Bartholomew's Notes

Yemi Akinsuyi of This Day (Lagos) reports on the “satanic phone numbers” scare in Nigeria. Rumour has it that answering certain numbers on your cell phone leads to vomiting blood and death. This Day reveals those responsible for the panic, with the most popular story

ascribed to Mr. Segun Adisa in his programme, Labe Orun on Murhi International Television (M-ITV) last Sunday while warning viewers on the effect of receiving such calls.

Adisa said those, who do not believe the existence of the numbers, were at the risk of dying soonest…[He said] “I pity those, who do not believe that there are phone numbers that could kill instantly. I cannot say much about the evil now, but there is evil hanging on those that do not believe and see it as mere fabrication. Many have gone through these phone numbers, but we that are alive should be careful”.

Also to blame is

a pastor of the Oshodi, a Lagos suburb branch of the famous Christ Embassy Church, who last Sunday narratted his experience of a satanic call in the city in the open church…

Warning members of the branch against receiving strange calls, which, he said, now sniff life out of people, the pastor told the congregation that he was in a gathering, where a woman received a call and started vormiting blood. He said all of them, who were around the scene, were subsequently picked up by the police and taken to Alausa Police Station, where they were made to make statements on all they knew about the incident before they were let off.

However, the police deny any such thing happened, leaving us with the shocking inference that a pastor has made something up! Further, actually calling the supposed “Satanic numbers” connects to ordinary people who are none too pleased.

The Christ Embassy (formerly “Believers’ Love World”) is one of the largest Pentecostal churches in Nigeria, and is led by a faith healer named Chris Oyakhilome.

Perhaps those about to throw away their phones out of fear ought to have a word with Leo Igwe, Nigeria’s most prominent sceptic…

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The New Standard (link thanks to The Revealer) reports on Michigan resident Joseph Hanas, who spent six months in prison and boot camp after refusing to complete a drug rehabilitation program. The program was run by the Inner City Christian Outreach Center, and Hanas claims that the Center was more interested in converting him to Pentecostalism from Catholicism than in helping his drug problem.

Further details are available on the website of the ACLU, which is assisting Hanas’ appeal to the Supreme Court. Their press release explains:

Unbeknownst to Hanas when he entered the program, one of the goals of Christian Outreach was to convert him from Catholicism to the Pentecostal faith. According to ACLU legal papers, Hanas was forced to read the bible for seven hours a day and was tested on Pentecostal principles. The staff also told him that Catholicism was a form of witchcraft and they confiscated both his rosary and Holy Communion prayer book…Hanas was told that in order to complete the program successfully he would have to declare he was “saved” and was threatened that if he didn’t do what the pastor told him to do, he would be “washed of the program and go to prison.”

The ACLU legal papers include corroborating statements from Hanas’ aunt and a Roman Catholic deacon:

when Mr. Hanas’ aunt called Christian Outreach to try to make arrangements for his deacon to visit him, the director of Christian Outreach, Pastor Rottier, told the aunt, that Mr. Hanas “gave up his right of freedom of religion when he was placed into this program.” (Id.). The deacon further said that he had spoken with Judge Ransom several times about this issue and that Judge Ransom knows that he “won’t have any other religious clergy in here.” (Id.).

Plus:

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the primary reason Mr. Hanas was sent to Christian Outreach—substance abuse counseling and rehabilitation—was not evident in Christian Outreach’s program. There were no drug counselors or psychologists in this program, only repeated and all-encompassing religious indoctrination.

Hanas asked the trial judge, Genesee Circuit Judge Robert M. Ransom, for transfer to a secular program, to which Ransom (see here for pic) responded by sending him to prison and boot camp. Why? One snippet in the New Standard story not in the ACLU papers notes that Judge Ransom is “also an Inner City Christian leader”, although I was unable to find any other reference for this.

Ransom runs a special Drug Court, so possibly Hanas’ experiences are not unique. However, according to The Flint Journal, Ransom has since had a rethink:

“As a result of all of this hullabaloo, we have decided not to continue to refer people to (Rottiers),” Ransom said. “It’s a local program, and we weren’t satisfied that there was enough accountability by a larger body.”

I could not find any website for the Inner City Christian Outreach Center, and “Pastor Rottier” (identified as “Richard Rottiers” in The Flint Journal) remains obscure.

(Flint Journal link via Christianity Today)

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…since 1945, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Hitler-supporting King ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and promised that no U.S. decision regarding the Middle East would be made without first consulting the Arabs, neither has any nation been more closely linked to the Muslim nations in that region. I wonder if his death within weeks of making this decision was simply a coincidence.

So writes Michael D Evans (or Mike Evans) in The American Prophecies, a book that is currently riding high on the Amazon Religion and Spirituality bestseller lists (and as the book has not yet been released, one assumes this is from advance orders). The book is published by Warner Faith (part of AOL Time Warner) and carries endorsements from Benjamin Netanyahu, Charles Colson, Paul Crouch and Ehud Olmert.

Evans argues (as he has done ad nauseum in a number of previous books) that the USA has a role in Biblical prophecy, the role being to offer uncritical support for Israel. Plus Arabs are all Nazis and rejected by God. Time Warner is so proud that a lengthy extract is available on its website. Among highlights (and I had to restrain myself from going on for pages) are the following:

America has married two brothers, both descendants of ancient Abraham, who was told by God to get out of Ur of the Chaldees (modern-day Iraq)…One of these marriages was based on America’s guilt over its appeasement policies, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews during the Holocaust…The marriage to the other brother, Ishmael, was one of convenience…America now finds herself trying to accommodate an ancient Jew-hating older brother (Ishmael) who has refused to make peace with the younger (Isaac).

The Middle East conflict, then, is not so much about particular political circumstances as something in the essential nature of the Arabs, Ishmael.

While Middle Eastern oil flows to the West, we ship arms in their direction. In fact, the Middle East region is currently America’s number one client in the world for weapons of war. The U.S. has sold Saudi Arabia alone more than $200 billion in weapons since the 1980s.

Nice to see a Christian fundamentalist who agrees with Michael Moore. But hold the presses:

The terrorists’ war against America and Israel is rooted in this radical religious doctrine called Islamic fundamentalism.

Plugging his previous book, Evans states that:

I stated my belief that weapons of mass destruction were in Syria. I also stated that, compliments of the Syrian government and the Iraqi embassy in Damascus, money and key Iraqi leaders were being moved through Syria.

He’s written more on this for WorldNetDaily. Evans then turns to the subject of Palestinian refugees:

The truth is that the Arab world has fueled and fed the Palestinian refugee crisis… Why did the Arab League tell the Arabs to leave Palestine and fight Israel, then turn their backs on the very refugees they created? Why did they make up the myth that Israeli Arabs must have a state inside Israel, even though they never had such a thing in three thousand years of history?

Unfortunately for Evans, the Arab League never told Palestinians to leave, as was established years ago. And I was not aware of Israeli Arabs wanting their own state within Israel proper. Perhaps Evans means Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, who are apparently suffering from a “myth” that they are hard done by just because they live under military occupation.

Clinton-bashing follows (inevitably, “Neville Chamberlain”) and ruminations on 9/11, and more explicit racism:

The ancient Scriptures of the Bible have a great deal to say about the two spirits behind these brothers who are fighting it out through the nations of the earth. Ishmael was not the son of promise, but the son of a man trying to work the will of God in his own way. God had promised Abraham a son, but his wife, Sarah, was barren. At her request, Abraham took Hagar, her maidservant, and impregnated her. The result was the son Ishmael. Though a man of faith, Abraham acted in his own wisdom and lust, not God’s direction—he justified a foolish action through moral relativism, tradition, and human reasoning, trying to get God’s blessing on his own terms. It was not until some years later when the son of promise, Isaac, was born that Abraham fully realized the gravity of his mistake. Rejecting the “son of human reasoning,” God blessed and cut covenant with the “son of faith.” Ishmael went on to be the father of the Arab race, and Isaac a patriarch of the Hebrews.

So – the very existence of the Arabs is a mistake born of lust, and they have been rejected by God.

A series of questions concludes the chapter, including:

Why did the State Department keep FBI agents from arresting three terrorists who were part of a Saudi entourage on its way to meet with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, seven and a half months after the attacks of September 11?…

Why is no one talking about the missing suitcase nuclear bombs from the former U.S.S.R., or the weapons of mass destruction Saddam moved out of Iraq through Syria before Operation Iraqi Freedom? Who has them, and what are they planning to do with them?…

Why is Hitler’s Mein Kampf a best-selling book throughout the Muslim world more than fifty years after Hitler’s death? And why is it used as a textbook in Muslim schools in the Middle East?…

Why, even after he had publicly condemned these mass executions, did Roosevelt refuse to bomb the gas chambers in Auschwitz, when Allied planes were flying routine missions near them nearly every day in the last months of the war?…

Why is America spending billions of dollars to rebuild ancient Babylon, when 62 percent of the population are Shi’ites who would guarantee another Iran in time? The scriptures pronounce an end-time curse upon ancient Babylon more than upon any country in the world. Is America blessing what God has cursed?

Evans also name drops like crazy, and this is why he deserves a certain amount of attention:

“Mike, are you watching TV?” said Reuben Hecht, senior adviser to Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin. “Harel’s prophecy is coming to pass before our eyes.”

Reuben Hecht and I had enjoyed dinner with Isser Harel (founder of Mossad, and head of Israeli intelligence from 1947 to 1963) at his home a few months earlier…

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, I had lunch one afternoon with the governor of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Khalid…My words antagonized Khalid…

…in 1981, I was willing to use what I knew about the Middle East to help President Reagan’s staff act with moral clarity concerning the issue of that region. In that role, I was asked to attend a high-level briefing with U.S. generals and admirals over the sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia. I challenged the White House staff over the decision… Several months later, a small U.S. delegation and I were invited to have lunch with the president and his cabinet. Chuck Colson sat next to me.

…Dr. Yossef Bodansky [former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare] and I spent considerable time in Jerusalem discussing…

I have an older book by Evans, which is full of pictures of him meeting Israeli politicians like Shimon Peres and Netanyahu. Mike Evans Ministries has a rather incompetent and uninformative website (one part has black writing on black that you need to highlight to see); he is also responsible for the Jerusalem Prayer Team. Apparently his own background is as a convert from Judaism to Pentecostalism. He is also one-time chair of the board of the Corrie Ten Boom Foundation and sometimes works as a regular journalist, appearing in USA Today and elsewhere as a “Middle East Analyst”.

Warner Faith operates out of Nashville, with Rolf Zettersten as its vice president and publisher. Zettersten formerly worked for Thomas Nelson, also of Nashville (Thomas Nelson took legal action over his alleged poaching of authors).

UPDATE (14 Oct): The New York Press has more on Evan’s book, including the following quotes:

[I]n 1981, I was willing to use what I knew about the Middle East to help President Reagan’s staff act with moral clarity… My arguments were mostly pragmatic, but I had so much intelligence that they let me speak. When I inserted a Scripture into my short speech, I was flagged with this question: ‘What does God know about foreign policy?’

I replied to the question, ‘He is foreign policy!’

…I remember standing up to Robert McFarland the national security adviser to Ronald Reagan. McFarland had said, ‘The status of Jerusalem must be determined by negotiations.’

I said, ‘Excuse me; I have the book on Jerusalem. God is not negotiating with you or anyone else.

And, rather bizarrely:

A brilliant and respected scholar whom I have known for decades told me: ‘If you look at a satellite image of the city of Jerusalem, you will see the tetragrammaton YHWH. It is clearly visible from the photo. What does the YHWH mean? It is the Hebrew for Yahweh—the (unspoken) name of God!”

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Last week’s London Observer carried a lengthy article about Sir Peter Vardy, the Creationist businessman who is being handed state schools to run by Tony Blair (a policy I noted last month). In the piece, Vardy denies that an aim of his school is promote anti-evolutionism:

‘For some reason people seem to believe that Creation is for nutcases and Evolution is the only answer,’ he says. ‘Actually, it’s a difference of opinion. You can’t prove Evolution conclusively, and obviously I can’t prove Creation. But I’m not forcing anyone to believe that…’I believe God created the earth and that he created man in his own image. There are some way-out thinkers who believe that this happened 4,000 years ago, which is clearly wrong. But I don’t personally wake up in the middle of the night wondering how old the earth is. It says in the Bible that He made the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. For all I know a day could be 6,000 years, it could be 6 million years, it could be 6 billion years. I’m not that interested, to be honest. But when I look at the mind of man and the intricacies of everything I see around me, I can’t believe that started with a bit of slime. I just can’t see it. What I am not doing is forcing my beliefs on children in our schools, but I don’t expect the others to do it either.’

The “others” are Richard Dawkins and actual scientists. Evolution given as fact is “brainwashing”.

The article also discusses Vardy’s links with the Christian Institute. The Institute was founded by John Burn, who is headmaster at Vardy’s Emmanuel College in Gateshead. According to the Institute’s website:

The Bible is without error not only when it speaks of salvation, its own origins, values, and religious matters, but it is also without error when it speaks of history and the cosmos. Christians must, therefore, submit to its supreme authority, both individually and corporately, in every matter of belief and conduct.

The Observer also notes a 2000 article for the CI website by Emmanuel’s head of science, Stephen Layfield, in which he argues that science teachers should

note every occasion when an evolutionary/oldearth paradigm (millions or billions of years) is explicitly mentioned or implied by a text book, examination question or visitor and courteously point out the fallibility of the statement and, wherever possible, give the alternative (always better) Biblical explanation of the same data.

What the Observer does not tell us, however, is that this article was pulled from the Institute’s website when Dawkins brought it to public attention. The full text has been preserved on Andrew’s Brown website. Layfield’s anti-science (sorry, “anti-scientism”) diatribe includes the following:

if the Biblical record is to be trusted, we must acknowledge within our grand geophysical paradigm the historicity of a world-wide flood as outlined in Gen 6-10. If the Biblical narrative is secure and the listed genealogies (e.g. Gen 5; 1 Chro 1; Matt 1 & Lu 3) are substantially full, we must reckon that this global catastrophe took place in the relatively recent past. Its effects are everywhere abundantly apparent.

Teachers should

organise talks by specialist Scientists who are able to provide authoritative pronouncements in favour of the Biblical world-view whilst providing a fair but critical appraisal of naturalism.

Those who follow scientific method, in contrast, are following Satan:

Many who parade as competent scientists today are unwittingly asking the same question which Satan first uttered back in Genesis, ‘Did God really say…?'(3:1)

Layfield, however, knows better than to ask questions.

The main reason Blair has been so keen to hand over schools to Vardy is because his approach is said to improve grades and standards (and several pupils interviewed by The Observer seem happy enough with Emmanuel, and say that “it’s not like you have to take everything on board that they say in assembly”). Speaking in the House of Commons after visiting Vardy’s King’s Academy in Middlesborough, Blair said:

There is nothing more inspiring, particularly when one knew the old school that the King’s Academy replaced, than to see the brand new buildings, the total commitment of the teachers and staff, and the pupils there eager to learn. It is one of the best examples of modern social justice that I can think of.

However, the former deputy head of the “old school”, Coulby Newham, has responded in this week’s Observer:

Having read about Sir Peter Vardy (‘The Lesson Today’, OM, last week), I was sorry to see you repeat the Prime Minister’s jibe about the school that the King’s Academy in Middlesbrough replaced. I was deputy headteacher and would like to set the record straight.

Coulby Newham was a successful school. Its Ofsted [school inspection] reports of 1995 and 2000 revealed a well-managed school where most of the teaching was good, very good or excellent and pupils were happy and secure. All wore school uniform. Most importantly, in September 2002, HMI [Her Majesty’s Inspectors] reported that the school was even better than at its last inspection.

I believe that if the King’s Academy does not achieve its targets, Coulby Newham is being set up to take the blame.

Gordon Potter
Washington, Tyne and Wear

NB: Do not confuse the evangelical Peter Vardy (who attends the Bethany Christian Centre in Houghton-le-Spring) with Dr Peter Vardy, a Catholic theologian based at Heythrop College in London.

UPDATE (24 July): The BBC reports on how other parts of Vardy’s curriculum are subordinated to his religious vision, quoting from a document previously available on the Emmanuel College website:

“Religion and Art are linked together by a common goal: to serve the glory of God and celebrate the complex beauty of His creation,” it says.

Business and economics teaching should incude “the power of the media and of revisionist and relativist thinking which would seek to redefine Truth.”

A value system “rooted in Biblical Truth” would give students “a solid starting point upon which they need ‘lean not on their own understanding’ (Proverbs 3.5)”.

In history, “we are also able to present to students certain historical actions or philosophies held in the past which are consistent with Biblical Truth”.

“In this context, it becomes important to peruse why Hitler paused at the English Channel when an immediate invasion might have lead to a swift victory. Could it be that God was calling a halt to this march of evil?”…

Mathematics is “a disciplined thought-structure which is used to describe the numerical and spatial attributes of God’s Creation”.

On other religions, the curriculum document says personal faith is “just that” so students should not “put themselves into the shoes” of others.

And “the traditional family unit, heterosexual marriage, faithfulness, the positive option of celibacy/singleness, sexual purity and self-control shall all be presented in positive and sensitive light as God’s ideal, accepting that many people today fall short of it.”

The study of science is not an end in itself but “a glimpse into the rational and powerful hand of the Almighty”.

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Several bloggers (such as Jesus’ General) have picked up on a story from the Church of Critical Thinking about Margaret Sayre, 70-year old member of the tax-funded Anne Arundel County senior center in Maryland. The centre provides meals for the elderly, and after 9/11 a moment of silence before eating was introduced. However, this has since evolved into the saying of Christian prayers, and while Sayre has no problem with a generic message acceptable Jews or unbelievers like herself, she found the enforced Christian praying too much and so wrote to her representative in the Maryland House of Delegates, Don Dwyer. Dwyer, however, is a hard-core theocrat, and responded that:

If the atheist (sic) of Maryland want something different then I would suggest building an atheist Senior Center where you won’t have to hear any prayers but leave my people alone.

He added to the local newspaper, “What is the violation of church and state?… There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution that the atheists profess it to be.” He also triumphantly told a Virginia AU member who objected to his dismissal of Sayre:

Fortunately in Maryland our constitution under the Declaration of Rights article 36 still states that in order to serve in elected office you have to believe in God. Isn’t that great!!!

(The Church of Critical Thinking points out that this has not been the case since 1961 – but I suppose Dwyer is looking to the future, not the past)

But who is Don Dwyer? A strong supporter of Roy Moore (Dwyer himself has helpfully rounded up press coverage here), Dwyer was also in the news a while back for his distribution of an essay by his school-age nephew that argued that Islam is evil and the opposite of Christianity. I think the plan was that by using a child to spread his message of Islamophobia, Dwyer could accuse critics of going after a kid. Dwyer’s website (which features the essay) highlights some of his associations:

I attend Pasadena Evangelical Presbyterian Church…I served on the Board of Rockbridge Academy for three years…I was most recently the Director of the American College for Cultural Studies

Rockbridge is a Christian school that oddly makes a point of describing itself as “non-Roman Catholic”; the church is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the same denomination as influential Texas businessman and theocrat James Leininger.

However, it is the last link that is the most interesting. The American College for Cultural studies was founded by Constitution Party Presidential nominee (and Pasadena based) Michael Peroutka as a “Biblical-Constitutionalist education program”. It is linked closely with Peroutka’s Institute on the Constitution, which tells us that

many Americans are surprised but delighted to learn that we were founded as a Constitutional Republic of Sovereign States with a central government of purposely limited powers based on Biblical principles. The recovery and application of these principles is necessary for the reclamation of the Republic.

IOTC begins with a basic course of study consisting of 12 video lectures featuring Dr. John Eidsmoe, professor of Constitutional Law at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law at Faulkner University, along with other selected materials by speakers such as David Barton of Wallbuilders, Inc.

More on Barton in a moment. The IOTC has a newsletter, to which Dwyer contributes. In December 2003 his piece came after a long essay on Creationism, in which it was asserted that evolutionary science cannot be believed on moral grounds:

The concept of the special creation of mankind and all living things was the world view of our Founding Fathers. That mankind was created not evolved they knew to be an essential foundation of liberty. The idea of evolution was not new with Darwin. It had ancient roots. Our Founding Fathers knew of this idea. They clearly recognized that the source of true liberty is rooted in the truth that all men are created by Almighty God.

Apparently Pete DeRosa of Creation Expeditions had (like our friend Russ McGlenn from a few days ago) undertaken research in South Dakota that showed that dinosaurs lived on a young earth only a few thousand years ago – although rather than try and get a peer-reviewed paper out of his paradigm-shattering researches, an interview for a fundamentalist newsletter seems to be sufficient reward.

Dwyer’s own contribution is a rallying cry for Roy Moore, where he states that:

The time has come when true freedom loving Americans must take a stand and remain silent no longer. We can no longer sit idly by and watch our nation disappear before our very eyes. We must do what we can to educate ourselves, our children, our family and our friends. It is the education contained in our host lecture kit that gave me the knowledge and understanding as to what must be done in order to return us to a constitutional Republic one state at a time.

The “host lecture kit” that so influenced Dwyer is photographed below his article, and the name David Barton looms large on the course materials.

Barton is a one-time Vice Chair of the theocratic Republican Party of Texas. Barton’s main concern is with ensuring Texan children get to read Christian textbooks, as The Dark Window brought to our attention last month. A 1999 article in the Texas Observer by Nate Blakeslee provides a fuller profile:

In 1989, Barton self-published The Myth of Separation, a pseudo-historical, poorly argued polemic purporting to prove that the American tradition of separation of church and state is based on a historical fallacy resulting from a misreading of the writings of the founders. Barton followed his book with a popular video titled America’s Godly Heritage, which has been widely promoted by the Christian Coalition, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, and the Eagle Forum. Barton’s video traces virtually every social problem in America – from declining S.A.T. scores to increasing alcoholism – to the Supreme Court’s anti-school prayer decisions of the early 1960s. (In his 1988 book America: To Pray or Not to Pray?, Barton claims that God himself gave him the idea for the project – specifically directing him to find the exact date school prayer was banned and chart that date against records of national S.A.T. scores.) Since 1991, Barton has made his living on the lecture circuit, touring the nation almost continuously while his suburban Fort Worth ministry continues to crank out a catalogue of “Christian recontructionist” publications…

An account of Barton’s dishonest (or incompetent) handling of Jefferson follows, and then this rather disturbing snippet:

Barton’s lecture-cum-sermon on Christian-American history is much in demand among the fringe groups of the far right. In 1991, he spoke at a retreat in Colorado sponsored by Pastor Pete Peters, whose Scriptures for America ministry is affiliated with the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement. (According to a report by Rob Boston in the journal Church and State, Peters’ congregation at one time included members of a neo-Nazi group called The Order, the same local neo-Nazi group implicated in the 1984 murder of Denver talk-radio host Alan Berg.)

Looks like old ladies being forced to pray for their supper in Maryland is only the thin edge of very unpleasant wedge.

UPDATE (4 October): I’ve just noticed that Barton and Katherine Harris co-presented a talk at Giles’ conference entitled “God in Government”. Jeb Bush offered “Welcome & Godspeed”. It’s here on the agenda, albeit cached only.

UPDATE 2 (31 Jan 05): Much more on Barton in today’s World O’Crap.

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Joseph Farah has launched a tirade against Reverend Moon:

preposterous…blasphemous theology…I know the Messiah. And Moon is no messiah.

This follows an uncredited WorldNetDaily piece from 14 June (in which Farah appears in third person), where the animus against Moon is so great that the author happily quotes liberal columnist Bill Berkowitz against the Unification leader (although without linking to Berkowitz’s column directly). In the more recent article, Farah brags that

my daily, nationally syndicated talk-radio show broke the news of Moon’s “crowning” achievement at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in March. Stories followed in Salon, the Washington Post and elsewhere.

He is, however, decent enough to admit that the event was “brought to my attention by free-lance journalist John Gorenfeld“, and an interview with Gorenfeld formed part of his 15 June radio show, but I would say that actually Gorenfeld himself “broke the news” on his own website. Even if we take the view that “breaking the news” means “becoming aware of John Gorenfeld”, Berkowitz was still two weeks ahead of Farah (and it was Gorenfeld’s Salon article of 21 June that turned the coronation into an international news story).

One aspect of Gorenfeld’s work that Farah passes over is his 2 June entry, where Gorenfeld reminded us of Farah’s 2000 comments on Moon. At that time, Farah called Moon’s critics bigots:

Last week, what’s left of UPI was purchased by News World Communications, Inc., the parent company of the Washington Times.

It was big news because UPI was once a big name in the media world and because News World Communications is run by… gasp!…foreigners. Not just foreigners, mind you, but rich Korean foreigners with unconventional religious practices. Worse yet, these foreigners are anti-communists and promote the traditional family as the cornerstone of a healthy society.

Those who are making the sideways comments about UPI’s new owners are, to cut to the chase, racists and bigots.

If UPI’s new owners were not Asians, were not conservatives and were not religious people, there would be no problem with this deal in the eyes of the critics.

Gorenfeld also pointed out Farah’s content-sharing with Moon’s Insight Magazine. Nice to see Farah now admit that at least one of his news sources is “preposterous”.

(My previous entry on Moon can be seen here)

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Ananova reports that Herobuilders.com, the firm that brought us action figures of George Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden and various other “heroes and villains”, has now turned to religion, with a talking action figure of Jesus Christ. From Herobuilders’ product description:

Talking Jesus Christ Action Figure

Play the sound clip from our Talking Jesus Christ

12″ action figure dressed as shown in image (staff & sandals not included). Talking Jesus Christ action figure recites the 10 commandments.

The choice of monologue dovetails nicely with Kurt Vonnegut’s observation back in May that while while there is a vociferous campaign to ensure the Ten Commandments are promoted in public spaces in the USA, the Beatitudes appear to be out of fashion:

I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

Clearly, Herobuilders knows its market.

Herobuilders is part of the Vicale Corporation (founded 1990), which in turn belongs to the BBC Design Goup. All three appear to be owned by Emil Vicale, a former designer for Habitat International now based in Danbury, CT. An interview with Vicale is available here.

The Jesus action figure comes just in time for Doug Giles, whose morbid horror of “Precious Moments” figurines seems to be driving him over the edge (scroll down).

(Ananova reference via the Religious News Blog; Vonnegut reference via Fiona and Dr Omed)

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ASSIST continues to oppose Michael Moore and all his works. Last week it gave webspace to Tom Marsland, who gets a lot of mileage out of comparing everyone he dislikes to Nazis and/or Communists. Now Tom Snyder weighs in on Fahrenheit 9/11:

IMAGE VERSUS REALITY: SEEING IS NOT ALWAYS BELIEVING

Why Documentaries Like FAHRENHEIT 9/11 Should Not Be Trusted

For some reason, however, the title made me think of these pictures published last year on ASSIST, which purported to prove that Korean faith healer Dr Lee Jae-Rock is empowered by God to heal the sick (the fourth picture in particular was so feeble that James Randi reposted it).

But back to the topic in hand: Snyder points out that Moore is responsible for at least two falsehoods in his film. First, Moore accuses Bush of stealing the 2000 election, which even “liberal journalists” have conceded is untrue; and, second, Richard Clark has shown the accusations about the Saudi flights out of USA after 9/11 to have been false. But Snyder has a more devastating critique: he’s compared Moore to the Bible, and found the latter more reliable:

in order to know the truth about reality, all readers and viewers should have an instructional manual, an ultimate authority on whom they can rely. The Bible is the best, most reliable, most truthful, most moral, most beautiful, most factual, most rational, most logical, most historical, and most profound instructional manual on the face of this planet. By knowing, studying, and using the truth that it reports, you can know the truth about the comments, opinions, and value judgments of the people, books, articles, movies, videos, TV programs, and theater plays in your life and in your social and cultural environment.

Snyder also invites us to the MOVIEGUIDE® website, where he is part of a team that categorises films by Christian standards, on the following scale: Exemplary, Moral, Good, Wholesome, Caution, Extreme Caution, Excessive, and Abhorrent. Spiderman 2 gets a “Good”; King Arthur an “Extreme Caution”, in part because of its sympathetic treatment of Pelagius, Augustine of Hippo’s British opponent. However, a National Geographic documentary about life in Mongolia is classed as “abhorrent”:

Although there are two mythical references to God in this fascinating National Geographic film, the movie’s Buddhist ceremonies, animistic worship, and idolatry are extremely dangerous and ultimately abhorrent.

The documentary is called The Story of the Weeping Camel; the reviewer smugly advises us to “Consider the Lamb of God Instead”. (Check out the film’s great website, by the way)

Needless to say, Moore also ends up receiving an anti-imprimatur from a reviewer named Jerry McGlothlin:

Very strong liberal, even socialist, humanist political worldview loaded with anti-capitalist and anti-Republican elements; some anti-American elements; some Marxist Communist ideas pitting the rich against the poor, always oppressed, innocent, and even lovable, masses; some brief anti-Christian elements; one positive portrayal of a person of apparent Christian faith who opposes Iraq war; 11 obscenities (including four “f” words) and three light profanities; graphic images of beheadings, dead bodies, and mutilations; no sex scenes other than a brief exchange between U.S. soldier and Iraqi prisoner; brief nudity of wounded boy; alcohol use; smoking and brief drug reference; and, politics of envy, mockery, slander, anti-military attitude, and propaganda filled with personal attacks and distortions that play loose with facts and uses only that footage which supports malicious attacks.

MOVIEGUIDE is run by Ted Baehr (or Theodore Baehr), who has a regular column in ASSIST in which he laboriously measures films up against his understanding of the “Christian worldview”. Baehr is described by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily as

one of my favorite Christian cultural warriors…It was Ted Baehr who took on the mission of the Protestant Church Office and the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency to work with Hollywood when the mainline denominations abandoned the industry.

Farah was responding to a negative press from Christianity Today, which sees a conflict of interest between Baehr’s reviews and his sideline in movie promotion. MOVIEGUIDE links to several articles defending Baehr against these charges, although not the CT complaint itself, which can be read here. In his position as founder and chair of the Christian Film & Television Commission, Baehr also rewards inspiring works with a prize funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Baehr’s bio can be read on his Media-Wise Family website.

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The battle over Christian Zionism is heating up. A the start of June, Tony Campolo criticised some of his fellow evangelicals, complaining they had

gotten caught up in the theology that before Christ can return, the Holy Land must belong to the Jews. They’re really advocating ethnic cleansing. There’s no justification for that in Scripture.

Joseph Farah quoted these exact words a month later (in an article brought to my attention by The Dark Window), then followed with somewhat of a nonsequitur:

This charge of Israeli ethnic cleansing is the 21st century version of the blood libel. Worse, perhaps. In effect, the Jews are being charged with the crime perpetrated against them.

Farah realised his attack on Campolo would be more effective if he could smear him as an anti-Semite, and guessed that his credulous readers wouldn’t notice that Campolo’s quote doesn’t mention or imply Israelis at all.

Christianity Today, as ever, provided more nuanced commentary, noting that Campolo’s

remarks to the [Birmingham] News suggest he was using the “expulsion” sense of “ethnic cleansing” and not accusing evangelicals of advocating the mass murder of Palestinians. What he meant was probably closer to the phrase “ethnic purity,”

In this sense, some conservative Christians and Israelis certainly do support ethnic cleansing, as relayed via the American Council for Judaism:

At a Washington rally in October, The Forward (Oct. 18, 2002) notes that, “Thousands of Evangelical Christians waving Israeli flags cheered as Knesset member Benny Elon called for the ‘relocation’ of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan…Elon, whose Moledet Party advocates the ‘transfer’ of Palestinians to Arab countries, said that a ‘resettlement’ of the Palestinians is prescribed by the Bible…Pat Robertson was the main speaker during the pro-Israel rally…Dismissing the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ claim to the land, and particularly to Jerusalem, Robertson said that ‘the Palestinians are really Arabs who moved there a few decades ago.’

In 2002 then-House Majority leader Rep. Richard Armey of Texas also announced his support for the “transfer” plan, as The Christian Science Monitor this week reminds us in an article on Christian Zionism. And although this does not amount to advocacy of mass murder, no intelligent human being can imagine anything other than carnage attending such an expulsion. Interviewed in the same Monitor article, Jerusalem Report editor Gershom Gorenberg observes:

In Israel, this position is regarded as somewhat like that of the Ku Klux Klan in the US…These American figures are taking positions way to the right of the Israeli mainstream.

However, other churches are rejecting the theology of Christian Zionism. Last week in the UK, both Anglican Archbishops signed a letter representing all the C of E bishops that contained the following:

Within the wider Christian community we also have theological work to do to counter those interpretations of Scripture from outside the mainstream of the tradition which appear to have become increasingly influential in fostering an uncritical and one-sided approach to the future of the Holy Land.

At the same time, the Presbyterian Church (USA) Assembly

voted by large margins to condemn Israel’s construction of a “security wall” across the West Bank; disavow Christian Zionism as a legitimate theological stance and direct the denomination’s Middle East and Interfaith Relations offices to develop resources on differences between fundamental Zionism and Reformed theology

On the other hand, today’s Ha’aretz reports that:

The Catholic Church condemned anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-Semitism by means of a joint statement issued by a forum of Catholic-Jewish intellectuals this week.

The announcement was made at a gathering of religious, academic and other leading Jewish and Catholic figures in Buenos Aires

“We oppose anti-Semitism in any way and form, including anti-Zionism that has become of late a manifestation of anti-Semitism,” the statement said.

Well, it’s certainly true that anti-Semites sometimes hide their racism behind attacks on Israel, and Israel and Jews are horribly conflated in much of the Islamic world. But perhaps the “Catholic figures” could have consulted Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace block, and Uri Avnery’s short essay that addresses the issue.

UPDATE (13 July): This Charles Glass article from the June 24 London Review of Books notes:

In public statements to the Arabs, the British and later the UN, Zionist leaders protested that they had no intention of driving out indeigenous Arabs…The minutes of Jewish Agency meetings, however, are full of proposals for the ‘transfer’ of the native population to other countries in order to make the land available to Jewish settlers and create a Jewish majority. The term used for ‘transfer’ then, as now, was the Hebrew word tihur, which is closer in meaning to ‘purification’ or ‘cleansing’ of the land.

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British Christian website Premier reports on the latest palaeontology news:

Dinosars died in Noah’s flood, claim Americans

Americans in South Dakota believe they’ve found proof dinosars [sic] perished in Noah’s flood.

South Dakota is known as a large open air dinosar cementary [sic] with bones easily spotted sticking through the soil.

Geological data points to the animals sudden deaths and that they died in a flood, which the group believes disproves Darwins [sic] theory of evolution.

But who are these “Americans”? A couple of weeks ago the Daily Telegraph reported:

Countless dinosaur bones lie buried in the rocks of South Dakota but the Christians excavating one remote cliff-face were digging not just for reptilian vertebrae but for the hand of God.

With screwdrivers, hammers and shaving brushes for tools, the group was seeking and, as far as it was concerned, unearthed proof that the animals perished not millions of years ago but in Noah’s Flood circa 2300 BC.

The group was led by Russ McGlenn, “self-styled amateur archaeologist and palaeontologist and head of Adventure Safaris”.

“Self-styled” is perhaps the most appropriate label. According to his Adventure Safaris website, he is:

a theology major, Christian Ed minor, game inventor, Creation Science teacher, explorer, dinosaur hunter, photographer, and national camp, school, and seminar speaker.

Although he does have one proper qualification:

His Native American heritage gives him a unique background in hunting for clues to dinosaurs living in North America.

His archaeological record is also most impressive:

He has also uncovered evidence of various cultures living here doing God’s mission work in North America before Columbus. He has searched Native American records and archeology sites to confirm these claims.

But McGlenn’s learning is wider than just these two fields. In his 2003 Adventure Safaris Year End Report, he ekes out the two pages of it with Biblical scholarship and geopolitical analysis:

It is interesting to note that in Daniel’s time, the stronghold of evil, that is Satan, was Persia, present day Iraq and Iran.

By our armies attacking this stronghold, we pray that the heart of terrorism will be broken.

He then turns to atomic physics:

the New Spinning Ring Model of the Atom fits classical science, is consistent with a biblical world view, and has all cause and effect properties based on 13 measurements of the electron.

Curiously, however, rather than attempting to get peer-reviewed articles from his extensive researches, McGlenn shares his insights mostly with homeschoolers around Minnesota, and now California. Before his move there, his church was the Meadow Creek Church in Minnesota, an independent church that recognises “the Biblical role of fathers as spiritual leaders”.

McGlenn’s South Dakota researches took place on a ranch owned by Edward Schmidt, who runs the Grand River Museum, devoted to Creationism. Their site points out that:

Paleontologists and archaeologists and many others in the science field receive a Ph.D. A doctor of Philosophy. Almost exclusively naturalist philosophy. This is the predominant bias among the scientists.

Numerous arguments in favour of Creationism and the Bible follow, such as:

The Bible says that about 4500 years ago there was a flood. Only eight people survived. By applying a 1.5% growth rate which is far less than we see now, and taking into account famine and war and such we could achieve about six billion people in 4500 years from a total of 4 couples. Our population on this planet is a little over six billion at last census.

Plus, bizarrely drawing from Graham Hancock (although not named – by the way, see this BBC report on Hancock’s ideas):

Historians are amazed that there seems to be no gradual progression in the cultures of the past. The histories of Sunteria [sic], Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Aztec, Maya, and many others show just the opposite…High culture and knowledge in the beginning and steadily descending downward. Another example is the mysteries of the Great Pyramid in Egypt…Pyramids and other megalithic structures all over the world show a supreme intelligence somewhere in antiquity. This also shows a knowledge of the earth, its size, relationship to other planets, stars the moon and sun. Also there is much evidence of a worldwide maritime culture that modem [sic] scientists are refusing to acknowledge.

Culture “descending downward”, eh? Still, I must confess I have seen some evidence for such a process of a descending culture. Indeed, McGlenn and Schmidt have convinced me of it…

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