Wednesday 16 March 2011

A prominent supporter of the Johansson family

I am always delighted to see particularly awful examples of hypocrisy and double standards. A few days ago, somebody posted on the Badman Review Action Group list, denouncing me and providing a link to a piece which he had written about me. You may find it here;

http://freesweden.net/smear_campaign.html


The author, Christopher Warren, says of me; ' Smearing and slandering innocent people is, in my opinion, a diabolical act.' Plain enough. Later on though, he quotes approvingly a 'representative of the homeschooling community in Britain' who says of my daughter ' his daughter is older now and I am very sad to report is as mad as he is.' So slandering and smearing people is diabolical, but it's OK to describe a seventeen year-old girl as mad if you dislike her father? I think I get it!

I have written before that those organising the support for the parents of Domenic Johansson, setting up websites, circulating petitions and so on, are working to a very different agenda to that of which home educators in this country are aware. They are, to begin with, all Christians. Nothing wrong with that; I go to church every Sunday myself. The problem is that these people are deliberately concealing their true motives and opinions from those whom they approach about the Johansson case. Let us look a little more closely at Christopher Warren and see what he is really up to. His Free Sweden Net website, set up after the Johansson case became public, seems innocuous enough. He says that he is a writer and lecturer. In the section about religion, he mentions that he is a Christian, but says that he has gay friends and that he would describe himself as a 'Christian Humanist'. This is to be found in the section about his 'Personal Agenda'. So far, so good; nothing to scare the horses here! he has even written a report about home education and sent it to the Swedish government. He mentions a teaching career, writing and being a lecturer. Now let us see who he really is. This is a website which he set up to express his real views;

http://www.nccg.org/warren.html


At once, we notice something very odd. He has been the Pastor of various Evangelical churches for the last quarter of a century. In fact he is a full-time Minister of Religion. How is it possible for such a man to write a 'Personal Agenda' of his religious views on the Free Sweden Net site and forget to mention that? The answer is that it is not possible; this is deliberate deception. Free Sweden Net has been set up to appeal to home educators and he felt that mentioning that he was a Minister might put people off. I can tell readers that Pastor Warren wrote everything to be found on the NCCG site and pretty interesting reading it is too! To begin with, it is a compendium of crackpot, New Age beliefs. Flying saucers, levitation, astral travel, the New World Order; it is all here. Pastor Warren levitates, he has visions, Jesus tells him that there is going to be an earthquake, he sees UFOs. I have to tell you, much of this reads like the ravings of a complete lunatic. Still, we all have our own opinions; this is all harmless enough. It is when you start looking at the sections on homosexuality and feminism that the alarm bells really start ringing for many reasons. Remember that this is a man who described himself on the site for home educators as being a Christian Humanist with gay friends? What does he really think about gays? Let's see. It seems that;

'Homosexuals have sex in the same manner as animals, (front to back or oral sex), rather than in the natural way of God's creation.'

We learn that;

'The AIDS virus has come from the perverted life style of homosexuals and drug addicts. (The curse is in their blood). They need help. They need to be taught that their life style is an abomination to God and how to come out of it. They must come to understand that homosexuality is not an alternative life style but a perversion.'


And I bet you didn't know that;

' The disease of AIDS is spreading rapidly because homosexuals will not change their life style. They are even trying to spread it into the heterosexual community so that more money can be appropriated for seeking a cure.'

This is not a man whom I would personally care to be in the same room as, let alone be his friend! It is this man, the levitating, flying saucer seeing, gay hating full time Minister whom home educating parents in this country are being invited to cosy up to. Nor is he the exception among those active in the campaign about Domenic Johansson. It is people like this whose word is believed when he posts on BRAG. Why I wouldn't take this man's word for it if he told me the sun was shining!

In addition to the fact that he has gone to great lengths to conceal the fact that he has for twenty five years been a Pastor, there are serious questions about his past career. In his submission to the Swedish government, he claims that he was for ten years the Principle of a private school. Elsewhere, he specifies that this was St Albans College in Oxford. The problem is that he only left Oxford University in 1977, when he was twenty three. He moved to Norway in 1988. On the NCCG site, he says that he studied theology at Cambridge University after leaving Oxford and then trained to be a Systems Analyst in Business Computing. Cambridge do not do mail order degrees and so we must assume that he went to live there for at least a year or two. Then training to be a systems analyst; when did he manage to fit in the ten years as head of an independent school? We will leave aside the implausibility of any independent school appointing as its head a twenty four year old man with no teaching experience or even a qualification in teaching.

There are many more questions to be answered about this strange man and I hope to look into his background in more detail. In the meantime, I would caution readers to be very careful about giving their support to any campaigns run by such people.

32 comments:

  1. What the heck is a 'Christian Humanist?' Isn't that like a meat-eating vegetarian?

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'Anonymous said...
    What the heck is a 'Christian Humanist?' Isn't that like a meat-eating vegetarian?'

    You may well ask, Anonymous! For the Pastor of an Evangelical church to use this expression defies belief.

    ReplyDelete
  3. For once I would share your concern.

    ReplyDelete
  4. There's nothing I dislike as much as hatred dressed up as love. Horrible.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 'There's nothing I dislike as much as hatred dressed up as love. Horrible.'

    Why Allie, he forgives you! Take a look at the section on feminism as well and you will soon see where you are going wrong. I might remark the Kelley Brautigam, who set up and runs the Friends of Domenic website, was involved with Proposition 8 in California. I am sure that I need not explain the significance of that. Also very 'pro-life'. The whole Domenic Johansson campaign is riddled with such people who hate gays, like hitting children and wish to deny women rights.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes. I have seen the sort of damage that this 'forgiveness' causes but then I am inhabited by a demon so no-one should be influenced by me.

    As soon as I saw that HSLDA was involved with this campaign I decided not to sign any petitions, forward any links or share stuff on Facebook. I don't know why the little boy in the case is where he is. I hope for a happy outcome for him. But I can't trust information from people like the author of that website.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Good lord. What a complete and utter nutcase !!

    Mind you, having said that, I am fascinated by the psychology people like this employ to those of a weaker state of mind.
    Might have to do some more reading up.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 'Good lord. What a complete and utter nutcase !!'

    Yes, I am quite relieved to discover that I am described as 'disturbed' and my daughter as 'mad' on such a site. I would be seriously alarmed if such people approved of me!

    ReplyDelete
  9. ' I am inhabited by a demon so no-one should be influenced by me.'

    Dear me, you have a very closed mind, Allie. Pastor Warren can apparently 'cure' you of all this.

    ReplyDelete
  10. For those who are interested, here is another of Pastor Warren's websites;

    http://sites.google.com/site/homeschoolinginsweden/

    It was the various coloured print, highlighting and different typefaces which first suggested to me that he might not be quite the ticket psychologically. This looks like some of the sites run by people who believe in flying suacers! ( Oh, but wait! Pastor Warren does believe in flying saucers. They are piloted by demons, intent upon distracting the faithful from God's word. Luckily, we have Pastor Warren to explain all this to us)

    ReplyDelete
  11. it's easy to see how some would think this man was acting in the best interests of HEers. But there is definitely something which lies uneasily with me.
    He cites lots of other organisations (a usual ploy for those who have nothing else to support their own arguments)including UKIP !! Which is daft to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 'including UKIP !! Which is daft to say the least.'

    Yes, it is seldom a good sign when somebody describes the leader of UKIP as his mentor!

    ReplyDelete
  13. But is we take this approach, aren't we smearing the family because they are being supported (and who knows how much choice they have over who supports them) people we don't like (and they are very good reasons for not liking them)? We are smearing the family because they are associated with people like this in the same way as Simone has been smeared because she is associated with Simon.

    ReplyDelete
  14. 'We are smearing the family because they are associated with people like this in the same way as Simone has been smeared because she is associated with Simon.'

    That is a very good point. I dare say that readers are aware that Domenic Johnasson's father and mother also belong to one of these fringe churches. The fact that so many very strange people are involved in this case, with the willing cooperation of the family, makes it likely that they share common beliefs. There is a lot more to all this than meets the eye and I shall be posting further about it. I have already mentioned the Vaken site, with which both Pastor Warren and Christer Johansson are connected. This site is full of a lot of very strange stuff about the Jews taking over the world. I have an idea that if a child were being raised in some of these ideas, that some people might be uneasy; particularly if he had little contact with the outside world. We are talking about peculiar cults here.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This 'pastor' has homophobic beliefs that are in accordance with The KKK.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The American home schooling community has links to extreme Christian fundementalist groups, the patriot network and race hate groups. All of this can be found on a race hate website called Stormfront which features a busy home schooling forum. BE WARNED it is an extreme website and it's content is vile.

    ReplyDelete
  17. So do you think homophobes and those who belong to fringe churches who maybe do not vaccinate and consider HE to be an option should not be able to raise children? I'm not saying that I think these parents are ideal parents, but where do we draw the line? Where would you draw the line?

    ReplyDelete
  18. The question should be, does any of the information we have justify the removal of a child from their parents? If not, then we should be asking the state to justify the child's removal.

    Do we even know what the court system is like in Sweden? The court records appear to have been published (according to a link on the freesweden.net/smear_campaign.html page) and the parents are not being prevented from talking about the case so it doesn't sound anything like UK family courts. Have the court records been translated into English elsewhere? Do the court records include the the states case in full? We should start with this type of material because they are source materials.

    ReplyDelete
  19. 'So do you think homophobes and those who belong to fringe churches who maybe do not vaccinate and consider HE to be an option should not be able to raise children? I'm not saying that I think these parents are ideal parents, but where do we draw the line? Where would you draw the line?'

    Again, interesting points. In gneral, I do not think that it is the state's affair what people teach their children. Sometimes though, having weird beliefs can lead to weird behaviour which might harm a child. At this point, I am inclined to think that society might step in an do something. I do not know if this happened in the case of Domenic Johansson. I do know that I have yet to hear a definitive and coherent version of the child's early life. That, combined with the fact that so many really strange people seem to be milling around the case, makes me a little dubious about offering my whole-hearted support.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Check out The ACE curriculum here..http//
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Christian_Education.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 'Have the court records been translated into English elsewhere? Do the court records include the the states case in full? We should start with this type of material because they are source materials.'

    As with the English courts in cases where children are concerned, there is a certain amount of secrecy. I agree, it would be good to see the original documents.

    ReplyDelete
  22. His modus operandi is Christian fundementalist indoctrination.

    ReplyDelete
  23. According to this page, http://friendsofdomenic.blogspot.com/p/latest-news-and-announcements.html, various people have seen the original documents and have gone on to support the family. Leaving aside the more extreme supporters, HSLDA, whilst not being one of my favourite organisations, seem unlikely to support a high profile case if they had serious doubts about it. Do the HSLDA have a history of supporting illegal behaviour even if that behaviour is supported by the religious right? They said, after reading the original court documents, "Domenic was taken "without a warrant—or even any accusation of crime," and that the intervention was, according to local officials, "intended to guarantee Domenic's right to an education." They claim that no other justification for the removal was put forward by officials in official court documents.

    So unless we decide that HSLDA are lying about the contents of the documents, it does sound as though officials had no other reason, aside from his education, to remove Domenic when they did. If this is the case, they would then probably have realised how weak their case was and gone fishing for further justifications, hence the later bringing up of vaccinations, dental decay and parental mental health issues. But still, none of this seems to justify the continued removal of the child (maybe it justifies support/monitoring of the family).

    ReplyDelete
  24. The link above tells what Kelley Brautigam, a houswife in Pennsylvania, thinks about this case. Since she has never met the Johanssons and does not know Swedish, we must take this with a certain amount of caution. She is basing her opinion on this little item by the HSDLA;

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Fy2gV3iiKDkJ:www.hslda.org/courtreport/V26N1/V26N105.asp+%22michael+p.+donnelly%22+%22state-napping%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

    There was indeed no warrant or suggestion of a crime; there seldom is in care proceedings. There is nothing here about the original documents being seen. It would certainly help us if they were to be made available. If, as is claimed, they do not say aything at all except about the child's education, I am surprised that somebody has not scanned them in and posted them online so we can all see for ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous says,

    "So do you think homophobes and those who belong to fringe churches who maybe do not vaccinate and consider HE to be an option should not be able to raise children? I'm not saying that I think these parents are ideal parents, but where do we draw the line? Where would you draw the line?"

    I don't think that's the issue at all - at least not for me. The point is that I don't trust the HSLDA and I certainly don't trust someone like Pastor Warren. If they are the people supplying information about the case then I can only conclude that I have no reliable information. I'm sure we could all speculate about why the state may have acted as it has but I think the truth is that none of us know.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "I am surprised that somebody has not scanned them in and posted them online so we can all see for ourselves."

    The FreeSweden web site claims that this is a copy of the document, http://oldsite.alliancedefensefund.org/userdocs/JohanssonOpinion.pdf

    Unfortunately it's an image of the document. Does anyone have image to text software? It would then at least be possible to put it through Google translate.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "Since she has never met the Johanssons and does not know Swedish, we must take this with a certain amount of caution."

    But Christer, Domenic's father, wrote to you in response to a previous article and seemed to write well in English, so if this 'housewife' is in direct contact with the family (phone, email etc), I doubt a lack of Swedish on her part would be an issue.

    ReplyDelete
  28. 'But Christer, Domenic's father, wrote to you in response to a previous article and seemed to write well in English, so if this 'housewife' is in direct contact with the family (phone, email etc), I doubt a lack of Swedish on her part would be an issue.'

    I'm not sure why you put 'housewife' in inverted commas. She is actually proud to be thought of as a mother and homemaker. Her lack of Swedish may or may not be a handicap, but she knows no more about the case than the rest of us. I have exchanged a number of emails with her and there are various versions of events. As I have said before, we need a clear and definite narrative before we know what to make of this case.

    ReplyDelete
  29. 'His modus operandi is Christian fundementalist indoctrination.'

    Err...levitation and flying saucer spotting are not part of most Fundies' religious practice.

    Let's not get hysterical about American Christians now. That's just another kind of prejudice.

    ReplyDelete
  30. "If, as is claimed, they do not say aything at all except about the child's education, I am surprised that somebody has not scanned them in and posted them online so we can all see for ourselves."

    According to the FreeSweden web site it has been published online. I've tried to post a link to the document but I think blogger is deleting the posts that contain it for some reason. Follow the link you posted yesterday and follow the link about three quarters of the page down. The last part of the link is "JohanssonOpinion dot pdf". Hopefully blogger will allow that through.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Follow the link you posted yesterday and follow the link about three quarters of the page down. The last part of the link is "JohanssonOpinion dot pdf". Hopefully blogger will allow that through."

    You also repeated the link at the beginning of this article. I'll try to include the link to the court documents again, oldsite.alliancedefensefund.org/userdocs/JohanssonOpinion.pdf

    It is an image, but if someone has image to text software it could then be put through Google Translate.

    ReplyDelete
  32. "There is nothing here about the original documents being seen [by HSLDA]. It would certainly help us if they were to be made available."

    I think they would have needed to see them in order for their attorneys to file an application with the European Court of Human Rights about the case. See this report on the HSLDA site:

    www.hslda.org/docs/media/2010/201006250.asp

    HSLDA and ADF attorneys decided to file Johansson v. Sweden with the ECHR when the Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden refused to review a lower court’s December 2009 ruling in Johansson v. Gotland Social Services that found that the government was within its rights to seize the child. The lower court cited minor post-seizure medical concerns with Domenic as well as the provably false charges that homeschoolers do not perform well academically and are not well socialized as reasons to uphold the apparently permanent seizure of young Domenic.

    Again, I'll say that I don't like HSLDA for many reasons, but is it reasonable to assume that they would lie about the contents of Swedish court documents in an application to the European Court of Human Rights?

    ReplyDelete