Ireland Bars Christian Fundamentalist Pastor from Entering Country

THE GUARDIAN: Immigration law used for first time to deny entry to anti-gay preacher Steven Anderson

An anti-gay US Christian fundamentalist pastor who has been accused of Holocaust denial has become the first person to be barred from entering Ireland under a 20-year-old immigration law.

Steven Anderson was due to travel to Dublin on 26 May to preach in the city, but the Irish justice minister, Charlie Flanagan, took the unusual step to ban him from coming into the country.

More than 14,000 people signed an online petition set up by the Christian gay rights campaign group Changing Attitude Ireland calling on the Irish government to block Anderson’s trip to the country. The organisation claimed that in the past he had “advocated exterminating LGBT+ people”.

Confirming the barring order under the 1999 Immigration Act, Flanagan said: “I have signed the exclusion order under my executive powers in the interest of public policy.”

It is the first time the Irish government has used the legislation to bar anyone from the country. » | Henry McDonald | Monday, May 13, 2019

Attorney General: Rise of Fundamentalism Is 'Damaging' Christianity

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The rise of religious fundamentalists with a 'deep intolerance' to other people's views has made Christians reluctant to express their beliefs, Dominic Grieve warns

Christians are increasingly reluctant to express their religious views because they are being “turned off” by the “disturbing” and “very damaging” rise of religious fundamentalism, the Attorney General has said.

Dominic Grieve said that atheists who claim that Britain is no longer a Christian nation are “deluding themselves” and must accept that faith has shaped this country’s laws and ethics.

He said that 1,500 years of Christian values are “not going to disappear overnight” and said that many people remain believers even if they choose not to go to Church.

However, he warned people are being discouraged from openly declaring their beliefs because of the “deep intolerance” of religious extremists of all faiths, including Islam and Christianity.

He told The Telegraph: “I do think that there has been a rise of an assertiveness of religious groups across the spectrum. That is why those with softer religious views find it disturbing and say they don’t want anything to do with it.” » | Steven Swinford, and John Bingham | Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Why a Bible Belt Conservative Spent a Year Pretending to Be Gay

THE OBSERVER: Timothy Kurek, a graduate of the evangelical Liberty University, decided to 'walk in the shoes' of a gay man and emerged with his faith strengthened

Timothy Kurek grew up hating homosexuality. As a conservative Christian deep in America's Bible belt, he had been taught that being gay was an abomination before God. He went to his right-wing church, saw himself as a soldier for Christ and attended Liberty University, the "evangelical West Point".

But when a Christian friend in a karaoke bar told him how her family had kicked her out when she revealed she was a lesbian, Kurek began to question profoundly his beliefs and religious teaching. Amazingly, the 26-year-old decided to "walk in the shoes" of a gay man in America by pretending to be homosexual.

For an entire year Kurek lived "under cover" as a homosexual in his home town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends and his church. Only two pals and an aunt – used to keep an eye on how his mother coped with the news – knew his secret. One friend, a gay man called Shawn – whom Kurek describes as a "big black burly teddy bear" – pretended to be his boyfriend. Kurek got a job in a gay cafe, hung out in a gay bar and joined a gay softball league, all the while maintaining his inner identity as a straight Christian.

The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006'sSelf-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a man. "In order to walk in their shoes, I had to have the experience of being gay. I had to come out to my friends and family and the world as a gay man," he told the Observer.

Kurek's account of his year being gay is an emotional, honest and at times hilarious account of a journey that begins with him as a strait-laced yet questioning conservative, and ends up with him reaffirming his faith while also embracing the cause of gay equality. » | Paul Harris, New York | Saturday, October 13, 2012

US Pastor's Anti-gay Sermon Goes Viral
The rural US town of Maiden in North Carolina has become the latest flashpoint in an often bitter national debate about gay rights. Arguments from either side intensified after President Barack Obama earlier this month declared his support for gay marriage. In rural America's so called, "Bible Belt", many pastors have been rhetorical and at times hateful in their condemnation. A recent sermon posted online by a pastor, in which he outlines a plan to imprison homosexuals behind an electric fence and keep them there until they die, has gone viral. Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reports from Maiden.

Florida Pastor Does Not Plan To Burn More Qurans
NPR: The pastor of a Florida church says he does not plan to burn any more Qurans — but Terry Jones has said that before.

Jones first made headlines around the world last September, when he announced — and then called off — plans to publicly burn a copy of the Quran at his church in Gainesville, Fla. But on March 20, he actually did it — and though it drew little media attention at the time, it has since sparked protests in Afghanistan that have claimed 20 lives.

Jones' event was markedly different from the scene outside his church last year, when reporters, cameras and satellite trucks made him a dubious worldwide celebrity — at least for a while.

To make sure the word got out, Jones' church, the Dove World Outreach Center, videotaped the event and put it up on its website. It was a mock trial, complete with a prosecutor, a jury of church members and a judge played by Jones himself. The charges: "The Quran is charged with death, rape, torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith."

At the conclusion of the trial, Jones and his jurors pronounce the Quran guilty, and a kerosene-soaked copy of the Muslim holy book is placed on a barbecue grill and set aflame.

Jones says he did it to raise awareness about the nature of radical Islam and was surprised when it attracted little notice at first. A few days later, however, the small flame Jones lit in Gainesville was kindled into something much larger half a world away.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the act, leading to a series of protests in Afghanistan that have claimed more than 20 lives, including those of seven U.N. employees.

Jones says he feels no responsibility for those deaths. » | Greg Allen | Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Pastor Terry Jones Is No More to Blame for the Afghan Violence than Martin Scorsese Was for the Shooting of Ronald Reagan
TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – BRENDAN O’NIELL: The American pastor Terry Jones might be a bit of a weirdo with an unhealthy obsession with the Koran, but he’s right about one thing: he is not responsible for the fatal rioting in Afghanistan. His burning of the Koran can no more be blamed for those acts of violence than Martin Scorsese can be blamed for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. (Reagan’s wannabe assassin, John Hinckley Jnr, claimed to have been inspired by Taxi Driver.) The feverish attempts to pin the blame for the Afghan instability on Pastor Jones demonises freedom of speech as something terrifying, even murderous, and it treats Muslims as brainless, wide-eyed automatons who can’t be held responsible for their actions.

Jones’s burning of the Koran was daft. But it did not directly cause “the tragic, deadly violence” in Afghanistan, as one Pentagon spokesman claimed. To suggest that it did, to argue that Jones has “blood on his hands”, as the New York Daily News put it, is to overlook the fact that there is an important bridge between words and actions. That bridge is us, people, the audience, the public, who are possessed of free will and thought and who must make a decision about whether, and how, to act on the words we hear. The idea that words lead directly to action, that the image of a burning Koran in the US leads inevitably to violence in Afghanistan, is to cut out these middle men and present speech as an all-powerful force that dictates world events.

Such an outlook is dangerous for two reasons. First because there would be no limits to the curbing and policing of speech if we all bought into the mad notion that it can directly cause other people’s deaths. If words really are so dangerous, then surely they should be treated as just another weapon, like gun and knives, whose usage must be tightly controlled by the cops and powers-that-be? Already, post-Koran controversy, some Democratic politicians in the US are hinting that the First Amendment, which guarantees free expression, might need to be rethought, since certain forms of speech “endanger the lives of a lot of innocent people”. The consequence of calling into question the free will of people who hear or read certain words is to generate an Orwellian rush to clamp down on anything judged to be “problematic speech”. Continue reading and comment » | Brendan O'Neill | Monday, April 04, 2011

Pastor Terry Jones: 'I May Put Mohammed On Trial'
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Terry Jones, the radical pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran in his Florida church last month after a mock court hearing, may put the Islamic prophet Mohammed on trial in his next 'day of judgement', he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"It is definitely a consideration to stage a trial on the life of Mohammed in the future," he said in interview on Saturday.

Such an inflammatory move would almost certainly trigger further violent protests in the Muslim world. But Mr Jones struck an unapologetic stance, insisting that his actions bore no responsibility for the murders in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The pastor had first threatened to burn a pile of Korans on last year's ninth anniversary of the Sept 11 terror atrocities.

But he backed down under intense pressure, including interventions from President Barack Obama, defence secretary Robert Gates and Gen David Petraeus, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan who warned that such a stunt would endanger American lives.

Indeed, Mr Jones said then that a Koran would never be burned in his church.

But he claimed that last month's Koran-burning was different as the Islamic holy book had first been put on trial and was then set alight as punishment after it was found guilty of "crimes against humanity". » | Philip Sherwell | Saturday, April 02, 2011

Pastor Who Burned Koran Demands Retribution
THE NEW YORK TIMES: GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Before a Koran was burned at his modest church here on March 20, the pastor Terry Jones held a self-styled mock trial of the holy book in which he presided from the pulpit as judge. The prosecutor was a Christian who had converted from Islam. An imam from Dallas defended the Koran.

Sitting in judgment was a jury of 12 members of Mr. Jones’s church, the Dove World Outreach Center. After listening to arguments from both sides, the jury pronounced the Koran guilty of five “crimes against humanity,” including the promotion of terrorist acts and “the death, rape and torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith.”

Punishment was determined by the results of an online poll. Besides burning, the options included shredding, drowning and facing a firing squad. Mr. Jones, a nondenominational evangelical pastor, said voters had chosen to set fire to the book, according to a video of the proceedings.

Mr. Jones said in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday that he was “devastated” by the killings of 12 people in a violent protest in Afghanistan when a mob, enraged by the burning of a Koran by Mr. Jones’s church, attacked the United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. “We don’t feel responsible for that,” he told the news service. » | Lizette Alvarez and Don Van Natta Jr. | Friday, April 01, 2011

'Burn Koran' Pastor Reacts to UN Killings

Terry Jones Says Afghan U.N. Violence 'Proves My Point'
ABC NEWS: Florida Pastor Says He's Not Responsible for Protest Against his Koran Burning That Left 11 Dead, Including U.N. Staffers, in Afghanistan

Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran last month, said he did not feel responsible for the violent protest at a United Nations compound in Afghanistan today that left at least 11 dead. Instead, he said the violence proved his point.

"We wanted to raise awareness of this dangerous religion and dangerous element," Jones said. "I think [today's attack] proves that there is a radical element of Islam."

As for the 11 dead, which included seven U.N. staffers and guards, Jones told "Nightline" anchor Bill Weir, "We do not feel responsible, no."

The deaths followed a protest march in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif today against the Koran burning. Jones supervised while another pastor, Wayne Sapp, soaked the Koran in kerosene and burned it.

"We decided to put the Koran on trail," he told Weir. "I was the judge but I did not determine the verdict. I was just a type of referee so that people got their time to defend or condemn the Koran."

Jones said that a "jury" of people from all over Florida debated the radicalism of Islam, and the "Koran was found guilty." (+ video) » | Nick Schifrin, Agha Aleem, Lee Ferran and Matt Gutman | Saturday, April 02, 2011

Pastor Terry Jones: A Homophobic Used Furniture Salesman with a Love of Controversy
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Pastor Terry Jones is a homophobic used furniture salesman who has become famous solely through the use of controversy.

The 59-year-old runs the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainsville, Florida, whose congregation numbers just a few dozen.

The church is based in a 20-acre compound where Jones lives with his wife, Sylvia, and is said to regularly patrol the grounds with a pistol strapped to his hip.

He took over the church in 1996 on the death of its founder, Dr Don Northrup, after spending 20 years as a missionary in Europe, including Germany.

His chief enemies are homosexuals and Muslims, although he insists it is only radical Islam which he opposes.

In the most recent incident, which sparked the slaughter in Afghanistan, Pastor Jones was preaching at a service at his church on March 20 when his colleage, Pastor Wayne Sapp, set a copy of the Koran alight.

However, Pastor Jones denied any responsibility for the riot in Mazar-e Sharif, in which around 20 people died, including two who were reportedly beheaded, in what is the worst incident of its kind in recent years.

He said he was "absolutely not responsible" for the atrocities, and tried to move the conversation to Muslims, saying: "We must take a serious, serious look at Islam. It's a violent religion that promotes acts of violence. I believe we need to bring this before the UN." » | Andy Bloxham | Saturday, April 02, 2011

Rabidly Anti-Gay Fla. Pastor’s Bright Idea: ’Burn a Koran Day’
EDGE: An anti-gay pastor in Gainesville, Florida has come up with a plan to stand firm for righteousness: he’s calling on his followers to burn copies of the Qu’ran, the holy book of the Muslim faith.



Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World outreach Center has called for the burning of the Qu’ran--spelled with a common variant spelling, Koran, in the title of the church’s event, the "International Burn A Koran Day," which is scheduled to take place on September 11.



Text at the church’s website describes the Dove World Outreach Center as "a New Testament Church" that is "based on the Bible, the Word of God." The text indicates that the church subscribes to the notion that the end of the world is approaching: "We believe that God is calling a new generation in this end time--a generation of believers that is yielded to his Word and his will.



"Our Land needs strong churches that understand and fulfill God’s vision of restoration and reformation," the site’s text continues, "churches that are able to handle the revival we will see this century with the apostolic anointing, and bring Godly changes to our entire society." >>>

The Church Must Stand Up!


Islam Is of the Devil


Islam Is of the Devil, Part 2


Islam Is of the Devil, Part 3

Shaping the Religious Right: Drs. Tim and Beverly LaHaye are leading Christian voices

Greg Burke: Vatican Takes On Christian Fundamentalists
FOX NEWS – BLOGS: It’s not easy walking through the minefield called Middle Eastern politics, and a Vatican document released Sunday managed to criticize Israel, Egypt, Islam and even Christian fundamentalists.

The 46-page text, “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness,” will serve as a working document for an October meeting at the Vatican about the Mideast.

The document was made public Sunday, the final day of Pope Benedict’s visit to the island of Cyprus, and reflected the Church’s concern about the flight of Christians from the Holy Land as they leave to look for more opportunities and fewer problems elsewhere.

“The Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories is creating difficulties in everyday life, inhibiting freedom of movement, the economy and religious life,” the document said. “Moreover, certain Christian fundamentalist theologies use Sacred Scripture to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine.”

Many Evangelical Christians, especially Americans, have thrown their total and unwavering support behind the Jewish state in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read on and comment >>> Greg Burke | Sunday, June 06, 2010

Anti-gay Laws in Africa Are Product of American Religious Exports, Say Activists
TIMES ONLINE: When he arrived at Kampala’s Hotel Triangle for a three-day conference, the Rev Kapya Kaoma knew that he would not like what he heard.

The clue was in the event’s title — “Exposing the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda” — and in the line-up of guest speakers arranged by Stephen Langa, head of the Ugandan-based Family Life Network (FLN), and an outspoken advocate for the criminalisation of homosexuality in Uganda.

Given top billing at the event hosted by the FLN was Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries, an American conservative Christian group from California, and a Holocaust revisionist whose controversial book The Pink Swastika names homosexuals as “the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities.”

Weeks after the Kampala conference in March last year — which followed a meeting between the speakers and members of the Ugandan Parliament — a clause appeared in the country’s draft Anti-Homosexuality Bill recommending life imprisonment for certain homosexual “crimes” or, for “serial offenders”, the death sentence.

To Mr Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia who is project director of Political Research Associates — a Massachusetts-based progressive think-tank — it was further evidence of how America’s Christian Right has stoked intolerance to homosexuality in Africa.

After a 16-month investigation, during which he interviewed scores of witnesses in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria, Mr Kaoma concluded that Africa’s anti-gay crackdowns are, at least in part, “made in the USA”. >>> Jacqui Goddard in Miami and Jonathan Clayton in Nairobi | Saturday, May 22, 2010

Click here for related article.

The Right Hand of God
NEW STATESMAN: Christian fundamentalists form a noisy wing of the Conservative Party, and their influence is growing fast.

In May 2008, a triumphant-looking Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, adorned newspaper front pages when she launched a campaign to restrict abortion rights. Aided by those who called themselves Christian "fundamentalists", the Tory backbencher was championed by the right-wing press for standing up against "the abortion industry". Dorries and her allies eventually lost the campaign to reduce the legal time limit for abortion, but they were undeterred. This was always going to be a long-drawn-out battle. And they had God on their side.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the David Cameron project has been striking in its unwillingness to say much about faith. None of the inner circle of Cameron, George Osborne, Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton is regarded as particularly religious, and avoiding the subject is part of the Tory detoxification project. Yet there are signs that a change is afoot.

“Historically, there have been splits in the Conservative Party over religion. But the vast majority of the new MPs will be social Conservatives who have similar opinions to myself," Nadine Dorries tells the New Statesman. “I can think of half a dozen Conservatives that don't agree with me, but they're leaving at the next election - people like Andrew MacKay and David Curry. The new MPs that are coming in are all social Conservatives - people like Fiona Bruce, Philippa Stroud, Louise Bagshawe."

Cameron is not oblivious to his party's uneasy coalitions, and has stealthily started to unveil policies designed to shore up its increasingly loud, ultra-conservative Christian base. Recently, he told the Catholic Herald that he was a "big supporter" of faith schools and that there should be a review of the legal time limit for abortion. Is he likely to go further?

The answer may depend on how well the Christian right organises itself. Strong links have emerged between the religious right and some Tories, with support from the media. Some groups in the UK have received funding from US groups. Their aim isn't merely to push certain policies but, in copying tactics from their American counterparts, build a more sustainable, long-term movement that would change the face of British politics. >>> Sunny Hundal | Saturday, April 24, 2010

Michigan: FBI Raids Homes for Suspected 'Militia Associated' Behavior

Related:

THE TELEGRAPH: Christian Militia Group Members Arrested by FBI >>> | Monday, March 29, 2010

FBI Make Christian Militia Arrests
THE TELEGRAPH: The FBI has carried out a series of raids on Christian militia across America after they feared the groups were about to launch a bombing campaign in anticipation of Armageddon.

Nine members of a Christian militia group in the American Midwest were charged on Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and then blow up mourners at his funeral.

Members of the Hutaree, self-proclaimed "Christian warriors" who conduct paramilitary training in readiness for the arrival of the anti-Christ, were seized after a series of FBI raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

The nine – including a couple and their two sons – face charges that include attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, seditious conspiracy and teaching the use of explosives.

Prosecutors said the FBI moved in after learning that the group planned a violent reconnaissance mission some time in April.

Monitoring groups say that right-wing militia groups have enjoyed a dramatic resurgence amid growing anger at what they see as an oppressive federal government and fears of gun control.

The Michigan-based Hutaree view law enforcement agencies, including local police, as a "brotherhood" and an enemy, said prosecutors. >>> Tom Leonard in New York | Monday, March 29, 2010

Christian Militia Group Members Arrested by FBI
THE TELEGRAPH: FBI agents have arrested seven people in a series of raids targeting a Christian militia group.

The raids took place in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio over the weekend and were reportedly carried out by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in US District Court in Detroit later today.

A source close to the investigation in Washington, D.C. told the Detroit News that FBI agents were conducting activities in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group whose members describe themselves as Christian soldiers preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ. >>> | Monday, March 29, 2010

Painting: Google Images
Academics Fight Rise of Creationism at Universities
THE GUARDIAN: More students believe Darwin got it wrong / Royal Society challenges 'insidious problem'

A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur'an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists.

Earlier this month Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin's theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution.

In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society's event in April.

"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States." >>> Duncan Campbell | Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Pastor Steven Anderson: “Why I Hate Barack Obama!”


LE TEMPS:
Le pasteur qui prêche la mort du démon président >>> Jean-Claude Péclet | Vendredi 11 Septembre 2009

Faithful Word Baptist Church >>>