Bartholomew's Notes

The Russian Orthodox Church and Sweden:

MOSCOW – The Russian Orthodox Church, one of the world’s largest Christian bodies, has severed relations with the Church of Sweden over the latter’s recognition of same-sex unions. The Russians previously broke with the U.S. Episcopal Church for consecrating an openly gay bishop.

Metropolitan Kirill, who heads the church external relations department, said the Russian synod expressed “categorical condemnation” of the Swedish action.

The Russian Orthodox Church and Iran:

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Iranian parliamentary speaker met in Moscow Monday to discuss interfaith dialogue.

Patriarch Alexy II and Islamic Consultative Assembly Chair Gholam-Ali Haddad-adel praised the work of the joint Russian-Iranian commission for Islamic-Orthodox dialogue. Alexy II said it was “an exemplar of mutually beneficial cooperation” proving that “together, we can counter attempts to impose secular values all over.”

“I believe Orthodox Christians and Muslims are united in their desire to prevent the construction of a unipolar world order, which would enable the imposition of certain political and cultural patterns across the globe,” the Russian patriarch said.

Details of Iran’s antigay pogrom are available at Direland (contains image of a sexually-explicit painting).

(First link tipped from Christianity Today)

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WorldNetDaily champions the cause of Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, the navy chaplain currently on hunger strike outside the White House:

Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt says he will not eat until the president takes action to allow him and other chaplains the freedom to pray and preach without diluting God to a one-size-fits all deity.

Under current rules, military chaplains are supposed to offer prayers to a generic deity when undertaking mandatory services (Klingenschmitt calls this “Unitarian Universalism”; American Civil Religion would perhaps be more accurate); praying to Jesus should only occur in services for Christian troops. This has been an explicit guideline since 1998, but Klingenschmitt believes this contradicts an 1860 law allowing him to pray “according to the manners and form” of his faith. Currently, if Klingenschmitt wishes to pray publicly to Jesus, he has to do so in civilian clothes. That’s not enough, and

…he will continue his fast until he is allowed to wear his official uniform – which, he points out, bears a cross – while praying a Christian prayer in public.

An article in the Washington Post in September gives further details:

In July 2004, he was reprimanded for a sermon at the memorial service of a sailor who died in a motorcycle accident. In the sermon, he said, he emphasized that the sailor was certainly in heaven and “mentioned in passing” that, according to John 3:36, those who do not accept Jesus are doomed for eternity.

“My sermon was in the base chapel, it was optional attendance, and it was by invitation. If we can’t quote certain scriptures in the base chapel when people are invited to church, where can we quote them?” he said. “Don’t paint me as a person who’s going around forcing my faith on people. I’ve never done that.”

(In fact, Klingenschmitt says he is also sticking up the rights of Wiccan and Muslim chaplains.)

In March, Klingenschmitt’s commander recommended against extending his tour in the Navy, writing that he has “demonstrated recurring confusion concerning a chaplain’s role within a military organization.”

The Post relates Klingenschmitt’s complaint to the wider context of growing evangelical Christianity in the American armed forces:

The Rev. MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran minister who resigned in June as an Air Force chaplain after criticizing the religious atmosphere at the Air Force Academy [in Colorado Springs], said there has been a palpable rise in evangelical fervor, not just among chaplains but also among the officer corps in general, since she joined the military in 1982, originally as a launch officer in a nuclear missile silo.

The air academy dispute has received wide coverage, with journalists noting the proximity of conservative Christian organisations. Online Journal observes that (links in original)

…Colorado Springs is also home to the nation’s largest, most influential and politically active evangelical organizations: James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, [and] New Life Church, where it was built, in part, so it could be seen from the Air Force Academy.

…During official Air Force Academy reunions, graduates are invited to the Focus on the Family headquarters for a tour that promotes James Dobson’s religious/political views and encompasses a video portraying Dobson as a hero receiving accolades from such figures as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Leaders from Focus on the Family and New Life Church are regularly invited to attend Bible Study programs on campus, and every week, New Life Church dispatches vans to transport between 100 and 200 cadets to and from Friday night services. According to Pastor Aaron Stern of New Life Church, these cadets are encouraged to hand out fliers at the academy and recruit new members.

This brings us back to Klingenschmitt, who has long-standing links with New Life Church and its pastor, Ted Haggard. The bio on the back of his book License to Sin (“Is America heading toward a moral collapse?” – endorsed by C Peter Wagner and Tony Campolo, among others) notes:

…He is also a 1991 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and a former cross-cultural missionary with youth with a Mission (YWAM). He and his wife, Mary, live in Colorado Springs where they serve at Ted Haggard’s New Life Church. He is a sinner who has been saved by grace.

Haggard has a central voice in the debate over the Air Force Academy situation – he recently revealed emails between himself and one the academy’s critics, Mikey Weinstein (against Weinstein’s wishes). The Revealer also notes that in 1999 Klingenschmitt attended a strategy session for the Christian Coalition, where the failure to impeach Clinton was bemoaned:

Gordon Klingenschmitt, a recent divinity-school graduate who participated in the Colorado discussion group, was even more pointed: “America wants leaders who can lead them into tolerance of their own sins so they don’t have to forsake their sins”.

Klingenschmitt’s current affiliation is with the Evangelical Episcopal Church, a denomination which combines charismatic Christianity with Anglican-style liturgy (a subgroup of this church lists the notorious fraud and “Satanic panic” peddler Mike Warnke as a bishop). There is no information about how this church views open-ended hunger strikes, but he would appear to be at odds with some other Christian traditions. For example, there was this report back in October:

Havana, October 04, 2005 (CNA) – The Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, has asked three political prisoners in Cuba to end their hunger strike because “life is a gift from God and should not be taken lightly.”

“As Christians we do not embrace the concept of using a means of resistance that endangers life, such as suicide or hunger strikes,” the cardinal explained.

Klingsenschmitt lays out his case here. ASSIST Ministries quotes him as saying that “even Senator Clinton (D-NY) has written a letter of concern on my behalf.”

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Christianity Today reports from Uganda:

Sixty years after Allied soldiers liberated the Nazi death camps, the world stands silent in the face of another holocaust—one so horrifying that U.N. officials call it “one of the worst human-rights crises of the past century.”

Strong words – but not unjustified:

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is one of the larger terrorist organizations in the world. It has killed more people than many other violent groups, yet few Westerners have ever heard of it, since nearly all its violence is perpetrated in the border region between Uganda and Sudan in East Africa.

The LRA’s catalogue of rapes, murders, and mutilations – under the direction of leader Joseph Kony, who is now wanted by the ICC – makes for depressing and angering reading. Particularly unpleasant, the group specialises in recruiting children, who are abused and forced to participate in atrocities in order to bind them to the group. CT also describes the religion behind it all:

While the army observes rituals such as praying the rosary and bowing toward Mecca, there is no prescribed theology in the conventional sense. Kony’s beliefs are a haphazard mix from the Bible and the Qur’an, tailored around his wishful thinking, personal desires, and practical needs of the moment. Jesus is the Son of God. But instead of saving the world from sin through his sacrificial love on the Cross, he is a source of power employed for killing those who oppose Kony. The Holy Spirit is not the Divine Comforter, but one who directs Kony’s tactical military decisions.

Despite dabbling in the Bible and the Qur’an, Kony’s real spiritual obsession is witchcraft. He burns toy military vehicles and figurines to predict the course of battles from their burn patterns. He uses reptiles in magic rituals to sicken those who anger him or to detect traitors in his midst. He claims to receive military direction from spirits of dead men from different countries, including Americans. He teaches that an impending apocalypse will usher in “The Silent World,” where only primitive weapons, such as machetes and clubs, will bring victory.

But the group is not without friends:

LRA crimes against humanity are so repulsive that its only former ally, the Islamic government of Sudan, jettisoned its relationship with the LRA to improve Sudan’s international relations. (Credible sources in Uganda insist Sudan still supplies weapons to the LRA, however.)

News about Sudan’s Bashir regime just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: More on the Sudan-Kony link, from Christopher Hitchens.

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…is the title of my debut diary entry over at Talk To Action. See here.

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The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:

“The world offers riches to all. However, minorities such as the descendants of those who crucified Christ” have become “the owners of the riches of the world,” Chavez said Dec. 24 on a visit to a rehabilitation center in the Venezuelan countryside.

This comes several weeks after a raid on the Colegio Hebraica, a private Jewish school in Caracas. The reason given for this was purported Mossad involvement in the assassination of State Prosecutor Danilo Anderson. The Weekly Standard (yes, I’d prefer a more progressive source, too, but sadly there isn’t one) gives some wider context:

Hostility to Jews has become one of the hallmarks of the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez, the radical populist who became president in 1999, and of Chavismo, the neo-fascist ideology named for him. In January, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor released a “Report on Global Anti-Semitism.” The report documents how openly anti-Semitic the Venezuelan government now is. Besides the raid on the Jewish school, it noted that “President Chávez cautioned citizens against following the lead of Jewish citizens in the effort to overturn his referendum victory. Anti-Semitic leaflets also were available to the public in an Interior and Justice Ministry office waiting room.”

Chávez first ran for president on a reform platform, winning in a landslide. What few understood then was that Chávez planned to revolutionize the country following a plan masterminded by his longtime friend Norberto Ceresole, an Argentinian writer infamous for his books denying the Holocaust and his conspiracy theories about Jewish plans to control the planet.

It should be noted, however, that Ceresole was later deported due to his anti-Jewish rantings. But Chavez appears to be an impressionable character; his latest comments have come shortly after making a new friend in Iran…

UPADTE: Le Revue Gauche makes the case that Chavez was being quoted out of context; “those who crucified Christ” are supposedly capitalists. See also this discussion at World War 4 Report.

UPDATE 2: The Forward has an article on the subject:

“We believe the president was not talking about Jews and that the Jewish world must learn to work together,” said Fred Pressner, president of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela.

…Both the AJCommittee and the American Jewish Congress seconded the Venezuelan community’s view that Chavez’s comments were not aimed at Jews. All three groups said he was aiming his barbs at the white oligarchy that has dominated the region since the colonial era, pointing to his reference to Bolivar as the clearest evidence of his intent.

One official noted that Latin America’s so-called Liberation Theology has long depicted Jesus as a socialist and consequently speaks of gentile business elites as “Christ-killers.”

…”It appears to us that Chavez did not intentionally speak about Jews,” said David Twersky, director of the AJCongress’s Council on World Jewry. “I don’t think we should raise the flag of antisemitism when it doesn’t belong.”

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Compass Direct (via Crosswalk) reports on the latest anti-Christian disturbance in Israel:

Orthodox Jews disrupted a Messianic congregation’s worship service in the Israeli town of Beersheba on Saturday (December 24)…The agitators struck Messianic believers in the face, back and stomach. Though one received a blow near his eye, no one needed medical attention.

“Messianics” are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but who maintain a Jewish identity and style of worship. They claim to have about 10,000 members in Israel, although authoritative figures are hard to come by. But here’s an interesting detail:

The Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Beersheba, Yehuda Deri, stood outside speaking to demonstrators during the incident. The police handcuffed two of the more violent agitators but then released them in Deri’s presence.

(Deri is the brother of Aryeh Deri, the disgraced one-time leader of the Shepardic Orthodox Shas political party)

…One Christian tried to videotape the incident, and when demonstrators yelled that this was “forbidden on Shabbat” (Jewish Sabbath), he told them he was not Jewish. But police forbid him to use his video camera, saying it would constitute a provocation. Others, however, did take photographs and videos of the demonstration.

This assault follows attacks on Messianics and Jehovah’s Witnesses in Arad and Holon, which I discussed here. It is also part of a long campaign against the Beersheba group. Back in 1998 Compass reported (again, emphasis added):

In a November 28 incident in the Negev town of Beersheva, rumors were spread in synagogues that Messianic Jews planned to baptize Jewish children. A mob estimated by police to number 1,000 “haredim” (ultra-orthodox) Jews started to surround a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church rented by the local congregation of Messianic Jews for their Shabbat (Sabbath) gathering.

…Natan Aridan, a history professor at Ben-Gurion University, described the latest attack to the “Jerusalem Post” as reminiscent of anti-Semitic attacks in Eastern Europe. “I witnessed a pogrom,” he said. “There can be no other word for it.”

The siege lasted for about three hours, and the crowd only disseminated after being addressed by local rabbis, [elder Olavi] Syvanto said. A policeman remained at the site to keep order, but later on, leaders of the congregation were told to take charge of guarding the compound themselves.

This infuriated [Charles] Kopp, chairman of the United Christian Council in Israel.

“I think this is intolerable. If a synagogue anywhere in the Western world is attacked, the police will be there until the situation is settled. Likewise, the Israeli police should be there as long as needed. Period.”

UPDATE: A first-person account of the attack is available here.

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(corrected – Dateline Hollywood is satire; thanks to Mollie at Get Religion)

A massive banner headline in WorldNetDaily, billed as “Breaking News”:

L.A. Times admits false claim about Falwell, 9-11

So what new act of persecution against a good Christian is this? WND has the shocking details:

A column by a rabbi published in the Los Angeles Times falsely asserted Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed lesbian actress Ellen DeGeneres played a role in the 9-11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina because she was the host of the Emmy Awards before both events.

The Times ran a correction explaining the Baptist minister “made no such claim.”

The accusation appeared in a column by Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein that was critical of religious fundamentalism. But why did Stein make such an unwarranted suggestion? WND can’t be bothered to tell us, and the LA Times offers no clues either. However, two minutes of googling brings up the following, from satirical website Dateline Hollywood back in September:

Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres [sic] to host this year’s Emmy Awards.

…Robertson also noted that the last time Degeneres hosted the Emmys, in 2001, the September 11 terrorism attacks took place shortly before the ceremony.

“This is the second time in a row that God has invoked a disaster shortly before lesbian Ellen Degeneres hosted the Emmy Awards,” Robertson explained to his approximately one million viewers. “America is waiting for her to apologize for the death and destruction that her sexual deviance has brought onto this great nation.”

Yes, the rabbi made the huge error of confusing Falwell with Pat Robertson, in a general discussion of Christian fundamentalism. And embarrassingly, he picked a fake quote which originated with a satirical website, rather than choosing any of the far more reasonable utterances Pat is famous for. This has led to an appalling misrepresentation of Falwell’s true position on 9/11, which in no way places the blame on one lesbian:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

(Falwell endured considerable mockery and condemnation for this, and backed down)

First Larry Flynt, and now Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein – just how long will God allow his most faithful servant to be persecuted like this?

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More news about religious tensions in the wake of last year’s Tsunami – The Australian reports from Aceh:

Islamic activists have claimed that aid workers are secretly attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity, pointing particularly to World Vision, Aceh Relief, the International Catholic Mission and Church World Service.

However:

World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello said his organisation had a strict policy forbidding proselytisation.

Aceh’s Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency will begin investigating the allegations next month and, more importantly, probe why the Acehnese are feeling so insecure about Christians in the province.

Fears over Christian proselytism go back to the first weeks following the disaster. The Jamestown Foundation reported at the time that

On January 14 Indonesia’s most influential group of Islamic clerics warned of a widespread Muslim backlash if international aid groups indulged in Christian proselytizing or attempted to adopt orphans to raise in Christian children’s homes. However, more sinister manifestations emerged with evidence of the participation in the relief work by radical Islamist groups, known more for their militant jihadist activities than any humanitarian functions.

Perhaps these Islamist groups have been whipping up resentment against Christian rivals; but it’s also possible that some Christian groups have been engaging in aggressive evangelisation. As I noted on this blog just a few days ago, that is certainly the case in post-Tsunami Thailand, where relief workers associated with Calvary Chapel have been openly boasting of their successes at converting Thai children.

One evangelical organisation that has been present in the area is Iris Ministries. In April its founder, Rolland Baker, wrote about the situation – and was implicitly critical of the softly-softly approach taken by other Christians:

Money, personnel and relief goods poured in. Sympathy skyrocketed. Aid management quickly became a massive challenge. Corruption set in. And Christians were were almost universally advised to keep a low profile and not take advantage of the situation to advance their faith. Heidi and I wanted Iris to be involved with tsunami relief in Aceh, but with so much aid arriving from secular agencies, we felt our main contribution had to spiritual. Still, Christian influence from outsiders was not generally welcome, even by other evangelical workers on the scene.

Many Christians did, of course, come to help in any way they could, and Indonesian believers arrived to comfort and pray with the small Banda Aceh church community that survived. I was delayed by my travel schedule for months. But God has His own plan to raise up fiery preachers of the Gospel who will carry His glory with wisdom and power throughout Indonesia, even into the most tragic and resistant of situations.

Elsewhere, Baker tactfully wrote of a “tsunami of the Holy Spirit”.

(Tipped from Bulldada Newsblog)

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First there was the Amazon bestseller. Then there was the endorsement from WorldNetDaily. And now – the TV show and DVD (links added):

Grizzly Adams Productions, Inc. (GAP), producers of family-friendly network television shows, announced it has acquired the worldwide TV/DVD rights to two best-selling books, Apocalypse Soon, and The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse, written by Patrick Heron and published in the USA by Xulon Press. GAP plans to produce an investigative TV/DVD program based on the books examining the dire predictions of mankind’s end, as stated in the Bible and other sources, plus take a look at the current mega-disasters befalling the world during recent years.

Heron’s book – a rehash of some very old conspiracy theories concerning the Great Pyramid – was discussed on this blog here. I also noted his background, which appears to be with a semi-Christian New Religious Movement (now defunct) known as The Way International.

“Our TV program will paint a new and different picture of end-times prophecies, unveiling connections Heron has discovered between Nephilim (the sons of God, or fallen angels referred to in Genesis 6:4), the pyramids and end times,” notes David W. Balsiger, Vice President of GAP. “It will also examine what is believed to be the newly discovered role of America in end-times prophecies, an area that has been largely neglected by previous biblical scholars.”

Funny how Biblical scholars have failed to connect a book written in the ancient Near East with the USA, given that the USA is so important in the eyes of God. Maybe Balsiger ought to have a word with the NCBCPS, whose high-school Bible curriculum (see yesterday) endorses any crank who happens to be a Biblical literalist.

David Balsiger has also come to my notice before now – last year he was touting his documentary George W. Bush: Faith in the White House as an antidote to Michael Moore. I’ll repeat now what I wrote then:

Balsiger is a one-time Council for National Policy member, and is best known as the enabler of two hoaxes. The first, in the early 1970s, was when he co-ghostwrote Mike Warnke’s autobiography The Satan Seller, launching the “Satanic survivor” genre that caused so much panic and harm over the next twenty years (Balsiger still stands by the book). The second was in the 1990s, when his Sun International Pictures made The Quest for Noah’s Ark, a pseudo-documentary that included an interview with a man who falsely claimed to have found it. That fiasco led to the termination of a contract with CBS.

Balsiger and Heron are clearly a match made in heaven – although Christians who care about the integrity of their religion might suspect that the other place is more likely responsible…

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