Bartholomew's Notes

The Daily Telegraph reports on a course in Rome that

…aims to train about 200 Roman Catholic priests from more than 30 countries in how to cast out evil from people who believe themselves to be in thrall to the Devil.

The conference, “Exorcism and Prayers of Liberation”, has also attracted psychiatrists, sociologists, doctors and criminologists in what the Church called a “multi-disciplinary” approach to exorcisms.

Giuseppe Ferrari, from GRIS, a Catholic research group that organised the conference, said there was an ever growing need for priests to be trained to perform exorcisms because of the increasing number of lay people tempted to dabble in black magic, paganism and the occult.

This is barely news: the course has been running for nine years. Matt Baglio’s The Rite: The Making of a Modern-Day Exorcist (2009) has the background:

According to Doctor Ferrari, the idea came about in 2003 when he met with a priest from the diocese of Imola who told him that a growing number of his fellow clerics were being inundated by parishoners suffering from problems related to the occult…

Ferrari decided there was a need for a university-level course that would cover “a wide variety of historical, theological, sociological, and medical topics, in order to go beyond the superficial and sensationalist aspect of of exorcism.” One wonders what Ferrari will make of the Daily Telegraph‘s take, which is illustrated by a ludicrous and grotesque cartoon apparition of the devil as drawn by George Cruikshank.

Baglio adds that Fr Paolo Scarafoni arranged for the course to be held at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, which is run by the (scandal-plagued) Legionaries of Christ. The course’s website shows that registration is through the university’s Istituto Sacerdos, which is turn “a program of Mission Network, Inc.”

GRIS, meanwhile, stands for Gruppo di Ricerca e Informazione Socio-Religiosa. As well as the exorcism course, it is also currently advertising a one-day conference in collaboration with the Bar Council of Acqui Terme on “Satanism, magic and destructive cults.”

However, GRIS and Ferrari are controversial; I noted one critical source in 2005, which claimed that

…on January 1997… L’Osservatore Romano (the official Vatican daily paper) started to publish a series of articles about the dangers of Satanism. This series was edited by Giuseppe Ferrari, the president of the GRIS. Ferrari himself wrote the first piece, titled ‘The Phenomenon Of Satanism In The Contemporary Society’. He described Satanism as an absolute emergency, drawing alarmist conclusions from a hopeless mess of rumours, cliches and urban myths. No specific examples, no precedents, no statistics. Moreover, Ferrari extended to excess the definition of ‘Satanism’, including ‘other groups that do not intend to present themselves as Satanists and, for example, claim to practice pagan rituals in order to harmonize with the occult powers of nature. As a matter of fact, these groups are suspect and we can include them in the multi-form world of Satanism’. Such a mysterious sentence was aimed at accusing a whole constellation of various movements, cults and philosophies.

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From Jeremy Duns, on Twitter:

People asking me about Mo Ansar, here was his sockpuppet account, @The_Truthteller, originally called @MoAnsar2 [Link]

Ansar, who is known as a UK Muslim media commentator, says that he has been “smeared”; @The_Truthteller has now disappeared, although its author said before departing that he (or she) had taken Ansar’s name at one point in the past out of “solidarity”. Relevant screenshots have been assembled by Homo economicus.

Duns – who is known for his efforts in exposing online fakery and deception, particularly in the case of thriller author Stephen Leather – also summarizes some further charges against Ansar: that his supposed religious moderation is false, that he bears some responsibility for death threats against Maajid Nawaz, and that he made a vexatious complaint to police against Iain Dale.

Duns further suggests that Ansar may be running some other sockpuppet accounts; but while it looks to me that there’s a case to answer as regards @The_Truthteller, I’m not convinced by the other examples: they don’t sound like him, and the inference seems to be based purely on the fact they are supportive of Ansar. One of these accounts (@xtc_uk) has also sent Tweets in my direction, while to my knowledge there’s no indication that Ansar is aware of my existence

[UPDATE (February 2015): Duns has now triangulated some Tweets from @moansar, @xtc_uk, and an account called @creepingfascism. The evidence of common authorship is strong.]

The issue of Ansar’s moderation has come under particular scrutiny since a television exchange with Nawaz in which Ansar appeared to prevaricate on the implementation of traditional hudud punishments in Islamic states; I don’t think this means Ansar is “really” an extremist: rather, he lacks the willingness to stand up to conservatives. As the historian Tom Holland wrote last October:

I don’t for a minute thinks @moansar supports slavery or judicial mutilation – but he can’t 100% historicise Islamic scriptures, so twists.

(Holland and Ansar used to engage in banter on Twitter, although their interaction these days is simply acrimonious)

The death threats against Nawaz, meanwhile, relate to the controversy over Nawaz’s Tweeting of a cartoon from the Jesus and Mo cartoon strip, which I discussed here. The image showed Jesus and Muhammad greeting each other with “Hey” and “How ya doing?”, and Nawaz explained that “I posted that image here to explain how, as a Muslim, I didn’t find this particular image offensive.” This falls far short of an endorsement of the whole Jesus and Mo corpus, but Ansar attempted to push the issue by claiming – incorrectly – that Nawaz had linked “to a website which depicts prophets in bed together.” At a time when tempers were running high, that was at best irresponsibly careless, at worst deliberately malicious.

The police complaint against Dale followed a spat in March. Dale writes:

This all stems from a twitter exchange between Nicky Campbell and Mo Ansar on 22 March which I got involved with. It concerned the chairman of the Birmingham Mosque (who has since sadly died) who had made intemperate remarks likening gays to murderers and paedophiles. Mo Ansar appeared to be defending him on the basis he was an old man. I asked him directly if he agreed with his views, as I would have found that very surprising given his self styled “thoroughly modern muslim” stances.

Dale then presents a Storify of the Twitter exchange. Here’s part of it:

Dale: @MoAnsar @NickyAACampbell Engage with the argument. Or are you as bigoted as your mate in Birmingham?

Ansar: @IainDale @NickyAACampbell Stop trolling me, Iain. You’re boring me.

Dale: @MoAnsar @NickyAACampbell Good. I will block you then. You’ve bored me for years. Which is why you never get on my show. And never will.

…

Dale: …you are a gobby prick who leeches off the state while pretending to represent a “community”. Bye. 

This doesn’t present Dale in a particularly good light; his question is goading rather than challenging, and he’s clearly revelling in his status as a media gatekeeper before descending into plain abuse. But Ansar’s absurd reaction was to out-diva him:

For the record, I have reported @LBC’s @IainDale for anti-Muslim harassment and abuse relating to his behaviour on 22nd March 2014.

Inevitably, Ansar’s complaint to police went nowhere, and Dale says he was also cleared of anti-Muslim sentiment by Tell Mama. A correct outcome – although Dale himself, when it suits him, is not adverse to conflating criminal behaviour with being robustly criticised.

UPDATE: Jeremy Duns and Nick Cohen have now published comprehensive accounts examining Ansar’s background and strange rise to media prominence.

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Staying with WND, news of a new book; Jim Fletcher introduces

 …my dear friend, Terry James, the well-known Bible prophecy teacher and author. Terry has been writing on these subjects for decades and represents – in my view – one of the real bridges between the generations.

Terry is of an age to be “old school,” but his burden is to reach young people with the truth of the Bible. Specifically, he views Bible prophecy as one of the most important evangelistic tools of this era. His books are always terrific, but a new one, “Cauldron,” is a cut above. It’s written for the person who knows little about the subject.

Yes, apparently there’s room for yet another paperback explaining about how events in the Middle East are signs of the end times. This time the focus is on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and, supposedly, “the push by both Muslims and Jews to build the Third Temple in Jerusalem”.

James is not so well-known as the likes of John Hagee or Tim LaHaye, but he’s brought out a number of books overs the years, and he enjoys influence as the co-founder of the Rapture Ready website. The book also comes with blurbs from LaHaye (“Deep Understanding”) and Mark Hitchcock (“Compelling!”) and a foreword by Thomas Horn, who has published the book through his Defender publishing outfit of Crane, Missouri (sometimes billed as “Defense Publishing”).

Horn, as I’ve written before, promotes extremely eccentric and fantastical conspiracy theories, in books with titles such as Exo-Vaticana: Petrus Romanus, Project L.U.C.I.F.E.R. and the Vatican’s Astonishing Plan for the Arrival of an Alien Savior. He ought to be a fringe figure, yet somehow he’s embedded himself within the wider conservative evangelical and fundamentalist milieu as some sort of Bible teacher.

According to the Defender website blurb:

Our authors have been featured in syndicated print, television and radio markets representing over two billion households worldwide including Celebration Daystar TV, FaithTV, The Harvest Show, The 700 Club, Prophecy in the News, The Michael Savage Show, WorldNetDaily, The American Freedom Network, Coast to Coast AM, Radio Liberty, The Southwest Radio Church, At Home With Chuck & Jenni, Changing World Views and dozens more syndicated and local programs.

Also:

Our distribution and sales teams are managed and led by committed Christians with many years of experience in the Christian publishing and retail industry. Their background involves selling to the Christian chains and catalogers including Family Christian Stores, LifeWay, Cokesbury, Mardel, Christian Book Distributors (CBD), Berean, and others.

Many of the books highlighted on the site are apocalyptic or conspiratorial, including some titles and authors I’ve looked at previously: there’s Temple at the Center of Time, by the late David Flynn; Isralestine, by Bill Salus; and Apocalypse Soon by Patrick Heron.

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From WND:

Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, with its messianic characterizations – the photographs in which a halo was cast around his head, the worship-like adulation from crowds – gave Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman nightmares.

About Adolf Hitler.

The petite 86-year-old over the weekend told a riveted audience at Olive Tree Ministry’s “Understanding the Times” conference it’s because she sees clear parallels between Nazi Germany and present-day America.

Dittman’s “nightmares” were apparently triggered by what she regarded as the media’s over-inflated and uncritical view of Obama in 2008, including the detail that:

Establishment media reporters didn’t question his qualifications or competencies; conservative news outlets that investigated his birth certificate were openly mocked.

A photo on the WND website shows that audience members, with questionable taste, donned yellow stars for the proceedings.

Olive Tree Ministries (the plural is the correct form)  is the primary vehicle of Jan Markell, a veteran apocalyptic Christian Zionist. The line-up at the conference included Erwin Lutzer of the prestigious Moody Church in Chicago, as well as George Escobar, who heads WND film productions – and Dittman is the subject of a new WND DVD, entitled Trapped in Hitler’s Hell. Thus, once again we see mainstream evangelicalism and Christian Zionism converging with the hateful and absurd excesses WND‘s anti-Obama conspiracy-mongering – WND, it should be recalled, brought us the claim that Obama orchestrated the Sandy Hook massacre, while WND editor Joseph Farah has suggested that Obama used a speech at Buchenwald to send a secret message to Muslims signalling his intention to continue the Nazi holocaust – and that’s just a sample.

Dittman and Markell have been partnering for many years: Markell edited Dittman’s testimony into a book that was first published in 1979 by Tyndale House as Angels in the Camp: A Remarkable Story of Peace in the Midst of the Holocaust. The work describes how Dittman, who was the daughter of a Jewish mother and an “Aryan” father, was in 1944 sent to a forced labour camp north of Breslau (1). The scholar Yaakov Ariel places it within a genre of Christian Holocaust memoirs that “portray the behavior of evangelical Christians through the war years as exemplary, a proof that the acceptance of Jesus as a savor guarantees correct moral behavior, courage, and an ability to survive spiritually, if not physically” (2). A juvenile fiction version of her story, Shadow of His Hand by Wendy Lawton, was published by the Moody Press in 2009, as part of a series entitled “Daughters of the Faith”.

Angels in the Camp was later re-issued as Trapped in Hitler’s Hell: A Young Jewish Girl Discovers the Messiah’s Faithfulness in the Midst of the Holocaust, and to accompany the new DVD, it has now been re-published as a “WND Books Classics”. The cover shows a stock image of the gateway into Auschwitz, and there’s a foreword by the creationist Ray Comfort. Comfort and Joseph Farah have both opined that the Holocaust was facilitated by the theory of evolution.

As Terry Krepel notes, Dittman is not the first figure who lived through the war to be promoted by WND as having special insight into how Obama is like Hitler – up until his death in 2012, another favourite was a ex-Hitler Youth member named Hilmar von Campe. More on him here.

However, Dittman is not a new recruit to the anti-Obama speaker circuit – indeed, her fear-mongering over Obama’s popularity already sounds hopelessly out of date. In 2009 Brannon Howse of the Worldview Weekend Foundation produced a DVD in which she  explained how “America is going down a dangerous road that looks all too familiar to what she witnessed in Germany”.

***

(1)  The book names the location as “Camp Barthold”, and Dittman was forced to dig ditches against the Soviet advance. I assume this means that Dittman was in one of many subsidiary camps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp (itself a satellite of Sachsenhausen); the creation of ditches to protect Lower Silesia was known as Unternehmen Barthold, or “Operation Barthold”, and several camps were established in the Milicz region for this purpose.

(2) See his An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (New York University Press, 2013), p. 164

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A dramatic headline from the Big Issue:

Nadine Dorris Interview: There is a Catholic Church Conspiracy Against Me

The “conspiracy” refers to her debut novel, The Four Streets:

…Critic Christopher Howse – a former member of the hard-line Roman Catholic grouping Opus Dei – described it as “the worst novel I’ve read in 10 years”.

He was brought in, Dorries told The Big Issue, because the original review wasn’t tough enough on her.

“The Telegraph commissioned someone to review my book,” Dorries said. “It was a lovely review. They didn’t like it so they got someone from Opus Dei to review it.

“And one of the central characters in my book is a child-abusing priest. So you’re not going to get someone from Opus Dei to review a book about an abusive priest.

“If you go on to Conservative Home you can see a review Iain Dale has written of the Telegraph review.

“I was told the Catholic church will come out and attack me for the book and that seems to be what’s happening.”

Howse’s review was certainly mocking, and perhaps made the mistake of criticising a potboiler for failing to be high literature (for a contrasting positive review, there’s Lucy Helliker at the Express); but the suggestion that it was written in bad faith as part of a conspiracy to protect the Catholic Church from criticism over priestly child abuse is just the latest variation of the histrionic and vicious counter-attacks she dishes out against critical voices (including, it should be remembered, her ex-boyfriend’s estranged wife).

In this instance, though, Dale appears to have put the idea in her head:

…And then you need to take into account Howse used to be a member of Opus Dei. I doubt he took kindly to the storyline of the Catholic Priest abusing a young girl. True to form he gave it a one star review and called it the worst novel he’d read in ten years. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?

The claim also made it into the Daily Mail, albeit just as “some wonder”.

Dale also suggested, more reasonably, that the Telegraph may have a particular animus against Dorries over her views on MPs expenses and  the paper’s owners, and he noted a row on Twitter with the paper’s diarist Tim Walker, after Walker was disinvited from her book launch:

…Yesterday [10 April] morning he went even further in a vitriolic attack on her. To be honest he showed himself up. Nadine wasn’t taking any of it and accused him of lying. When he was caught out denying Cristina Odone had ever been commissioned to write any piece for the Telegraph Nadine posted a tweet from Odone confirming she had indeed been asked to do just that. “Telegraph asked to interview Nadine – I read the book, couldn’t put it down and told her so.”

Note here the slide from Dorries’ claim of an “original review” that “wasn’t tough enough on her”, to an “interview”. Here’s the Twitter context:

Dorries: Daily Telegraph rejected review of my book they commissioned  Christina Odone to write and got a bloke to write a spiteful nasty one instead

Odone: …telegraph asked to interview Nadine -i read the book, couldn’t put it down, and told her so

Walker: fair enough! At the Telegraph, there is a belief in free speech. So Nadine’s claim untrue.

Dorries: Sadly, @ThatTimWalker telling porkies – claims DT did not commission review from Christina Odone. Happy to show any journo texts on phone. [Later deleted – RB]

Dorries: OFFS have you read Christina’s tweet? You LIED is that plain enough?

Odone’s interview has not apparently been published, and Dorries may have valid cause to complain; but there’s nothing here to suggest that Walker “LIED”, or that – in a typical piece of slipperiness from Dale – he “was caught out denying Cristina Odone had ever been commissioned to write any piece”. Why can’t these people just make their case honestly?

The dispute also made its way into the Press Gazette:

Howse suggests that any conspiracy theories are wide of the mark: “I rather admire Nadine Dorries, and I hoped her novel would be good.

“Reading it spoiled my weekend. It’s just so badly told: a sagging narrative with a castration fantasy stuck on top. It’s not my fault.

“I wasn’t invited to the party anyway, but if we meet in future I hope we’d speak civilly.”

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From WND:

“Harbinger” Author to Open National Day of Prayer

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of runaway bestseller “The Harbinger,” has been invited to join the speakers for the 63rd annual National Day of Prayer on a date he tells WND holds a special significance in both his book and American history.

…”April 30 is the date given in ‘The Harbinger,'” Cahn told WND. “April 30, 1789, is the day that America came into existence as a fully formed nation with president and Congress, and on that day George Washington and America’s first government prayed and dedicated America to God at the very corner of what today we call Ground Zero.

“Now on the anniversary of that first prayer gathering, with America in grave moral and spiritual apostasy, the nation gathers again for prayer,” Cahn said.
Get “The Harbinger” and movie companion “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment.”

According to the website of the National Day of Prayer Task Force:

The National Observance in Washington D.C. will be broadcast LIVE on GOD TV (DirecTV channel 365) and their networks on Thursday, May 1… Speakers include Anne Graham Lotz (daughter of Rev. Billy Graham), Dr. James and Shirley Dobson, Congressman Robert Aderholt, Mrs. Vonette Bright, The Honorable Bob McEwen, Congressman Mike McIntyre, Don Moen, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Chaplain Father Patrick Conroy, Dr. Dick Eastman, Mr. David Butts, Mr. John Bornschein, and many more. 

I suspect Cahn’s “30 April” rather than “1 May” is a bit of poetic licence rather than an error.

WND tries to infer that this event is the official embodiment of the National Day of Prayer; the presence of the House of Representatives Chaplain Patrick Conroy and of Billy Graham’s daughter perhaps adds to this impression. However, although the National Day of Prayer is indeed designated by the United States Congress, this does not mean that the “Task Force” and its particular “National Observance” event have any kind of “official” status; indeed, in 2009 the Task Force issued a statement complaining that the Obama administration had not responded to a request “to send a representative on behalf of the Executive Branch”.

I’ve written about Cahn a number of times: for some years he has used his Jewish heritage to claim special insight into esoteric “Hebrew Mysteries” in the Bible and such, but he hit the big-time with  the Harbinger. The book interprets 9/11 through the lens of how the Hebrew Bible treats ancient Israelite history; in particular, Cahn points to two American politicians (Jonathan Edwards in 2001 and Tom Daschle three years later) who quoted a Bible verse out of context following the attack as “inviting judgment” on the USA.

By the “corner of what today we call Ground Zero”, Cahn means St Paul’s Chapel, which was damaged by debris from the Twin Towers. George Washington indeed attended an Episcopal prayer service at this location following his first inauguration; his most recent serious biographer, Ron Chernow, has the context (Washington: A Life, page 569):

Setting the pattern for future inaugural speeches, Washington did not delve into minute policy matters… National policy needed to be rooted in private morality, which relied on the “eternal rules of order and right” ordained by heaven itself. On the other hand, Washington refrained from endorsing any particular form of religion.

…After this speech, Washington led a broad procession of delegates up Broadway… to an Episcopal prayer service at St. Paul’s Chapel, where he was given his own canopied pew.

But there’s no reference here to America being “dedicated to God”; Cahn is probably thinking of a spurious “Washington Prayer”, which Franklin Steiner showed in 1936 had been concocted later from a 1783 letter to state governors. In Cahn’s worldview, the prayer would not just be an example of Washington’s piety: such a “dedication” would amount to a near-magical invocation, unleashing God as a mechanistic spiritual force in American history.

Cahn previously took part in a similar “Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast” in January 2013; WND‘s editor, the birther Jospeh Farah, was also due to attend, but dropped out amid some confusion (he eventually sent a message that was read out). The event was apparently followed by some sort of copyright dispute between Cahn and the event organisers.

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From the Orlando Sentinel:

School officials said Wednesday that they can’t find any evidence to suggest that a kindergartner was told not to pray in a Seminole County elementary lunchroom.

…The dispute arose after 5-year-old Gabriella Perez told her parents that in March a staffer at Carillon Elementary in Oviedo stopped her from praying over her lunch.

Her father, Marcos Perez, who works for a Christian book publisher in Lake Mary that is promoting a book about the “attack on traditional values” in America, demanded an investigation and apology from the school. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

…A school-district investigator has concluded that “there is no way possible that person was anywhere near the lunchroom” that kindergartners and first-graders use.

Earlier this month, Christian Today (not to be confused with Christianity Today), reported the child’s identification of “the culprit” as if the facts were not in doubt.

The case has been highlighted by Right Wing Watch, which notes the remarkable coincidence that the controversy involved the infant daughter of the Vice President of Sales at Charisma House, at a time when the publisher’s imprint Frontline is publishing a book by Todd Starnes entitled God Less America. Starnes’ opus – which comes with a foreword by Mike Hukabee – purports to relate “true stories from the front lines of the attack on traditional values”, and the Perez story formed the basis of a recent Fox column by Starnes. The business link between Starnes and Perez was noted in an “editor’s note” at the head of the story.

The Orlando Sentinel adds that Seminole County Public Schools decided to issue an apology anyway – this is curious given the outcome of the investigation, but it may have made sense in terms of giving the complainant a chance to back down without losing face. This seems initially to have worked:

Jeremy Dys, the family’s attorney, said, “We are grateful for the apology offered by Seminole County Schools. The Perez family gladly accepts this apology, along with the assurances to the community by the School Board that students in Seminole County School are free to exercise their First Amendment freedoms while at school.”

However, the AP now reports that:

Two days after stating that Gabriella Perez’s family had accepted the apology, lawyer Jeremy Dys said their position changed after reading the comments of district spokesman Michael Lawrence in the Orlando Sentinel.

Dys said it is clear now the district’s response wasn’t “a real apology.” In addition, “we’re not really confident the investigation actually took place,” he said.

…Dys’ letter also claims Lawrence made “false and defamatory statements publicly and intentionally” about Gabriella and her family, and requested that he be disciplined.

Dys is Senior Counsel to the Liberty Institute, where his work has involved defending “bullied teachers”.

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At WND, Lord Monckton discusses a recent court hearing in Southwark Crown Court involving Michael Shrimpton, conspiracy theorist and barrister:

“My best guess is that the government will eventually see the sense in dropping the criminal prosecution against Shrimpton, since it is quite clear from my own earlier discussions with Shrimpton about this episode that he genuinely believed that terrorists had obtained a redundant German submarine and were planning to sail it up the Thames and blow up the Olympics with a nuclear weapon,” Monckton said in an interview with WND in London.

Shrimpton – who previously appeared on this blog in 2009 –  is apparently in trouble for allegedly “making false claims to British government officials”. The case was first noted in a brief item for Court News UK last year, although the substance of the charge at that time concerned a claim about a bomb being hidden in Newham Hospital in east London rather than a plot involving “a redundant German submarine”.

Monckton was asked for his thoughts on the case by Jerome Corsi, one of the more prominent birther conspiracy theorists the USA (he’s also appeared on this blog once or twice before, due to his interest in “Bible prophecy” matters) – Corsi has devoted three WND articles (one, two, three) to Shrimpton’s predicament, and he appears to think it has has some bearing on Shrimpton’s own birtherism. However, even Monckton finds the connection obscure, as he writes in his own WND follow-up piece:

Shrimpton will exercise every right of the defense to call secret intelligence evidence, such as reports from the network of nuclear-monitoring military satellites, and even a report of a supposed DNA test establishing that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya. Don’t ask me what that has to do with a plot to blow up the London Olympics. Mr. Shrimpton may or may not have all his marbles in the right place, but the prosecution is plainly out to lunch.

Shrimpton has also submitted a defence filing. It’s a remarkable document, in which he lays out his credentials and expounds conspiracies on subjects ranging from the fate of Madeline McCann to the supposed Vatican origins of the Koran. I’ll refrain here from dwelling on that sort of material in any detail, but it’s worth noting his various connections, which he lists in third person:

…He has also been invited to speak at intelligence conferences, including the Intelligence Conference (INTELCON) at Crystal City, Virginia, USA in February 2005, the Intelligence Summit, at the same venue (the Hyatt Crystal City) in 2006 [*] and the Intelligence Conference at Gregynog, Wales in 2013. He has also taught the subject, online, using an encrypted online teaching programme called “Educator”, at Masters Degree level, as a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the American Military University… The Defendant has also acted as Human Intelligence (HUMINT) source for a number of Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the Metropolitan Police.

…The Defendant has visited inter alia the Department of Defense (Pentagon) and the White House in Washington DC. He has conferred at the Pentagon with inter alia Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England… On February 2006 the Defendant was flown out to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise… as part of the of the United States Navy’s Distinguished Visitor Program.

(Another link mentioned is to the Gerard Group International LLC – this group appeared on this blog earlier this month)

Corsi says that “several British military intelligence sources with a long track record say they are prepared to testify in Shrimpton’s trial”, which could be an interesting spectacle.

Shrimpton also refers several times to his new book, Spyhunter: The Secret History of German Intelligence. The opus was published just a week or so ago by the June Press. This “Euro realist” publisher is best-known for publishing Gerald Frost‘s Eurofacts newsletter.

Footnote

*The INTELCON conferences were organised by John Loftus’ Intelligence Summit organisation, and they received some mainstream media attention at the time; in 2006, CNN reported that “Former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney” had brought old recordings of Saddam Hussein talking about WMDs, while the 2007 event was covered by UPI. Right Web has more background, noting the involvement of various conservative figures.

There is still an Intelligence Summit website, with details about its past events and associates. However, the site is currently run by a certain Brent Beleskey, and the front page is absurdly over the top: headlines refer variously to “Masonic Skull & Bones Kerry”; “Obama Plans to Murder Christians”; “Antipope Francis personally ordered Ukrainian coup”; and “The New Jesuit Masonic Islamic World Order”, among much else culled from other conspiracy websites. Is this really the kind of material Loftus wants to be associated with?

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From Christian Retailing (links added):

Convergent Books, an imprint of Random House’s Crown Publishing Group, plans to release a pro-gay book the company describes as an “affirmation of both an orthodox faith and sexual diversity.” Releasing April 22, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships was written by homosexual activist Matthew Vines after years of intensive research on what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Stephen W. Cobb, president and publisher of Convergent, also oversees WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, home to Christian imprints WaterBrook Press and Multnomah Books, and Image Books.

The decision to publish the book has brought down the ire of religious right activist and anti-gay obsessive Matt Barber. Barber does not just criticise the decision to publish the book – inevitably, the motive of the publisher must be venal. Writing at Charisma News, under the headline “Deception: Christian Publisher Sells Soul for Mammon“, he thunders:

Convergent is simply WaterBrook Multnomah by another name.

Is it any wonder that the company’s Christian employees are upset? Moreover, is it any wonder that WaterBrook Multnomah allegedly wants them silenced? Convergent’s sole purpose is evidently to both print and make tons of money from counterbiblical books that would otherwise set off a firestorm if printed under the WaterBrook Multnomah banner.

Barber cites an email from a supposed “whistleblower”, which states:

“…An ‘imprint’ in the publishing world is like a mask—the name and logo of the entity may be unique, but the same staff, editors, executives, promoters, are behind the book as are behind those put out by other ‘imprints’ (i.e., directly from Multnomah, and wearing that brand/mask). So Multnomah is now consciously trying to hide from NRB [National Religious Broadcasters] and its members the fact that it is putting out this new project. Insiders are reporting threats should they release any such information outside the company…”

But Barber himself cites press articles about Cobb’s control of various imprints – actually, imprints are “brands” rather than a “masks” – so what exactly is Multnomah supposedly “consciously trying to hide”?

The article is based on piece Barber previously published on his own site, under the title “Christian Publisher Plans Pro-‘Gay’ Book, Employees ‘Under Threat’“, although the url suggests this has been modified (“whistleblower-multnomah-hiding-plans-apostate-pro-lgbt-book-threatens-employees-silence”)

Cobb has responded on the Convergent Books website:

It is important to know that WaterBrook, Multnomah, Convergent, and Image each have their own distinct editorial guidelines and missions. Convergent’s mission is to publish nonfiction for less traditional Christians and spiritual seekers who are drawn to an open, inclusive, and culturally engaged exploration of faith. As such, Matthew Vines’ new book is appropriately positioned as a Convergent publication.  God and the Gay Christian is not published by WaterBrook or by Multnomah—nor would it be editorially appropriate for either.

…A published report raised the question of whether my colleagues have been pressured to not express privately or publicly any objections they might have to the Convergent publication of God and the Gay Christian. This allegation is as untrue as it is deeply offensive to me.

The issue, it seems to me, is whether a publisher representing a cause exists simply to propagandize, or to facilitate a conversation. There of course has to be debate around how far to go, but why does Barber feel the need to engage in such bad-faith demonization?

But this is hardly a new issue; more than 20 years ago, Giles Semper, a former senior editor at HarperCollins Religious, complained in the UK Bookseller that

…Christian publishers… find themselves in a paradoxical position: while debate in the Church rages over an issue like homosexuality and gay priests, they can only offer one Christian perspective, namely, the conservative one, for fear of alienating Christian booksellers. (1)

Accordingly,  Christian Retailing carries a quote from Dightman’s Bible Book Center in Tacoma:

“I would not carry the book and definitely would not promote it… I cannot agree with the premise. Since WaterBrook was acquired by Random House, they have had some books that cross the line. They have classified some books as ‘Christian’ when they don’t have Christian values.”

Charisma News has followed up with a second attack piece, by Michael Brown and entitled “A Shameful Day in Evangelical Christian Publishing“:

The WaterBrook Multnomah group publishes books by authors like John Piper, Chuck Swindoll, Ravi Zacharias, David Jeremiah, Randy Alcorn, David Platt and Bill Gothard, and now its sister publisher is releasing a purported evangelical book defending homosexuality?

Charisma News (like Christian Retailing) is published by a rival Christian publisher: Charisma Media, formerly Strang Communications.

(1) Giles Semper, “Soul Searching in an Age of Alternative Ideologies”, Bookseller, 17 January 1992, p. 130.

Correction: I originally said that Charisma Media had published Heaven Is For Real; that book is actually published by Thomas Nelson.

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This one’s a couple of weeks old, but worth a mention. From WND:

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was first proclaimed by Jews in Israel to be God’s “Messiah,” and a flurry of miracles took place.

Now, two millennia later, the cycle is repeating itself as Orthodox Jews who once rejected that message are coming to realize the man slain at Calvary in Jerusalem is indeed God’s “Anointed One.”

“Supernatural stories and events surround this new phenomenon,” says Carl Gallups, author of the best-selling book and DVD “The Rabbi Who Found Messiah.” “This has to be the handiwork of God!”

Gallups is referring to the work of Zev Porat, an Israeli man raised as an Orthodox Jew by a rabbinical family. Working today with the Messiah of Israel Ministries, Porat is now championing Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) as the prophesied Messiah, and is using Gallups’ material to convince his fellow Jews to wake up to that fact.

As I’ve blogged previously, Gallups’ book discusses the case of Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, an influential Kabbalist who died aged 108 in 2005. Shortly before his death, Kaduri claimed that Ariel Sharon would be the last Prime Minister of Israel, and that the “soul of the Mashiach has attached itself to a person in Israel.” He also allegedly wrote a note that was published posthumously,  identifying the name of this person as “Yehoshua” or “Yeshua”. This is an ordinary Hebrew name, but its Anglicised form is “Jesus”.

Gallups – a pastor and birther* who first came to wide attention with his claim that Barack Obama is named in the Bible as the anti-Christ – reworked the story for his WND-published book The Rabbi Who Found Messiah. In his version , Kaduri was a secret believer in Jesus, and he had been given a vision linking the return of Jesus to the death of Ariel Sharon – thus avoiding the problem of Israeli Prime Ministers who have come after Sharon.

Following Sharon’s death, Gallups argued that the fact that Jesus had not yet returned was a confirmation of Kaduri’s prophetic power, but it’s difficult to see how the book could remain relevant and WND is now attempting to shift copies at cut-price. However, Porat’s evangelism opens up a whole new vista: the conversion of the Jews has traditionally been seen as a sign of the “Last Days”, and WND‘s story puts Gallups and his book at the heart of an unfolding supernatural and eschatological drama. WND quotes Gallups:

“…Zev says that there are now ten of Kaduri’s students who are believers in Jesus as Messiah and many others who are openly testifying of Kaduri’s promise to leave a note. When they found out that the note was posted on Kaduri’s website and two Israeli news sources reported on it, as heavily documented in my book, they are mesmerized by the news. Some are shaken by it. Others are given their lives to Jesus as Messiah and Lord. These are exciting and prophetic times in which we live! I am honored and humbled to be a small part of it.”

Porat also has YouTube videos in which he interviews two men (here and here) who claim to have been among Kaduri’s students.

Porat’s ministry is entitled “Messiah of Israel”, and his website abounds with long-lens photos of him attempting to discuss Bible passages with ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. Apparently he has also taken a copy of Gallups’ book into a synagogue:

“Zev sent me an email telling me that he had a ‘leading of the Lord’ to take ‘The Rabbi Who Found Messiah‘ book into an Orthodox synagogue to reveal to the rabbi and people of that synagogue what Rabbi Kaduri had said regarding the name of the Messiah. He asked me to pray for him and said that this was a ‘dangerous’ thing that he was doing. I assured him of my fervent prayers.

“I was blown away when I saw the pictures of him in the synagogue doing what he had set out to do! There he was using my book to open up the Kaduri story, which the Israeli media had shutdown and covered up.

“After showing them the Kaduri note that proclaimed Jesus (Yeshua) was Messiah, he then followed up with scriptural proof. This man is ministering as a modern day apostle Paul!”

Some copies of Gallups’ book come with a notice on the cover advertising that the book is “By the Creators of the No. 1 Faith Film The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment”; this is WND‘s official DVD tie-in with Jonathan Cahn’s book The Harbinger (published by Charisma rather than WND), which links the 9/11 attacks with God’s judgement against the USA; Cahn and WND editor Joseph Farah are planning a second tour of Israel together later this year.

Meanwhile, the same “By the Creators…” notice will be appearing on a new DVD from Joel Richardson, entitled End Times Eyewitness: Israel, Islam and the Unfolding Signs of Messiah’s Return. Richardson, who has been dubbed “Glenn Beck’s End-Times Prophet”, has written books arguing that the Bible predicts an Islamic anti-Christ, and his work has been endorsed by Robert Spencer.

Footnote

*Frank Arduini has chronicled Gallups’ birtherism in comprehensive depth – see here, here, here, and here. He also discusses the basis on which Gallups says that his book is a “bestseller” and among the top 100 on Amazon:

The only way to consider it a “best seller” is to narrow the categories significantly. For example, it is currently the number one seller in the textbooks, subcategory humanities, subcategory religious studies, subcategory Judaism. To put this into perspective, none of the other top 6 sellers in this category were published after 2011 and one was published as far back as 1992. Gallups never says how many books are actually being sold, just that it is a best seller. Keep in mind that his publisher is WND, which also published Corsi’s book “Where’s the Birth Certificate”, which was listed as a best seller despite the fact that the vast majority of its sales were from a bulk sale purchased by WND itself. Not only is Gallups’ book not a best seller, it is so bad that Gallups “bribed” people to give it a good review on Amazon.com. Specifically, on November 10, 2013, Gallups offered the people who gave the book a five star review a free copy of the DVD documentary that went with the book.

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