What the hell is wrong with Catch the Fire Ministries?
When I think religious nutjobs, I think crazy people in America attending town hall meeting with their pitchforks and multiple wives. They get trotted out whenever there’s a national debate on abortion or homosexuality and occasionally when one of their cults are exposed widespread media attention.
Although nobody really pays much attention to them, there is a veiled level of curiosity when it comes to the bizarre that goes on in these people’s lives.
Here in Australia it seems the US style evangelical fanaticism is starting to become uncomfortably more mainstream…and yes, the religious nutjobs here are just as crazy as their US counterparts.
After leaving his birth country Sri Lanka and spending two years unsuccessfully trying to preach Christianity in Saudi Arabia, Australia made the mistake of accepting Danny Nalliah into the country.
Upon arrival to Australia in 1997, Nalliah quickly established ‘Catch the Fire Ministries’ and began preaching his brand of religious nonsense to Australians.
In the first decade of his ministry, it seems the only thing of note that happened was a court case between Catch the Fire and the Islamic Council of Victoria. The case revolved around the alleged claim that Nalliah and his ministry had vilified muslims at a seminar they spoke at.
Now I’m not the biggest fan of Islam myself, so it’s kind of hard for me to decide who’s right between crazy christian nutjobs and crazy islamic nutjobs but legally speaking, after five years and a series of appeals Nalliah and Catch the Fire were eventually cleared of all charges.
Following the court case, in 2004 Nalliah briefly ran with political party Family First (these guys recently told Australian parliament that global warming is a myth) until he was asked to leave, following statements Nalliah made urging parishioners to “to pray that God would pull down “Satan’s strongholds”, which included brothels, gambling places, bottle shops, mosques and temples (including Freemason, Buddhist and Hindu temples)”.
It seems even religious hard right political groups have a threshold.
Following his stint in politics nothing much happened until the Black Saturday bushfires struck Victoria in February earlier this year. Following the bushfires Nalliah made a public statement blaming them on Victoria’s changes to abortion law in 2008.
I know when I think abortion I immediately make the connection with years of lacklustre undergrowth removal and soaring temperatures.
More recently however comes possibly the most hilariously alarming claim to date.
Catch the Fire Ministries pastor Daniel Nalliah has organised a “prayer offensive” to combat evil forces including witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion.
The discovery of a “black mass altar” at Mount Ainslie in Canberra by a group of school students had inspired him to organise a prayer gathering at the area on Saturday.
“The type of altar discovered on Mount Ainslie pointed to a black mass and the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and federal parliament,” Mr Nalliah said.
“These days people don’t think the devil is real but we have seen the bad effects of the spiritual being known as Satan and we believe there is a spiritual fight over the nation of Australia being fought in the heavens.”
As for witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion – it seems Nalliah is deadly serious and the prayer gathering is for real.
Only 2 days left until ‘Taking the High Places for Jesus’ on October 17th in Canberra and across Australia, an integral part of the prophetic destiny of this Great South Land of the Holy Spirit!
May the Spirit of the Lord continue to supernaturally empower and victoriously lead you through the 21 day fast to cry out to the Lord of the heavens and the earth to heal our land of Australia!
Admittedly I have looked at Julia Gillard a few times and thought witchcraft might be at play, so on that one particular point I can sympathise with Nalliah.
In response to Catch the Fire’s prayer gathering, political party ‘The Australian Sexy Party’ have pledged to hold a protest of their own to counter the ministry’s gathering.
Sex Party convenor Fiona Patten said she and others would conduct a peaceful demonstration on Canberra’s Mount Ainslie on Saturday afternoon to protest the influence of radical religious groups on federal politics.
One can only hope.
On top of seriously believing that dark forces are conspiring against Australians through politics, Nalliah also “claims to have witnessed the healing of blind, deaf and crippled people at his prayer sessions, and claims that a dead girl was resurrected after he prayed for her”.
This brings me to the question: How is this man not locked away in a mental institution?
Under any other context if someone ran around proclaiming the things Nalliah has we’d have had them psychiatrically evaluated and subsequently institutionalised. Yet under the guise of religion this man is free to run around the country drawing illogical conclusions and pushing his delusional agenda.
As an Australian I’m alarmed that in just under an hour, atop Mount Ainslie, which is literally a few kilometers from parliament house, a group of religious nutjobs are going to cast spells of their own in an effort to bend parliament towards their own will.
What’s more they believe it will work.
Forget Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger boat people, bikie gangs, David Hicks or Indonesian terrorists, why isn’t anyone in parliament speaking out about religious fanatics in this country? Left unchecked, do we really want people like Nalliah and his Catch the Fire Ministries anywhere near the institution that runs this country?
I think it’s high time somebody in parliament told these people where to go.
Update 18/10/2009: Canberra blogger Arthwollipot was on site for the protest and took some interesting photos of the prayer session and ‘The Sex Party’ protestors. Of particular interest is Nalliah’s choice of (notso)megaphone.
I’m assuming he didn’t have time to go and buy a proper megaphone and instead chose to raid his kid’s toy chest. Although suitably perhaps the size of the megaphone inadvertently reflects the importance of his message.
October 17th, 2009 at 7:09 pm James(Quote)
But I thought it was because Australia supports homosexual rights and therefore “God hates Australia”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeNk2itmMk&feature=fvw
F**king disgusting & useless nutjobs.
October 18th, 2009 at 1:09 am Roly(Quote)
The religio-luna Right(*) actually has a long history stretching from The National Civic Council, B.A.Santamaria and Eric Butler, through people like the Linden LaRouch Group, to Catch the Fire and Hillsong (including Bernadette McMenamin and the anti-internet child porn movement), now gathered as The Australian Christian Forum, ACF; (not to be confused with the Australian Conservation Foundation
.
}
{* is that a tautology, or is there a religio-Left?
These are the people behind the mandatory and unworkable ISP filters, and who post to ABC and SBS forums expecting filtering to cure all ills, no porn at all, nothing “distasteful” (to them), no more spam, &c&c.
On the topic of fire, last spring was one of the most difficult we’ve seen for safe fuel reduction burns, flipping between cold and wet and warm but too windy, so floor fuel was certainly high.
But I am really concerned that there hasn’t been nearly enough attention yet paid to changed fire *behaviour* (and the very serious game lift the CFA management therefore needs – they STILL haven’t learned from the 70mph Trentham/Macedon run on Ash Wednesday fgs!).
I’ve seen flaming gas balls but they are normally quite rare. Following Ash Wednesday there were reports of more gas “jetting” type behaviour than normal, but nothing like what has emerged in accounts since Black Saturday. How many times must people say “the very AIR was burning!” before a penny drops?
I know that CSIRO and Project Pheonix have looked at flammable oils being boiled off by persistant hot conditions (I was designing instrumentation for an aborted project), but I have a horrible feeling that our current “drought” will be the *normal* or average conditions into the foreseeable future, and that every time we have more than three days of hot dry north wind we will be at risk, not so much of a bush *fire*, as a bush gas “explosion”.
I don’t think that 10m clearing or even drastic fuel reduction is going to help much when our bushfires start throwing flaming gas balls 100′s of metres over mown grass, as they did that day; quite different to ember attack, and requires a serious (and urgent) rethink.
Assuming for just a moment that Nalliah is right and Black Saturday was God’s punishment for legalising abortion, how is the punishment fitted to the crime? Were any of the people who died in any way directly connected to the decision in Parliament? Why wasn’t just Parliament struck by lightning and burned down as a clear sign? How is this morally different from the suicide bomber in the town market place killing bystanders to make a point?
Well, what a stark contrast to what was happening on the fire ground in human terms.
My personal quote of the month, of the CFA; “Lions led by Donkeys”. The crews are fantastic, real quiet heros, but the overall *management* of bush fire services in NSW and Victoria I’m not so sure about.
The CFA “lost” the most important document of the entire disaster? Like you “misplace” the Flight Data Recorder after an air crash? Who do they think they are kidding? Why is Rees still in the job and backed by Brumby? What’s with this hopeless new risk scale, and infatuation with *phones* (c/f the old sirens) for warning people? Where is the crash programme laying big pipe sections as refuges in suitable places? It all stinks to high heaven. My big fear is that this summer is going to be a rerun of the last.
Where was Nalliah when 35,000 Lions were VOLUNTARILY putting life and limb on the line for fellow citizens they would never meet? Nalliah implicitly insults the entire spectrum from Socialist to Christian who step up to help in a crisis with no expectation of reward or recognition, and particularly those who have given their lives as a result.
I’ve been looked after by the secular Red Cross, Hippies and Rednecks, and by real Christians, backing up volunteers on the fireline back at the recovery centre. Posturing, point-scoring, appropreation, and finger-pointing has no place there. On behalf of these lions Mr Nalliah, allow me to say “Shame on you. Bugger off! You’re a waste of space.”
October 18th, 2009 at 11:53 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Well you do have the wiccans et al. but they’re just as looney as the right IMO. Bunch of overweight women running around pretending to be witches after reading one too many Harry Potter books.
These gas balls you speak of Roly, are they a byproduct of decomposition or something else? Seems kind of pointless to engage in current preventable measures if the air itself is prone to sparking up after a few days of heat.
This is one of the biggest problems with taking event A and randomly connecting it to your beliefs. ‘Fire is mentione a few times in the bible therefore all bushfires (despite being lit by humans) are the result of god’s fury’.
I’m pretty sure fire was around and most certainly bushfires long before we started aborting fetuses (fetii?).
Yeah I’ve read it’s going to be another hot summer. Hopefully we’ve learnt something from this year. I was talking to a lady who lives in the Grampians recently and she said they are always near the top of the fire risk charts yet they haven’t had a decent bushfire in a while now. She sounded pretty worried going into this years summer.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:09 am angelica(Quote)
I hardly think all Wiccans are overweight looneys running around with Harry Potter books. As a young wiccan, model and lawyer, I wouldn’t say I was any of the above and those whom I practice with certainly don’t fit that mould. Lumping people into a typecast mould will only cause to show that you are most certainly wrong.
My objection to Nulliah is that he has certainly not read into what Wicca is all about, where as being a christian previously, I have most certainly looked into and read about a vast array of religions and have drawn my own conclusions which may at the end of my life may or may not be correct but have and do help me along my own life path. I have no problems with people holding onto their own beliefs but as christians they should really follow the word of Jesus ‘Love thy neighbor’ I don’t belief he said ‘Love thy christian neighbour… or jewish rather as Jesus was a Jew’. Beyond that I wonder how many Pagan practices Nulliah participates in… seeing as most Christian feast days are actually pagan in origin… Christmas – Yule, Easter – Ostre, All Hallows – Halloween… Birthday Cake Candles making wishes, easter eggs, Christmas Trees… Pagans and Wiccans most certainly aren’t interested in black masses, usually we practice rituals to honor nature not kill it.
As for Australia’s bushfires… we live in a hot, tree filled nation… from evidence of our trees, many seeds will only break open in the event of a fire, and therefore it is part of our eco-system to have fires for re-growth and renewal, its a horrible thing when the fires destroy homes and lives, but surely people must realise the risk when they choose to live in areas prone to bushfires.
At least most Australians are sensible enough to see Nulliah as an uneducated extremist and will take no notice of him, and that is the best thing we can do, ignore him and watch him fade away.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hey Angelica, welcome to OSB.
I was commenting on personal experience. In my lifetime I’ve met 5-6 wiccans (probably more but I was oblivious) and each time they fit the eccentricly dressed overweight female stereotype.
Lawyer + model + wiccan sounds hot, so I’m glad there are exceptions out there.
I’m glad you brought this up as it’s something I hadn’t considered but when you think about it, we’ve got this guy who grew up overseas in Sri Lanka, then went to live in the desert for a while before finally settling here. Then he’s got the gall to tell us fires in bushfire areas are punishment from god.
I mean really, bushfires were happening here long before abortion laws came along.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:56 am Citizen-D(Quote)
The melting pot of religions, beliefs, dates, rituals and ceremonies that have all now been rubber stamped as “Religion X” with followers claiming that has been that way since day dot is laughable. Even when faced with documentary proof these religions will just deny, deny, deny which is part of the reason I find it so difficult that modern day, intelligent people would just follow along like sheep.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:00 pm Rachel(Quote)
OMG Mt Ainslie… My old High School backs onto that and we frequently use to have to go up there for nature walks etc we use to also run up there for Cross Country…
October 21st, 2009 at 9:04 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Admit it Rachel, it was YOU who left blood on the altar.
LOOK WHAT YOU DID!
October 21st, 2009 at 9:20 pm Rachel(Quote)
LOL wish I could but I no longer live in Canberra (thank goodness)The spot is well known for midnight Hanky Panky’s, Japanese Tourists are Constantly there, People getting drunk or High on Fri and Sat Nights… So many ways how blood could have been left there…This Nalliah guy sounds like a Psychotic Dimwit…
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 am Roly(Quote)
The hot conditions cause oils to distill from the trees and form a combutable mix in the air. Yes, if this is to become widespread and commonly the new fire behaviour, it’s a real nightmare. A crew is supposed to keep a ratio of 4:1, four times the height of the flames away. When the flames are 100m high that’s 400m away. Your water jets won’t reach and there is basically nothing you can do other than get out of the way.
Yes, fire is now vital for our bush to regenerate, but it depends on a progression of fire events, not one almighty conflagration that leaves just a field of white ash with the odd burnt stick. Ash Wednesday was a hot burn, Black Saturday was hotter.
September 4th, 2010 at 7:45 pm ROSE(Quote)
HAVE READ MANY COMMENTS ON THE INTERNET OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS AND ALL I CAN SAY THE MAJORITY OF YOU ALL ARE HEADING FOR THE DUNNY HOUSE.