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Joseph Akins Alan Campbell Biography & Facts

Joseph Alan Johnston Campbell (7 August 1949 – 11 June 2017) was a Northern Irish Pentecostal pastor and Orangeman from Belfast. He founded and served as pastor and director of the Restored Open Bible Ministries in Northern Ireland. He was an author on Bible studies, a lecturer in the British Israelism movement and an advocate of white supremacy. Strongly opposed to Catholicism, Campbell published anti-Catholic literature and argued that the white Celto Anglo Saxon peoples of the world represent the lost tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. He was known in Historicist circles due to his denial of the Westminster Confession of Faith, while Fundamentalist Protestants rejected his teachings as not being biblical. Although not a leading figure, Campbell was unapologetically loyalist and racist in his views. He was connected to activities by loyalists, including terrorism, from the early days of the Troubles. Although not named, Campbell was often referred to as "The Pastor". He had a strong association with prominent paedophiles John McKeague and William McGrath. Later he was friends with convicted loyalist paramilitaries Clifford Peeples, in particular, and Kenny McClinton. These four associates of Campbell's have been named as British agents. Loyalist politician and UVF member George Seawright was also a close friend. With Peeples and McClinton, Campbell worked to undermine the fledgling Northern Ireland peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement and power-sharing in Northern Ireland by smearing the political representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries, namely the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and Ulster Democratic Party (UDP). Campbell was instrumental in Billy Wright establishing the LVF, after his expulsion from the UVF for breaking the loyalist ceasefire. Former loyalist Roy Garland considered Campbell an expert in stirring up trouble via letter-writing and making bogus phone calls. In his early 20s, Campbell sexually assaulted a boy and was put on trial before being acquitted in suspicious circumstances. Three years later he became the chief suspect in the paedophile murder of Belfast boy Brian McDermott in September 1973 but left Belfast very soon afterwards to start a degree course in London. One journalist has stated: "It’s important the public know the full story about this evil man", while a book refers to Campbell as a "child rapist". Early life Joseph Alan Johnston Campbell was born in on 7 August 1949 to parents Joseph (a stevedore) and May into a staunchly Presbyterian, well-to-do home in Wheatfield Crescent off the upper Crumlin Road, a Protestant district of North Belfast where Roman Catholic families also lived. He spent much of his life in the north of the city. His grandmother was a firm adherent of the doctrine of British Israelism, and thus he was exposed to this teaching from an early age. Despite his upbringing, he did not convert to Christianity until 19 September 1965, in the Ravenhill Free Presbyterian Church, after listening to a sermon by Rev. Ian Paisley. He had first listened to Paisley in the latter's tiny gospel hall some years before. In the early 1970s, Campbell disavowed his affiliation to the Free Presbyterian faith for what he considered Paisley's weak opposition to Irish nationalism. Because of his "Kingdom Identity" views (which hold that Israel, not the church, is the bride of Christ, in contradiction to the teachings of the Westminster Confession of Faith) and his acceptance of Pentecostal beliefs, Campbell left the Free Presbyterian Church and no longer promoted Paisley. He left Belfast in September 1973 to study History at the University of London, where he graduated with a 2.2 degree in 1976. He subsequently received a certificate in Biblical Studies from Queen's University Belfast. Although Campbell denied to fellow loyalist Roy Garland that he was homosexual, he claimed in a police interview that he was a celibate homosexual. Former unionist councillor John Carson had heard rumours about Campbell's homosexuality. Campbell's name came up in statements made by others about alleged unwanted homosexual advances towards young boys. In the late 1960s, he took a girlfriend as cover for his homosexuality. She later admitted that the relationship had never gone anywhere. Religious and racial beliefs Preaching and Ulster Campbell began preaching in May 1974 and delivered his first sermon on Bible prophecy on 24 September 1978. He was officially ordained to the ministry by Dr Francis Thomas on 18 July 1988. He was the author of a number of Bible study books and lectured throughout the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. His ministry centred in Ulster and many of his messages dealt with the political situation there. Amongst his best-known publications was Five Things Every Ulster Protestant Needs To Know, published by Open-Bible Ministries in 1997. In 1989, when he led Covenant People's Fellowship, Campbell opined that the people of Ulster possessed their own identity "separate from the so-called Irish identity that everybody's trying to foist upon us against our will", but that identity and heredity had become neither Irish nor English. Campbell also had contact with the Christian Assemblies International. Lost tribes of Israel Campbell, a "British Israelite", believed that the people of Ulster form part of the lost tribes of Israel taken into exile by the Assyrians. Further, his sermons on this subject taught his listeners that the Protestant people of Ulster and the white race in South Africa represent Israel's lost tribes. He argued that the hand of the Lord had seen a Calvinist race, descended from the people of Israel, settle in each place well over 500 years previously and form an ethnic nation. God's plan, he contended, is that each race has a special duty to convert non-believers and remain immovable in defence of the truth of the gospel. Campbell, an outspoken Ulster-Israelite, preached about the movement of lost tribes of Israel through Western Europe. He considered himself amongst the third-generation of followers of the British-Israeli cause he espoused. In 1988, he observed that Ulster people had felt pressurised into feeling shame for their patriotic and loyalist views. British-Israelism, by contrast, rejects such teaching: "Britain is part of God's vineyard, Ulster is our own Promised Land, peopled by the very seed of Israel planted here as a light in darkest Ireland, and we must occupy until Jesus comes". He was also a prominent figure in the Association of Covenant People, which teaches that Anglo-Celto-Saxon peoples can trace their lineage back to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Reformed Evangelical Protestants decried Campbell's views on British Israel as being contrary to scripture. In the late 1990s, the British Israel movement forbade Campbell from addressing any of its gatherings. Anti-Catholicism Campbell held fiercely anti-Catholic views and mentored "anti-Catholic.... Discover the Joseph Akins Alan Campbell popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joseph Akins Alan Campbell books.