Jesus Christian lays down tambourine

It is not common for The Rockall Times to publish news concerning the activities of private associations of Christ's faithful, except for the purposes of satire (and that doesn't count). However, current news regarding The Jesus Christians is sufficiently worthy of note to rate a mention in the Annals of Sacred Rockall, albeit perhaps under the classification of "Deranged Loons and other hazards to navigation".¹

Briefly, one Roland Gianstefani, an Australian citizen and loyal member of the Commonwealth, was charged with kidnapping one Betty, a twenty-six year old single mother, Kenyan citizen and loyal member of the Commonwealth, in Nairobi just over two months ago.

Roland strenuously denied the charge, stating that Betty had chosen to depart from her father's house and voluntarily join the cult that Roland is a senior member of.² Roland's protestations fell on deaf ears in the Kenyan Police Force, and they incarcerated him in a Nairobi gaol pending either a substantial bribe, political pressure, or the return of Jesus.

The leading members of Roland's cult, considering that they might be joining him in detention, promptly deserted him and returned to Australia.³ Roland's wife and child did not join in the exodus, as it is cult policy that goods and chattels shall remain with their Lord and Master, even if he's languishing in a Colonial gaol.

After four weeks, the matter was taken up by the Kenyan Attorney-General, examined, and the charges dropped. Unfortunately during his sojourn as a guest of the Kenyan penal system, Roland was treated even more severely by his fellow inmates in the gaol than his fellow inmates in the cult, contracting tuberculosis (and possibly other infections that are inappropriate to mention in these pages).

Roland threw in his membership card upon his release, and departed from the cult where he had spent more than a quarter of a century and at whose instigation he had embraced (among other things) sterilisation and kidney donation as methods to publicise the cult's activities.⁴

You can find out more information about Roland and Betty, and an application form to join The Jesus Christians, at this address: www.jesuschristians.com. Note that these unscrupulous folks at last visit had a Javascript email address harvester running on their homepage, so you may wish to alter your email address in your web browser before visiting them.

Notes

1. Presuming that Sacred Rockall has loons, this seems a reasonable title.
2. Voluntarily in this instance should be taken in a loose way. Threatening people with hellfire for failure to join does not in this context constitute coercion.
3. It's Jeremy Thorpe I believe who stated: "Greater love no man hath, that he lay down his friends for his life."
4. The Slotskys — an early 20th century Russian cult — adopted self-castration as a method to achieve piety. Sadly, the practice did not prove popular. The JCs adopted a lesser variant which they describe as "The Virgin Army teaching" or "The 144,000" though it is not clear how sterilisation equates with chastity. On organ donation for publicity, well, that's exceptional, and worthy of another article.

Previously

• Sacre Bleurgh: Aussie bone cult swoop on French corpse
• School bully in running for title of Panchen Lama
• One Almighty mess: Our exclusive interview with God