The British Far-Right Fringe at Prayer
Richard Bartholomew printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 05:48:08 AM EST
The recent publication online (by a disaffected ex-member) of an alleged British National Party membership list has brought to notice several alleged members who style themselves as "Rev" or who have religious affiliations. Further, the recent conviction of a Neo-Nazi would-be terrorist in the north of England has a link to Christian Identity.
The best-known "Rev" on the BNP list is Robert West, who runs a BNP-backed "Christian Council of Britain". West believes that races should be kept separate:
Adam and his descendants were commanded by God to fill the earth, not to come to one part of it, namely England. The refusal of Adam's surviving descendants through Noah to spread out led to God's judgement at Babel, and his confusing of the tongues.

The Christian Council of Britain is particularly hostile to perceived Marxism and to Islam, and although it is not particularly active West last year arranged a visit to the UK by the fanatically anti-gay American pseudo-psychologist Paul Cameron. British Blogger Edmund Standing, who monitors the far-right, notes that West recently was asked to preach at the BNP conference in Blackpool and that an extract is available online:
The bulk of the video is taken up with readings from John and Matthew regarding the incident of Jesus' 'cleansing' of the Temple, where money changers, people selling doves for sacrifice, and so on, were berated by Jesus, who became enraged and turned over some of their tables. In John's account there is much talk of 'the Jews' and in Matthew's account Jesus tells 'the Jews' that they have made the Temple into 'a den of thieves'.

I'll leave it up to you to decide why a BNP 'reverend' might find those passages particularly interesting.

A second BNP reverend is a certain Paul Barker. According to the Wakefield Express:

The Rev Paul Barker, of Fox Court in Durkar, told the Express this afternoon: "I'm furious. I used to be on the mailing list but I have never been a member. I don't know why my name has gone out on the list and I'm now considering the action I am going to take."

However, the website of the British People's Party - another fringe far-right party - includes a message allegedly from Barker on page dedicated to condolences on the death of the BNP's founder John Tyndall:
A SHORT  PRAYER   FROM  REVD  PAUL BARKER    FATHER  GOD  WE  THANK YOU FOR THE  LIFE OF   JOHN TYNDALL  HE WAS  A TRUE  SOLDIER  OF   GOD  MAY OUR FATHER TAKE  HIM  UNTO HIMSELF    AMEN

Amusingly, this comes directly below an Odinist opining on how Tyndall is in Valhalla.

Thirdly, we have Rev John Stanton, who joined the BNP for a short time but left following tearful appeals from family members. All three of these "Reverends", it should be noted, have obscure denominational affiliations - none of them, despite some media reports to the contrary, are ministers in the Church of England.

As well as these clerics, the list includes Colin Farquhar of the "Durham British-Israel Fellowship", which is associated with the British Israelite World Fellowship. Edmund Standing notes a link between Farquhar and Alan Campbell of Open Bible Ministries, Belfast, who promotes the teachings of "Dr. B Comparet", aka Bertrand Comparet. Comparet helped to found Christian Identity, and he was of course explicitly racist.

Standing adds that

In the year 2000, a website appeared at the address christianidentity.org.uk and continued until 2005. The self-styled 'pastor' who ran the website promoted the extreme 'two-seedline' [anti-Jewish] Identity 'theology' and provided a wealth of hardcore Identity teachings and links to numerous neo-Nazi organisations. The main organisation promoted by the `pastor' was the BNP...Investigating Christian Identity for an undergraduate essay, I contacted the 'pastor' posing as an Identity believer and duly received a couple of CDs, one featuring an Identity 'sermon' and one featuring a National Front era speech given by veteran Nazi and BNP founder John Tyndall.

Standing also notes a Christian Identity link missed by the media in reports of the recent conviction of a certain Nathan Worrell, who had links to several far-right and neo-Nazi organisations. Worrell, who lived in Grimsby, was found to have had explosives in his flat, and to have waged a hate campaign against a nearby mixed-race couple. The Beverley Guardian reported that:
Earlier the court heard how racist stickers had been left on the gate and a nearby lamppost of the home of a mixed-race couple.

The prosecution alleges that jobless Worrell was behind the "stickering" campaign, which lasted for a year. One sticker read: "Only inferior white women date outside their race. Be proud of your heritage. Don't be a race-mixing slut"


Standing adds:
Where might he have got the 'race-mixing slut' stickers from?

None other than 'Kingdom Identity Ministries', the same 'Christian Identity' group whose website [David] Copeland was visiting in the weeks prior to his nail bombing rampage [in London in 1999].




Display:
ministries before, but after visiting their site, I wish I'd never heard of them.

by trog69 on Mon Dec 08, 2008 at 02:08:01 AM EST


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