CHAPTER 4: TELEPHONE LOVE 

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

FROM: Messian Dread (XXX@dubroom.org)

TO: Mark Mohr (XXX@XXX.com)

Greetings Mark,

Thank you for elaborating your position.

Please take into consideration that Matthew 24 speaks about access to Zion for those who even give a drop of goodness to us. The way we are treated is for Yesus the same as the way He is treated.

However I know what you mean and agree just being good in the definition of some religion like Buddhism has nothing to do with not being against Yesus. Buddhism is an attempt to gain righteousness outside of Yesus works.

I also know that people have to know the Message of salvation but the question is how should that be done, or in our case, how shouldn't it be done, and to whom (not).

Now pay attention please: that's why I published my essay. Three years ago you asked me not to publish it, and I didn't. But it is not good if this is not discussed in the open. I only have to point out to the things such as what we see at the loz-board. And that board is ofcourse symbolic for "the real world" where I see exactly the same.

I see people "defending you" with a fierceness that can only be described as "who need opponents with such friends?"... XXX is an example, just one. XXX is another. The moderators see me as your enemy and delete my reasonings where the real unargumentated insults to you are all over the place. These insults are considered "Rasta reasoning" to which they respond with what they call "witnessing to rastas". That really makes me sick.

That is perhaps the biggest burden on my soul, results from what we know as "Christafarianism" and that is that the "misrepresentations" may be "workable" for you and I can even until a certain agree understand that pragmatic stance you have, but the ones who take your words like they take Gods Words (an I am not exxagerating) have really gone out of control. Also out of your control.

Let me close with one example.

I received this mail from a Christian who wanted my help because he wanted to do something with Reggae and his christian faith. I warned him not associate himself too much with the gospel scene. Needless to say that, completely inspired by the Christafari approach he "became like a Rasta" without even realizing what he was doing. Needless to say too, that the "buju effect" came after him too, as people were kind of angry with this thing, and I could only remind him to my warnings after he came to me with a "help! they're after me" mail.

(Messian Dread, private e-mail to Christafari, October 25, 2004)

Throughout the years in which I have come to know Christafari, Evangelicalism[1] turns out to be the predominant factor. One interesting aspect of this house of Christianity is the way problems and differences are handled. Because I was born and raised in this movement myself, I have learned this from a very young age.

Paulus, the Bible writer, calls to cover certain problems with a “blanket of love”. But the Evangelicals take it to the extreme. Everything is kept inside, even when that means an image has to be faked.

And ofcourse that’s “gefundenes fressen[2]”, as the Germans say. It’s an open door for any wolf in sheep’s clothing to do his dirty work and hide behind true Christians when he’s about to be exposed.

For some reason, many people mistake “love” for “peace and security” and the blanket of love is ordered for the most extreme scandals.

One example is this preacher in the Netherlands. The man allways fulminated against things he did himself, every week. He didn’t see it as a mistake, he just did it while he was telling others not to do it.

It’s only because I heard my parents talk about it as a child, that I know of it. My father is a preacher in the pentecostal church and therefore I sometimes accidently “overheard” some stuff my parents were discussing. Most people have absolutely no idea that this happenned. They think the preacher just moved on to start a different mission. Which he did.

There’s nothing wrong with a blanket of love. You use it to protect a brother for too many problems. You’re hoping that he will reach his senses when he realizes his mistakes in a brotherly setting.

It is this “blanket of love” that made me reluctant in speaking out on Christafarianism for a period of seven years. But increasingly my blanket became dirty. When I was talking about this with a real “Pastor”, he smiled and told me: “It allways smells really bad under the blanket of love…”

But when the smell reaches such proportions that it doesn’t matter anymore if there is a blanket or not, it’s time to act. In my case, it was definitely time to act.

I was drawn to the fact, that certain people like my music and Christafari’s music too. As a result of my reluctancy in speaking out Christafarianism, they became Christafarians and called themselves Jesus Dreads.

I am not speaking about anyone who calls himself Yesus Dread and IS a Yesus Dread personally, and I also consider it MY dirty blanket, not someone else’s. I’m speaking in general terms. The figures justify this, by the way.

I have expressed this in private e-mail exchanges with Christafari and associates. Here’s a quote out of a letter I wrote back in june 2001.

“I am now waiting for years for Mark Mohr to write me back, making me feel like a clown all the time some people mistake me for being Christafari and I have to choose carefully my words. This is how it all looks to me: the way Christafari is making a distance between them and the movement of Rastafari, but in the meantime they use the words, the locks, the looks, the language, the music, everything from it, to me is misleading.”[3]

It’s not, that Christafari didn’t know all these things. At the moment I write this, the quote above is 3 ½ years old. But as it turned out, they counted on my “blanket of love”.

And they could even count the blanket in my first essay. And they can still count on it. The essay was friendly. Too friendly, according to some. Christafari’s out-of-proportion’s responses to my essay made me realize they were right. But I think there will be some who will also consider this book to be too friendly. There are certain issues which I refused to adress, in spite of several requests.

I know from several “inside sources” how Mark Mohr totally freaked out after he read my book. It wasn’t about the contents, though. He even had to admit to his direct associates that it “contained some truth”, although he called other parts “crap”.

He took it very personal and told friends he considers “Messian Dread” a “threat”.  He privately claimed, that I form a threat against his “life ministry”, as he calls his “carreere” on other places.

This was very interesting to establish. Especially when Mark Mohr –more or less- confirmed this to me personally.

But in my essay I repeatly stated that I do not question the faith of Mark Mohr. I do not question whether he personally is “saved” or not. But I do question his philosophy, this thesis, his meditations. I still do.

The mere fact that he considers an intelectual[4] critique on his philosophy and theology, as “an inteligent personal attack” speaks volumes.

For it means, that he has developed a philosophy to forward himself AS a person[5]. He IS his philosophy. Christafarianism is an intelectual explanation of him as person. If the philosophy of Christafarianism is proven wrong, HE is proven wrong. The implications of this are only fully known to Mark Mohr himself.

A philosphy is often called an ideology. An ideal. When this ideal is very personal, like making a career, and you have created a philosophy which makes YOU the ideal of that philosophy, the danger is obvious and history doesn’t have to be mentioned to illustrate that danger.

Mark Mohr’s “philosophy” is directly related to his “carreer”. He needs Christafarianism to do what he does now. He can’t leave Christafarianism and remain to be the “Founder Of Christian Reggae”, and all that. He had to re-invent Christian Reggae in order to become it’s founder. Even though it means he’s actively judging against his brothers and sisters in Kristos in order to do so. A principal which becomes clear in the following quote:

I guess that I am just overly sensitive regarding this issue because of the past that I have come out and the music that I play. In addition to this, the two main things that distinguish Christian artists from Rastas is the rejection of the deity of Selassie and the refusal to smoke marijuana.[6]

To critisize Christafarianism, therefore, is to critisize Mark Mohr himself. In the quote above, he simply states regarding something he is just overly sensitive about that those who have a different view than him, are simply not Christian. He mixes his doctrinal philosophies (Christafarianism) with personal feelings and preferences and this con-fusion has led to some serious confusion around the world.

Not in the least, in himself too. After all, when you are more or less a personification of an unbiblical mix between a “life ministry” and a carreer and you’ve created some doctrinal philosophy around it, it can be that you don’t even notice it for what it is and shamelessly describe the developments in this confusing Purpose Driven Life.

In a 2003 interview, he exposed this when he answered a question about his “ministry” with remarks about a “carreer” as a producer in the Industry.

Q: Who or what is Christafari these days?

MM: I like to think of the Christafari project as a revolving ministry with a leader…like a missions team…not necessarily consistent in its line-up or leadership.

MH: So, what about the leader?

M: Now I’m focusing on Mark Mohr. Not Tansoback (the only stagename a Rasta ever gave him, ed.). I’m hoping this will also help my career as a producer. (..) As Mark Mohr, the industry can identify better – get to know this person.[7]

Mark Mohr knew eaxctly what would happen if this would be discussed openly on the Christafari website. His unwillingness to debate would come to the surface. His weak argumentation could perhaps fool some people some time, but not all the people all the time.

People who were “defending” it in the past wouldn’t help him if they would realize how Christafarianism was only created as the vehicle for the promotion of Christafari and it’s “fruits”.

This is why he had to stop me, and his trick questions would fix the problem.

After I gave him my “answers”, he gave me his lecture. You can read it literally in his public “response”. He tried it out on me first. Obviously to see if I would have any argumentation which could break the mind control on his folllowing. My answer can be found in the quote where this chapter starts with.

The e-mail obviously made him realize why he wasn’t going to stop me easily from exposing him and his organization. Because I was on the right track. He knew what I would find out if I would research hard.

He knew that he couldn’t debate me. So he did what he does best. Manipulate. Use the faith of others to forward himself in the Industry. Whatever faith. Rasta, Christian, Evangelical, 12 Tribes, Ethiopian Orthodox… Yesus Dreads.

His reply to my mail was very short, and swift, and contained nothing but a request to phone me. He had to do a last attempt to manipulate me by putting his actions under the blanket of love.

He had to try the Telephone Love approach.

Mark Mohr spent two hours of intercontinental phone communication, payed from the stockpile of tax deductable love gifts. But the only thing that came out of it was that he exposed himself more.

It wasn’t easy.

I felt what others felt. The enormous amount of pressure that was being poured out on me shocked me. Manipulation. Lies. Rants. Contradictions.

It was JAH, who was standing there right beside me. I am absolutely convinced of that fact. Not only because I was able to widhtstand the manipulation. No, that wouldn’t be so important to mention. To my utmost surprise he exposed himself to a degree beyond imagination.

I’ve seen more such situations. I’ve had satanists scream at me to stop praying for them, for example. After all, it’s a natural fact that Light reveals what darkness has to hide.

Another time, back in 1989, a cult leader was telling me “No More JAH”. He then went on to pray to “god” to make Black Uhuru into “White Uhuru”. Later the man had to leave the Netherlands because of Tax and Sex Scandals[8] and his trail of troubles let him to Hollywood where he is now “ministering to the stars”. [9]

The cult was very similar to Bob Beeman’s Sanctuary Movement, out of which Mark Mohr came too. The cult leader was seen as the Dutch Bob Beeman for a while, even. Later on in this book we will take a very close look at this particular roots of Christafarianism, but it’s kind of an eyebrowse-raiser to read how the “Dutch Bob Beeman” was praying to “God” for Black Uhuru to become “White Uhuru”. His name, by the way, is Edwin Ogenio[10]. Just so you know.

I’ve met many gurus and manipulators and still Mark Mohr shocked me. His Christafari-methology obviously also had had it’s effect on me.

When the phone rang, I answered and my greeting was returned with a big sigh and seconds of silence. I tried to lighten up the situation a little bit by mentioning the difficulty to start a conversation under these circumstances.

Often I refer to the story of the naked emperor. And I compared myself with the little rude boy who screams that the emperor has no clothes.

Now imagine, that the naked emperor ordered the little rude boy for his throne, in private time. There he sits, naked. Sighing…

All of a sudden he raises his voice and shouts in a small Q&A monologue: “What are you doing man? You are exposing us!”.

Now this is where I really started to realize that I was that little rude boy in his eyes.

And he admitted he really was the naked emperor as well. Remember, these words were his’ first. His answer to my greeting. His way of introducing himself…

I kept my cool and simply told him what I allready wrote in my book.

And again there was a long period of total silence, broken by an occasional click sound caused by technicalities somewhere in the long way between the two phone machines.

Then all of a sudden he said in a concerned tone: “I believe you are seriously hurt by the church.” I assured him of my ability to discern my critisism on Christafari from any hurts I may have had from any “church”.

Then he started to defend himself and his philosophy with lies. He told me, for example: “I never callled myself pastor”. He repeated that in his “Response”, allebeit in a weaker version.

But it’s not only that his biography is called “Meet Pastor Mark”, and that a google search for Christafari and Pastor gives way over 3500 results[11]. In other words, that everyone can proof him wrong in that by just spending some minutes doing some light research. It’s not in what he knows everyone can get out of the public domain.

It’s what’s done outside of that public domain which makes the lie have such proportion that I have to mention it here. Without having to reveal personal documents that simply proof my case beyond doubt.

Bob Beeman ordained Mark Mohr as a pastor, and Mark Mohr makes excessive use of this “position of authority”. In fact, whenever he calls something his “ministry”, he will “pastor” or “shepherd” over it.

This includes the “Churches” he “plants”, some of the artists of his label, and even his marriage.

We’ve allready seen how he boldly claims that “all” have to obey “god, government, pastor and parent”.

We’ve read the tour commitments which started of like some lost version of the ten commandments and then changed into an explanation why he personally has to approve contacts between a man and a woman.

During our meeting in the UK he intrerupted me in a sentence by suddenly starting to “pray” for his food. After all, you can’t start to eat without saying a prayer, and you have to say it out loud. Just imagine someone would see a pastor taking a bite in a bread without saying a prayer…

So I knew that when Mark Mohr told me he never calls himself Pastor he was not stating a fact. All I did was mentioning his bio to him, which was enough to get him in his next phase of silence. He must know himself better than I do…

Then he started to accuse me of falsities in my essay. In other words, he was trying to “quote me wrong”.

He mentioned the prologue where I state that the Bible is being used in my essay. He told me that that wasn’t true. Of course he couldn’t really hold that one for long either.

But in a way. He was right. Because the Bible is very clear about concepts based on babylonian thinking. I should have mentioned many more Bible scriptures where Christafarianism is clearly exposed for the fraud it is. I hope that this follow-up will complete that mistake to a certain extend.

I guess he saw that this method was also not effective. I almost began to feel sorry for him, but he was allready ahead of me. His silence changed into a litany of rhetorics.

His voice began to reach hysteric proportions and at a certain moment he shouted: “What do you want, me to do, man?”. He almost made me feel like I was whitemailing him. But I know it’s another trick in the book of the telvangelists. They are masters in deception, and manipulation.

Then he started his chant: “I want to fix this problem now”. I couldn’t help thinking about a spoiled child who became angry after his rich parents couldn’t give him the whole world.

My answer wasn’t satisfying him. But it was the only answer I could give. I told him how I tried to warn him for seven years in a row. How I warned him in advance for the things he now wanted me to solve for him.

I told him, I only mention the problem. I don’t not know the solution.  And then, in a logic that can only be formed in universities like Biola, he told me that if I did not have a solution for his problem I should not say that there is a problem at all. Absurd, but he brought it with a tone like it was very normal for him to say.

He didn’t have to wait to find his words, his answeres were swift. He obviously had been in this situation many times before.

On other times during the phone talk I had to repeatly call him by his name in a tranquil tone to make him ease down. There were moments in which I thought he would get into a state of hysteria.

He went on, and on, and on. He mentioned names of artists he sells on his shop. He told me how all these artists were singing about JAH but were not speaking about “god”, as he calls his spiritual superior. He even confirmed this when I asked it again.

And my mind went back to his public statement, in which he said how he didn’t want the church in Trinidad to sing praises to JAH but instead had to start singing about “god”.

Then, after a while he started to realize that all his attempts would be like birds that fly away to nowhere.

And that’s when the emperor started to admit his nudity. For a little while, but he did. I wish I’d have a recording of it!

He admitted to me, that he wrote his book to proof that Haile Selassie is not “god” by “discredting” him. His own words. Where in public statements he says that the book isn’t doing that at all.

He told me how he never knew that within Rastafari there are several houses. It was the interview with Gadman which introduced him to that. He told me how this same interview showed him that there are many within Rastafari, who he would have to recognize as brother and sisters in Messiah.

And then, he started to defend his “Being All Thing To All Man”. I heard how he was handed argumentation by others. “Yes, exactly! Paul speaks about religious groups too…”. I started to laugh and said in an amicable tone that it wasn’t fair that he had help, because I was there on my own.

He cut the subject.

I raised another one: my motivation and intentions to warn him.

I told him how I was knocking on his door all these years, and how this door was never opened. About the many fears I saw materialized in front of my eyes. In short, I repeated the second part of the letter where this chapter starts with.

He answered me by confirming the “Rebuke”.

And so I had to ask him, why he was speaking with me at all. Because, if you’re giving someone to satan and you say that he should be treated as a pagan man and a publican, you’re not supposed to speak with such a person.

He, as a “pastor” and a “bible teacher”, should know that. And he did. His voice went very quiet when he admitted it. I could hardly hear it.

I guess this was another chance for him, to come clean. To admit how he was using everything he can to reach his goal, and equally use anything he can to “discredit” the bostacles in his way. To confess it, and to repent in a prayer.

But he didn’t.

I don’t know if it was because of the people in the room with him. I don’t know, if it was because of his blindness.

I don’t know if it was because he simply doesn’t care that he does.

But he tried his last weapon.

He told me, that there was “nobody in” his “life” that “had offended” him “more then” I did. “Not even Buju Banton!”, he screamed.

“Oh no?”, I asked him. And he confirmed it. No, there was nobody in his life who had offended him more then I did.

Well, so be it.

The truth is an offense, but not a sin.

In the meantime, we almost spent two hours on the telephone. Two hours before he realized there is no Telephone line to order a blanket of Love in order to cover his nudity.

The rude boy only said the emperor has no clothes. And the emperor can only get his clothes by going to JAH , the HEAD of CREATION.

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