CHAPTER 3: OPERATION INTEROGATION AND ERADICATION

“SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: A Final Rebuke To Messian Dread

FROM: Messian Dread (XXX@dubroom.org)

TO: Mark Mohr (XXX@XXX.com)

Greetings Mark,

As I understand you are working on a response. I will wait until that has been posted and puit on-line to give you the possibility to announce changes already made before I’ll post the link and respionse to that “rebuke”.

I don’t know exactly what you are changing but in principal I would say respect. All I want is a fair debate about subjects not persons. So people can decide for themselves. This is not about you neither about me.

If it helps you to understand me and my point of departure so to speak, I am willing to have a phone conversation with you. It will make me vulnerable as I will not have a recording where you might have it (yes that is how far the trust is around here now) but I know that I have nothing to fear or hide. And phones have no nose :)

All I ask is that we make an appointment so I know when you will call. I think you will also want this. I’ll then give you my number if you don’t mind. 

In the meantime have you read that “final rebuke”?

This could all have been prevented about three years ago.

Messian Dread, private e-mail to Christafari, October 23, 2004)

If you can’t beat, eradicate. If you can’t find points to eradicte, interogate until you do. Then spin the eradication with brainwash education into the memory hole real quick. Force the same old teachings in a new framework and keep the status quo as much as possible.

Problem Fixed.

A short summary of the actions taken by Christafari shortly after they posted their “rebuke” on their messageboard and my private e-mail concerning that (See Chapter 2).

If there is a school-book containing these words, Christafari surely is an adept. They followed it step-by-step.

Their “final rebuke” didn’t land too well with most people. What was supposed to be a final rebuke, didn’t work. Still it doesn’t, but every critique on it is eradicated from the Christafari Message Board the minute it is posted.

Perhaps my letter helped them, I don’t know. Fact is I got a very friendly e-mail back from Mark Mohr, asking me to wait with my responses until he finished his reply to my essay. He said, he wanted to announce that he had allready updated his faq. He also asked if he could have a phone conversation and gave the impression that he was convinced by elements of the book.

I replied with the letter you see at the start of this chapter. A decision to “walk the extra mile”, as they say. For me also a final attempt to bring some sense to Christafari. And if that wouldn’t work, there was allways the possibility to write a follow-up for my essay.

Why?

Really simple to overstand, when you love Yesus Kristos and the Truth.

When the Name of Yesus Kristos is being used for commercial gain, and when the symbolics of Rastafari is used for the same thing too, this has nothing to do with sharing the Message of Yesus Kristos.

And that should be exposed wherever it happens.

If Christafari was really a Christian organization, with a desire to share the true Gospel, the message of salvation, they would fear no biblical criticism. They would be able to counter all that critique with big ease. They would consider it an honor if people would want to debate them in public. They wouldn’t need to provide places of “peace and safety” where people can come and be indoctrinated. Where discussions are only allowed if they can make a profit out of it.

So yes, many reasons to submit myself to the process. 

I hit the “send” button in my e-mail software and got a reply pretty fast. Appearantly there was some anticipation at christafari HQ.

Mark Mohr wrote me, that it was his birthday which he was going to spent in private circles. He continued by asking ten questions which I was then “challenged” to “answer with a simple Yes or No”. And because he knew that this wasn’t possible, he added by saying it could also mean “likely” or “likely not”.

He didn’t ask things to get a better overstanding of the points in my book. He forced me to step into his mind set to tell him in his own language how he could discredit me easily and move on the road he was trodding on.

He could have asked me if I love Yesus Kristos. Or if I confess that Yesus Kristos is JAH Incarnated in the flesh. Or if I believe that Yesus is the only Way (meaning that He holds the keys to Zion). Or even if I speak in tongues!

But his focus was to find reasons to justify the divisiveness he was about to teach his followers. So the questions were all screaming: “Give me a point to spiritually justify our public execution.”

It’s simple: he put me on a position where only Yesus Kristos can be and then publicly used that to portray me as someone who shouldn’t be sitting there.

He wanted me to tell him about groups of people, if they were going to heaven or not. Then he asked me if it was right that I said there is a difference between worshipping the wrong God and worshipping God wrong. And finally he wanted to know if someone’s personal use of marijuana is a sin or not.  In this case, my alleged use of marijuana.

The questions were obvious. Disguised as “do you think that people should know about the Message of Salvation”, the real one was: “what can I use against you?”

It was all he did. Trying to find differences. Talking about being divisive…  Yes, action speaks louder than words. Christafari’s actions forced me to realize how my first essay on the subject was sadly too mild in it’s conclusions.

Why didn’t Mark Mohr ask himself why he couldn’t easily identify me as the anti-Christian he claims I am? Why do his reactions indicate that he sees any critique on his actions as critique on his Christianity?

Or is it the way he presents it to his audience, because he has to hide his true purposes?

It’s really bizarre.

The more I research Christafari, the more I have to draw conclusions that Christafari has strayed far away from the Message of the Bible. The more I research Christafari, the harder it is for me to find clues that indicate Christafari is only an overzealous Christian group which simply could use some brotherly correction.

JAH knows, I tried hard to find reasons that explained Christafarianism as the fruit of an overzealous brother in Kristos rather then a “culture” with unbiblical motivations as roots.

But I can only come to one conclusion.

Christafarianism has nothing to do with true Christianity. Oh yes, they use the concepts just like they use Rastafarian concepts, but for the sole purpose of commercial interest.

So was my essay about sharing the Message of Salvation? After all, the essay was called “Christafarianism”.

No, it was about a weak philosophy that uses this evangelizing (as it is called) as an alibi to be like a Rasta in the evangelical world.

A doctrine that says “plugging the gap in the Industry” is a higher calling of the Most High.

A belief system that claims being a leader in this industry can be compared with being a leader in Israel, in the Kingdom of Jah.

A theology which claims that sharing the Gospel, evangelizing, is equal to introducing non-believers to the Gospel genre.

A pastor who needs a businessman for his ministry and becomes a president of a record label as a result.

An ambitious artist who uses tax-deductable love gifts for missions to get a contract with a major company in the Industry.

Christafari is a true master in presenting this to their Christian audience. It boils down to using the word “gospel” interchangeably to “the Industry” and “the message of Kristos”. 

All I asked in my essay was: Is this Christafarianism or Christianity?

Christianity says: Yesus Kristos is JAH, believe in Him and don’t deal with babylon.

Christafarianism says: Let’s provide Reggae Music to the Christian Industry, completely with the yeah mon yeah mon image many people have about the “genre”. Let’s say we evangelize the Rastas to gain support from the Christians until we’ve plugged the gap.

Yesus Kristos says: Look at the fruits, because they reveal the roots.

Mark Mohr says: God chose me to be a leader in the Christian Industry. I have created a culture with my fans where people get hooked on. I introduce non-believers to my genre which I present as evangelizing to my Christian fans and I’m willing to go very far in that.

I say: that has nothing to do with Christianity.

Mark Mohr says: Now tell me how I can call you an anti-Christian for critisizing the culture I created to plug the gap in the Christian Industry.

So I told Mark Mohr that I believe everyone who is not against Yesus Kristos will go to heaven and I told him why.

The bible says that even if people give one drop of goodness to a Christian, to what Yesus calls “the least of my brethren”, they will get access to Zion. And these people will be very surprised when they will get that access for they had not known Yesus Kristos personally. They just did good to “the least of Yesus brethren”.

The Bible also reports that Yesus Kristos says: “If you are not against me you are for me”. And He said it to the disciples who were very surprised to see that many people were actually following Yesus Kristos, outside of their own “culture”.

When you look at the context in which this quote of our Saviour is noted, the similarity between this situation and that of Christafari and their Rastafarian brethren becomes so clear, that it’s almost laughable.

Yesus was walking with His disciples somewhere, and the disciples found out that there were more people preaching and performing miracles in the Name of Yesus. Now the disciples were very angry at these “deceivers” as they were not part of their own group. But Yesus said to the disciples: “Let them be for who is not against us is before us”.

Unfortunately Mark Mohr missed these two points completely. Or perhaps he didn’t. But it is a fact that these two scriptures alone wipe away the foundation under Christafarianism.

Because Christafarianism is founded on of the idea that “it is seriously misleading for Christians to call themselves Rasta”.

The name Christafari symbolizes this distinction between them and Rastafarians. Let me explain.

Since the release of my essay, Christafari publicly admits that there are Christian Rastafarians. Christian in the sense that they have accepted Yesus Kristos as their Lord and Saviour and do not believe that He has returned yet. They have even “bowed in the dust” publicly for not acknowledging this before.

So they have no biblical basis to make such a clear disctinction between them and their brothers in Kristos. Simply because by admitting the existance of Christian Rastafarians you can no longer hold the position that “it is seriously misleading for a Christian to call themselves Rasta”.

If you want to live according to scripture, that is. If you are really interested in uniting the Christians and preaching the Gospel of salvation to lost souls.

It could very well be that there are different reasons to maintain the distinction. The divisivement between Rastafarian Christians and non-Rastafarian Christians.

It’s like this: Suppose there is a group who call themselves the Raptists. They do so to reach the Baptists with the gospel. And they say it is seriously misleading for a Christian to call themselves baptist.

Now here comes someone who is not a Baptist, but also not a Raptist. He wants to tell the Raptists that they shouldn’t constantly divide the church of Kristos by saying that it is seriously misleading for a Christian to call themselves Baptist while they choose to call themselves Raptists in order to distinguish themselves from the Baptists.

Christafari is a divider of the Christian Church. They call themselves Christafari in order to distinguish themselves from Rastafari. And with that they distinguish themselves from the Christian Rastafarians they were forced to acknowledge as such by the release of my essay.

If there are Christian Rastas, why call them deceivers and call yourself “Christafarian” instead?

Well, simple. Because otherwise you can no longer use the name Christafari. If the Raptist would really acknowledge his Baptist brother in Kristos he has no spiritual reason to call himself Raptist anymore.

Therefore, the name Christafari symbolizes and reveals how they stand for a dividing of the Christian Church.

And that’s not all.

The name also symbolizes the commercial goal behind the façade. This becomes clear when you see the official name of Christafari: Christafariä. Yes, the name is officially patented as the name for a business. An official Trade Mark.

So it was interesting to see how he would respond to what has been become known as “The Essay”. Would he gladly accept the message of Yesus Kristos, or would he consider it a threat?

Would he start break through his mind-set in order to realize that God has created him dread to reach the dead?

Or would he have to face that his Evangelical Correct Alibi for his appearance and aims in life were now exposed for what they are?

During the e-mail interogation, this became clear allready. With his mind set against any form of accepting Rastafarians as brother and sister in Kristos, even his bible explanations showed a total blindness.

He managed to tell me that I could not apply certain Bible Scriptures to show the evangelicals how they had brothers and sisters in Rastafari. I tried to do so, by showing the Bible passages in which the disciples went to Yesus because they had seen people outside of their group committing miracles and other positive works in the Name of Yesus Kristos. They were kind of surprised as the possibility had not crossed their minds yet…

Yesus told the disciples: “Let them, because whoever is not against us is before us”. But Mark Mohr says:

“These are parallel passages in the synoptic gospels.  In both of the Mark and Luke passages, Jesus is being asked by his disciple John about someone that is "Not one of us", according to the context, this man was apparently a believer, but he was not one of the exclusive company of the twelve disciples.  Nevertheless, he acted in Jesus' name and had done miracles that the disciples, on at least one occasion, had not been able to do (See Mark 9:14-18, 28).  When Jesus said "Do not stop him," it is clear that Jesus' view of discipleship was far more inclusive than the narrow view held by the 12.  Jesus wasn't saying that "if your a good Buddhist, you will go to heaven," the individual in reference was obviously doing his miracles in the name of Jesus and with the work of the Holy Spirit.”

When I read these words, I was really “blown away”, as they say. How could he not see, that the disciples had exactly the same reaction as the evangelicals have towards their Rastafarian brethren and sistren? He even literally described his own position while trying to explain to me what was wrong with the disciples!

This was another mile-stone.

Imagine someone telling you the sky can’t be blue, because the Bible says the sky is blue. Bizarre, huh?

I have an archive containing correspondence from Christafari and associates dating back to about 1999. This correspondence is repeatly dropped on my doorstep by three little birdies.

It contains many of these bizarre thinking ways. All with a mind set against anything positive about Rastafari.

Let me give you an example. I have an email (from 2001) where a Christafari associate wants to convince someone that I am a deceiver. This person admits the special place of Ethiopiah in the Bible yet continues to call me a bible twister for pointing out to this special place. In a later chapter we’ll read more, but let us read some excerpts.

And within the Christafarian Artist community that joined STAR there was quite a controversy going on as well. This is what one artist wrote in an e-mail to another STAR member:

“When Messian talks about STAR at the end he says Selassie would approve of this organization, I say who cares what Selassie thinks he was only a human being!

People will wonder if you are a Christian or a Rasta with a site like this cause you can’t be both!

He also talks about Ethiopia as being seperated from the Bible in Christianity. That may be true but SO WHAT?

I have talked with Mark Mohr and I believe he is very spiritual and he agrees with me. I have also had people ask me my opinnion about Messian Dread because they were confused and didn’t know what to think. To me this shows that people are being mislead by his words.”

-signed-[1]

This is how blind people can become if they have a certain agenda, a certain mind set. Plain logic is being seen as deceptive when it doesn’t fit this agenda. It makes them write sentences like “That May be True But So What?” They can quote a Bible scripture which exposes them as confused in order to “show” how the Bible supports their agenda. And they wouldn’t even notice it…

Did Mark Mohr also not notice how he contradicted himself in his little sermon?

I have come to know him as an inteligent person. He can read, write, play music and run a business. He should be able to see how this Bible Scripture would have to be applied. And he did.

So was he unable or unwilling to make the link to his Rastafarian brethren and sistren?

I was about to get closer to the answer when our contact was completed through a phone conversation which lasted almost two hours.

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