The Twisted World of Fred Phelps

Earlier this week, Australian blog Blueberry Fool published a humorous Youtube video of the ABC’s “The Chaser’s War on Everything” take on the American Baptist Minister Fred Phelps. Phelps is notorious in the States for his vehement anti-gay activism. He is the pastor of a small congregation called the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The church and its tiny congregation of one hundred people (most of who are related to Phelps) base much of its work around the belief that nearly every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality. Its slogan and main website is "God hates fags". The group also hosts sites named godhatesamerica.com and more puzzlingly godhatessweden.com where Phelps pleads with God’s elect to “leave Sweden now”.

The 76 year old Phelps and at least 10 of his 13 children are lawyers. This means that any legal challenges to his hate campaigns (and there have been many) is met with an aggressive and litigious response, which has often resulted in large court-awarded penalties to the Church. The Phelps family is quite insistent on their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Thanks to their legal prowess, Westboro Church does not accept contributions from outsiders. The church complex on Topeka's southwest side where Phelps and his extended family live contains modest wood houses surrounded by a spacious yard with a swimming pool, running track, tennis and basketball courts, and the playground. Above the compound, an American flag flies upside down, the signal for distress. Above that a Canadian flag flies upside down, Phelps' response to a Canadian law prohibiting picketing at funerals there.

And therein lies the rub of his importance. Phelps and his crackpot church would simply be a matter of mirth to most if it wasn’t for his activism which has inspired law changes in the US and Canada. It started when Phelps organised demonstrations at the funerals of AIDS victims. He then demonstrated at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered in Wyoming. And then for obscure reasons somehow relating to homosexuality, he held protests at the funerals of such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William Rehnquist. Phelps celebrated the 9/11 attacks as the just desserts of Western decadence. Since 2003, he has been demonstrating at the funerals of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq to celebrate the deaths of those killed while defending a "fag" nation.

As a result, the US and Canada have passed a number of controversial laws to inhibit Phelps actions. Canada’s custom authorities confiscated the group’s signs and the country has introduced ‘hate crime’ legislation in response to his behaviour. On May 24, 2006, the United States House and Senate passed bills which would ban protests at military funerals in national cemeteries. The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act would bar protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. At a state level, at least 17 states are either considering bans on protests near funeral sites immediately before and after the ceremonies, or have already banned them. The constitutional validity of these bans has not yet been tested in the courts. In July this year the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported a suit in Missouri raised by Phelps supporters challenging the ban on protests at military funerals in that state. They claim the law banning such pickets infringed on the members' religious freedoms and right to free speech. "I told the nation as each state went after these laws that if the day came that they got in our way, that we would sue them," said Phelps' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, the lead plaintiff and a spokeswoman for the Topeka-based church. "At this hour, the wrath of God is pouring out on this country." Anthony Rothert, ACLU legal director in St. Louis, said “this law really was made to silence a particular group, and I'm able to see that that's dangerous. It may be a group that I disagree with that the government is trying to silence today, but it could be a group that I agree with tomorrow."

Some suspect that Phelp’s outrageous behaviour is an elaborate act. It is possible he may be a prankster or even an agent provocateur deliberately trying to embarrassment the mainstream Religious Right’s more understated intolerance of homosexuality. An alternate theory is that Phelps and his legal-eagle family try to provoke others into attacking them physically so that they can sue. To this end they deliberately choose high-profile or heart-wrenching cases and picket at extremely emotional times such as funerals.

Candomblé

Candomblé is a Brazilian religion of African origin with over two million adherents.
Also called Macumba (though some see this as a pejorative term used only by non-adherents) in the Rio and Sao Paolo areas, it took root when black slaves were shipped to Brazil from the 16th century onwards bringing with them the worship of African orishas. The orisha or Orixá is commonly translated as "god". A more accurate representation would perhaps be "saint". Candomblé posits a monotheistic supreme being -- usually referred to as Olodumaré -- with the orixás being called upon as intermediaries between humans and God, much as Christians will pray for a saint's intercession on their behalf.

Derived from the Yoruba people of West Africa, Candomblé is a form of Vodun (“spirit”). Vodun is more commonly known as voodoo by the greater public. Vodun is the Haitian equivalent and like Candomblé can be directly traced to the West African Yoruba people who lived in the 18th and 19th century Kingdom of Dahomey (modern day Togo, Benin and Nigeria.) Its roots date back 6,000 years in Africa. The image of Vodun has been greatly tarnished by the imagination of Hollywood whose version of voodoo involving violence, bizarre rituals and pins in dolls has little basis in reality.

The home of Candomblé is the ancient Brazilian capital of Salvador (in Bahia state). The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive here under the command of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. On January 26, 1500, he landed to the north of Bahia, near present-day Recife. The Portuguese arrived later that year with the fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral, on his way to India before heading east around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. Cabral claimed the area for Portugal. Salvador became Brazil's main sea port and was the colonial capital of Portuguese Brazil until 1763. The Portuguese set up a governorship for Brazil in the middle of the 16th century and institutionalised slavery to support the massive sugar plantations that proved to be the wealth of Brazil. Thus started a 300 year tradition of slavery. An estimated 1.3 million slaves were imported into Salvador before slavery was abolished in 1888, double the number of slaves imported into the US. The salves kept their African culture alive through their religion.

Candomblé is a syncretic religion and has incorporated many elements from Christianity. During the slavery days, the African religions were banned and often existed under the cover of Catholicism. Christian devotional altars were used in early slave houses to hide African cult icons and ritual objects. Although the practice came into the open after the end of slavery, some of the Christian aspects were maintained. Candomblé temples display crucifixes and many Orishas are identified with Catholic saints.

Although syncretism still seems to be prevalent, in recent years the lessening of religious and racial prejudices has given rise to a fundamentalist movement in Candomblé, that rejects the Christian elements and seeks to recreate a purer form based exclusively on its African roots.

Candomblé shares many characteristics with Umbanda, another syncretic Brazilian syncretic religion worshiping African spirits with some European influences. Apart from their geographic isolation, (Umbanda is more prevalent in Southern Brazil) Umbanda’s chief distinguishing characteristic from Candomblé is the added ingredient of spiritism also called Kardecism from its chief initiator, the 19th century Frenchman, Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail whose pseudonym was Allan Kardec. Besides coining well-known terms such as "reincarnation" and "spiritism", Kardec pioneered the conduct, documention and publication of scientific, evidence-based, systemized studies of the paranormal.

Though both religions have been legal since 1950 in Brazil, recent years have seen evangelical Christian groups attempting to persecute practitioners of Candomblé and Umbanda, sometimes with violence. Practitioners of these religions have taken cases to national courts and achieved a measure of success.

Candomblé seeks harmony with nature. Their ‘temple’ is the terreiro, led by a high priestess, (called a ‘mães de santo’ mother of saints) or priests, (called pais de santo father of saints). Similar to the liturgical cycle of the Catholic Church, adherents worship the pantheon of orixás in an annual cycle. In the religious ceremonies, they dress in the colours of the orixás and place food at the altar before singing and dancing choreographed steps to a sacred drumbeat. The highlight of the ceremony is the epiphany, the moment of possession, when the orixá takes over the believer's body.

This culture has given Black Brazil its heart. As Salvadorean Oni Kòwé puts it “The whites want to be Negroes..now the privilege is to be white with a Negro soul, to have ancestry, "to have a plot, a history with the Saint".

Going, Going, Falun Gong?

Qigong is a system of exercises, meditations, and teachings that renew the body and mind. It is an aspect of Chinese medicine which involves the coordination of breathing patterns with physical postures and motions of the body.

The Mandarin word gong means work or technique and qi is the breath so qigong is ‘breath work.’ It has been a Buddhist meditation practice for two thousand years. More recently many cults have exploited the religious aspect of qigong. The most notable example is the Falun Gong (also spelt Falon Gong) and is also less commonly known as Falun Dafa. Falun Gong’s worldwide popularity grew to the point that the Chinese government banned their practice outright in 1999. Amnesty International says at least ten followers died in custody in the year following the ban. China's crackdown on the Falun Gong has turned what was a little-known group, into an international cause celebre.

Falun Gong means "Practice of the Wheel of Law (or Dharma)." In May 1992, Li Hongzhi introduced it publicly as a qigong exercise in the northern city of Changchun. Li Hongzhi is a former trumpet-player from and is known as "Living Buddha" to his devotees. The Chinese government do not number among these devotees; they call him a leader of an "evil cult" and a dangerous charlatan and have ordered his arrest. Luckily for him, he is now beyond the clutches of Chinese officials having fled to New York in 1998 where he owns two houses bought on the proceeds of his religious earnings.

Li himself would appear to be several bricks short of a great wall. He says that he is a being from a higher level that has come to help humankind from the destruction it could face as the result of rampant evil. He also believes aliens walk the Earth and he has reportedly said he can walk through walls (Chinese or otherwise) and make himself invisible.

Nonetheless the Chinese authorities take his religion deadly seriously. In 1999, the government estimated the number of followers as 2.1 million in China(the movement itself claims 70 million). The crackdown started after 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest at the Beijing Central Appeal Office in April that year. This was staged directly outside the Beijing “Kremlin” Zhongnanhai, the complex of buildings that form the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party. They were protesting against beatings and arrests made at an earlier protest against a university that published a magazine criticising qigong practices. Though the Zhongnanhai protest ended peacefully, the government were alarmed at such a large protest in their backyard. Then President Jiang Zemin was particularly concerned and is believed to have given the order to make the organisation illegal in June 1999.

This was quite a fall from grace. After he first introduced Falun Gong to the world, Li Hongzhi was granted several awards by Chinese organisations to continue promoting what was then considered to be a wholesome practice. In the first few years after 1992 Li toured the country lecture circuit to large audiences. Falun Gong’s popularity grew thanks to word of mouth and the growing power of the Internet.

Now the Communist Party has destroyed books and other materials about Falun Gong, and blocked access to internet resources about the topic. Li Hongzhi is blacklisted by the Great Firewall of China. According to a 2004 Amnesty International report, "detained Falun Gong practitioners, including large numbers of women, were at risk of torture, including sexual abuse, particularly if they refused to renounce their beliefs."

In April 2006 A Falun Gong protester used press access issued to the New York based Epoch Times to shout over Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House. "President Bush, stop Hu Jintao's persecution of Falun Gong! Stop the killings!" Wang yelled before being escorted away. The newspaper denies any direct ties to Falun Gong. ”We are not funded by Falun Gong, we don't speak for Falun Gong, and we don't represent Falun Gong," said Epoch Times spokesperson Stephen Gregory.

Falun Gong protesters can be seen in many big cities, including Brisbane, every day. They are extremely vocal and creative and may yet prove to be an Achilles heel for the Chinese government. China will be anxious to keep them quiet in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, but they have proved resourceful and have a knack of keeping in the public eye. Falun Gong claims up to 100 million adherents, while the Chinese government says 2 million. It's impossible to verify either way, but these millions of once law-abiding citizens are now outlaws. As their open letter to Bush attests, they have the ability to create a public relations nightmare for Jintao.

Li Hongzhi may yet have the last laugh on his old friends in the Party.