Hammond and his ministries have a controversial history, and his perspective is one of belligerent fundamentalism, anti-Communism and anti-Islamicism. Here's a taster from the African Christian Action Newsletter:
When the President of South Africa calls for "an African Renaissance", what exactly does he mean? Is he calling us to the humanism of the European Renaissance that culminated in the French Revolution and the Soviet Gulags? Or is he merely desiring a return to the pre-Christian Paganism and Animism that afflicted Africa prior to the spread of the Gospel? Naturally, Hammond has links with the hard-core Christian dominionists of the Chalcedon Foundation. Hammond is British, but he served in the South African National "Defence Force" in the 1980s. An essay by Jeffrey Marishane (1) has some background:
...Foremost among such [right-wing Chrisitan] groups is Frontline Fellowship, formerly known as the Motorbike Mission. Formed in 1981 as a prayer fellowship within SADF ranks, Frontline Fellowship is led by its founder, Peter Christopher Hammond...and is one of the groups affiliated with [United Christian Action]. The UCA is an umbrella body for several Christian groups, and at that time was headed by Ed Cain, who was also associated with Fred Shaw's Christian League of Southern Africa. CLSA was named as a secret beneficiary of state funding by Eschel Rhoodie before his death in 1993, although Hammond rejects similar accusations against the UCA ("The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, Volume two, Chapter six is entitled 'Special Investigation into Secret State Funding'. It deals exhaustively with the former government's secret projects, naming the projects of the defence force, foreign affairs, the police, national intelligence and the education department. Nowhere does United Christian Action appear."). Frontline Fellowship at this time was particularly concerned with "persecuted churches in Mozambique, Angola and the Cape Verde Islands"; critics charged that it was a front for the deployment of South African military men in Southern Africa under the guise of being "missionaries", and in October 1988 Hammond and some associates were detained for a week in Mozambique. This was exactly a year after an arrest in Zambia; this undated essay by Brian M. Abshire has some details, which I'll quote at length:
Peter Hammond, South African missionary to the persecuted church and director of Frontline Fellowship, recently briefed me on one of the most exciting developments in central Africa, the Christian Reconstruction of Zambia. Pastor John Jere, incidentally, now runs a church which is part of the Every Nation neo-Pentecostal organization; we discussed this grouping on Talk to Action here. There's no space here to discuss Chiluba and Zambia as a "Christian nation"; I would advise all those interested to read Paul Gifford's book African Christianity: Its Public Role. The "Biblical Worldview Seminars" (BWS) have become a particular strategy used in by Hammond and his team in various African countries, along with the wide distribution of his book Biblical Principles for Africa. Hammond has maintained a public profile in the post-Cold War world; his many books have been praised by the likes of Joseph Farah and D. James Kennedy. One publication, however, became the focus of a free-speech debate in 2002:
At the end of January, the newly released book The Pink Agenda became the first non-pornographic book since 1994 to be lobbied for banning. Written with the underlying Biblical belief that the homosexual lifestyle is wrong in God's eyes, author Christine McCafferty, along with Peter Hammond, wrote The Pink Agenda in an attempt to engage South African society in an open debate concerning what they outline in the book to be a homosexual agenda in South Africa....After the book's publication there was an immediate and outraged response from the Gay and Lesbian Equality Project, saying the book "instills hatred" and is "the worst homophobic hate speech ever published in South Africa." Claiming that the book "instills hatred" is of course a direct plea to consider The Pink Agenda as one of the few types of speech that is specifically not protected in our constitution...The book was brought up for review by the Film and Publications Board at the end of January, with their final ruling being that the book should be sold with an adults-only age restriction. Those under 18 would not be allowed to read it since it promotes a viewpoint, and draws conclusions from research, that are considered, as one reviewer put it, "close to constituting hate speech." Hammond and Van Wyk's newsletter claimed that this was "homo-fascism", and that the legalisation of sodomy was just one of many "privileges for perverts". A few months later, Hammond was arrested in the Sudan while giving a "Biblical Worldview Seminar"; WND reported:
Rebel forces in southern Sudan detained an Anglican bishop and a missionary on charges of "treason and insurrection," according to a U.S.-based evangelical Protestant group. That's probably the case; the SPLA has no problem in principle with foreign missionaries, and I blogged a while back on the case of Sam Childers, a pastor from Florida who is also an SPLA commander. Hammond was released a few days later, and he claims the incident was a conspiracy orchestrated by Khartoum.
Last year, Hammond was arrested yet again - this time in South Africa, and in circumstances not lacking in bathos:
The victim apparently hurt his jaw.
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Peter Hammond and Christian Reconstuctionism in Africa | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
Peter Hammond and Christian Reconstuctionism in Africa | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
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