We must all wish Mark Brewer and all the little Brewer-ites a happy anniversary. It was exactly one year ago today that the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust was set up – sadly, I missed the one year anniversary of Saint Stephen the Great, but I’m sure nobody noticed.

I am slightly baffled by the SSGCT start date, as they started taking over SPCK during October 2006. Nevertheless, I’m sure there will be a party, with appropriate music, and a cake. Anyone here invited?

There is still one question that I would like to be able to answer – why am I so interested in this? The closest connection that I have to this story is that I was working for Wesley Owen when the demise of SPCK was first announced. Other than that, I haven’t been an avid follower of CartoonChurch, nor of any of the other blogs that have since got involved, and I haven’t been in receipt of a C&D notice. Yet, since a friend of mine pointed out the attack on Dave Walker’s site, I’ve been fairly relentlessly trying to find out more information about Mark Brewer, SSG, and the original SPCK story. I even have people reading and commenting on a blog that a week ago only my parents read!

In theory, I should be writing articles on things that I know about – what it’s like to be British in Nevada, Dyscalculia (dyslexia with numbers), and the best place to hear classical music (Vixen, Sparks, NV – August 19th).

At the same time, I really like being involved with this group of people who are trying to bring justice to a case that shouldn’t have ever occurred. I enjoy reading the snippets of new information that people have come up with. I also like the feeling that someone, somewhere (other than my parents) is enjoying reading what I am writing.

I really want to know how the Brewer case ends – will he apologise to all those he has affected? Will someone counter-sue him? Or, will it just disappear into the zeitgeist? I also want to know what happens when I stop commenting on SPCK/Brewer and go back to writing about various international airports I’ve travelled through.

Any thoughts?

Oh, and just so that you don’t feel like you have just read the ramblings of a guy, living in the desert, with an empty bottle of cider in front of him, I did a little research in response to a question posted by David Keen.

can a US-based organisation be a UK charity?

So, I typed the following in to google:

can us company be uk charity

and what do you think was the fifth result out of the 331,000 it found?

For some reason, I don’t find it all that surprising.

Being a bit of a geek, the first thing I found out about SSG was who ran, updated, and owned the website on which I found the video. For those not in-the-know, every website has information about it published on the WHOIS database. This is the WHOIS record for ststephentrust.org.uk:

The Registrant’s address isn’t really a surprise. It’s the office of our friend Mark Brewer – a hard working man with a surprisingly high pitched voice. The bit that surprised me was the name of the Registrant, and who they were Trading as.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but a martyr is usually someone who is dead. Forty martyrs would therefore be forty dead people. The Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste were forty Christian people condemned to freeze to death next to a icy pond on a bitterly cold night – only for the survivors to be burned the next morning. It seems unlikely that these forty people had a meeting during the night and decided to register the domain name ststephentrust.org.uk for two reasons:

1. The martyrs died in the year 320AD. Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in 1989. I know it’s important to plan ahead, but I think 1,669 years is a little extreme.
2. The martyrs had very little to do with St. Stephen the Great – who lived 1200 years after the martyrs died.

This leaves only one possible explanation. Mark Brewer was able to summon up the martyrs, persuade them that there was great benefit in registering the domain name, and then return them to wherever they had come from without ever announcing his incredible deed – he is, after all, a very private man.

That is the only explanation I can think of – it would be wrong, possibly even libellous, for him to have claimed the martyrs supported the website without their permission.

On another, quite similar, note, I found this article from The Rev’d Dr. Christian Troll rather amusing.

However, what I will do is regurgitate a post that Dave Walker posted a while ago. It was one of the 75 that were removed, so I probably will get to know “Basher” rather well. However, I find it too funny – and I’m always a sucker for humour.

When SSG took over SPCK they also took over their rule book (rather, they would have done had SPCK had a rule book, which I somewhat doubt – Wesley Owen did, but that’s another post for another time). SSG is orthodox, SPCK was not. So, it was important for SSG to get that authentic orthodox feel to their newly acquired bookshops. This included the way the shop was set up, the books they sold, and the music they played during ‘events’. It is the latter set of rules that I don’t think anyone can fail but scratch their head at:

My overall conclusion from this list is that they were probably better off just writing:

• No music is allowed

I should point out that I have nothing against orthodox people. One of my friends over here is Greek Orthodox, and her and her family are some of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever met (the fact that they were responsible for Heather’s wedding dress was, needless to say, a bonus). Having said that, I can’t see me converting to Greek Orthodox any time soon – it just doesn’t agree with me. Nor does Catholicism. Nor does the Baptist faith. But that doesn’t mean that I think that CofE is the only true denomination. As long as somebody is Christian, or at the least accepts that Christianity should exist, then I’m happy. I realise that someone is likely to disagree with that ethic.

Therefore, I don’t really like it if one denomination of Christianity stops the others from doing what they feel comfortable doing. This is what I think is happening with the above rules on music. SPCK was a protestant bookshop, but anyone could go into them and buy a book without raising any eyebrows from anyone. However, SSG appeared to try and turn SPCK into an Orthodox bookshop, thereby alienating all those who are not Orthodox, particularly those who worked there. It’s like a shoe shop being told to only sell sandals.

Dave Walker did a very nice cartoon about the different types of people who go to a Christian bookshop. However, that was removed along with the other parts relating to SPCK – probably because it no longer applied to the shop it was aimed at.

[These are, of course, only my opinions, and not necessarily the thoughts and intentions of SSG. In fact, I can go as far as to say these are not the thoughts or intentions of SSG at all. I should also point out that most of the members of SSG are probably very nice people, who probably make very nice cake, and who were unlikely to have been involved in the downfall of a very nice bookshop.]

Dave Walker was a big supporter of SPCK – He had a “Save the SPCK” banner on the front of his webpage. So it seems utterly bizarre to me that the people that took over the shops, SSG, should see his commentary as offensive and worthy of legal action. On July 22, that is what they did.

Hours later, the 75 posts about SPCK were taken down. This is not because Dave Walker saw the error of his ways, but because he couldn’t afford to go to court. Those posts are now lost in the mist of time – never to be seen again.

I am not a big fan of large corporations using their size, money, and knowledge to intimidate individuals. At the risk of sounding like a stroppy teenager, it isn’t fair. It pains me more when it is a Christian organisation that is doing the bullying. When did God ever send a “cease and desist” notice to anyone? There are plenty of people He could give one to. What’s wrong with having a nice chat, a cup of tea, and a biscuit to solve these things? At least then, if you lose, you know why, and you’ve had a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to see people standing up for what they believe. There are plenty of people writing about this – and it’s nice that someone has listed them here.

I’m not going to comment much more on this, I don’t live too far from Texas and I’m only 5′6″. So, I’ll end with a cryptic cartoon I drew, and the claim that I’m Dave Walker.

(P.S. You may use this cartoon anywhere you like. A little nod in my direction is always welcome)