Specifically:

CTFM leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah said he would spearhead an effort to provide every assistance to devastated communities, although he was not surprised by the bush fires due to a dream he had last October relating to consequences of the abortion laws passed in Victoria.

He said these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb. Besides providing material assistance, CTFM will commence a seven day prayer and fasting campaign for the nation of Australia tomorrow Wednesday the 11th February.

And further, Danny tells us that he had God on the Heaven hotline during some kind of peyote-type dream:

In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God.

That His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.

If there is a God, one suspects that Danny’s dream is more to do with his final destination than the bushfires. If I ran an organisation called “Catch the Fire” I’d probably have the tact to keep quiet at this point, too.

It was tempting to ignore this completely to avoid publicising in any slight way the sick views of these people. But in the end garbage like this should be dragged out into the light so that they are shown for what they are, cynical opportunists who are prepared to use a terrible event (which should unite the community) to divisively push their hateful message of intolerance. I can only hope that with the dramatic fall of the Bush regime and the tangible shift back towards rationality as the central tenet of Western society, we will see this get the reaction it deserves from our leaders and from the community generally – disgust at irrational and bigoted nonsense, not ‘tolerance’ of ‘religious views’.

Catch the Fire may be a familiar name. That’s because they are the same fundamentalists who received a personalised message from John Howard when he was frantically selling himself to every right wing group of wackos who might conceivably vote for him. Nice work John, you really did the office of PM proud. This is the same Danny Nalliah from Catch the Fire who has previously run as a candidate for Family First, the lunatic fringe party who now seem to be pushing the Government into a mandatory Internet filter via Senator Fielding’s crucial Senate vote.

Old Danny has given us his number, so feel free to use it to tell him what you think:

Danny Nalliah is available for interview on 03 9794 8211 Media contact: Jason Golden on 0404 952 768

Disclaimer: these are my views, and my views only.

Update: here is an ABC Blog on the same topic.  Interestingly, it points to this, which is Danny’s initial “warning” about the fires.  What is deeply disturbing about this blog is that some of the comments posted seems to subtly suggest that if Victoria needs to be punished, maybe the Lord’s followers are going to have to be the ones to inflict that punishment.  For example, “Trevor” says:

Fire will indeed come but not for the reason you have said.

and

Become a father to the fatherless and a friend to the alien. says the Lord. Yes do this and I will save you. I will save you and not as an urchin from a house fire. When you see the fire I start you will smell your clothes and they will be fresh.

Update 2: More on the hilarious antics of Pastor Nalliah and his “magic hands”.

Update 3: Catch the Fire are, of course, Sarah Palin fans, and recount the following, er, ‘prophecy’ to us:

It was at this moment Sarah Palin reached out for me to help her up, and as I was assisting her to stand, I was now face-to-face with her, and God said, “Open up your mouth and I will fill it.”

Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism, with its low-key evangelism and deep ritual, increasingly appealed to me. I loved its long history and loving embrace of liberals and conservatives, immigrants and the established, the rich and poor.

Over time, however, issues such as the Catholic sex abuse scandal and associated cover-up, evangelical churches taking advantage of the false hope of ‘healing’ offered to the disabled and terminally ill, and the way in which some religious people treated unbelievers eroded Mr Lobdell’s faith:

“If Mormons associate with you, they think they will somehow become contaminated and lose their faith too,” Suzy Colver told me. “It’s almost as if people who leave the church don’t exist.”

His conclusion is that faith is a gift possessed by some and not by others, and that he lacks that gift. An alternative (or perhaps complimentary) interpretation is that either consciously or subconsciously he came to the conclusion that faith in a dogmatic system administered by human beings and run according to rules interpreted by human beings is invariably going to be subject to the inherent characteristics of human beings, rather than the divine. The examples he cites all speak of well understood human traits – greed, lust, dislike of criticism, dislike of outsiders – becoming manifest in situations where individuals with those traits have the opportunity to exploit others.

Some of the responses from religious blogs of various ilks, summarised here, are also interesting: they range from finding the loss of faith ‘understandable’, to questioning the motives of the newspaper for publishing it, to regarding it as ‘anti-Christian’ or ‘anti-religion’, to highlighting a perceived gulf between ‘progressives’ in (gay, drive-thru-abortion) Los Angeles and the Christian ‘heartland’ and arguing that a loss of faith was inevitable in the circumstances (with the implication that anyone with progressive views will never be able to reconcile themself with ‘faith’).

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. – Magellan

[Amnesty] takes no position on whether or not women have a right to choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies; there is no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law.

This has not stopped the church from portraying Amnesty as supporting “abortion rights”, and has led to numerous impassioned statements from senior Church figures about how this will provoke a ‘parting of ways’ between the Church and the organisation. The Vatican has instructed its millions of minions to provide no further funding or support to Amnesty (did you know the church also stands proudly against that other bastion of evil, UNICEF, for similar reasons?) as a result of this policy.

It is a curious sort of religious morality that can justify deliberately undermining one of the most important and effective human rights organisations in the world – a rare organisation that is essentially non-partisan, non-religious, and has excellent access to most governments around the world as a result – as a result of a disagreement about an issue which is widely recognised as highly contentious and challenging. As Amnesty’s chairman explains:

It was partly inspired by our experience in Africa where soldiers rape women in communities they attack to force them to have their children. We also believe women who have had abortions should benefit from medical care regardless of the reason for the abortion.

Rape is frequently used as a weapon in regional conflicts such as those taking place in Africa. Apparently it is so important to the Vatican that women in war zones be forced to carry their rapist’s children to term that they are prepared to ignore everything else that Amnesty stands for, including trying to stop said rapists from impregnating their victims in the first place, and instead withdraw support. But then, speaking of withdrawal, helping women avoid pregnancy in the first place has never has been the Vatican’s strong point.

As this blog points out, even from a devoutly Catholic perspective this is an example of ‘the perfect being the enemy of the good’.

Richard Nixon discusses morality with Pope
Paul VI (irrelevant, but a strange picture)

Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church.

In this case, however, it’s Catholic Archbishop and noted friend of the Prime Minister George Pell making the ominous pronouncements. The parallel to the uproar over Sheik Hilali’s forays into politics is unmistakable. Just as Alan Jones was allowed to get away with helping incite the Cronulla race riots whereas all and sundry (including the PM) were calling for Hilali’s expulsion from the country, Pell is likewise being treated with kid gloves by the media and large sections of the political establishment. As Crikey sarcastically observes:

Prominent tabloid columnists and morning radio talk hosts are expected to demand the Cardinal’s expulsion from the country for pursuing a religiously bigoted and fundamentally ”un-Australian” agenda. Soon. Any day now.

Less humorously, this seems fairly accurate, and from a Nationals MP no less (quoted by Irfan Yusuf):

Well, I certainly, you know, in the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about the Islamic faith and the attempt, or the perception that, particularly in other countries, that the Islamic faith is having a, is putting a lot of pressure on politics. And I think in Australia, if Sheikh Al Hilali had made that same kind of declaration to Members of Parliament of the Muslim faith, telling them how to vote, I think there’d be outrage.

I think it would be front page of every newspaper and there would be outrage against him. I see this by the Catholic Church as being a similar thing.

It seems pretty obvious (even to religious individuals) that Pell’s approach is unlikely to win him too many friends. The reaction of the relevant parliamentarians has been heartening. This remark from the Minister for Emergency Services, Nathan Rees, is particularly good:

I consider Cardinal Pell’s incursion a clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into deliberations of the elected members of this parliament, which he didn’t exercise during the Commonwealth debate. I think he’s got three options: he can apologise; he can run for parliament; or he can invite further comparisons with that serial boofhead, Sheikh Al Hilaly.

The episode highlights a dangerous attitude which is more and more prominent in the west since the start of the ‘War on Terror’: religious fundamentalist nonsense is acceptable, so long as it’s coming from ‘our’ religious fundamentalists (i.e. white Christians), not ‘their’ religious fundamentalists (everyone else, and especially Muslims).

An alternative perspective is here at Club Troppo, where James Farrell argues that what a religious leaders says to his flock is none of our business:

And it’s not as if Pell has kidnapped Iemma, Waltkins and Piccoli, and is demanding at gunpoint that they vote against the stem cell bill. He and his colleagues may have been instrumental in infecting them with a virus of the mind, but this happened long before they entered parliament, and it was well known to voters that they had the virus.

There must be no double standard here. If we are to insist that bigots like Pell get out of people’s bedrooms and reproductive decisions, we should keep out of the theological disputes he gets into with his flock. They are consenting adults.

At the very least the statement that various politicians religious views were “known to voters” before they were elected should be challenged – it is surely undeniable that the vast majority of Australians vote on the basis of political parties, not individual candidates, and few would be able to name the religious denomination of their local state or federal member.