by Dean Pirera, I.T. Consultant

In a travesty of human rights and freedom of speech last night (12th October 2012), journalist David Millikan and his filming team from a well-known television station verbally and psychologically assaulted a peaceful and unsuspecting community at their public meeting in Lennox Head, NSW.

At a regular presentation on health and wellbeing by Serge Benhayon at the Lennox Head Community Centre it became apparent that Mr Millikan was following through on a well hatched plan to deceive the presenter, hijack the lecture, plant a film crew in the audience and set about grilling the attendees (children included) ‘Spanish Inquisition’ style as to how they were part of a cult.Is this Australia? Is this the 21st century? Infiltrating a group of everyday people like Gestapo agents, ambushing them with hidden cameras and a secret agenda? Really? Journalism?

Millikan’s attack was directed at the audience’s beliefs, dictating to them with righteous might that they were cult members because they believed amongst other things that Mr Benhayon was a member of a certain ‘Divine Hierarchy’ and one of the ascended masters who had come here to shape the destiny of human progress. Maybe Mr Benhayon is or maybe he isn’t, but since when is it a crime to believe in something?

As a Uniting Church minister with a PhD in Philosophical Theology, an expert on cults (who lectures on the subject to police) I am sure Mr Millikan has no issue with the belief that a special man (Jesus) converted water into wine, walked on water, had personal conversations with God (who was actually his father), decided he would sacrifice his life for the entire world and then came back from the dead. But where is the proof of these claims?

Do we call Mr Millikan a cult member for that? – well actually, 2000 years ago we did. But we are a far more advanced and evolved society today now, aren’t we? Aren’t we!

Our world is still deeply struggling with the very basics of human decency. In parliament our representatives don’t know how to speak to each other about opposing views without insulting each other – the art of insult is a mandatory skill for politicians. In prominent religions it is still acceptable to cover up the criminal activities of pedophile ministers by moving them on to other parishes.

We still think that having women showing their tits in the newspaper is ok and does not seriously undermine and degrade the equality of our wives, mothers and daughters. And when there is a tragedy of war or terrorism in our world, we only talk about the casualties from our country – the endless number of victims of families from other countries suffering exactly the same loss somehow go largely unnoticed.

None of this is ok.

Mr Millikan, I believe in integrity, respect, patience, love, understanding, defiance of abuse, intolerance of the denigration of women, abhorrence to anonymous social media slander, and zero tolerance for journalists who insist on using the dark art of deceit to try to report the truth. Even the church you belong to espouses this.

This is the religion I will take to my grave. Will I be shot at dawn for believing in that?