Case of cult-fighter who changed sides awakens Israelis to millennium danger

The Concerned Christians group, whose members were arrested in Israel yesterday on suspicion of planning a bloody showdown with police in Jerusalem, was founded in Colorado originally to combat the spread of cults.

Its founder and leader, Monte Kim Miller, a former pharmaceutical marketing executive whose whereabouts are still unknown, initially worked side by side with the police and established churches in the 1980s to preach against the dangers of mind control by extreme religious groups. But he appears to have crossed the line and to have begun aping the cult leaders he had been investigating.

"Kim Miller was on our side of the fence, and Concerned Christians was a good name," said Mark Roggeman, a Denver police officer, now trying to track down the cult. "Somehow over the years he digressed to the point where the world became evil, where the devil and satanic forces are everywhere."

Despite a steady flow of tithes from his followers, Mr Miller declared bankruptcy in October 1997, apparently accelerating the cult's slide into millennial panic.

After a string of critical stories in the Colorado press, Mr Miller angrily predicted the destruction of Denver in an earthquake on October 10. The quake failed to materialise, but by then Mr Miller and 78 of his followers had disappeared. They vanished overnight, leaving homes and worried relatives behind.

Some are believed to have fled to Mexico, others to Canada. Within days of the group's disappearance from Colorado, the FBI tipped off Yamar, the elite central unit of Jerusalem's police force, that a handful of cult members had arrived in Israel.

Until then, Israel's famously proactive internal security apparatus had been uncharacteristically sleepy about the prospect of potentially dangerous Millennialists arriving in Jerusalem to the return of the messiah to the Mount of Olives, as prophesied in the Bible.

The low-key attitude was notable in Binyamin Netanyahu's rightwing government, which had forged strong links with fundamentalist Christian groups in the United States.

But the FBI's description of Concerned Christians activities clearly set alarm bells ringing. A former teenage member of the group, Nicolette Weaver, had told investigators in 1997 that her mother, a leading acolyte, had said she would kill her if Kim Miller told her to. Her mother, Jan Hooper, called Miller "Lord" or "God".

Ms Weaver said: "My mother told me in August 1996 that we have only 40 months left on earth."

Before disappearing last October, Mr Miller told his followers he was one of two "witnesses" to the apocalypse predicted in the Bible's Book of Revelations. He said he would be slain by Satan in Jerusalem and rise from the dead three days later.

Hal Mansfield, the director of the anti-cult Religious Movement Resource Centre in Colorado, predicted: "It could go either way, anywhere from the group falling apart and going away quietly, to the other extreme - a Jonestown scene, or anything and everything in between."

The mass murder suicide in 1978 by more than 900 members of the People's Temple Commune is the worst case so far of a cult holocaust. Before the killings, the cult leader, Jim Jones, led his followers from their base in San Francisco to a small settlement in Guyana.

By late November, Jerusalem's police chief, Yair Yitzhaki, confirmed the presence of at least 10 Concerned Christians as he announced a £7 million security package to protect holy sites.

Mr Yitzhaki declined to elaborate on the whereabouts of the cult members, arguing: "Every additional word I say could harm the very important work being done now." The Israeli police were reportedly asked by the US state department not to release their names in the interests of freedom of religion. Gershon Gorenberg, a journalist with the Jerusalem Report magazine specialising in the millennium, disagrees. "They woke up very late to the potential danger of cults like these arriving here to claim their front-row seats for the messiah's return," he said.

"The only experience we have is of people suffering from Jerusalem syndrome, a relatively benign psychosis which afflicts some pilgrims and makes them believe they are biblical figures. That can be treated in a few days.

"The danger is that Jerusalem will be host to the largest Christian event ever staged in less than a year and there could be a lot of disappointment, frustration and even anger when what many Christians hope and believe will happen doesn't come to pass. In those circumstances some may take it into their own hands to hasten the chain of events which they believe will lead to the fulfilment of biblical prophecy." Some Christian fundamentalists believe the Bible predicts the end of days will begin around the time of the second millennium, ushering in the rapture, when true believers will be lifted up to Heaven for seven years while the Earth is "cleansed" in battle beginning at Armageddon - Megiddo in northern Israel.

This period of the "Tribulations" will lead to the establishment of a 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth.

Beyond belief
• The present world will end at the millennium, to be followed by the coming of the Lord.
• Cult leader Monte Kim Miller is one of two "witnesses" mentioned in the Bible and sent by God to announce the Earth's destruction.
• He will be slain by Satan in the streets of Jerusalem, and will rise from the dead three days later.
• The United States is the Great Satan, and its government is controlled by demons.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaK%2Bfp7mle5BycHJnmpa7cHyTaJuarpmZwKmt0aumnKNen8KttcCnmaiql5q%2F