Bartholomew's Notes

The Observer reports on the continuing tragedy of children accused of witchcraft in Congo:

Tens of thousands of children live in the cemeteries, markets and streets of Kinshasa feeding on rubbish, begging and stealing. Most are there because of witchcraft accusations – mostly from their own families.

So why is this happening?

…As Congolese society has disintegrated, undermined by the country’s rulers and ravaged by Aids and poverty, the family has collapsed. Children have been the main victims, often accused of witchcraft when families suffer misfortunes.

But the reporter also points the finger at specific religious ideas:

The roots lie in a distorted development of African culture…Traditionally in Congo, every community had mediums who communicated with spirits in the other world.

…Then there are the new fundamentalist Christian sects, of which there are thousands in Kinshasa. They make money out of identifying ‘witches’ and increasingly parents bring troublesome children to the pastors.

…Children who do well in school can also be accused of witchcraft. The common charge is they have been seen flying or eating human flesh. Their confessions of killing and eating relatives are broadcast live on TV channels owned by evangelical churches. What once seemed aberrations from extremist sects now seem to be becoming commonplace.

The Observer report comes a week after an essay the Sunday Times by Africanist Richard Hoskins, who has been following the problem for a while:

I knew about the dark side of some Christian revivalist churches and the exorcisms carried out on west and central African children in London either by the churches or on their say-so. I had heard rumours that British children were being taken to Africa, particularly to Kinshasa, for exorcism, and I knew of at least one case where the child was snatched off a London street and taken unwillingly.

…I travelled to Kinshasa and reported back on what happened in these “deliverance” ceremonies…I went from church centre to church centre, seeing evidence of exorcisms. I saw children cut with razors, stamped on, beaten, shouted at and forced to drink pigeons’ blood. Chillingly, I was often given open and unfettered access to these scenes by pastors and practitioners who plainly believed that what they were doing was in the name of God and thus could do no harm to the children.

The Congo witch-hunting problem has been on the radar for a while now (and I very briefly blogged the same phenomenon in Angola back in July). A bit of religious context was provided in the New Humanist in 2004:

On almost every street in Kinshasa there are small churches where preachers and pastors say that Satan and witches are the source of all ills. Congo has four main religious groupings: Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and the Kimbangists, who blend traditional African beliefs with Christian worship. It is mostly the newly emerging Protestant churches and the Kimbangists who advocate belief in witchcraft and identify children as witches.

The magazine also noted the antics of one those directly responsible for the suffering, a certain Prophet Onokoko:

Prophet Onokoko is one of many Christian ministers in Kinshasa offering to exorcise children. He prefers to purge children of demons by making them take laxatives and emetics. They are forced to swallow and later regurgitate foreign objects, which Onokoko then displays as proof of demonic possession. He told BBC investigators: “We had a girl here who vomited a large prawn. When it came out she was at peace.” Prophet Onokoko has over 200 children on his books that have either undergone or are awaiting exorcism.

Mahimbo Mdoe, a Save the Children representative in Kinshasa, told the BBC: “[in Onokoko’s church] children are made to vomit up things that have been inserted into them unnaturally. Two eyewitnesses have told us of objects like bars of soap being inserted into the anuses of children. It all shows just how vulnerable children in Kinshasa are if they get thrown out of their families accused of being child witches.”

The BBC report cited dates from 1999. A 2003 follow-up notes that some efforts were being made to counter the abuse (link added):

A group of former street kids turned musicians are now trying to do something about the situation.

Their band, called La Chytoura, backed by a Unites States NGO Centre Lokole, has released a song and a video to change people’s attitudes.

A British documentary on the subject has also just been made, while Hoskins’ investigations are due to be broadcast on BBC television.

One church that Hoskins is particularly concerned about is Combat Spirituel, which has 50,000 members and a branch in London. He discusses the case of Sita Kisanga, a Congolese immigrant to the UK currently in prison for torturing a girl – Kisanga claims she was only following the instructions of Combat Spirituel, which had diagnosed witchcraft. He also tells us about Londres, a boy similarly diagnosed by the same church in London and taken by his mother to the main church in Kinshasa, where he was held for a month and given very little to eat. Combat Spirituel, however, denies connections to abuse:

Back in England I asked Pastor Raph about the matter. He denied that the church had any involvement with the Londres case.

When I confronted him with my knowledge of the life of the church and its belief in exorcism and what this entailed, he immediately stopped the interview.

Mr Molobo, president of Combat Spirituel in Kinshasa, believes that witchcraft is clearly attested in the Bible, but he insists that it is completely against the doctrine of the church to harm children in any way or to force them to undergo deliverance ceremonies.

That view was repeated to me by one official after another of Combat Spirtuel, including its founders and global leaders, Mama and Papa Olangi, with whom I gained an exclusive interview.

Details about “Mama and Papa Olangi” in English are scarce, but an anonymous 2004 report on “Christian fundamentalist groups” in Africa notes that:

Today in Kinshasa, poorest of the African metropoles, priests and pop stars are the idols of the youth. It’s only logical that Congo’s biggest singing star, Papa Wemba, joined forces with the biggest female church leader, Maman Elisabeth Olangi, whose gigantic mass events are frequently visited by the higher ranks of politicians.

A Christian attack on Maman Olangi’s teachings can be seen in French here. On the other hand, a glowing account of the Olangis is given on the website of the South African branch of ETHSA (End Time Handmaidens and Servants International, link added):

Mama and Papa Olangi…are transforming this nation. They have a ministry here that is incredible. The Olangi foundation reaches into over 35 nations, and sponsors branches, orphanages, Bible schools, Aid’s [sic] care, and churches. People are taught to pray and fast and are delivered from the bonds of witchcraft. The Olangis are changing the face of this nation, one person at a time. This is not a nation of darkness, but where the light of Christ is emerging.

This first ETHSA Congo Convention hosted by Papa and Mama Olangi was held at the “Stadium of the Martyrs” which is the largest outdoor stadium seating 200 000 people. There were about 70 000 people present and how exciting to be a part of the worship of these people here in the middle of Africa! The theme was “The Light has Come”. Bishop Tudor Bismark preached an apostolic message on dominion that seemed to blow the heavenlies apart!…Sister Gwen [Shaw] encouraged us all with her messages on vision and the prophetic word.

This is particularly interesting as Gwen Shaw, the founder of ETHSA, is a white American neo-Pentecostal whose organisation is based in the Ozarks. Unfortunately, most of the information about her available on-line comes from hostile sources connected to anti-Pentecostal Christian strands (I prefer more neutral sources), but it does seem that she is pretty prominent within the movement. Let Us Reason provides a list of “the current members of the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders in 2003”:

Beth Alves, Mike Bickle, Paul Cain (honorary member), Stacey Campbell, Wesley Campbell, Joseph Garlington, Ernest Gentile, Mary Glazier, James Goll, Bill Hamon, Cindy Jacobs, Mike Jacobs, Jim Laffoon, David McCracken, Bart Pierce, Chuck Pierce, Rick Ridings, John Sandford, Paula Sandford, Michael Schiffman, Gwen Shaw, Dutch Sheets, Jean Steffenson, Steve Shultz, Sharon Stone, Tommy Tenney, Hector Torres, Doris Wagner, Peter Wagner, Barbara Wentroble, Dominic Yeo, Barbara Yoder.

Wagner in particular is famous for his teachings about demons and the need for Christian “deliverance”, and I profiled him here. The link between Shaw and Olangi raises an important issue: it’s clear that social upheaval has caused traditional beliefs about witchcraft to have become more extreme, but is there another element in the dynamic? Have heavily-supernaturalist neo-Pentecostal teachings (and perhaps fundamentalist “Satanic conspiracy” literature) from abroad also played a role in this new development?

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With Nigeria facing many so many social, economic, and political problems, it’s good to know that the authorities in the city of Kano are putting their resources into what’s really important. The Vanguard (via All Africa) reported last month:

CHAIRMAN of Kano State Sharia enforcement agency, Sheikh Yahaya Farouk Chedi has his board have arrested about 2,000 commercial motorcycle riders and confiscated them for various offences committed against the new state road traffic law banning commercial motorcycle riders from carrying female passengers in the state.

…However, the Hisba [=Shariah police] boss explained that having achieved over 90 per cent successes in the entire exercise most of the riders accept the teachigns of Islam and know that they are obeying Allah not hisba men, and noted that cases of clashes have reduced drastically.

The clashes were noted back in December, in the Middle Eastern Times:

Fighting broke out on the frenetic streets of this commercial city when the hisbah began to enforce the state’s ban on women riding on taxi mopeds, a common and speedy means of transportation in Nigerian cities.

Hundreds of hisbah took positions at strategic locations in the city, forcing women passengers to get off mopeds. This angered the moped operators who mobilized and launched attacks on the hisbah.

Armed with clubs and stones, the achaba attacked the green-uniformed hisbah and public tricycles, leaving at least 11 people injured and two dozen tricycles damaged.

But two months later, the achaba apparently now understand that “they are obeying Allah not hisba men”, and have given up fighting back. Funny, that.

The make-up of the Hisbah is described on Global Security:

…The newer and more fundamentalist sects include the Izala and the Shiites. The Izala in particular tend to attract educated young people, both men and women. The Shiites and sometimes the Izala are said to oppose applying shari’a in Nigeria until such time as religious leaders have taken over political leadership of the country. Whereas the hisba includes representatives of all sects, in Kano it tends to be dominated by Izalas and Da’awa.

The Hisbah in Kano, however, is allegedly anti-Shiite. This undated report from Gamji makes a complaint:

Since Malam Ibrahim Shekarau assumed office as the third civilian governor of Kano state on May 29, 2003 Shia followers in this Sunni-dominated city have been under threat of attack from blood thirsty Wahabis that have taken control of machinery of government.

…Having failed to pitch the Sunnis of Kano against their Shia brethren, the government has devised a new tactic of using its 9,000 Hisbah or Sharia enforcers to unleash mayhem on the Shia as officials of the state’s Sharia Commission which controls the Hisbah have started a vigorous campaign against the Shia, stigmatizing them as ‘Maitatsine’, a heretic militant group that caused a bloody unrest in the city in 1982 that claimed thousands of lives and wrought large-scale destruction on the city…It is no coincidence that [Permanent Secretary in the state’s Sharia Commission, Abdullahi] Tanko made this statement a day after Al-Zarqawi, the leader of the terrorists in Iraq from whom the Wahabis take lead in fighting Shias all over the world, declared a war against the Shia in Iraq.

However, a couple of days ago the excesses of the Hisbah led to its being banned by the local chief of police. But now Governor Shekarau has intervened; the Daily Trust (again, via All Africa) reports:

…Governor Shekarau challenged the federal government to take the matter to court.

…Shekarau therefore said as far as Kano state government was concerned the Inspector-General’s announcement is unconstitutional and unacceptable and therefore, the state government will not obey it.

…Daily Trust however learnt that the banning of the Hisbah may not be unconnected with statement made by the former Kano state governor, Alhaji Musa Kwankwaso which compared the Hisbah guards to the dreaded Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) [a Yoruba militia group].

Shekarau has a history of backing Islamism. I’ve previously charted how he was responsible for the return of polio to the country due to Islamist objections to the vaccine.

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If you want to find out Israel’s policy on Iran, apparently you need to consult a new book by Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee. Christian Retailing reports in its 23 January edition (paper only, page 8):

Texas pastor and author John Hagee has sounded the alarm in his new book on the gathering war against Israel, which he says will have worldwide ramifications.

With an initial printing of 250,000 for its Jan. 17 release, Jerusalem Countdown provides detailed information that Hagee has received from top Israeli government officials concerning a nuclear showdown between Iran and Israel.

…The world is “standing on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon,” Hagee wrote. “We are on a countdown to crisis. The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty…That war will affect every nation on earth, including America, and will affect every person on planet earth.”

Of course, it’s difficult to judge how much of this Hagee really got from “top Israeli government officials”, and how much is his particular “prophecy based” apocalyptic spin on the subject. It’s also a rather odd way for Israeli officials to communicate their intentions; one would have thought that keeping their own citizens informed would have been more of a priority. But on the face of it, it looks rather alarming.

Hagee’s book is published by Strang, the Pentecostal publisher that is responsible for Charisma magazine (and Christian Retailing itself, as it happens). The owner, Stephen Strang, is a greatly supportive of Christian Zionism, and he uses his powerful position to promote the doctrine among Pentecostals and Charismatics (although Charisma’s editor, Lee Grady, has a rather more thoughtful approach, as I blogged on here). The report also tells us (link added):

…In addition to an aggressive direct-marketing campaign, Strang is teaming up with El Al, the national airline of Israel, to promote Hagee’s new geopolitical book. El Al is offering two trips for two to Israel in a sweepstakes promotion…Strang’s promotion campaign will include the authors [i.e. Hagee and other Christian Zionist writers] in a brochure about Israel featuring scriptural reasons for supporting the country…The campaign will also be featured during the Azuza Street Centennial celebration in Los Angeles, April 25-29.

(“Azuza Street” is commonly regarded as the birthplace of Pentecostalism in 1906)

One of Hagee’s previous books is discussed in Gershom Gorenberg’s The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount:

Hagee…starts by praising Rabin’s brilliance and personal warmth. But then he gives the backdrop to Rabin’s murder. Israel, he says, is divided between religious Jews who think they have a “holy deed to the land” and Jews who “put more faith in man than in the God of their fathers.”…And, he says, Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, belonged to the religious side of Israel. From there, readers are left to draw their own conclusions.

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ASSIST Ministries has published a two-parter on “The Persecution of Palestinian Christians”, penned by Elizabeth Kendal of the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission. Part one is a précis of a new monograph by Justus Reid Weiner, of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. The plight of Palestinian Christians has been a subject of particular concern since the recent election of Hamas, but Weiner’s Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society brings together reports and interviews that highlight terrible abuses and discrimination at the hands of the Palestinian Authority and Islamists going back several years. These include, in Kendal’s summary:

…The deliberate and strategic marginalisation of Christians…economic hardship as Muslims boycott their businesses…The practice of extortion of Christian businesses…impunity granted to those who attack Christians and Christian property [which] only encourages Muslim criminals to break in to churches and monasteries to steal valuable items.

And most seriously of all:

According to Weiner’s research, violence against Christian women in the Palestinian Territories was rare before the PA took control. Christian women testify that before 1993, security was such that they could walk the streets in safety. However, after the PA took control, Christian women could be attacked with impunity…Once again, Muslim criminals know they can rape Christian women without fear of retaliation or legal consequence.

…One Palestinian Christian girl (aged 23) told Prof. Weiner that Muslim men often rape Christian women purely to render them undesirable to Christian men. “She can’t get married, at all, after that,” she said.

Weiner also accuses Palestinian Christian leaders of downplaying the persecution for their own purposes.

Those familiar with Weiner’s best-known previous work – a notorious screed against Edward Said described by Christopher Hitchens as not “deserv[ing] to be called a hatchet job because it is so inept” – might well be tempted to dismiss the concerns raised out-of-hand. There were also claims of persecution in 1998 that were criticized as politically motivated. Palestinian Anglican Naim Ateek noted at the time:

…Fourteen Evangelical clergy, scholars, journalists, and charity leaders led by the Rev. Dr. Don Wagner came in May 1998 to investigate the allegations of persecution of Christians by the PNA. They toured the land and met with a broad number of people on all sides of the political and religious spectrum. At the end of their visit they released a press statement in which they adamantly rejected those allegations. They found the reports of abuse “to be alarmist, oversimplified, politically motivated, and inaccurate.” They wrote, “Systematic persecution of Christians by the Palestinian Authority cannot be substantiated … If Christians are being persecuted for their faith, then we wanted to document it and do all we could to stop it. What we found instead was an intense desire for harmony among both Christians and Muslims from Galilee to Gaza. There are a handful of very isolated, personal incidents, but no indication of an anti-Christian tide rising.” (Please see – EMEU Report…)

However, 1998 was a long time ago, and Weiner provides sources and interviews which amount to a serious case to answer. Weiner is indeed a poor messenger, and shows of concern for Palestinian Christians from the pro-Israel right are invariably driven by an ulterior motive – but if Islamists and corrupt PA officials are so willing to provide propaganda points to the other side, just ignoring the problem is not going to help.

Inevitably, though, Weiner;s work is marred. The basic problem, as expected, is that he has very little to say about the role of the Occupation in undermining the centuries of co-existence between Palestinian Christians and Muslims. In fact, he dismisses the Occupation in one paragraph:

Because there have been no opinion polls taken of departing Palestinian Christians, it is possible to claim that the recent wave of massive Christian emigration is a result of the Israeli occupation and the resulting political and economic instability. As one Catholic leader commented, “The principal reason for the dramatic rise in Christian emigration has been the continuing military occupation and the denial of the sovereignty of a Palestinian state wherein Christian Arabs could feel at home economically, politically, culturally and spiritually.” (Shavit and Bana 2001*) The stated “dramatic rise” in Christian emigration, however, could not have resulted from a “continuing” condition. An explanation of the dramatic rise in Christian emigration from PA-controlled territories should therefore include a phenomenon that has only recently emerged in order to account for the rise in emigration patterns that does not reflect the normative political timeline.

Weiner instead points the finger at increased Islamism, which is reasonable – but his response to “the Catholic leader” is playing with words: a situation can be both “continuing” and increasingly intolerable. The question is how we should balance the various pressures on Palestinian Christians – but for ideological reasons Weiner is not willing to discuss suffering caused by the Occupation in any detail.

Another issue Weiner skirts over quickly:

…The growing strength of Islamic fundamentalism within the Palestinian national movement poses problems for Christians in that they might be deemed opponents of Islam and risk becoming targets for attacks by Muslim fundamentalists. Attacks against Christians might also result from perceptions that Christianity is associated with Zionism and Western imperialism. (Nammar 2002**)

That may well be the case, and for Muslim fundamentalists to attack Palestinian Christians on such a misidentification shows their stupidity (although the EMEU report suggests that some Palestinian ex-Muslim converts to Christianity are pro-Zionist). But it might help matters a lot if there weren’t large numbers of Western Christians who do associate Christianity not just with Zionism, but with the far-right Messianic Zionism of the settlers. In fact, two of Weiner’s informants are William Murray and David Ortiz, both of whom are American pastors who live in illegal West Bank settlements in order to show solidarity with the Israeli far-right (a detail Weiner ignores).

Bizarrely, Weiner also includes a paragraph of commentary from Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily – a demagogue who presides over a news source which is virulently anti-Palestinian and which often provides sympathetic profiles of far-right Israeli extremists (as charted on ConWebWatch). Given that the paragraph he cites merely repeats generalities and offers no new information, one wonders what the point of including it is, except to advertise WND to readers.

On the other hand, Weiner is able to cite sources he probably doesn’t have much in common with in a way that is fair. He quotes from the Anglican Bishop Riah El-Assal, and writes neutrally about the EMEU:

The Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU), an organization of North American churches, agencies, and individuals that seek to foster cooperation and understanding among different religious groups in the Middle Eastern region, is monitoring the PA’s inclusion of Sharia as “the primary source of legislation” and “is particularly wary of anything the PA might do to limit the practice and observance of any faith including the open discussion of theological issues.”

But, as with other pro-Israel “defenders” of Palestinian Christians, he’s not open to their complaints about the Occupation. Here’s a couple of quotes, which I gathered for a previous entry:

Lutheran pastor Mitri Raheb, on the separation wall: “Once it is completed, there will be only three gates and the keys will be controlled by the Israeli military,” he said. “Our little town of Bethlehem is being transformed into a big prison.”

(Raheb has also spoken out recently against Hamas)

Bishara Awad, the dean of Bethlehem’s Bible College: “We, Muslims and Christians alike, have been on the receiving end of oppression since 1967. The occupation is the root cause of economic deterioration. Some people can’t live under constant pressure for a long time; so they emigrate when they are no longer able or willing to withstand oppression.”

Weiner claims that such statements merely reflect the biases of a pro-Arafat religious leadership; but to make such a dismissal and then complain that “the voice of one very significant minority, that of the autochthonous Palestinian Christian community, is often disregarded”, is a bit much.

Part Two of Kendal’s report for ASSIST gets off to a bad start:

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – 2. WHAT NOW FOR THE CHRISTIANS OF HAMASTAN?

“Hamastan”? I suppose that must make Israel “Zionistia”, but maybe silly insults like that are best avoided altogether. Kendal intones:

Hamas’ electoral win is not a surprise result that cannot be explained. Hamas will not radicalise Palestinian Muslims. Hamas won the elections because the Palestinian Authority has already radicalised Muslim society to the extent that it freely elected a terrorist organisation as its government. Hamas’ win is the culmination of decades of growing discontent – with the economy, violence and corruption – coupled with the increased radicalisation of Palestinian Muslim society.

The trouble is, how do we define “coupled”? Does increased radicalisation account for 50% of the change, or more, or less? Does the fact that 55.55% of those who voted chose other parties count for nothing? I’ll happily agree with Kendal that Hamas is bad news, and its landslide of seats won is likely to be a disaster for Palestinian civil society. But I also recall a country next door that has been radicalised to the extent that it freely elected a man found indirectly responsible for war crimes as its Prime Minister (and notorious for much else besides) – and is likely to very soon be voting in a man very much to the right of him. I believe it’s called a spiral of hate.

UPDATE (17 February): I note a specific example of where the Occupation is responsible for creating problems for Palestinian Christians today.

*****

*Shavit, Uriya and Bana, Jalal (2001). “The Secret Exodus.” Ha’aretz. Oct. 3: 15

**Nammar, Jacob (2002). “Palestinian Christians in Holy Land Are Forgotten.” San Antonio Express, Oct. 26

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AsiaNews reports from Turkey, in the wake of the murder of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in the Black Sea town of Trebizond/Trabzon (link added):

The religious leader of Rize [a town near Trebizond] stated without hesitation that ‘ the number of Christian religious coming to our city is on the rise, they have a different intent to ours, we must, our nation must, stay united against them’. The chief party spokesman for the Grey Wolves (MHP) also commented: ‘The priests who arrive in our area want to re-establish the Christian Greek-Orthodox state that was here before, there are spies among these priests, working for the West, they are trying to destroy our peace, the people from the Black Sea are conservatives by nature’.

I actually noted the same accusation last year – although then it was Protestant missionaries who were supposedly plotting to create the Christian state. Islam Online reported the views of a supposed “key researcher into religious affairs”:

“As 39 churches have been built in Istanbul alone during the last five years, the missionaries seek to revive the ancient Christian ‘Bontos State’ that had existed along the Black Sea coast in the 11th Century,” said [Altin] Tonish.

The “Bontos State” must be the Empire of Trebizond, which was set up by Greeks after Constantinople was conquered by Roman Catholics in 1204, and which was defeated by the Ottomans in 1461. The Greek Orthodox Church, of course, has no interest in resurrecting the entity – and to include Roman Catholic priests and Protestant missionaries in the plot is even more bizarre. The area was, however, ethnically cleansed of Armenians and other non-Turks during the First World War – perhaps the paranoid far-rightists who almost certainly inspired the murder of Santoro have a guilty conscience, and are projecting.

(PS – while we’re on the subject of Turkey, there’s a dramatization of Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow currently available on BBC Radio 3.)

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I’ve often wondered what it must be like to live near somewhere like Oswiecim, the Polish town forever known to history by its German name, Auschwitz. A bit heavy, I’d always supposed. However, it’s not all doom and gloom, thanks to a US pastor. ASSIST reports (links added):

Pastor Mike MacIntosh, the senior pastor of Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego, California, is planning again to bring his “message of life” to a Polish town close to Auschwitz, the infamous “City of Death.”

The American pastor is returning again to Wisla from July 16-26 for his unique Festival of Life outreach. His previous Festival of Life was in July 2004 and included clowns, musicians, Kids Games, seminars and even an outreach to alcoholics.

…The horror of Auschwitz still is stamped in the consciousness of much of the world, but at last some good news has come to the area that hasn’t seen too much of it, in the form of this loving Festival of Life led by Mike MacIntosh.

…[MacIntosh] went on to say, “Festival of Life 2006 is building on the 2004 Festival. This time the people caught the vision for what our ministry does. The City officials have agreed to install 10.000 new seats to accommodate the crowds this year. We are hoping to set the vision for thousands more to participate in evangelism.”

But that’s not all:

…Now Henryk E. Krol, who runs a chain of Christian radio stations in Poland, including one in Auschwitz, will be one of the main organizers of the upcoming festival.

ASSIST gave some further details about that last year:

Henry Krol, the head of the Radio CCM network, said in an interview at the NRB 2003 in Nashville, Tennessee, “Our first transmitter of Radio CCM started its operation in 1998 and the antenna is mounted on a chimney of a chemical factory where the poison gas, Zyklon-B, was manufactured and used by Nazis in the death camp. We are a voice of reconciliation in such a symbolic place.”

Actually, this had been reported on UCB at the time – I tipped off  the Guardian Diary column (this was before my blogging days), which ran a short piece on it. However, there’s more to the Evangelical symbolic appropriation of Poland’s historic tragedies than just this:

Krol, who along with his family were deeply in involved in Billy Graham’s historic visit to Poland in the 1970s, said that another of his radio stations is based in Gliwice and the radio antenna is placed on a historical timber radio tower, the exact place where World War II started with so-called Gliwice German provocation.

“Our radio studio is based in a building where, for over 40 years, the communist party regional headquarters was placed. The radio president sits in a room used once by the first secretary of the Communist party,” Krol added.

The “Festival of Life” will be coming a couple of months after a massive Evangelical campaign in Rwanda timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1994 atrocities. I blogged on that here. Horizon Christian Fellowship is affiliated with Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel network of mega-churches; I’ve noted some of Calvary’s overseas evangelistic activities here and here.

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Charisma magazine is backing a pastor-candidate for the US Senate:

Ordinarily a national publication such as Charisma makes endorsements only for president and vice president-the only offices voted on by all Americans. But Charisma is endorsing Keith Butler for U.S. Senate from the state of Michigan. We urge all our readers to support his candidacy.

Butler had announced his run for office last year; a Charisma profile from back then tells us a bit about his religious work (links added):

A native of Detroit, Butler was a liberal arts major at the University of Michigan, studying social sciences and minoring in political science. He worked at IBM and General Motors before he founded Word of Faith with his wife, Deborah, after attending RHEMA Bible Training Center. Today the church has more than 20,000 members and has planted 15 satellite churches across the United States, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Scotland and London. Butler also oversees some 950 ministers through his Word of Faith Ministerial Alliance.

The Rhema Bible Training Center was founded by the late Kenneth Hagin, and promotes the “Prosperity Gospel” of wealth for faithful believers. According to this hostile site, Butler was ordained by Hagin’s son-in-law, Buddy Harrison. A 2001 report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin provides some quotes from Butler on the subject of wealth:

From Psalm 50: “The beasts are mine, the world is mine and the fullness thereof is mine,” and, said the preacher, “that includes the money in your pocket. God has placed his prized possessions in our hands. He’s saying, ‘I give you the ability to get it.’ He is making us stewards of it.

“I’ve got a Mercedes, my wife has a Mercedes, my daughter has a Mercedes. It all belongs to God and he’s letting me use it,” said Butler. “There is nothing wrong with having a large house and car, with taking trips around the world … as long as you do what God wants you to with it.”

…He referred them [his audience] to the Book of Malachi: “See if I do not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out an abundant blessing for you. I shall forbid the locust to destroy the produce of your soil. All the nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delights.” And he quoted Psalm 75: “God is judging the upright, bringing some down and raising others.”

Butler also believes that 2006 is a prophetic year, during which “complete fulfillment” will take place. Fellow prosperity-preacher Kenneth Copeland explains:

What we saw in 2005 were the very first manifestations of some major, major changes in the world. I’m not talking about just the blessing of God. I am talking about breakthrough that has to do with God’s properties—breakthrough of the reservoirs of God’s goods that have been dammed up by Satan. Release of the things he has stolen through his schemes and threats—things he conned people into yielding to him by giving up their authority.

The cracks are already in the dams that are holding back God’s goods, God’s money, God’s properties. Those who listen can become wealthy beyond their wildest imagination.

In the spring of 2005, I heard Bishop Keith Butler say by the Spirit that 2006 is the year of total fulfillment. And that word literally exploded in my heart. It has been ringing in my spiritual ears ever since. The year 2006 is the year of more overflow—the year of complete fulfillment, the year of the glory.

What we have seen in 2005 is not going to stop.

Butler is a member of the “Arlington Group“, a Christian right lobbying-group founded by Paul Weyrich and Don Wildmon, and he has political experience going back to the 80s:

In 1984, Mr. Butler ran for the office of Precinct Delegate and won. In that same year, Michigan Reagan/Bush Chairman, Mr. Paul Gadola, appointed Mr. Butler to be the State Chairman of Blacks for Reagan/Bush. Two years later, Mr. Butler served as Statewide Director of the Urban Coalition for Bill Lucas for Governor campaign. He was also selected one of Five Outstanding Michiganians in 1988 by the Michigan Junior Chamber of Commerce… In 1989, Mr. Butler was elected in a city-wide vote to the Detroit City Council… President George H.W. Bush also selected Mr. Butler to be Deputy Chair of the Republican National Convention. At the convention, Mr. Butler also delivered the introductory speech for then Congressman, Newt Gingrich.

His views on “the issues” can be seen here.

If Butler gets the nomination, he will be up against Debbie Stabenow, a Methodist who has been a Senator since 2000. His current Republican rivals are Jerry Zandstra – himself a pastor with the Christian Reformed Church and a director of the Acton Institute (a conservative Christian “free enterprise” think-tank) – and Sheriff Mike Bouchard.

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The Hartford Institute for Religion Research has published an interesting report: Megachurches Today 2005. The data, which is concerned exclusively with US megachurches, claims to have exploded a number of “myths” about the phenomenon, and charts a “shocking” growth rate. Some salient findings:

At latest count, there are 1,210 Protestant churches in the United States with weekly attendance over 2,000, nearly double the number that existed 5 years ago…The four states with the greatest concentrations of megachurches are California (14%), Texas (13%), Florida (7%) and Georgia (6%).

…When asked to describe the theological identity of the congregation, the majority of churches chose Evangelical (56%). This was followed by 16% who claimed Pentecostal (8%) or Charismatic (8%). Seven percent chose “moderate” and that many also chose “seeker.” “Other” designations (7%) traditional (5%) and Fundamentalist (2%) accounted for the rest.

Compared to the study of 5 years ago, this new data indicated considerably more churches choosing an evangelical label, while fewer claim the Pentecostal, charismatic and moderate theological designation.

…Only 16% of churches claimed they partnered with other churches in political involvement activities in the past 5 years and three quarters of churches (76%) say they have never done this.

…Megachurches are well known for offering a wide variety of activities and ministry programs. Our previous study asked the types of programs the megachurches are engaged in and at what rates. This survey, however, asked which of these programs were “key activities” for the congregation. As would be expected religious activities were most highly rated as key activities. Activities such as study and discussion groups (79%), religious education (71%), and prayer and faith sharing groups (66%) scored the highest percentages as key functions within megachurches. Contrary to popular ideas about megachurches being solely concerned with fundraising, this activity garnered the lowest score on the list.

Read the whole thing. The survey from 2000 can be seen here.

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Interfax reports from Syria, with a headline that cannot be improved upon:

A dismembered Arab sheikh raised from the dead after visiting an Orthodox convent

Sounds like we’re in Jim Rutz territory. So what’s the story?

One of the Saudi Arabia sheikhs ‘rose from the dead’ after visiting Panagia Saidnaya [“Our Lady” in Syriac], an old convent near Damascus, the Trud daily writes on Friday.

…According to the newspaper, the sheikh and his wife could not have children. They decided to go on their last journey together to Syria to venerate local Muslim shrines. One taxi-driver there advised them to visit the Sidnay Convent with its miracle-working Icon of the Mother of God, which often helped to childless families.

The sheikh and his wife took the driver’s advice, and shortly thereafter the wife conceived. Nine months on, the sheikh returned to Syria in order to make a donation to the convent, and was picked up at the airport by the same driver. However, the driver knew that his passenger was loaded, and so he and two friends chopped the sheikh up and placed the remains in the boot of the car. But all did not go according to plan:

After a few kilometers the car suddenly stalled. A man who was driving by offered his help, but it was rudely rejected. But this Syrian felt something was wrong and called to the police, who came and caught the three accomplices unawares.

They all experienced an even greater shock after they opened the boot. The motionless and blooded body suddenly began to stir, then revived and stood up slightly rocking. The first words he said were: ‘This same Panagia has just finished sewing up my neck here…’

A few more details are available at the website Ethnikoi, where an English-language account has been compiled by Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes of Boise, Idaho (here the recipient of the miracle is just a “Saudi Arabian”, rather than a sheikh):

The Saudi Arabian went to a medical facility to undergo examination by doctors and medical examiners who confirmed and attested that the stitching was done very recently, thereby validating the miraculous event. The stitches were, and still are, obvious. When the Saudi Arabian came out of the car’s trunk, he had the appearance, literally, of just having been refabricated (put back together) to which he continuously confessed that the PANAGIA had rejoined his body and resurrected him with the help of her Son.

Immediately after this, the Saudi Arabian called his relatives to come to Syria and they all went together to the monastery of Panagia Saidnaya and offered up prayers, praises, and glorification, and instead of the initial gift of $80,000 US (which was promised), he gave $800,000 US to the Theotokos [the “God-Bearer”, i.e. Virgin Mary]. Today, as this man relates the details of that overwhelming miracle, he starts his narration with “When I was a Moslem this happened to me” this indicating he is not longer a Moslem, as neither is his family.

Interfax, however, prefers aliens as an explanation:

The US military medics, who also took part in the expertise, came to the conclusion that it was a result of ‘the UFO interference’ and classified this information as secret.

Serfes tells us that this happened in December 2004.

The icon at Panagia Saidnaya (or Panagia Saydnaya) has been venerated by Christians and Muslims for many centuries. A short essay by Benjamin Z Kedar of the Hebrew University provides some details:

From the late 12th century, the story of the icon of Saydnaya appears in Latin and Arabic texts; in the 13th century it was also told in Old French. There are two main variants about the icon’s vicissitudes before its arrival at Saydnaya, yet all version agree that upon its arrival the icon began to grow flesh and to emit from its breasts an oil-like liquid that would heal the sick. According to the account of Burchard of Strasbourg, whom Emperor Frederick I sent in 1175 as his envoy to Saladin, “all Saracens of that country flock to [Saydnaya] on the Assumption and the Nativity of the Glorious Virgin, together with the Christians, in order to pray there.”

Another site tells us a bit about the icon:

The convent rises above the town like a veritable fortress and is dedicated to the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. One may not enter the small chapel without removing one’s sandals; inside, the walls are covered with myriad signs of gratitude to the All-pure One. The Icon of the All-holy Virgin is believed to be one of four icons extant that were painted by St. Luke the Evangelist himself. In the Syriac language this icon is called the Chahoura or Chagoura, which means “The Illustrious, Celebrated, or Renowned.”

The site itself has been sacred since pre-Christian times. Carol Miller notes:

Priests and monks affiliated with the various cults were commonplace throughout the Near East, and Seidnaya’s rocky bluff was no exception. The site, however, became especially identified with the moon god, or goddess, therefore with the female clergy normally associated with feminine deities. The priestesses of Seidnaya were definitely the precursors of the cult of the sixth century Christian figure of the Virgin Mary expressed in “Our Lady”, who was particularly successful, and celebrated, as a healer, and as such, a guarantor of well-being. When three Syrian cosmonauts, say Andrew Humphreys and Damien Simonis (see: Syria, Lonely Planet, 1999) were chosen to spend a month aboard the Russian space station Mir, they first traveled to Seidnaya to seek her blessing.

But what about our re-membered Saudi sheikh? A similar story has been preserved on a discussion board to do with the Lebanese military (of all things), dated from January last year (sic for typos):

A Muslim Saudi man had a 5-year-old boy that was not walking yet since birth. He met a Syrian Christian man in Saudi Arabia, and that man advised him to take the kid to Deir Saydnaya, just because he had enough faith that Jesus and The Virgin Mary could actually treat the little kid…

He took his kid to the Deir, accompanied by his Syrian friend, and asked the Nuns there to pray for his kid, because he didn’t know how to do so, and swore that he would give them 100 000$ if his child walked.

About a month later, back in Saudi Arabia, the little boy started walking. To fulfill his promise, the man went back to Syria to give the money. The syrian guy in Saudi, called two guys back in Syria to accompany the Saudi.

On the road, thinking that the Nuns have enough money, they killed the Saudi, chopped up his body, put in the trunk and went to dump him in some forest. Along the way, the car stopped and wouldn’t start up again. As they went down to check on it, a police car pulled and asked them if they need any asistance. As they hesitated in answering, the police asked to search the car, and asked the two men to open the trunk. At that moment, they heard a third voice coming from the trunk saying: “just a minute, I’m almost done here, then u can open the trunk”. All surprised, they opened the trunk to find the man, all back together and breathing, with big stitched marks on his shoulders and legs were he was pulled apart.

(Hat tip: The Anomalist)

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The Washington Post reports on the latest from the National Association of Evangelicals on the subject of climate change:

The National Association of Evangelicals said yesterday that it has been unable to reach a consensus on global climate change and will not take a stand on the issue, disappointing environmentalists who had hoped that evangelical Christians would prod the Bush administration to soften its position on global warming.

…Calvin DeWitt, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin who is a leading evangelical supporter of environmental causes, called the statement “a retreat and a defeat.”

It isn’t, though, much of a surprise. The Religion News Service reported back on the 19th:

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the NAE is not planning to take a position on the issue.

“The NAE was never going to adopt a policy on climate change,” he said. “Like on a lot of issues, evangelical leaders are across the board on this subject and have a variety of views.”

Cizik was responding to a letter urging the NAE not to take a position. More than twenty evangelical leaders had signed it; the Post lists some:

The letter’s signers amounted to a Who’s Who of politically powerful evangelicals, including Charles W. Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries; the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University; Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

As I noted on this blog a few months ago, the NAE has in recent years been taking a stronger line on the environment, since coming into contact with British evangelical scientists such as Sir John Houghton, who has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This has caused some controversy – the NAE has been criticized in particular by senator James Inhofe, who believes that global warming is a massive conspiracy cooked up by feminists and homosexuals.

The RNS adds the detail that the letter was

circulated by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, a new Washington-based coalition that in November issued a report that challenged the idea that there is a scientific consensus on climate change.

The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance may be new, but it’s basically a re-launch of the now-defunct Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship (ICES, see Wayback), which was founded by the Ayn Randian Roman Catholic priest Robert Sirico back in 1999; many of the same people are involved. Bill Berkowitz profiled the ICES in 2000 (link added):

In October 1999, 25 economists, environmental scientists, and policy experts convened in West Cornwall, Connecticut, and hammered out the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. The Cornwall Declaration, the founding document of ICES, is the first major pronouncement on environmental issues by a coalition of conservative religious groups. The Declaration prioritizes the needs of humans over nature, advocates the unleashing of free-market forces to resolve environmental problems, and denounces the environmental movement for embracing faulty science and a gloom-and-doom approach.

…The Declaration’s signers are a veritable Who’s Who of the Religious Right. Among them: Focus on the Family president James Dobson; Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright; Prison Fellowship Ministries’ head Charles Colson; the Rev. Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association; Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition; and [Fr Robert] Sirico.

…Dr. Kennedy, a leader in the anti-gay movement and an outspoken denier of separation of church and state, says, “if ever an issue needed sound Biblical Doctrine brought to bear upon it, it’s the environment, and the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship, through its Cornwall Declaration accomplishes this.”

And, as we could have guessed, James Kennedy wielding a Bible is going to be more than a match for a bunch of evangelical scientists – no matter how many qualifications and knighthoods they might have.

UPDATE: As has been now widely reported, more than eighty evangelical leaders (including Rick Warren) have signed an opposing statement expressing the importance of acting to prevent global warming.

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

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