Botkins in south sudan and pictures

[meda]

Treemom reminded me, yes there are pictures (link at botom of email excerpt) and this weird bit inthe email about how the Botkins are going to help Suth Sudan become a Christian nation. Sorry for the crappy posting, I'm playing on new ipad

An Important Announcement

We have just learned about a great opportunity which may help Christians understand issues of Lordship and stewardship in a new way. The world’s newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan, may be able to model a kind of national obedience that has been long neglected by Christian families.

In the coming year, Western Conservatory will be studying and teaching forgotten principles of the Great Commission. These are the basics of the Gospel. As you read this, the Republic of South Sudan is asking for a unique kind of help: They want to build a Christian nation and they know they need some help.

Recently, I met personally with representatives of both the new national government and leaders of South Sudanese churches. These are the founding fathers of a nation that may be one of the most important countries of the 21st century.

Our family has been asked to come to the new nation “to strengthen the family.†The Lord willing, I will be traveling with a team of wise American leaders into the South Sudan early this year, and we’ll keep you informed on what we find.

In the meantime, a new African radio tower is now broadcasting our family’s messages in this new nation, and over the year we will be producing many hours of teaching, programming specially designed for the needs of the nation.

Included will be these different teaching series:

The Ten Commandments for Nation Builders

Applied Wisdom from Proverbs for National Governments

What the Bible Says About Liberty and Justice for All

Why Theology is “The Queen of the Sciencesâ€

The History of Nations

Why God Initially Blessed America

America’s Most Tragic Mistakes

Lessons from the American and French Revolutions

The History of Manners and Civility

How to Build a Free Market Economy

The Purpose of the Family, the Church, and the Civil Government

How to Take Care of the Land

Lessons from the Greatest Leaders of History

Please pray for us as we strive to help this struggling nation. Pray for the South Sudanese to be firm. Pray for their resolve to reject any influence that will defeat them in their goal to build a Christian society. When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

The citizens of a nation can work with the King of Kings to make all things new. The lessons learned in this context will be helpful not just in Africa, but in every nation that has become confused about Christ’s authority and Kingdom.

Please read my Christmas message about the Republic of South Sudan, and keep an eye on our web site to find out about other 2012 initiatives and products.

2011 was a wonderful and fruitful year in large part because of your standing by us so faithfully. Your investment in our work has enabled us to produce and distribute more material than in any previous year. We are honored to know you. Thank you for standing with us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Your servant in Christ,

Geoffrey Botkin

P.S. As we did last year, we’d like to share with you a private photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/FreedomsRa ... -ba2unvsgE

[vicka]

my doctor just went to that area to do gynecological surgery on women who's bodies were damaged in deliveries and from infections. while doing the surgery she also does sterilization for those women if they request it. she is one of the awesomest people i ever met... not to mention she will be doing a lot more good than the dumbass botkins. what are they doing.... sending a few bibles over? i bet they think they are saving the world. delusions of grandeur.

[CanadianHippie]

Totally off topic, but I noticed in the web album 7,8,9 year old boys are "young men" and adult females are "girls".

[Deleted05]

Why are all those crappy lessons about AmerIca? Do these people have the slightest knowledge of African culture, history, and mindset? The last thing the Sudan needs is a bunch of people encouraging further subservience of women.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I'm not too terribly surprised, given that when Sudan was a single country it always got lots of fundie interest because it was a good example of heroic Christian martyrs in the south being horribly oppressed by the evil Muslims in the north.

But yeah, who does Robotkin think he is? But of course he thinks it's his place to waltz on over there as a clueless foreigner and tell people what to do, considering how much the entire VF fanbase is besotted with love for 19th century British imperialism and the whole noblesse oblige thing.

[Brainsample]

I think that letter is a load of dingos kidneys.

ETA: Can you believe anything this man says?

He was the secretary for a cult in '86 that did lobbying on Capitol Hill. The cult went around to recruit members at U of Maryland and at Towson State. Botkin bills this as running a conservative think tank.

He helped to operate a small TV station, a failing newspaper (printed irregularly and gave away for free), and bought a fashion and style magazine in New Zealand, helping cult leader Jim McCotter to fulfill what he preached from the time of the cult's origins in the '70s as the "media mandate" so that they could conquer the world. Botkin calls this running a multinational conglomerate.

He claims that he grew up as a Marxist and was well versed in the Frankfurt School. This is a God forsaken, bald faced lie. His parents were nice fundy lite people. Many friends of his and friends of his brother's say that if he was ever a Marxist, it happened after he dropped out of the University of Okalhoma in Norman after he lost touch with them. Some were mistaken and angry with me because they thought that I came up with the confabulation that Geoff was a Marxist. Family members were angry and wrote to me, stating that he was from a nice Christian home. The Marxism claim was something that Botkin invented, I guess to give himself an edge and a cool testimony.

Am I inclined to believe anything that Geoff Botkin says?

[Vex]

In high school, I had a friend who was from the Sudan. I'm trying to imagine her being told to sumbit to her father/husband, to have as many children as possible without doing anything to stop pregnancies, to stay sweet and to dress modestly/headcover by a bunch of Americans/New Zealand nobodies who think they're qualified to run a nation... she would have laughed in their faces. She and her sisters and mother were some of the strongest, most independant feminists I've ever known.

Haven't these douchebags ever heard that pride comes before a fall? They actually think they have the knowhow to advise 'founding fathers'...? And South Sudan 'may become one of the most important countries in the 21st century?' Incredible arrogance, even for Geoffery Botkins.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Am I inclined to believe anything that Geoff Botkin says?

I wouldn't.

But the interesting thing is how each of his crazy fibs has a GRAIN, the merest tiny grain, of sorta kinda "truthiness" in there, so you can see how he's just looking at himself with serious rose colored glasses on and a big delusion of grandeur, and you can see what he wishes he was. (In a way I find it more pathetic than if he were just making EVERY piece up out of complete nothing.)

So I'm not surprised that he has dreams of being some kinda hero converting the masses in Sudan, since that whole "poor persecuted Christians in Sudan" thing is a fundie favorite. Him actually doing anything seriously noticeable, well, probably not.

It would be great to see how the local people receive him, though. That's the thing - he thinks he's some great swashbuckling visionary, but I'm sure people would just laugh, just as (surely? hopefully?) they laughed at him in his cult lobbyist days.

It's something that seems common to the whole VF system, really. They have resources to make their fancy websites with all those classy old-timey fonts, they have resources to dress up in fancy costumes, and so if you only look at their online presence and materials they seem like a really weighty operation - Founding Fathers all the way. And yet, they don't seem to have the actual presence and clout even in their home base of San Antonio that say, Focus on the Family has in Colorado Springs. I know some people who live near where they held some events in Virginia for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, and while on VF's site you'd think it's some momentous huge thing, those locals were mostly just "what? Oh yeah I maybe saw some letters complaining about that event in the paper."

Some of my favorite pictures of a VF outing are the ones from Rome, where they are sitting around in costume waxing on about this or that, and you can clearly see both locals AND normal tourists behind them with "lolwut?" expressions or just not caring. But ooh, wow, look, we DARE to wear a Luther shirt into a Catholic monument!! Even though no one is paying the slightest attention!

...got on a tangent there, sorry. Beer kicking in :)

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Why are all those crappy lessons about AmerIca? Do these people have the slightest knowledge of African culture, history, and mindset? The last thing the Sudan needs is a bunch of people encouraging further subservience of women.

I suspect it will be more of the usual, namely that homosexuality (and government "encouragement" of it - read: not persecuting it as hard as they have previously), blurring of gender roles, and ZOMG feminism has led to (1) the pussification of men, and (2) Jeebus withdrawing his special blessings on the US, so we're in for a string of bad luck and strife, brought on by an angry God and then handled ineptly by those pussified men so it gets worse.

It fits right in with the other end of US history that claims that the US was founded as a Christian nation and explicitly blessed by God via the Founding Fathers (all homeschooled!!) and everything that was right and good in the US in its glorious heyday is due to divine guidance of US history because the US is special.

But now dammit, the girls ruined everything.

[fundifugee]

. . .

The Ten Commandments for Nation Builders

Applied Wisdom from Proverbs for National Governments

What the Bible Says About Liberty and Justice for All

Why Theology is “The Queen of the Sciencesâ€

The History of Nations

Why God Initially Blessed America

America’s Most Tragic Mistakes

Lessons from the American and French Revolutions

The History of Manners and Civility

How to Build a Free Market Economy

The Purpose of the Family, the Church, and the Civil Government

How to Take Care of the Land

Lessons from the Greatest Leaders of History

Please pray for us as we strive to help this struggling nation. Pray for the South Sudanese to be firm. Pray for their resolve to reject any influence that will defeat them in their goal to build a Christian society. When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

The citizens of a nation can work with the King of Kings to make all things new. The lessons learned in this context will be helpful not just in Africa, but in every nation that has become confused about Christ’s authority and Kingdom.

Please read my Christmas message about the Republic of South Sudan, and keep an eye on our web site to find out about other 2012 initiatives and products.

2011 was a wonderful and fruitful year in large part because of your standing by us so faithfully. Your investment in our work has enabled us to produce and distribute more material than in any previous year. We are honored to know you. Thank you for standing with us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Your servant in Christ,

Geoffrey Botkin

P.S. As we did last year, we’d like to share with you a private photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/FreedomsRa ... -ba2unvsgE

Well I sure am glad there is an expert out there who knows all about and is ready to teach how to build a christian nation, take care of the land, build a free market economy, etc.

How nice. How convenient. If only more nations would call him up for advice.

I wonder if he has references that S.Sudan can phone up to check on how well he did building other good christian patriarchal nations.

If anything, S. Sudan has had way too much of crazy fundies. Hasn't Geoff heard of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army?

[Brainsample]

Well I sure am glad there is an expert out there who knows all about and is ready to teach how to build a christian nation, take care of the land, build a free market economy, etc.

How nice. How convenient. If only more nations would call him up for advice.

I wonder if he has references that S.Sudan can phone up to check on how well he did building other good christian patriarchal nations.

If anything, S. Sudan has had way too much of crazy fundies. Hasn't Geoff heard of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army?

This list of topics?

Sounds like it was lifted out of Rushdoony's writings. It's just recycled Rushdoony and old Christian Reconstruction stuff. This is nothing that Botkin came up with on his own. It's rehashed Rushdoony.

[Brainsample]

But the interesting thing is how each of his crazy fibs has a GRAIN, the merest tiny grain, of sorta kinda "truthiness" in there, so you can see how he's just looking at himself with serious rose colored glasses on and a big delusion of grandeur, and you can see what he wishes he was. (In a way I find it more pathetic than if he were just making EVERY piece up out of complete nothing.)

So I'm not surprised that he has dreams of being some kinda hero converting the masses in Sudan, since that whole "poor persecuted Christians in Sudan" thing is a fundie favorite. Him actually doing anything seriously noticeable, well, probably not.

The best lies always have a good deal of truth in them which makes them harder to spot. The very obviously wrong stuff isn't deceptive. You can spot a wolf. But can you spot a wolf that looks like a sheep? The bite marks and how they attack their prey always looks the same which is usually how you can nail them.

[JesusFightClub]

The history of manners and civility? :shock:

The Sudanese may not have the same ideas about what manners and civility consist of as the Botkins do, as cultures vary, but you can bet they have just as strong views on the subject as anyone else and don't need lectures from the likes of Rasbotkin. What a patronising bastard.

[bananacat]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about on the thread about kind fundies. They do stuff like this, but it doesn't "count" in my eyes, because it's more about them than the people they claim to be helping. It's the same thing with the Duggar mission trips. It's not about charity; it's about converting heathens and feeling superior. And even if they have good intentions, they are too uninformed to realize that often religious-based missions do more harm than good. They don't help or donate in the way that is actually most beneficial, because they are too self-absorbed to understand what is really going on in these places.

[FuManchu]

I have a friend in South Sudan who's been working there for the last few years, first for the Anglican Church (looking after schools etc.) and now in the business of aid distribution. I must remember to tell him that if he meets anyone called Botkin he should (a) talk to them about his girlfriend, (b) invite them out drinking with him, and © tell about his time at a real university. That should get rid of them!

(On the other hand, he loves wearing old-fashioned clothes, and sometimes I suspect that the Botkins are of that class of fundie who will waive quite a lot of moral codes if it means getting photographed next to a man in knee-lenth socks and a pith helmet.)

[MaryatHome]

I doubt that he has spoken with Gabriel Cardinal Zubeir Wako, the head of the Catholic Church in Sudan. Or with Archbishop Paulino Lukudo Loro, the next highest ranking bishop. Or any of the other twelve Catholic bishops there. Or any of the 24 bishops of the Anglican Communion.

The majority of Christians in the area are Catholics or Anglicans (and pretty high church at that).

I don't know where he gets the idea that South Sudan wants to establish a Christian theocracy, since all the governmental structures are secular. They have their problems, but there are no indications that theocracy is one of them.

[Brainsample]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about on the thread about kind fundies. They do stuff like this, but it doesn't "count" in my eyes, because it's more about them than the people they claim to be helping. It's the same thing with the Duggar mission trips. It's not about charity; it's about converting heathens and feeling superior. And even if they have good intentions, they are too uninformed to realize that often religious-based missions do more harm than good. They don't help or donate in the way that is actually most beneficial, because they are too self-absorbed to understand what is really going on in these places.

They use people to medicate themselves and their egos with moralism like an addict uses a drug. They objectify people to turn them into things to be used. And when you think about it, though we all do it from time to time, it is a very primitive ego defense mechanism most frequently used by kids. "They're bad people, and I'm good." Children are self-centered because they haven't yet matured and are developing their understanding of where they fit into the world. What excuse do these supposedly mature Christians have for their self-centered moralizing?

[Brainsample]

I doubt that he has spoken with Gabriel Cardinal Zubeir Wako, the head of the Catholic Church in Sudan. Or with Archbishop Paulino Lukudo Loro, the next highest ranking bishop. Or any of the other twelve Catholic bishops there. Or any of the 24 bishops of the Anglican Communion.

The majority of Christians in the area are Catholics or Anglicans (and pretty high church at that).

I don't know where he gets the idea that South Sudan wants to establish a Christian theocracy, since all the governmental structures are secular. They have their problems, but there are no indications that theocracy is one of them.

The Anglicans have been hanging in there with the Sudanese and the persecution of Christians and everyone else there for 30 years and more. They even oversee the heifer projects there so that they can get resources to those who need them.

I don't know what all and where that Brad Phillips operates in Africa. I would not be surprised if Matt Chancey invited the Botkins over to do some silly thing for them, and Botkin is billing it as if the government consulted him.

[GenerationCedarchip]

The Anglicans have been hanging in there with the Sudanese and the persecution of Christians and everyone else there for 30 years and more. They even oversee the heifer projects there so that they can get resources to those who need them.

I don't know what all and where that Brad Phillips operates in Africa. I would not be surprised if Matt Chancey invited the Botkins over to do some silly thing for them, and Botkin is billing it as if the government consulted him.

I know someone who deals with Brad Phillips' charity. From what I'm told, Chanceys are in Kenya, but Matt Chancey travels a fair amount. However, the charity does do a lot of work in southern Sudan. Most of it sounds like relief work (food/medical distribution, well digging, etc..), and then they apparently provide Bibles and other support to local churches. They also operate a Christian radio station in Sudan as well as doing programs about Sudan for churches back in the US. I've been told that the programs done for churches back here are very mainstream/non-fundie but I haven't seen any myself.

Like MaryAtHome mentioned, I'd be curious to know if they are working with the established churches in Sudan or just doing their own thing.

[SamuraiKatz]

The Sudanese people need concrete substantial help. Help rebuilding infrastructure. Food aid plus those who are knowledgeable in rebuilding agriculture. Medical help for all and psychiatric help for those damaged by the war. The Sudanese people cannot eat prayers nor can they heal themselves with g-bot's radio station broadcasting rehashed dominionist/rushdoony spew.

G-Bot and company, if you have the money to build a radio station, you have the money to give true aid to those who are hurting. Quit building monuments to your arrogance and ego and do something REAL!!

[Soldier of the One]

Oy vey, the fundies have (re)discovered 'The White Man's Burden'.

Dominionists: good luck with your Manifest Destiny, y'all. Too bad we're living in the 21st rather than the 19th century, isn't it?

[last_one_picked]

His parents were nice fundy lite people. Many friends of his and friends of his brother's say that if he was ever a Marxist, it happened after he dropped out of the University of Okalhoma in Norman after he lost touch with them.

This is off-topic, but, as an OU student and soon-to-be alum, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the University for Geoff Botkin. I can't believe that that ridiculous, sort-of-evil lunatic walked the same campus I do. *shudder*

[Olive Plant]

I just heard a rumor about this and came over to see if there was anything on it. Apparently Geoff (and some of his sons) are going to Sudan for this nation-building thing. So, essentially, y'all, you just take the theocracy you've been living under and were slaughtered in the name of, and repackage it with the name of a different deity. Or the same deity, depending who you're talking to, just a different prophet. And then you mix it with a chorus of My Country Tis Of Thee and you've got the perfect system. I hope to high heaven these people have more sense than to listen to this self-purported scholar. I just watched "Persepolis" last night so I'm more pissed off than usual at the thought of modesty police and that kind of shit.

[desertvixen]

But the interesting thing is how each of his crazy fibs has a GRAIN, the merest tiny grain, of sorta kinda "truthiness" in there, so you can see how he's just looking at himself with serious rose colored glasses on and a big delusion of grandeur, and you can see what he wishes he was. (In a way I find it more pathetic than if he were just making EVERY piece up out of complete nothing.)

The best lies always do...especially the ones people tell to themselves.

[Guest Anonymous]

What did the South Sudanese do to deserve VoldeBotkin and his minions? Am I a bad person for hoping that they chase him up a tree and set fire to it?