Bartholomew's Notes

At Patheos, Fred Clark casts a critical eye over a photo celebrating Billy Graham’s 95th birthday, in which the evangelist shown sitting beside Rupert Murdoch and surrounded by the likes of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump:

The scowl on the old preacher’s face may reveal his recognition that this is what has become of his legacy — that everything he did and worked for has led only to this, to the empowerment of lying hucksters and the politics of resentful privilege.

…But just look at that horrifying photograph. Soak it in.

This is evangelical Christianity in America in 2013.

White. Rich. Right-wing. Dishonest. Predatory. Outwardly pious, inwardly corrupt.

Graham’s birthday party itself doesn’t seem to have been any kind of conservative rally, but the photo – presumably engineered by his son Franklin, who lacks his father’s disarming personal qualities – works against Graham’s long-standing positioning as a non-sectarian preacher whose vision transcends the sub-cultural agendas and obsessions of the religious right and the Babbittism of the business elite.

Murdoch’s prominence at Graham’s left hand was probably unintentional: perhaps Murdoch required a chair for health reasons, and this is why he was brought to the front. However, it reminds us that that Murdoch is a major player in Christian media, as I discussed here (the Murdoch-owned Christian imprint Zondervan is Palin’s publisher);  and that Graham owes a great deal to sentimental and non-critical media coverage that’s been constant ever since William Randolph Hearst first put out the word to “puff Graham”.

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This one is getting wide attention; Sarah Posner writes at Mother Jones:

Next week, former President George W. Bush is scheduled to keynote a fundraiser in Irving, Texas, for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, a group that trains people in the United States, Israel, and around the world to convince Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The organization’s goal: to “restore” Israel and the Jews and bring about about the second coming of Christ.

Sarah subsequently appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show by way of follow-up, and programme’s website has screen-captures about Bush’s participation that have now been removed from the MJBI event site. According to the scrubbed blurb, by “Alisa Stephenson, MJBI Director of Events and Partner Relations”:

A few years ago there was a dream, a discussion, and prayer which resulted in an invitation extended from the MJBI to President Bush’s office. We knew it was a long shot, but still felt this was the direction God wanted us to go. Unfortunately, it did not work out that year, or the next. It looked like it was not going to be in God’s plan to have President Bush after all. But then, the email came that invited us to dialog about the possibility of an event in 2013.

On November 14, 2013, MJBI partners will have the honor and privilege to capture wisdom and understanding on a level we have not known as we listen to President Bush share his White House experiences. For one full hour he will tell us about his life, and the situations that challenged every area of his leadership.

President Bush will also share his passion for setting people free, which is fitting for this year’s theme, “Rekindle,” taken from a passage in The Message (1 Samuel 2:6-10) that speaks about God restoring hope to burned-out lives.

Last year’s event, entitled “The Lion Roars”, was graced by Glenn Beck:

We will have dinner on the Cowboy playing field followed by a powerful program featuring representatives from Israel, as well as key leaders from our nation.

We will be honoring Glenn Beck for his tremendous efforts in defending Israel and he will be challenging us with a motivational message. This will be a night of solidarity with the Jewish people, a night to declare your support for them, and a night to defend Israel.

…Glenn Beck is like a roaring Lion for Israel and the Jewish People. Glenn holds strong support for our ally Israel and was named as the defender of Israel in 2011 by the Zionist Organization of America. During Glenn Beck’s recent tour of Israel, he gave a message to thousands in Jerusalem titled “Restoring Courage.” It was a message of hope and to show the steadfast support that he and America have for Israel. You, like many others, may not have been able to travel to Israel to attend this monumental gathering in Jerusalem, but you now have the opportunity to roar over Zion from the world-famous Dallas Cowboys Stadium. This event presents a rare opportunity to have dinner at a Table on the Turf.

There was also a “Pastors’ Meeting” with David Barton. Maddow claims that the meal took the form of a “pork barbecue”, which I find difficult to credit.

Messianic Jews express their belief in Jesus through Judaic culture and forms of worship, but – as Sarah notes – Messianic Judaism is not generally well-received among Jewish groups (indeed, I’ve previously blogged about instances of anti-Messianic persecution in Israel) and Bush’s involvement has led to criticism.

However, for some non-Jewish heritage Christians, the movement is a sign that God’s chosen people are at last coming to recognise the truth about Jesus, while Messianic ritual observance is seen as an authentic link to the world of Jesus and the early church. Messianic Judaism has become increasingly significant within wider evangelicalism: a recent apocalyptic Christian bestseller, The Harbinger, has been so popular in part because its author, Jonathan Cahn, is a Messianic pastor and as such has been able to market himself as having special insight into “Hebrew mysteries”. There is also a related Hebrew Roots movement which appropriates aspects of Judaism within evangelicalism, sometimes in highly idiosyncratic and even farcical ways.

The MJBI was itself founded by a non-Jew; according to a bio blurb (links added):

Wayne Wilks Jr. is the President of the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute (MJBI). The MJBI was birthed under the leadership and cooperation of several ministries in 1996 after the unprecedented response of Jewish people to Yeshua in the former USSR. The purpose of the MJBI is to train leaders for Messianic Jewish Congregations as well as educate the Church on Messianic Jewish understanding…

Although not Jewish, Wayne had a calling and heart to serve the Jewish people many years before the MJBI opportunity arose. Before the MJBI, he served 10 years as one of the pastors and elders of Shady Grove Church in Dallas, Texas… Wayne also serves as an Executive on the prayer initiative, Toward Jerusalem Council II.

The organization has its origins with Messianic ministries headed by Jonathan Bernis and Dan Juster, and began in Odessa in 1996. Schools have been founded in Budapest, Moscow, Brazil, and Argentina; there are also affiliates in South Korea and Mexico, and courses are held in Peru. Inroads have also been made among Ethiopian Jewish groups.

It is sometimes possible to overstate the apocalyptic element in Christian Zionism, but not so in this instance: the above video, which is embedded on the MJBI website, includes a preacher talking about “hastening” the coming of Jesus; there’s also regrettable reference to the “blindness” of the Jews.

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Following Tommy Robinson’s re-endorsement by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, the former ex-EDL leader has been busy re-affirming his commitment to the “counter-jihad” scene through interviews with Dale Hurd at Pat Robertson’s CBN and with Lars Hedeegard’s Dispatch International.

Hurd, who is CBN’s Foreign Correspondent, has interviewed Robinson previously, and this time the two discussed Robinson’s views of the future of the UK:

Lennon [Robinson’s real surname is “Yaxley-Lennon] warns that British authorities are creating the conditions for civil war by allowing the spread of radical Islam while restricting freedom of speech to criticize and protest against it.

…”Now, when [politicians] see this swing from Left to Right, it’s under way. There’s no left-wing organization that can stop it,” he said. “There’s no police force that can stop it. They’re trying to do all these tasks forces to stop what is happening. You can’t stop this.”

Citing an “epidemic of Muslim grooming gangs”, Robinson goes on to concur with negative assessments of Islam and the Koran attributed to Gladstone and Churchill, before mentioning his “new strategy of working with moderate Muslims in the hope more people will listen to him.”

Dispatch International shows Robinson in conversation with Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedeegard, in which he revels over his “new platform” and discusses the Quilliam Foundation; the following passage has garnered attention:

When I met the people from Quilliam, I realized that they could help me with a lot of things. I’m just a working class bloke from Luton. I don’t know how to set up and run a think tank and get donations. I asked if they would teach me and they said yes. They said: “You may have whatever opinions you like but you will get more out of expressing them in a more political way.”

Could one say that you are using them, and they are using you?

Tommy doesn’t answer but nods and grins.

This fits with a report in the Guardian from last month:

[Quilliam head Maajid] Nawaz said he would work to introduce Robinson to his own contacts in government and the Home Office in an attempt to procure government funding.

However, I find it difficult to envision Robinson ever being given public money; he’s adamant that he’s always held the same views; he’s slippery about whether his problem is with “radical Islam” or with “Muslims” (despite telling the Huffington Post that ” I think I am in a position to help separate the two”); and he has a recent criminal record relating to an act of dishonesty.

Meanwhile, Nawaz has come under a certain amount of sceptical scrutiny over Robinson’s continuing links with the likes of Geller and Spencer. Responding on Twitter, he told Sunny Hundal to “give us time & stop being a downer”, and suggested that Sunny should instead focus on Mo Ansar’s prevarications on the subject of traditional Islamic punishments. Nawaz also continues to argue that it’s better to have Robinson out of the EDL rather than leading it, even though his views aren’t all what he would wish; but it seems to me that there’s an obvious disconnect between Nawaz’s presentation of a man being slowly weened off anti-Islam views and away from extremism by Muslim moderates, and Robinson’s own assertions.

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Sunday evening finally saw the broadcast on BBC Four of an hour-long cut of Ilan Ziv’s documentary Exile: A Myth Unearthed, under the title Searching for Exile: Truth or Myth? The programme was previously due to have been broadcast in April as part of the channel’s archaeology season, as Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery, but, as I discussed at the time, it was pulled from the schedule at the last moment for reasons that seem to have been related to concerns about content. Ziv himself objected to the “Archaeological Mystery” title, which he suggested had been an attempt to “sneak” the program into the schedules without attracting controversy.

There may have been an element of “sneaking” in the eventual scheduling; BBC Four documentaries on a Sunday evening are more usually repeats, and the programme was up against particularly popular shows on other channels. The BBC also decided to forestall complaints with a accompanying discussion called Searching for Exile: The Debate, in which BBC religion journalist Edward Stourton talked with Ziv and three historians.

The documentary touched on a number of issues: how to interpret and assess the writings of Josephus; evidence of a continuing Jewish presence in the Galilee after the Bar Kocha Revolt; and the use of archaeological human remains from the Bar Kocha period in modern Israeli nationalism.

Particular emphasis was placed in the programme on the city of Sepphoris in the Galilee, which took no part in the revolt of 70CE (in which  Jerusalem was destroyed), and which flourished after 135CE; its remains were subsequently subsumed under the Palestinian village of Saffuriyya, which was itself destroyed during the 1948 conflict.

However, we get to 1948 via a short discussion of Leroy Waterman’s excavation of Sepphoris in 1931; we’re told that Waterman was a “devout Christian” and that his interest in the site as location for Jesus’ sermons meant that for him the village was “barely visible”. The programme goes on to say that as the ancient city was revealed it “devoured” the village; this is an odd suggestion, given that Waterman was there for only two months and that archaeological excavation at the site did not resume until 1983. We’re also told that the history of the village is “barely mentioned” in the way the site is currently presented; that may be a legitimate complaint, but it’s not at all clear what that has to do with the excavation on 1931.

Referring to the Palestinians who were forced to leave in 1948, the narrator then asks:

Is it possible that some of these refugees are distant descendants of the Jewish population of Sepphoris who were never exiled?

No direct answer is forthcoming (although see below); instead, we move on to a short section on a nearby rabbi’s tomb that is treated as a holy site by local Muslims.

The debate that followed featured Ziv in conversation with Sacha Stern of UCL, Francesca Stavrakopoulou of Exeter University, and Joan Taylor of King’s College London. The discussants were civil and proceeded through a process of saying “I agree with you, but…”, and it turns out that the answer to the clunkily binary “Truth or Myth?” title question is actually “it depends what you mean.” Taylor in particular thought Ziv had underplayed the the impact of the conflicts in 70CE and 135CE.

Ziv’s answer to the “Is it possible..?” question posed in the documentary, though, was something of an anti-climax:

There’s no evidence, and I think anthropologically it’s crazy to make that kind of assertion.

However, Stern’s overall assessment was that:

…your film may be regarded with suspicion by some viewers, and they might consider it to be controversial or problematic; and it might well be for people coming from certain perspectives. But what I would really would invite everyone to do is to try and look at the message of your film in a positive light, as a positive attempt, not to be destructive, or not to spoil people’s narratives but rather an attempt to try and create something positive, to create some sort of way forward in the situation that we are [in] today, based on a rethink about our past… A challenge is always intended to be contrustive

Rather than the denunciations that can be found on some sites – and the BBC’s initial panic back in April – this seems to be a sensible and grown-up way to proceed.

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… and loses it again

Others have noticed this; Robert Spencer reports on communication with former head of the English Defence League Tommy Robinson:

Tommy Robinson has written to us emphasizing that he has not changed his positions, and the unfolding events have borne that out… His association with the Quilliam Foundation was and is problematic… But we understand that Tommy has been under enormous pressure. It is impossible to hold him accountable for Quilliam’s disingenuousness when he has not repeated it himself. 

Geller and Spencer repudiated Robinson a couple of weeks ago, with Geller describing him as “the poster boy for the stealth jihad”. She continued:

It seems they have taught Tommy well. His deception to friends and colleagues mirrors the Islamic teachings of kitman (lie by omission) and taqiyya. So Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll are no longer on the SION board. 

Robinson and Carroll appear to have remained on the SION (“Stop Islamization of Nations“, a vehicle for Geller’s international links) website all this time. It seems that Spencer and Geller decided to retract their excommunication after seeing a recent documentary about Robinson and Mo Ansar, which I discussed here.

It should be remembered that Robinson attempted to retain his association with Geller and Spencer even after his departure from the EDL and his new association with the Quilliam Foundation; at the Bloomsbury press conference where he announced the move, he added that he was “indebted” to Geller for financial support for his family while he was in prison awaiting trial for passport fraud (although at the time, Geller said she was fundraising for Robinson’s “legal defence”). Geller, however, dismissed this as a “cop out” explanation – certainly, it looked to me like a way to distance himself from Quilliam’s anti-Geller views without making a substantive point.

Throughout this whole saga, there has been a disconnect between Quilliam’s narrative of Robinson’s change of heart and Robinson’s own story. Quilliam has sought to portray Robinson as an ex-far right extremist, just as Maajid Nawaz is an ex-Islamist. A former Quilliam Director of Research, James Brandon, wrote a post in which he opined that:

Robinson’s next steps are even more crucial; his supporters at Quilliam and elsewhere need to sure that public renunciation of the EDL as an organisation is followed by moves to renounce their ideology in full… Quilliam should introduce Robinson to Google’s network of ‘Formers‘ – extremists who have renounced violence and radicalism. Members of that group, like ex-neo-Nazi TJ Leyden, can play a key role in talking to him, opening his eyes to new ideas and helping him to transition from rabble-rousing ex-EDL leader to a genuine democrat. As well as helping shape his ideas, these formers, who include ex-gang members from similar street backgrounds as Robinson, can also provide him with a new network of friends and allies; this will be vital in helping to break away from his EDL ex-associates and making his disengagement from the EDL permanent.

But Robinson was always very clear that he does not regard himself to be an “ex-extremist”. Instead, he complained that far-right elements had made headway in the EDL while he was in prison, and that he sees street protests as no longer effective. It was obvious that he and Quilliam were talking at cross-purposes – and it should be remembered that Quilliam has been dishonest in the past when it comes to showcasing ex-EDL members.

According to Spencer:

Tommy is planning to start a new organization that is as free from Quilliam as it is from the EDL, and in that… we wholeheartedly and unhesitatingly support him.

Perhaps Robinson is under the impression that people joined the EDL because he was its head, rather than that he had followers because he was the head of the EDL; but launching new organisations and “global forces” and such is actually a common way by which the self-styled “counter-jihad” movement maintains publicity and links.

UPDATE: An exchange on Twitter between Sunny Hundal and Nawaz (link added):

Sunny Hundal: Hmm. T Robinson now welcomed back by Geller/Spencer, and he refuses to renounce previous views. Our criticism were right no?

Maajid Nawaz: Really? You not glad he left EDL & said “sorry” to Shiv in the Guardian? Seriously Sunny, give us time & stop being a downer

UPDATE 2 (5 December): Geller’s support for Robinson at last now seems to be off. In article about documents relating to her exclusion from the UK, Geller writes:

The documents say that I “worked with” the English Defence League. No, I supported their campaign to stop Sharia in London and to oppose Islamic supremacism, while always being wary of some of the elements within the group. Two of their leaders spoke at one of our conferences — but “work together” is overstating matters. Anyway, EDL leader Tommy Robinson has now jumped ship and rushed to condemn his former friends and allies. I didn’t hurry to condemn him, but gave him ample opportunity to clarify his new position; unfortunately, it is clear now that he is a traitor and a liar. I understand that he faces jail time for tax-related crimes, but to throw the EDL in its entirety and every other brave counter-jihadist under the bus makes him the worst kind of turncoat.

No explanation is given as to why she’s suddenly changed her line on Robinson once again, but the reference to his “crimes” (he’s just pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud) perhaps indicates that she no longer thinks he’s of any use. The SION website and the “President’s Council” appear to have slipped her memory.

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BBC radio’s statistics programme More or Less has broadcast an interesting piece on whether it is accurate to say that 100,000 Christians are killed each year because of their faith – the figure and was cited by Vatican spokesman Silvano Maria Tomasi in a radio address to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June, and has prompted internet rumours that the culprits are Muslims.

The programme’s presenters (Ruth Alexander and Wesley Stephenson) explain that the figure is derived from Todd Johnson at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who estimated that there were 1 million Christian martyrs during 2000-2010, and divided this number by 10 to get a yearly average .

However, the unexpected context here is that most of this purported 1 million actually died in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Apparently, Johnson referred to the 1982 edition of David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia, which suggested that 20 percent of the populations in African countries were “usually” practising Christians, and from this concluded that this proportion of the victims of the conflict were therefore Christians and therefore martyrs. However, he told the BBC that this statistic has “been abandoned” in other work.

John Allen, author of The Global War on Christians, explained that martyrdom referred to “a situation of witness”. A martyr is not just someone who is killed for holding Christian beliefs; it can be someone who is killed because their beliefs prompt them to acts of moral courage that put them in danger. Allen gives the example of a woman killed in Congo for persuading young people not to join to militias, which is fair enough – put it’s difficult to see how this can be extrapolated to all Christian victims of the war.

And how can the figure of 100,000 remain appropriate for today, given that the civil war is largely over? According to Johnson:

…we took this approach because even in the DRC, things are not as intense as they were ten years ago, that every year now it probably should go down. But then I’ve got to keep my eyes open for other situations around the world. So it’s probably decreasing year by year right now, but the method is not exact enough to be doing that. So I’ve just kept it at 100,000 the last couple of years. But I’m likely going to have to lower it unless something comes to our attention.

The BBC adds another remarkable detail: that “the Center publishes enormous numbers for the martyrs it says will be made around the year 2050. Why’s that? Well, for the sake of their martyr estimates, that’s the year they’ve taken to be the end of the world.”

Thomas Schirrmacher of the International Society for Human Rights suggests that a more accurate annual figure would probably be 10,000 martyrs, although he concedes that experts are “very hesitant to give a figure” and and there’s no scientific number. The ISHR is starting a new project with universities, with a starting guess of 7 to 8,000 martyrs.

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Back to Charisma News:

Accuracy of AFA’s Report on Pedophilia Classification Questioned

The American Family Association (AFA) sounded an alarm on Wednesday, pointing to a shocking announcement from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in its latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But was the report accurate?

Charisma News started digging a little deeper on Thursday morning into the AFA’s claims that the APA now classifies pedophilia as a sexual orientation or preference instead of a disorder.

The AFA’s Cindy Roberts told Charisma News that its public relations firm, Hamilton Strategies, conducted the initial research on its claim. The PR firm has not responded to our requests for more information…

A caption under a stock photo adds:

The American Family Association appears to have offered misinformation about the APA’s classification of pedophilia.

As I noted yesterday, the origins of the controversy go back to a paragraph in the new (fifth) edition of the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), concerning the paraphilia of sexual attraction to children:

 if [individuals] report an absence of feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety about these impulses and are not functionally limited by their paraphilic impulses (according to self-report, objective assessment, or both), and their self-reported and legally recorded histories indicate that they have never acted on their impulses, then these individuals have a pedophilic orientation but not pedophilic disorder.

A document on the APA website gives further context:

…Most people with atypical sexual interests do not have a mental disorder. To be diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder, DSM-5 requires that people with these interests:

• feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society’s disapproval;

or

• have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

…In the case of pedophilic disorder, the notable detail is what wasn’t revised in the new manual. Although proposals were discussed throughout the DSM-5 development process, diagnostic criteria ultimately remained the same as in DSM-IV TR. Only the disorder name will be changed from pedophilia to pedophilic disorder to maintain consistency with the chapter’s other listings.

I assume the word “orientation” was used in DSM-5 because this particular paraphilia concerns attraction to a kind of person (i.e. children) rather than to a kind of act (e.g. voyeurism). However, the word does not appear to have been theorized or explained any further in the text, and it seems to me that it was infelicitous; there are legal protections against discrimination on grounds of “sexual orientation”, and even though these obviously don’t refer to paedophiles, the notion of a medically recognised “pedophilic orientation” would muddy the water. Might a self-described but non-practising paedophile apply for an unsuitable job and demand equal consideration? And for anti-gay elements, the phrase could be cited as a reason why anti-discrimination measures should be repealed, and as spurious evidence that this what anti-discrimination activists really want, and that gay people are actually paedophiles.

As I also noted yesterday, reports about the DSM-5 became progressively distorted. Misleading headlines suggested that the notion of paedophilia as a disorder was being scrapped altogether, and the end result was the lurid suggestion from the  American Family Association that the change was being made at the behest of “pedophile activists”. According to the AFA’s Sandy Rios, in the original report carried by Charisma:

Just as the APA declared homosexuality an ‘orientation’ under tremendous pressure from homosexual activists in the mid-’70s, now, under pressure from pedophile activists, they have declared the desire for sex with children an ‘orientation,’ too.

An extra element of confusion here was that the AFA and Charisma initially referred to the American Psychological Association rather than the American Psychiatric Association; the American Psychological Association has since issued a statement:

A news release sent Oct. 30 on behalf of the American Family Association mischaracterized the position of the American Psychological Association with respect to pedophilia. The American Psychological Association does not classify mental disorders or publish the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, as the release incorrectly stated.

The American Psychological Association maintains that pedophilia is a mental disorder; that sex between adults and children is always wrong; and that acting on pedophilic impulses is and should be a criminal act. The American Psychological Association has worked for many years to prevent child sexual abuse and will continue to do so.

Charisma News corrected its original report on the subject, but we’re still left wondering about which organisation Sandy Rios had in mind when she referred to “the APA”. If her specific contextualized allegations were meant to refer to the American Psychological Association, how can it be valid simply to substitute the article with the words “American Psychiatric Association”? It’s not a small point – the American Psychological Association has been vocal for many years on anti-discrimination and the need to distinguish between mental illness and sexual orientation, and it’s obvious that Rios and the AFA hoped to discredit the American Psychological Association’s position by refering to the DSM-5.

Meanwhile, the American Psychiatric Association has also now issued a statement, as reported in the Washington Times:

The APA said in its statement that “‘sexual orientation’ is not a term used in the diagnostic criteria for pedophilic disorder and its use in the DSM-5 text discussion is an error and should read ‘sexual interest.'”

“In fact, APA considers pedophilic disorder a ‘paraphilia,’ not a ‘sexual orientation.’ This error will be corrected in the electronic version of DSM-5 and the next printing of the manual,” the organization said. The error appeared on page 698, said a spokeswoman.

It added: “APA stands firmly behind efforts to criminally prosecute those who sexually abuse and exploit children and adolescents. We also support continued efforts to develop treatments for those with pedophilic disorder with the goal of preventing future acts of abuse.”

The new reading, then, will be: “…these individuals have a pedophilic interest but not pedophilic disorder.” That will probably continue to upset a lot of people: how can an “interest” here not also be a “disorder” in any circumstances, even if it doesn’t manifest in illegal behaviour? For instance, someone who collects non-pornographic images of children for sexual reasons may not be breaking any laws or causing any harm to others, but it’s reasonable to be concerned that this abnormal behaviour may be a sign that such a person is a potential danger to children. However, it should be remembered that the DSM-5 is a technical document dealing with medical classifications; “disorder” in this context has a particularly circumscribed meaning.

UPDATE (2 November): Seizing on the American Psychiatric Association’s statement, Charisma now adds:

The APA has clarified its text mistake. Pedophilia has not been classified as a sexual orientation, but the AFA report was not fabricated or fear-mongering. Click here for the resolution to this issue.

Well, not fear-mongering apart from the small matter of invoking shadowy “pedophile activists” and linking the story to the American Psychological Society’s position on homosexuality.

(Thanks to commentators on yesterday’s post for some points to consider and for some links)

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Charisma News brings news of a breathless announcement from the American Family Association:

A shocking announcement made by the American Psychological Association (APA) in its latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders caused an uproar among pro-family organizations and many others, as the APA states it now classifies pedophilia as a sexual orientation or preference instead of a disorder.

Sandy Rios, cultural expert and talk show host on the American Family Radio network, has issued a statement on behalf of the American Family Association in response to the APA’s position on pedophilia:

“Just as the APA declared homosexuality an ‘orientation’ under tremendous pressure from homosexual activists in the mid-’70s, now, under pressure from pedophile activists, they have declared the desire for sex with children an ‘orientation,’ too. It’s not hard to see where this will lead. More children will become sexual prey…”

The fifth edition of manual, widely referred to as DSM-5, is actually published by the American Psychiatric Association; this has now been corrected on Charisma, although “psychology” is preserved in the url. Here’s what it says (page 698) on the subject of the paraphilia of attraction to children:

… if [individuals] report an absence of feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety about these impulses and are not functionally limited by their paraphilic impulses (according to self-report, objective assessment, or both), and their self-reported and legally recorded histories indicate that they have never acted on their impulses, then these individuals have a pedophilic orientation but not pedophilic disorder.

A PDF summary on the APA’s website has further further details and context:

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), paraphilic disorders are often misunderstood as a catch-all definition for any unusual sexual behavior. In the upcoming fifth edition of the book, DSM-5, the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group sought to draw a line between atypical human behavior and behavior that causes mental distress to a person or makes the person a  serious threat to the psychological and physical well-being of other individuals.

…Most people with atypical sexual interests do not have a mental disorder. To be diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder, DSM-5 requires that people with these interests:

• feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society’s disapproval;

or

• have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

To further define the line between an atypical sexual interest and disorder, the Work Group revised the names of these disorders to differentiate between the behavior itself and the disorder stemming from that behavior (i.e., Sexual Masochism in DSM-IV will be titled Sexual Masochism Disorder in DSM-5).

It is a subtle but crucial difference that makes it possible for an individual to engage in consensual atypical sexual behavior without inappropriately being labeled with a mental disorder. With this revision, DSM-5 clearly distinguishes between atypical sexual interests and mental disorders involving these desires or behaviors.

The chapter on paraphilic disorders includes eight conditions: exhibitionistic disorder, fetishistic disorder, frotteuristic disorder, pedophilic disorder, sexual masochism disorder, sexual sadism disorder, transvestic disorder, and voyeuristic disorder.

…In the case of pedophilic disorder, the notable detail is what wasn’t revised in the new manual. Although proposals were discussed throughout the DSM-5 development process, diagnostic criteria ultimately remained the same as in DSM-IV TR. Only the disorder name will be changed from pedophilia to pedophilic disorder to maintain consistency with the chapter’s other listings.

One can see how the word “orientation” might have caused confusion (indeed, the word doesn’t appear in the PDF summary, and I initially thought it had been introduced by the secondary discussions; see my comment below for more on this), but it’s clear that this is essentially a technical discussion about medical categorization and treatment; there’s nothing here that seeks to normalize or excuse pedophilic behaviour.

The DSM-5 recently caught the eye of Neon Tommy, a news site associated with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, which summarized the DSM-5 revision thus:

Pedophilia refers to a sexual orientation or profession of sexual preference devoid of consummation, whereas pedophilic disorder is defined as a compulsion and is used in reference to individuals who act on their sexuality.

The headline for this was “Pedophilia Now Classified As A Sexual Orientation”, and the reporter also sought comment from an obscure paedophilic-advocacy group in Maryland run by a convicted sex offender. The article also introduced the confusion between the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association (the error was subsequently amended, but not acknowledged).

The Neon Tommy story was then picked up by a Catholic blog run by a certain Father John Zuhlsdorf, who suggested that the word “orientation” showed that a plot was afoot by “homosexualists” to eliminate the age of consent. From here, it was passed on to Patrick Ryan at the American Spectator; by the time story reached the AFA and Charisma, the DSM-5’s distinction between what people may be thinking and how they behave is gone completely. Instead, it’s now become a story of how gay people opened the way for “pedophile activists” to corrupt medicine and society. The repeated “American Psychological Association” error is particularly significant in the context of the American Family Association; the AFA is a strong supporter of the anti-gay psychologist Paul Cameron, who was famously expelled from the American Psychological Association over his views on homosexuality.

The American Family Association’s notion of “pressure from pedophile activists” is particularly hard to take: we live in a world in which people who are even suspected of paedophilia are forced into hiding or murdered; the notion of an obscure sex-offender “activist” pressuring either the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychological Association into amending its methodology is self-evidently absurd.

UPDATE (1 November): The story has now prompted the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association to issue statements; Charisma, meanwhile,  has been distancing itself from the American Family Association’s claims, and the AFA is apparently blaming its hapless PR company. More on all this here.

(Revised)

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Producer says show was harder to make “than a series on Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, harder than three exposés on the Church of Scientology”

Broadcast magazine has an interesting article by the executive producer of When Tommy Met Mo, last night’s BBC documentary about Tommy Robinson’s meetings with Mo Ansar and other British Muslims ahead of Robinson’s surprise resignation from the English Defence League and new association with the Quilliam Foundation. The author, Jill Robinson, works for Mentorn Media, and the programme was commissioned following an appearance by T. Robinson and Ansar on Mentorn’s Sunday morning discussion programme, The Big Questions (which I blogged here). J. Robinson writes:

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Mo invited Tommy and his family to dinner… I immediately felt that something very important had happened, something that could be a catalyst for change, and that we had to follow it up.

Our commissioning editor Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC’s head of religion & ethics, immediately saw the potential too, and asked us to develop the idea. Four weeks later we sent him a taster tape and the outline of a journey that Tommy and Mo could take together through British Islam.

However:

But what seemed simple on paper proved extremely difficult in reality. In fact it was the hardest show to make of my 35 years in television, harder than a series on Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, harder than three exposés on the Church of Scientology.

J. Robinson tells the story of various setbacks that occured: T. Robinson’s time in prison (blogged here); health problems that delayed filming; and difficulties in persuading Muslims to participate, including Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz. However:

Then the story accelerated out of our control. Privately we knew Tommy wanted to leave the EDL but he insisted not yet. Then we introduced him to Maajid – and a week later he jumped ship.

The programme itself can be viewed here (and for those outside the UK there’s a bootleg on YouTube); to quote the blurb:

Following the pair as each shows the other his view of British Islam, the film reveals that Ansar was present at an EDL street protest in May and was also the first Muslim to address the EDL. It shows Robinson as he visits Walsall Mosque and meets with one of Britain’s leading Muslim scholars, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra. The former leader of the EDL also debates the burqa and niqab with Muslim politician Salma Yaqoob, and discusses the Qur’an with noted Islamic commentators including Islamic scholar Dr Usama Hasan and historian Tom Holland.

Robinson and Ansar were presented as affable and courteous antagonists; in contrast to Robinson’s hateful rants at protests and the thuggish behaviour of his (now largely former) supporters, Robinson is able to present himself well in interviews and face-to-face encounters (at least, when he’s sober). For his part, Ansar conveyed a vision of a moderate British Islam, but towards the end was damaged by an exchange with Nawaz in which he appeared to prevaricate on the implementation of traditional hudud punishments in Islamic states. Ansar has written about his time with Robinson in the Guardian.

The climax was the press conference with Maajid and Hasan at the Montague on the Gardens Hotel in Bloomsbury, from which Ansar was excluded; according to Nicky Campbell’s voice-over, Robinson sent Ansar a text explaining that “he didn’t want Mo claiming any credit for this momentous decision”. However, according to Ansar on Twitter, “the exclusion was by the head of Quilliam, not Tommy”, although he also says that he hasn’t met Robinson since and that “My understanding is that he has refused to share a platform.” Robinson’s Twitter utterances on Ansar since the press conference have been bitter and verging on the abusive, describing him as a “racist“, a “blagger” and as someone who “lies“; there are also mocking references to his weight (Ansar is heavy-set, and in fact suffered a heart attack during the making of the documentary).

Meanwhile, Quilliam’s Ghaffar Hussain has Tweeted that Ansar simply “wasn’t on the guest list”, which is dodging the issue – given the association between Robinson and Ansar over so many months, it’s obvious that Ansar’s exclusion from the “guest list” must have been an active decision by someone. Shafting Ansar further, Hussain and Robinson have also just retweeted a 2012 Tweet by Ansar in debate with Tom Holland which appeared to condone slavery, although Holland has re-Tweeted a clarification by Ansar that “it was a three day conversation about slavery in ancient times.”

So what’s next? Inevitably, it’s media and politics; Robinson writes:

I am currently in the process of filming another bbc documentary “what tommy does next” looking to rep working class people.

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From WorldNetDaily (WND) again, last week:

Just as Noah did in ancient times, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham is sounding the alarm that the Second Coming is “near” and signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”

…In an exclusive email interview with WND, Graham, 94, who is giving what may be his last message to the world as part of the My Hope America with Billy Graham evangelistic outreach in early November, said the world is “coming toward the end of the age.”

“There’s a great deal to say in the Bible about the signs we’re to watch for and when these signs all converge at one place we can be sure that we’re close to the end of the age,” Graham wrote. “And those signs, in my judgment, are converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”

For WND, an apocalyptic quote from one of the world’s most recognizable Christian “names” is a very useful tool for promoting and mainstreaming various “Last Days” prognostications:

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly “biblical prophecies are being realized.”

And last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., claimed the world has entered the last days.

…The remarks by Graham, Netanyahu and Bachmann come amid a steadily rising wave of public interest in the end times, as demonstrated by recent polls and New York Times and Amazon.com bestselling books such as “The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future,” by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, and “Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change,” by Pastor John Hagee.

Now, a new wave of end-times predictions for 2014 and 2015 involving blood moons on Jewish holy days and prophetically significant events on the Shemitah – the ancient biblical year of the Sabbath – are igniting even more interest in humanity’s ultimate fate.

Throw in next year’s reboot of the “Left Behind” film featuring Nicolas Cage and the cinematic destruction of biblical proportions in “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe, and last-days fever is back with a mainstream vengeance.

I’ve discussed the two books by Cahn and Hagee previously: both items approach the Bible’s eschatological passages as a kind of cryptic code that can be cracked by applying idiosyncratic extrapolations derived from elements appropriated from Judaism and the Hebrew Bible. Netanyahu, meanwhile, was making the general claim that the modern state of Israel reflects the vision of the Hebrew Bible prophet Amos:

As the prophet Amos said, they shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. They shall till gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them upon their soil never to be uprooted again.

That’s a reference to Amos 9, which follows a series of warnings that Israel will be punished; the chapter also predicts the restoration of the Davidic monarchy, and may be an addition to the text dating from just after the end of the Babylonian Captivity.

But what about Graham’s claim that end-time signs are “converging now for the first time”? Although Graham is best known for talking about general Christian themes, he actually has a history of statements on this subject going back many years. In 1981 he published Till Armageddon, followed by Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse two years later; the latter book was revised in 1992 as Storm Warning and then again in 2010. He has tended to avoid going into too much detail (“I do not want to linger here on the who, what, why, how or when of Armageddon. I will simply state my own belief that it is near”), but it’s clear he’s seen end-time signs “converging” for decades. For example:

There has never been a time in history when so many storms have come together as they have in our lifetime… In America, we see continued racial division, homelessness, crime, physical and sexual abuse, and the disintegration of the traditional family. And these storms are further complicated by plagues of many kinds, including AIDS… All of these are combined with earthquakes, physical storms, and natural disasters of many kinds across the land…

And so on. There’s also a statement on the subject in reply to query from a reader on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website:

Every day, millions of people all over the world face a host of other disasters: famine, disease, economic chaos, racism, ecological and natural catastrophes, and so forth.

Do these mean Jesus’ second coming is very near? It certainly may be, because He indicated that just before He comes again the world ‘s problems will increase. He declared, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:7). While these problems are part of every age, the Bible says they will increase in intensity toward the end.

(Doom-mongers often claim that earthquakes are “increasing”, although in fact it’s completely untrue – see here and here)

Given this discrepancy with “converging now for the first time”, one wonders whether the “exclusive email interview” with WND was actually conducted with Graham personally or if a staffer handled it; the details were published just days before the the evangelist was admitted to hospital.

Graham is a global figure whose a generous temperament and sociability have allowed him to transcend the intellectual limitations of his evangelical tradition; unlike his son Franklin, he’s usually managed to avoid being pigeon-holed as a ideologue of the “Christian Right”, and his charisma is such that no lasting damage was done a few years ago when it came to light that he had expressed anti-Semitic views in private with Richard Nixon in 1973 (Journalists have long been disarmed – in 2005 The Revealer drew mocking attention to a particularly pandering and cliché-ridden sentimental profile that had been published in Newsweek).

It would be odd if after decades in the public eye, Graham’s last public thoughts on religion should appear on a fringe-media Tea Party website most famous for promoting birtherism and other conspiracy theories.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting detail: Jonathan Cahn recently made another appearance on Jim Bakker’s TV show, during which Bakker drew attention to the fact that Cahn had recently published an article in Graham’s Decision magazine.

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