Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

From Jon Swaine at the Telegraph:

Mitt Romney met John Willke, the doctor credited with popularising Todd Akin’s controversial views on rape and abortion, during the current election campaign and told him they agreed on “almost everything,” Dr Willke said.

Dr Willke, a prominent anti-abortion campaigner, claims to be an authority on the theory espoused by Mr Akin that victims of what the Republican congressman called “legitimate rape” do not become pregnant because their bodies “shut down” due to the trauma.

…The doctor said that he had also met Mr [Paul] Ryan, who sits in Congress for the Wisconsin district in which one of his sons lives, several times. He said that after listening to Dr Willke’s views on abortion during their last encounter, Mr Ryan replied: “That’s where I’m at”.

Other journalists have drawn attention to a 1999 essay by Willke, in which he explains “why rape pregnancies are rare”. Much of the article consists remarkably crude number crunching that should make a sociologist weep (“One-fourth of all women in the United States of childbearing age have been sterilized… the miscarriage rate is about 15 percent” etc), but he also – now notoriously – raised the issue of emotional stress:

Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions… So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows…

This speculation does not appear to have been a major theme in Willke’s thinking, although the Akin controversy has inspired him to expound on his theory further. This time, though, the role of hormones is supplemented by the – also now notorious – concept of “spastic tubes”. The New York Times reports:

“This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight,” Dr. Willke said of a woman being raped, adding, “She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”

The media has noted Willke’s role as former president of the National Right to Life Committee. However, he is also president of the International Right to Life Federation, where a former vice-president (and current board member) is none other than John Smeaton of the UK’s SPUC. The two men were profiled in 2010 by The Interim (“Canada’s Life and Family Newspaper”):

Two leaders of the international pro-life movement, who have more than three-quarters of a century of pro-life experience between them, will be in Ottawa Oct. 28-30 for the Building a Global Culture of Life conference.

Dr. Jack Willke, president of the International Right to Life Federation, began working in the pro-life movement in 1971. John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, joined the organization in 1974.

Smeaton himself adds:

In Ottawa, I welcomed delegates on behalf of International Right to Life Federation (IRLF) which was co-sponsoring (in a purely honorary way) Campaign Life Coalition’s Congress. I was standing in for our IRLF president Dr Jack Willke (who arrived after the opening ceremony).

In recent months, SPUC has broadened its remit to include other Christian Right issues; in January, the group “resolved to defend human life by defending marriage from the [UK] government’s proposed redefinition to include homosexual couples”. A few weeks later, it held a meeting on “Sex Education as Sexual Sabotage”, at which several MPs were treated to one of Judith Reisman’s monomaniacal diatribes against Alfred Kinsey. The MPs present did not include Nadine Dorries; despite Dorries’ close links with the UK Christian Right, she regards herself as regards herself as a pro-choice reformer, and she has abused Smeaton as being “shameful and cowardly”.

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Marko Attila Hoare has published an account of his reasons for severing his association with the Henry Jackson Society, citing concerns about leadership, procedure, direction – and the involvement of Douglas Murray:

Murray was and is also the director of another outfit, the ‘Centre for Social Cohesion’. Or rather, he is the Centre for Social Cohesion… In April 2011, the Centre for Social Cohesion merged with the HJS… The merger was incongruous, since whereas the HJS was intended to be a bi-partisan organisation promoting democratic geopolitics, Murray’s interest lay in opposing Islam and immigration.

…I was shocked that someone with such extreme views about Muslims and Islam should be appointed Associate Director of the HJS. I published an article on my blog… condemning his views on Muslims and Islam… After this article was published, [Executive Director Alan] Mendoza phoned me to try to pressurise me to remove it, claiming that Murray would otherwise sue me for libel. By way of warning, he pointed out that Murray had previously threatened legal action against Sunny Hundal, editor of Liberal Conspiracy, forcing him to remove a reference to him on Hundal’s website. On another occasion, he had apparently pressurised the Huffington Post into removing references to him as well. In the words of The Commentator, the website of senior HJS staff-member Robin Shepherd: ‘Murray warned the Huffpo that its time in Britain would be short if it persisted in libeling people in this manner. At which point, the Huffington Post agreed to remove references to Murray from the story.’

I refused to delete or substantially alter the content of my article, but I agreed to make some minor changes. I had quoted some not entirely unambiguously negative comments that Murray had made about the English Defence League (EDL), and at Mendoza’s express request, I agreed to insert into the text a somewhat more negative statement that Murray had previously made about the EDL. The modified article therefore balanced the less-than-negative statements that Murray had made about the EDL with a more negative one, so did greater justice to his vacillating opinion on this organisation. Mendoza also asked me to delete my description of Murray’s views on Islam as ‘bigoted and intolerant’; I agreed to delete ‘bigoted’ but refused to delete ‘intolerant’…

…Murray’s behaviour, in this instance and in the others mentioned above, was somewhat hypocritical, given that he has appeared as a speaker at entire conferences dedicated to attacking Muslims for employing libel ‘lawfare’ to silence criticism of Islam.

The charge of hypocrisy is arguable; it is quite possible be opposed to “lawfare” while continuing to assert that the law should protect reputations from false accusations. However, it is troubling to see that libel threats have apparently been made quite so aggressively.

The dispute with Sunny refers to an incident which occurred in 2009, when Robert Spencer visited the UK along with activists from the Christian Action Network. CAN’s schedule included an interview with three balaclava-wearing EDL leaders (this was before Stephen Yaxley-Lennon became the public face of the group), and the activists decided to invite them along to a pre-arranged meal at a restaurant involving Murray and Spencer. After I wrote about this, I received a clarification from the Centre for Social Cohesion:

CAN asked Douglas to do an interview with them – upon seeing the presence of the EDL at the CAN discussion he refused to deal with them and left the venue. He did however give an interview to CAN at another location on the water front. He didn’t actually know who the CAN were, and always says yes to interviews, hence his appearances on other dubious channels such as the Islam Channel.

Murray apparently felt that Sunny had misrepresented his position on this point. Robert Spencer was also unhappy, and made noises about libel in the USA when a reference to the dinner appeared on Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs website.

But three years is a very long time: as well as Murray’s subsequent “not entirely unambiguously negative comments” about the EDL (one of which was publicised by Spencer as “Douglas Murray defends EDL against guilt-by-association smears”), Spencer has recently entered into a full-on alliance with with EDL.

Of course, it should go without saying that just because there are controversies over Murray’s opinions and actions, that certainly does not in itself invalidate the CSC’s reports and studies. However, I am aware of one CSC report co-written by Murray which is tainted by association with the now-defunct “VIGIL Network”. This was a self-described on-line “terror tracking” organisation, and was run run by a man who has subsequently shown himself to be dishonest and irrational at a personal level. This man’s association with the CSC goes beyond mere opinion-mongering, and raises concerns over matters of fact; it would be helpful if Murray could clarify to what extent he retains confidence in VIGIL-sourced information.

(H/T Sunny Hundal)

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Also: Bishop of London is “silly and faintly disgraceful”

In the wake of the Pussy Riot sentencing, yesterday’s Observer saw Nick Cohen draw attention to the book Freedom and Responsibility: A Search for Harmony, by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow:

If its Amazon ranking is a guide, hardly any English reader has glanced at it, which is a pity because although the cleric’s arguments are drear when they are not repellent, they provide as a good an illustration as any of how opposition to human rights can be covered with smells and bells.

“The most fundamental conflict of our present era is the clash between the liberal mode of civilisation on the one hand and national culture and religious identity on the other,” Kirill begins…. I must emphasise that by liberalism the patriarch does not mean rampant individualism but any human society that tolerates “sin” providing sinners “remain within the law of land and do not harm others”. No charge is too wild to throw at such hell holes. “The human rights concept is used to cover up lies, falsehood and insults against religion and national values,” Kirill fumes. Secularism is diseased – “infected with the bacillus of self-destruction”. Secular countries allow women to control their fertility and tolerate homosexuality. They are nominally free “but defenceless against evil”.

The cleric barely makes an effort to disguise how Russia’s dark traditions of occidentalism and antisemistim have influenced his thought. Universal values are the product of a malign, alien ideology that comes from the western “protestant” theologians and – but, of course – “Jewish philosophers”.

…The English translation of Kirill’s fulminations carries a foreword by Richard Chartres, the silly and faintly disgraceful Anglican Bishop of London. He offers no criticism of the patriarch. Instead, he praises his “acute intelligence”.

Freedom and Responsibility is published in the UK by the respected mainstream religious publishing house of Darton, Longman and Todd. The Russian Orthodox Church website carries a notice about the book’s launch:

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk and Bishop Richard Chartres of London joined forces at the London Book Fair today to launch the first-ever book in English of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Entitled ‘Freedom and Responsibility, a Search for Harmony – Human Rights and Personal Dignity’, it is also a first joint venture between the English religious publishing house Darton, Longman and Todd and the Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate. 

…Welcoming guests to the event, Metropolitan Hilarion, who heads the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Affairs expressed the Patriarch’s and his own delight at this publication, which clearly articulates the mind of the Russian church on the key issues of the place of religion in organized social life, and of the religious and moral values which are essential to the maintaining of civilized society. The current global debate on these issues is one which the Russian Orthodox Church feels compelled and entitled to join. Having had first-hand experience of the disastrous consequences of the curtailment of religious expression in society, the Patriarch is fearful of is fearful of this situation being repeated in Western Europe.

…Dr Richard Chartres, who as Anglican Bishop of London is the third most senior bishop in the Church of England, with a close relationship to the British Parliament and the monarchy, expressed his admiration for Metropolitan Kirill, as a man of courage and clear-sightedness, who has played a key role in bringing the Russian church into its front-line position in Russian society and into the wider debate on the Christian role in contemporary society. He recommended the book as one of the best introductions to the contemporary Russian religious mind, and hoped that there would be more such publications in English to follow.

In the case of Pussy Riot, the observation that “Patriarch Kirill appeared annoyed by calls for leniency” should be balanced against church statements urging clemency; however, church figures do have a tendency to cry “hatred” when faced with satire or criticism. Back in June, church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin suggested “that people who kindle hatred should feel the tough power of law rather than pay fines”; this was prompted by a stage show that made fun of the incident in which an expensive wrist-watch was photoshopped out of an image of the patriarch on the church’s website.

Kirill has also come under criticism for referring to Putin’s rule as a “miracle of God”:

Kirill called opposition demands to “ear-piercing shrieks” and said the protesters represented a minority of Russians. He said Western consumer culture was admired by many of Putin’s opponents and was a major threat to Russia.

This partisanship could perhaps be indulged as the view of an older man who remembers the grim days of Communist terror and post-Communist chaos, and who is thankful for a bit of apparent stability; but what excuse can there be for his gushing enthusiasm for Alexander Lukashenko, the brutal dictator of Belarus?

As regards the Patriarch’s book, there is no Amazon or Google Books preview, and I’ve learned to be wary of polemical reviews that reduce a book to a few unhappy quotations. In particular, I’d like to see rather more context for the reference to “Jewish philosophers” – I’ve seen no evidence that Kirill is anti-Jewish, and I find it difficult to believe that DLT would allow material of that sort.

However, the general authoritarian strand that Cohen detects is certainly very present in current Russian Orthodox thinking; I’ve noted it myself in the person of Vladimir Yakunin, a layman who is close to Putin and who runs Russia’s railways. Reports describe him variously as an “Orthodox Christian Chekist” and as ”the Kremlin’s model Orthodox businessman”. Yakunin’s authoritarianism was in evidence back in January, when he denounced anti-Putin protestors as having “no connection with democracy”. Last year, as co-chair of the World Public Forum (alongside – oddly – a Greek-American businessman with close links to Gen William “Jerry” Boykin and other figures in the US Christian Right), he opined on the “incompatibility between the neo-liberal interpretation of the system of human rights and the system of human values”, noting that “the universal urge to have the ‘freedom’ to say ‘anything and in any form’ has a temporary character and is beginning to fade away”.

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A July article in Roll Call (“The Newspaper of Capitol Hill”) profiles Chris Stewart, who will be a Congressman from Utah from November:

Stewart… is a conservative Republican who surprised political observers by winning Utah’s 2nd district nominating convention with more than 60 percent of the vote, thereby avoiding a primary.

…While in the USAF, he started writing, and his list of books includes a Latter Day Saints-like version of Tim LaHaye’s and Jerry B. Jenkins’ apocalyptic Christian fiction series “Left Behind,” as well as historical novels.

Stewart’s website notes that his latest book, “The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World,” was a New York Times bestseller. Conservative media personality Glenn Beck praised the book, which might explain its popularity.

The Miracle of Freedom is published by Shadow Mountain, but his “Latter Day Saints-like version” of the Left Behind series is published by Glenn Beck’s Mercury Ink. The series is entitled Wrath and Righteousness, and ten “episodes” are due to be published over the course of one year. Here’s part of the blurb for episode three:

The death of the Saudi King has removed the final barrier between peace and chaos. Prince Abdullah al-Raman, a pawn of Lucifer and the Forces of Darkness has taken over the throne and is now in a position to draw Israel and the United States into an unprecedented war.

…Against the backdrop of torn-from-the-headlines Middle Eastern drama, theWrath & Righteousness series is a fast-paced thriller that explores man’s role in the eternal battle between good and evil.

The books also come with a quote from Tim LaHaye:

“It really grips you… I lost a lot of sleep reading it.”

Beck has himself enthused over the books as “the Left Behind series for a new generation”; this may perhaps have annoyed Left Behind publisher Tyndale House, which posted an article to its website last year announcing “Tyndale Repackages ‘Left Behind’ Titles for New Generation of Readers” (new features include “test your prophecy IQ”).

The quote from LaHaye is a comment on Stewart’s literary style rather than a theological assessment, but it perhaps shows that LaHaye has mellowed over the years: back in 2004 he railed against his own publisher for publishing a novel that took a different theological perspective from his own, yet here he is now endorsing a book by a Mormon! However, the New York Observer reported in May that the books have been de-Mormonized. The original version was a series by Stewart called The Great and Terrible, which was published from 2003 to 2008 by the Deseret Book Company:

Mr. Beck rewrote them, removing references to Mormon scripture and gospel beliefs from the books, which the Wall Street Journal otherwise described as a blend of “Middle East politics, techno high jinks, and end-of-the-world derring-do.”

One difference from Left Behind is that although the Saudi “pawn of Lucifer” is perhaps not the same thing as the Antichrist, the series appears to be exploiting the popularity of the “Muslim Antichrist” theory, as expounded on Glenn Beck’s TV show by Joel Richardson (who occasionally stops by this blog to make a comment). LaHaye’s Antichrist, by contrast, reflects 1990s Christian Right anxieties: he’s an Eastern European, and the post-Rapture Secretary General of the United Nations. Christian Right arguments over the identity of the Antichrist can be bitter.

Mercury Ink was established last year, and its website showcases a few other books: there’s a science fiction series for young adults, by Richard Paul Evans, that “teaches important life lessons without ever preaching”; a non-fiction book by Paul Kengor on how Barack Obama’s ideas are derived from Frank Lloyd Davis’ communism; and We Are Brothers, billed as “The Official RESTORING COURAGE Photo Book” (more on “Restoring Courage” here).

However, Mercury Ink is also a “partner” with Simon & Schuster, which publishes Beck under its Threshold Editions conservative imprint. Beck announced last year that:

Mercury is also launching Mercury Ink, a new division that will discover, publish and promote books and authors that Glenn is passionate about across a variety of genres. The division will be run by Kevin Balfe, Mercury’s SVP of Publishing, who will acquire titles for the imprint. Mercury Ink titles will be co-published with Simon & Schuster.

There is at least one “Mercury Ink” title available from Simon & Schuster that does not appear on the Mercury Ink website; this is a book about Occupy Wall Street by “Buck Sexton, a former CIA counterterrorism and counterinsurgency analyst”.

There is currently speculation that Mercury Ink is the “much larger national publisher and distributor” which David Barton claims will re-publish his Thomas Jefferson book, following the book’s withdrawal from sale by Thomas Nelson. It seems likely: Beck regards Barton as “the most important man in America right now”, and the two men are close associates.

UPDATE: Publishers Weekly has confirmed (H/T Right Wing Watch) that Beck may be publishing Barton:

David Barton, author of The Jefferson Lies, which Thomas Nelson pulled from shelves last week, is in negotiations to publish a new edition of the book with Mercury Ink, Glenn Beck’s publishing arm.

…Barton said the new edition “will not include any substantive changes, but I will rephrase some things to remove any potential confusion.” He also plans to add back some of the content Nelson cut in their editing process…

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Timothy Furnish of MahdiWatch casts an eye over a recent Pew Forum study on “The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity“, based on “38,000 face-to-face interviews in over 80 languages”:

Of the 23 countries whose Muslim citizens were polled, nine have majorities which expect the Mahdi in their lifetimes, with the overall average percentage at 41.8%–and considering the huge samples and wide geographic latitude which Pew used, it is safe to extrapolate this percentage to Islam as a whole; ergo, 42% of 1.6 billion = 672 million Muslims who believe in the Mahdi’s imminent return!

That “ergo” is dodgy: the Pew Report discusses percentages within particular countries, but does not reference the total population figures for those countries. Further, although Furnish notes that Iran is missing from the study, and that this would have perhaps allowed him to “extrapolate” an even larger percentage, the report also ignores Muslim minorities in the West and in countries such as India, China or the Philippines (US Muslims are considered in an Appendix, although they were apparently not asked about the Mahdi).

Furnish’s worry is that increasing belief in the Mahdi means an increased likelihood of messianic violence:

(An)other violent Mahdist movement(s) in the 21st century seems very likely: if even 1% of 672 million is so inclined, that makes 6.72 million potential jihadist believers in the Mahdi …Even more likely is a political consolidation movement among several Islamic countries or regions centered around a charismatic leader claiming the Mahdiyah; if just 20 or 30% of the legions who believe in the Mahdi can be convinced to put a claimant in charge, he would have between 100-200 million supporters!

That “just 20 or 30%” is also dodgy: just because someone believes in the coming of the Mahdi, it hardly follows that he or she will therefore be convinced by anyone claiming to be the Mahdi. Movements around past claimants have always either remained localized or resulted in the creation of smaller breakaway religious groups. How is this “just 20 or 30%” figure to be achieved? I suppose one could opine very generally about the potential of the mass media or the development of larger Islamic blocs in the future, but this is all highly speculative. The most obvious comparator is also unencouraging: most strands of Judaism affirm the coming of the Messiah, but Messianic claimants have  also only ever succeeded in attracting a minority of Jewish adherents.

There is also reason to be sceptical about how the Pew study has been used. First, the study tells us nothing about the extent to which belief in the Mahdi has increased, although in the case of Turkey, Furnish suggests that particular ideologues have promoted the idea:

Turkey’s population, overwhemingly Sunni, is being swayed by the “soft (and peaceful) Mahdism” of two major public intellectuals and Turkish Mahdists–Adnan Oktar (“Harun Yahya”) and Fethullah Gülen…

(I’ve blogged on both Yahya and Gülen)

Second, the nature of “belief” requires qualitative understanding. Many Christians, if asked, will affirm the imminent return of Christ, but the concept doesn’t really form a operative part of their religious identity or thinking. It’s true that some Christians are more actively interested in the subject, consuming the works of apocalyptic evangelists, just as a wider segment of the general public expresses enthusiasm for pop interpretations of Nostradamaus or claims about the Mayan Calender – but this hardly ever translates into patterns of personal behaviour that make sense only in relation to an imminent divine intervention, let alone at a macro level. The same is probably true for Muslims; indeed, many Pew respondents may well have never given the subject of the Mahdi any thought before now, but decided nevertheless to give an “orthodox” affirmative answer when asked.

Certainly, there have been Mahdist movements in the past, and the possibility of new “jihadist believers in the Mahdi” cannot be discounted. However, the general principle behind this observation, that extremists are sometimes motivated by charismatic leaders, is so obvious as to be hardly worth stating. The whole approach seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse: a charismatic figure might be able to persuade a large number of Muslims that he is the Mahdi, but that would be more likely to be a confirmation of his charisma rather than a source of charismatic power.

Perhaps we should keep a special look-out for blacked-up English thespians attempting to out-ham Vincent Price:

(H/T Joel Richardson, who sees this as further evidence that the Muslim world will come under the sway of a Muslim Antichrist)

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Michelle Goldberg writes:

At the Rediscovering God in America conference in 2011, Mike Huckabee gave an impassioned introduction to David Barton, the religious right’s favorite revisionist historian. “I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced—at gunpoint, no less—to listen to every David Barton message,” he said. “And I think our country would be better for it.”

…In 2010, Glenn Beck called him called him ”the most important man in America right now.”…

But now, suddenly, Barton’s reputation is in freefall… Earlier this week, the evangelical World magazine published a piece about the growing number of conservative Christian scholars questioning his work. Then, on Thursday, Thomas Nelson, the world’s largest Christian publisher, recalled Barton’s most recent book, the bestselling The Jefferson Lies, saying it had “lost confidence in the book’s details.”

At Talk to Action, Rachel Tabachnick adds (some links added):

Talk2action.org contributors have referenced or featured David Barton in over 250 articles, including detailed debunking of his revisionist histories by Chris Rodda and Rob Boston, and updates from both Frederick Clarkson and Bill Berkowitz this week

David Barton has been a superstar in some Christian Right circles for many years, but gained more notice from the larger public with his numerous appearances with Glenn Beck. Barton coached “prayer warriors” in conference calls prior to Beck’s Restoring Honor event on the Mall in D.C. in August 2010. Barton also accompanied Beck on his trips to Israel in 2011, and was featured along with Beck and John Hagee at the “Restoring Courage” events held there.  At Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Love” event in Dallas on July 28, he promoted a David Barton talking point,  showing the audience a Bible that he claims was printed by Congress in the late 1700s.

I looked at the Beck/Barton relationship here.

A report in the Tennessean suggests that a particular concern for Thomas Nelson was Barton’s attempts to gloss over Jefferson’s attitudes towards race and slavery:

“‘The Jefferson Lies’ glosses over Jefferson’s real record on slaveholding, and minimizes Jefferson’s racist views,” said the Rev. Damon Lynch of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, an African-American congregation in Cincinnati.

Lynch said he and other ministers from diverse backgrounds had contacted Nelson about their concerns. He said that if the book hadn’t been canceled, he would have boycotted Nelson.

“We love Thomas Nelson,” he said. “My library is filled with Thomas Nelson books and I didn’t want to stop doing business with them.”

In response to Thomas Nelson recalling the book, Barton now boasts that:

…the book has already been picked up by a much larger national publisher and distributor.

For some reason, Barton doesn’t name this new publisher – and given that Thomas Nelson was very recently acquired by HarperCollins (retaining Thomas Nelson’s CEO, Mark Schoenwald), it’s difficult to imagine what company could be called a “larger national publisher”.

Meanwhile, Barton’s defenders have gone on the attack. Here’s Rick Green (H/T Ed Brayton), who co-hosts a radio show with Barton:

Question: What do elitist professors have in common with Adolf Hitler & Saul Alinsky?
Answer: They masterfully use the powerful art of innuendo to falsely defame those with which they disagree.

Green has also challenged critics – and in particular Chris Rodda, author of a book debunking Barton entitled Liars for Jesus - to present specific examples of Barton distorting history; Chris has responded in the comments section of his site, although so far her answer remains unpublished and “in moderation”.

Meanwhile, anti-gay evangelist Scott Lively sees a gay conspiracy (link added):

[Warren] Throckmorton, the chief critic of Jefferson Lies, is heavily quoted in the Christian media in the attacks on Barton, and has written his own book to rebut it called Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President.

Why, one might wonder, is a psychology professor so heavily invested in refuting David Barton’s claims about Thomas Jefferson’s Christianity?

…I have my own little conspiracy theory and it centers on David Barton’s emergence as a vocal opponent of the “gay rights” movement and Throckmorton’s self-appointed role as the saboteur of such people. If you “Google” “David Barton” and “Homosexuality” you will find that Mr. Barton has become a subject of intense vilification in the “gay” blogosphere.

Throckmorton’s website is here, and I discussed Lively’s activism here. Lively knows a thing or two about churning out distorted pseudo-history; he’s the co-author of The Pink Swastika, which claims that the Nazi persecution of homosexuals is a myth, and that gay people had a “central role in Nazism”.

However, while Thomas Nelson may have “lost confidence” in Barton, a look at the company’s website shows that it remains happy to promote other books and authors of a dubious nature. For example, there’s Ascent from Darkness, an ”ex-Satanist” memoir by a certain Mike Leehan. Swallowing the Camel notes some familiar problems:

It’s quite typical of ex-Satanist testimonies. We don’t know where Mike Leehan resides, where he grew up, or which Satanic group he joined. He vaguely mentions sacrifices, bloodletting, and Satanists’ unquenchable thirst for “power” (in these testimonies, explanations of Satanic beliefs rarely go beyond “power”). Then he tells us the Devil once commanded him to shoot the pastor who is filming the testimony.

Given the fiascos and tragedies that have followed in the wake of previous publications of this sort, one would have thought that Thomas Nelson would have shown a bit of interest in the need for verifiable information.

Also on offer is the best-selling Heaven is For Real, in which a pastor’s son (through “conversations” with his father) describes a near-death experience involving a journey to heaven where he encountered dead relatives, the throne room where God the Father sits with Jesus and Gabriel on either side, John the Baptist,  various winged creatures, and Jesus’ “rainbow horse”.

The site also carries a book about the threat from Iran co-authored by Jerome Corsi, the notorious birther who recently put forward the suggestion that Obama may perhaps have formerly been married to a Pakistani man. There are also innumerable screeds from John Hagee, including one ludicrously outdated 1996 work explaining how the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is linked to “the coming Antichrist”.

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(Photo taken by Akin Akintayo, who has some scathing commentary here)

Nigeria’s Daily Times discusses recent birthday plans for James Ibori, former Governor of Delta State and currently serving 13 years in prison in the UK for committing massive fraud:

In a statement on Thursday, the James Ibori Political Associates (JIPA) said the celebration – ‘Birthday of Reconciliation’ will feature a “praise and worship service presided over by three eminent men of the cloth”.

Chairman and Secretary of the group, Thomas Ereyitomi, and Jaro Egbo, explained that “the South South Vice President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop God-Do-Well Avwomakpa, would be the guest preacher; while Rev Gbejero and Rev. Oyibo would also minister”.

A full page advert was taken out in a national daily to announce this celebration. In the advert, the former governor was described as “The Living Legend of Resource Control Struggle”.

Certainly, Ibori knows a thing or two about “resource control struggle”: he has admitted to stealing £50 million, and even that figure was described by the judge as being probably “ludicrously low”. Rev Oyibo is Gideon Oyibo, chairman of CAN in Delta State; Rev Gbejero is Stephen E. Gbejoro (sic for spelling), a local televangelist. The event was cancelled a few days after this report, due to the death of Ibori’s brother.

A similar event was held last year; Elombah reported:

The gathering marked Ibori’s birthday through speeches, prayers by several pastors and finally dancing as music was provided by a live band… Several pastors quoted the bible copiously to show that great men have suffered greatly in the hands of their enemies, only to be vindicated by God in the end. God will vindicate Ibori, they prayed God to save Ibori from the hands of his political enemies.

And the year before that, Gbejoro had given a thundering sermon at a birthday dinner, as reported in the Vanguard:

WARRI BENEFICIARIES of the philanthropic gestures of former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, who now exhibit greed and ingratitude should expect the wrath of God Almighty.

A Warri-based clergy, Rev. Stephen Gbejoro,  made this assertion, while speaking at a dinner organised by the Pro-Ibori Group to mark the 52nd birthday of the  embattled former Governor, saying, God always appreciates those who show gratitude for any assistance rendered to them by anybody.

Avwomakpa and Oyibo are also close to the current governor of Delta State, Emmanuel Uduaghan, who is Ibori’s cousin. Here’s an undated report (probably from 2008) on the Office of the Governor’s website:

In an exhortation, the state chairman of Christian Association Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop God-Do-Well Avwomakpa described Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan as a man who has emulated the biblical King David in a show of constant thankfulness to God.

The CAN Chairman, who admonished traditional rulers to always remove their head wears when in the presence of God as ‘Christ is the King of Kings’, said every man that honors God through thanksgiving must get the favour of the Almighty.

Uduaghan was a strong supporter of his relative and predecessor; an article byMichael Egbejumi-David at Sahara Reporters has some background detail:

…On 1 October 2007 when a court in London initially ruled that Ibori’s seized UK assets be released to him, same day, back in Government House, Uduaghan hurriedly arranged a thanksgiving service.  The usual suspects were all in attendance.  Leading that service was one Reverend God-do-well Avwomakpa, the then Delta State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria.  During that service, Uduaghan announced that Ibori was a wealthy man before he became governor.  He added, quite heartlessly, that Ibori’s eight year sojourn in Government House impoverished the man as Ibori’s businesses suffered. 

This highlights the dynamic between political and religious “Big Men” in Nigeria; a profile of Uduaghan by Victor Sorokwu in the People Monthly (also undated, but probably early 2011) adds that:

Another strategy adopted by Governor Uduaghan in running the State is involving Christian and religious leaders as go-between government and the people. The governor had consulted and promised the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that if reelected into office, he would consult Christian leaders from time to time in the governance of the state. An accord was thus reached between the governor and notable church leaders like the National President of CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the state Chairman of CAN, Arch-Bishop God-Do-Well Awomakpa, among others. Moreover, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has built a strong spiritual bond with the Archbishop Metropolitan and Primate of Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, whom he referred to as a strong spiritual pillar of his administration and a strong supporter of his leadership of the state.

CAN has received generous payback for its support; The Pointer reported in May that:

ENCOURAGED by the prudent management of the N50 million Micro-credit loan given by the Delta State Government to the state council of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for the empowerment of its members, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has announced an additional N100 million micro-credit facility to the body.

…He also explained that the gesture informed the appointment of a Catholic Priest as Chairman of the State Scholarship Board, adding that “Christian’s worked hard to ensure that I become governor, so  I have no apology asking them to nominate people into government”.

…Speaking after administering  the relevant oath on the new Delta State CAN chairman, Rev. Gideon Oyibo, and members of his Executive,  South-South Chairman of CAN, Apostle Geofrey Numbere, urged them to improve on the achievements of the out-gone Executive, led by Archbishop God-Do-well  Avwomakpa.

Footnote

The latest issue of Private Eye magazine (1320) has a long special report by Richard Brooks on how Ibori laundered millions of pounds through British banks, despite safeguards which should have triggered warnings:

The relentless deposits of cash at HSBC branches across the capital, accompanied by transfers to the accounts of somebody known to be a “politically exposed person” (PEP), and thus subject to even greater levels of scrutiny, would not have survived the most cursory inspection and ought to have raised the alarm at HSBC and Barclays… Instead British high street banks facilitated the most sumptuous lifestyles at the expense of the Nigerian people.

Apparently the HSBC branch at East Ham “proved particularly receptive, swallowing up £90,000 cash over eight days in December 2003, including £35,800 on a single visit”.

The Eye also notes a “bizarre intervention” made by Tony Baldry MP in 2010. Baldry

…wrote – in his capacity as a barrister – to the then foreign secretary David Miliband on the instructions of one of Ibori’s solicitors, Sarosh Zaiwalla. Baldry’s own libel solicitor, later objecting to a blogger’s reference to the story, described the letter’s purpose as pointing out that once the case was resolved ‘relevant agencies might want to reflect on lessons learned’.

The blogger was Richard Wilson, who writes more about the matter here. Baldry wanted it made clear he had acted for Ibori in his capacity as a barrister, rather than as an MP; the Independent on Sunday had issued an apology for incorrectly suggesting Baldry had engaged in “lobbying”. Richard draws attention to some commentary from the time by David Allen Green in the Lawyer.

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A story from Grand Rapids, via J. Bennett Rylah (H/T Ed Brayton):

At the moment when I walked into Gay Day this past Saturday, it was surreal, like some kind of charming French romance… But, OH, we couldn’t have that for long. A group of protestors showed up to harass from the other side of a chain link fence. They came armed with Bibles. And it wasn’t the usual, “repent or go to Hell.” Rather, it was the decree that all races would war against each other and the losers would have their women ravished. Which, according to one of the vitrolic protestors meant, “you ass is gonna get raped.”

The above video shows the “preachers” making a specific threat to rape, and crudely warning a woman to keep her “pussy clean” for “when it happens”.

All Michigan has further details:

The non-profit Tolerance, Equality and Awareness Movement, or TEAM, has posted a letter to its Web site urging police to prosecute unidentified protesters who allegedly made rape and death threats at the event organized by the East Hills Council of Neighbors to celebrate the community’s diversity.

…TEAM posted to its Web site a YouTube video of what appears to be a protester using an ancient Bible prophecy about Babylon to justify raping a Gay Day participant. (Caution: the video clip contains foul language).

It shouldn’t be too difficult for the police to identify the protestors, since their robes and posters as shown in a photo on the All Michigan website reveal them to be members of a Hebrew Israelite group: most distinctively, one of the group’s signs shows a traditional white American devotional portrait of Jesus, to which has been added horns and the commentary (in English and Spanish): “THIS IS THE DEVIL / THIS IMAGE IS NOT BIBLICAL / JESUS IS A NEGRO NOT A WHITEMAN”.

The same poster was seen by blogger Zomblog in Berkeley in 2009, and there are other examples on-line, including this one from Dallas. The bottom corner of the poster incorporates a second portrait, traditionally thought to be of Cesare Borgia; Hebrew Israelites believe that mainstream images of Jesus are based on his face.

A photographer uploaded a photo of the preachers in Grand Rapids last October; one of the men in the photo holds a painting of some UFOs, declared to be “THE CHARIOTS OF GOD”. Videos of preaching in Grand Rapids have also been uploaded to Daily Motion by a member of the group using the name “riseofisrael”.

The SPLC has some general background to the movement:

Around the country, thousands of men and women have joined black supremacist groups on the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement, a black nationalist theology that dates back to the 19th century.

Since 2000, when the prophecy of a key leader failed to materialize (he predicted Christ would return to Earth at the dawn of the new millennium to wreak bloody vengeance on white people), the rhetoric of extremist Hebrew Israelites sects has been steadily heating up, with increasing talk of an impending apocalypse and God-ordained race war. At the same time, a magnetic young leader, who counts among his disciples the lead singer of a top-selling R&B group, emerged and rapidly expanded a movement that was previously concentrated in black inner-city neighborhoods on the East Coast. There are now extremist Hebrew Israelite churches in cities throughout Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Oregon.

Confrontations between Hebrew Israelite street preachers and their perceived enemies are growing uglier and gaining increasing attention through video clips circulated to legions of viewers on websites like YouTube…

In June, the leader of a Black Hebrew sect pleaded guilty to killing a four-year old boy in 2010 “because he thought the child was gay”.

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On-line thug Charlie Flowers fantasises about Tim Ireland being shot in the head:

‘Ermmmmm… ah. That’s Tom Wales, the guy that used to stalk women MPs. Someone kill him please.’
Duckie walked forward. Tom Wales had reached the window and was trying to lever himself out over the ledge. She pulled a pistol from her waistband and tapped him on the back.
‘Oi. You. You sappy little mug.’
He rolled onto his back and started to beg. She shot him in the right eye.

The above formed part of a gun massacre fantasy recently posted to Facebook, which I discussed here; it was just the latest outburst in a long campaign of attempted intimidation which has followed from Tim’s discovery that individuals involved with a now-defunct self-styled “on-line terror tracker” outfit called the VIGIL Network were dishonest (full story here; I’ve also been targeted).

The claim that Tim “used to stalk women MPs” is of course a libel, derived from Nadine Dorries; Dorries frequently cries “stalker” when her performance as an MP is subjected to critical scrutiny, and the list of those she has reported to the police includes her Liberal Democrat rival at the last election.

In 2010, Dorries complained to police about Tim’s non-disruptive presence at an election hustings at Flitwick, to which he had been invited by constituents, and with consent of the organisers, to film the event. Tim subsequently spoke with police voluntarily; they confirmed that he had done nothing wrong, but warned him that Dorries’ (supposed) perception of his presence in Flitwick meant that “others could construe this type of behaviour as harassment or stalking”.

Dorries deliberately misrepresented this to suggest that police regarded Tim as someone who had broken the law. Dorries’ interpretation was then promoted by the Conservative blogger Iain Dale; one would have thought that any half-decent blogger/journalist would be alarmed and sceptical at an MP using the police in this way, but Dale also hates Tim and has previously deployed the “stalker” smear himself. Flowers has explicitly referenced Dale, while Dorries has made public and private use of a smear site created by VIGIL’s former director. This site has posted private information about where Tim lives, and its owner subsequently posted a fantasy in which Tim and I are run over by a car.

Tim reminded Dale of all this yesterday, on Twitter:

Asked @IainDale to retract false claims he published that have been used to legitimise ‘joking’ death threats against me. So far: nothing (1)

Followed by:

Try to imagine how that liar/hypocrite @IainDale would react if I published a story about my shooting @NadineDorriesMP trhough the brain. (2)

This second tweet was then picked up on by the conservative activist Harry Cole, who used it out of context to allege that Tim was making a threat against Dorries:

The much loved Bloggerheads ladies and gentleman. Tweeting about shooting Dorries in the head (3)

This was then RT-ed by Dorries herself. It should be remembered that although Dorries is an ordinary backbencher who has achieved nothing special as a public servant, she has managed to carve out an exceptionally high and self-perpetuating media profile as a “rent-a-quote” MP; a recent Tweet in which she expressed her view that William Hague ought to replace George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer unaccountably even made it onto the BBC News channel’s “Breaking News” ribbon.

Cole, it should be recalled, has a history of unpleasant on-line behaviour: when one of Tim’s stalkers contacted him with bogus information, Cole had the good sense to realise it was nonsense but went on to make use of it anyway, by claiming that it must have been sent by Tim as a “sting”. When the true situation was explained to him, he refused to share metadata that might have been of use to police, and then obtusely claimed that he was himself now being unfairly accused of making a threat. Prior to that incident, he was probably the channel through which a smear directed against disabled woman who had criticised Dorries appeared on Paul Staines’ blog.

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Pamela Geller describes Saturday’s “Counter-Jihad” rally in Stockholm:

…What has emerged from an intense forty-eight hour strategy session is the first activist leadership team uniting counter-jihadists in Europe, the U.S., and Australia: the President’s Council of Stop Islamization of Nations (SION).

The initial members of the President’s Council are SIOE’s Anders Gravers; Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll of the EDL; Debbie Robinson of the Q Society of Australia, Robert Spencer and me. The members of the newly formed council unanimously voted to elect me Council President. I am honored. This is a momentous beginning to what I am confident will become a powerful force for defending freedom worldwide.

No surprises there, then – the “Q Society” and Debbie Robinson are less-known than the other figures, but Robert Spencer is the organisation’s “International Patron” and he was brought to Australia by the group at the end of last year. Hope Not Hate also lists Walid Shoebat as being a patron, although there is no evidence of this on the Q Society website.

The Q Society was founded in late 2010 to save Australia from “Islamisation”; although the organisation appears to be secular, its president, a man named Geoff Dickson, interprets Islam through his own religious beliefs. This can be seen from his articles on Australian Islamist Monitor, where he explains that:

The world is perhaps not far off from solving one of the great mysteries in revealing the true identity of the promised AntiChrist that was predicted in the Bible in the Book of Revelation around 100AD and which can be shown to be entwined with Islamic prophecy. Islam is awaiting the rise of the Caliphate which was killed off in 1924 by Mustafa Ataturk.

…The seventh century BC prophet Isaiah named Satan / Lucifer as “Hilal ben Sahar” in Isaiah 14:12 and it is translated in English as Lucifer, son of Dawn. However Hilal means “shining one” in Hebrew and “Moon crescent” in Ethopian.

…The black stone of Mecca is clearly an image of Satan/Allah.

…Islam is indeed the product of Satan and should be opposed by all free thinking people.

However, Dickson’s commitment to “free thinking” is somewhat limited: he also calls for Islam to be banned outright.

Dickson’s religious views are derived from Walid Shoebat and Joel Richardson – Spencer has also provided the cover blurbs for Richardson’s apocalyptic screeds, although it’s doubtful he shares such beliefs. It’s possible that Dickson’s religious views is why Geller’s “President’s Council” has opted for a link-up with one of Dickson’s deputies, rather than the man himself.

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