build relationships with all people groups in Israeli society, spreading joy through our songs of praise to the Lord, and spreading healing and comfort.

…This year we were able to visit the community of Sderot near the Gaza Strip, a community that has been the target of over 500 rocket attacks since June of 2003.

…Some Jewish Rabbis have an oral tradition which says that when the North American Native come to Jerusalem to pray, it will be a sign that the coming of the Messiah is near, because it will be a sign that the Torah has gone to “the ends of the earth.”

On his website, Armbruster stresses the importance of reconciliation between different native groups – if original inhabitants are resentful of newcomers, he explains, this will create a curse that will bring “defilement” to the land. He claims that a recent ceremony of reconciliation (led by a Fijian Pentecostal group) has led to the land becoming dramatically more fertile:

…There are rigid and dogmatic mindsets in the world who presuppose a naturalistic explanation for everything.   But it is the indigenous people of the world who have something to teach the western mindset, and it is that the spiritual and the natural worlds are connected, and that the things we see in the natural flow out of the supernatural. Everything that we see around us had its source and origin in the spirit, and then it manifested into the natural from there.

Those like members of the Fiji Healing the Land Team have seen this happen far too often to be a mere co-incidence. They have seen a pattern that when certain things are addressed in the spirit, and that when repentance of the sins that defile the land take place under the authority of the local gatekeepers and authorities, that that is an outward manifestation that takes place that affects the environment, and the land itself!

As he makes clear in the comments section to this blog post, Armbruster is just as appalled as the rest of us by the vandalism of an ancient heritage site – but it’s also very likely that the non-Christian religious art of Qajartalik is going to be seen by some Pentecostals as one of the things that “defile the land”. This is not unique: as I blogged recently, Kenyan Pentecostals have been threatening to destroy colonial-era art which they believe to be associated with Freemasonry.

(Hat tip: Cult News Network)

UPDATE: I explore the political issues further at Talk to Action.

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Walter Russell Mead discusses the impact of US evangelicalism in Foreign Affairs:

…As evangelicals have recently returned to a position of power in U.S. politics, they have supported similar causes and given new energy and support to U.S. humanitarian efforts. Under President Bush, with the strong support of Michael Gerson (an evangelical who was Bush’s senior policy adviser and speechwriter), U.S. aid to Africa has risen by 67 percent, including $15 billion in new spending for programs to combat HIV and AIDS. African politicians, such as Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, have stressed their own evangelical credentials to build support in Washington, much as China’s Sun Yat-sen and Madame Chiang Kai-shek once did. Thanks to evangelical pressure, efforts to suppress human trafficking and the sexual enslavement of women and children have become a much higher priority in U.S. policy, and the country has led the fight to end Sudan’s wars. Rick Warren, pastor of an evangelical megachurch in Southern California and the author of The Purpose Driven Life (the single best-selling volume in the history of U.S. publishing), has mobilized his 22,000 congregants to help combat AIDS worldwide (by hosting a conference on the subject and training volunteers) and to form relationships with churches in Rwanda.

The nature of these “programs to combat HIV and AIDS”, however, is not assessed or discussed. I’m far from dismissive of Warren’s real efforts in these areas, but this glosses over certain problems that have been seen in Uganda and elsewhere, and which I have blogged. And while the historical references to Sun Yat-sen and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek are nice, why not mention the fascist Chiang Kai-Shek himself? Or the apartheid regime in South Africa? Or Rios Montt? The fact is that for all their honest desire to offer humanitarian assistance, US evangelicals have a track record of falling for very dodgy foreign leaders who claim to share their faith. Warren’s closeness to Paul Kagame of Rwanda is of doubtful wisdom (as I blogged here), and the Museveni regime is now showing some worrying signs (see here).

Mead also discusses Christian Zionism.

...U.S. policy toward Israel is another area where the increased influence of evangelicals has been evident…That U.S. foreign policy now centers on defending the country against the threat of mass terrorism involving, potentially, weapons of apocalyptic horror wielded by anti-Christian fanatics waging a religious war motivated by hatred of Israel only reinforces the claims of evangelical religion.

…Conspiracy theorists and secular scholars and journalists in the United States and abroad have looked to a Jewish conspiracy or, more euphemistically, to a “Jewish lobby” to explain how U.S. support for Israel can grow while sympathy for Israel wanes among what was once the religious and intellectual establishment. A better answer lies in the dynamics of U.S. religion. Evangelicals have been gaining social and political power, while liberal Christians and secular intellectuals have been losing it. This should not be blamed on the Jews.

This is an interesting take on the subject, although it could have been more nuanced. There are all kinds of lobbies everywhere in politics; if someone mentions a “Jewish lobby” must we always assume that he or she really means “Jewish conspiracy”? And where do any serious “secular scholars and journalists” talk about “the Jews” with the definite article like that?.

However, Mead’s perspective is useful for its emphasis on culture. Radical critics of the “pro-Israel lobby” theory of US support for Israel usually focus on Israel’s strategic position in Middle East geo-politics – there may be something to that, but it overlooks the possibility that the US supports Israel in large part because it believes that that’s the right thing to do. Many Americans support Israel because the Bible tells them to (see this Pew report) – but those Americans believe that they have interpreted the Bible correctly because of their underlying values. Those of us who are informed about the Palestinian human rights situation and the occupation of the West Bank may find this support to be misplaced, but the sanguinary nature of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Ahmadinejad regime together make up an extremely effective “anti-lobby” that can only re-enforce the pro-Israel position in the US.

Further, as examples of Christian Zionists, Mead presents us with John Hagee and, in his reading list, Hal Lindsey. Both are, of course, hugely influential figures – but there’s not much evidence that they shape US foreign policy. If George W Bush were taking cues from Hagee, there would be no discussion of the “two-state solution” Bush apparently favours. Hagee’s apocalyptic Christian Zionism gets all the headlines – but perhaps someone like Ted Haggard is a more significant figure. Haggard, who heads the National Association of Evangelicals, is a strong supporter of Israel, and his New Life church helps to fund an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. But Haggard does not go on about the Last Days – instead, his support for Israel is grounded in a more generally conservative political perspective.

Mead also discusses the differences between evangelicals and fundamentalists, although he doesn’t say much about the latter group’s influence on US public life. He concludes optimistically:

…As more evangelical leaders acquire firsthand experience in foreign policy, they are likely to provide something now sadly lacking in the world of U.S. foreign policy: a trusted group of experts, well versed in the nuances and dilemmas of the international situation, who are able to persuade large numbers of Americans to support the complex and counterintuitive policies that are sometimes necessary in this wicked and frustrating — or, dare one say it, fallen — world.

(Hat tip: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life)

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