This section is the collected letters of Neal Chase, one of the claimants to the title of Guardian.
Chase Guardianship Claim Letters:
1. 2002, Guardianship Claim Letter
2. 2003, Guardianship Claim Letter (small differences from earlier version)
3. 2009, Latest Claim Letter known to author
Neal Chase. (2011, January 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:52, February 10, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neal_Chase&oldid=405636046
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neal Chase (born January 30, 1966) is the disputed leader of a small Bahá'í sect known as the Bahá'ís Under the Provisions of the Covenant (BUPC), which was last known to have fewer than 140 members in 2001, mostly concentrated in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado. Chase claims to be the current Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, as well as the current successor to the Throne of David. Chase and the BUPC fall into the category of Covenant-breakers to members of the dominant sect the Bahá'í Faith, and are shunned, eventhough they have no legitimate authority to declare people covenant breakers, a role reserved for the Guardian.
Neal Chase
Neal Chase was born a Jew in Bridgeport, Connecticut. After becoming a born-again Christian in his teens, Chase became a follower of Leland Jensen, and a member of the BUPC at the age of 19 while attending Michigan State University. He later moved to Deer Lodge, Montana, and in 1990 he privately published Ezekiel's Temple in Montana, a book on his research into the Morrisites, the Mormon splinter group that pioneered the Deerlodge Valley. He claims that the Morrisites specified August 9, 1969, as the date for the Second Coming of Jesus,[2] which he claimed was fulfilled by Jensen's arrival in prison. Leroy Anderson, the leading expert on the Morrisites, disputes Chase's conclusion and claims the date simply happened to be the last annual Morrisite gathering.[2]
He received attention for a number of predictions he was making about attacks on New York City and nuclear holocaust, and was invited to be a guest on the Art Bell radio show Coast to Coast AM on March 25, 1993, soon after the first World Trade Center Bombing. Chase was also satirized on Michael Moore’s TV Nation in episode #5's segment, "Millennialists". His prediction of an attack on February 26, 1993 was discussed in Expecting Armageddon,[3] and mentioned in the February 1995 issue of Harper's Magazine.
A year after the 9/11 attacks The Missoulian newspaper published a statement from Victor Woods, a BUPC member, that Chase had accurately predicted the date of the attacks.[4]
Jensen believed that Remey's adopted son Joseph Pepe was the next Guardian after RemeyThe Second International Bahá'í Council (sIBC) that Jensen set up in 1991, with Chase as a member, functioned without the involvement of Pepe. After Pepe died in 1994 Jensen began hinting that Chase might be the next Guardian.[9] After Jensen's own death in 1996, the council remained the head of the BUPC, but without a clear candidate for Guardian, and without Jensen, no new members could be appointed to the council.[10]
This long-running dispute culminated in 2001, seven years after Pepe's death, when Chase announced that he was the Guardian.[10] Chase's announcement caused a division among the council members, with the majority opposing Chase. His exercising the removal of funds and material of the council resulted in an unresolved court case in 2002. Chase declared the other dissenting members to be Covenant-breakers, including his ex-wife, Dawn Mullally.[11]
Throughout the 1990s Chase made a total of 18 predictions, with Jensen's approval, which pertained to small-scale disasters that he claimed would lead step-by-step towards apocalypse, as well as dates for a nuclear attack on New York City by middle Eastern terrorists.[13] Researchers from the University of Montana led by Robert Balch studied Jensen, and later Chase, extensively between 1980 and 1996, using them as a case study in cognitive dissonance. Their report claimed that Chase based these predictions on Biblical prophecies, evidence from Hopi prophecies, planetary conjunctions, dreams, numerological coincidences, Nostradamus, and psychics.[14]
Balch was observing Chase and the BUPC when he made his first prediction that the bombing of New York City would be on Nov. 29, 1992. Nothing happened in New York until the World Trade Center was attacked three months later on 02/26/93. Chase later cited Daniel 7:12, which says, "their lives were prolonged for a season and a time". Claiming that a season is three months, he announced that "the predicted day of Nov. 29 plus the prophesied season of three months brought us to Feb. 26, 1993, the day the World Trade Center was bombed" (August 4, 1993).[15]
Another of Chase's predictions didn't pass without incident, though not the nuclear attack by terrorist that was expected. On 11/01/93 Chase wrote, "March 23rd, 1994 the veils will be rent asunder with the fiery holocaust of New York's millions of inhabitants. Forty days later the Battle of Armageddon will begin...". The day after the predicted date, on March 24, 1994 a gasline exploded in Edison, NJ across the Hudson River from New York. Chase used the eyewitness accounts comparing the explosion to a nuclear blast to buttress the claim that the prediction came true.[15]
Balch noted that Chase responded to the 18 disconfirmed prophecies with a number of "face-saving strategies",[16] including drawing a distinction between prediction and prophecy, claiming miscalculation, reprieve, and tests of faith. Chase later proclaimed "We didn't make a mistake," and that they have "a 100 perecent track record!"[16]
Published:
Chase, Neal (1987). Lazarus the Sick World. Self-published.
Chase, Neal (1990). Ezekiel's Temple in Montana. Self-published.
Chase, Neal (2003). King of Terror. Self-published.
Contributed to:
Harper's Magazine. February 1995.
Lapham, Lewis H. (1997). The Anthology, The End of the World.
Chase, Neal (1992). "Killing People to Get Elected". Phoenix Liberator.
Referenced in:
Robbins, Tom (1997). Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements.
Stone, Jon R. (ed) (2000). Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy. London & New York: Routledge.
"Bahá'í Faith Center". Harvard University, Committee on the Study of Religion. Retrieved 2006-12-11.
^ a b Stone 2000, pp. 271
^ a b stone 2000, p. 272 note 3
^ Missoulian articleSeptember 16, 2002
^ Taherzadeh 1992, p. 432
^ Stone 2000, p. 269
^ Stone 2000, pp. 270
^ stone 2000, pp. 271–272
^ a b stone 2000, p. 280 note 6
^ a b Opinion/Order, Montana Supreme Court, 2/15/2005, No. 04-214
^ Appellant Brief, p. 8, 4/23/2004. Respondent Brief, p. 9, 5/21/2004. Montana Supreme Court, Case No. 04-214. Cases are accessible online at State Law Library of Montana.
^ See WIPO document
^ Balch states: "All eighteen predications in the 1990's were made by Chase…. Chase’s predictions pertained to small-scale disasters that he claimed would lead step-by step toward the apocalypse. Some of his predictions focused on upheavals caused by meteors, asteroids and comets, but most pertained to the destruction of New York City by a nuclear bomb that would be placed by Middle Eastern terrorists." (Balch et al., cf. Stone, p. 272)
^ Stone 2000, pp. 278–9
^ a b stone 2000, p. 274
^ a b Stone 2000, p. 275
Chase, Neal (1990). Ezekiel's Temple in Montana. Baha'i Center, Missoula, MT: Self published.
Stone, Jon R. (ed) (2000). Expecting Armageddon, Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy. New York: Routledge. pp. 269–282. ISBN 0-415-92331-x.
Taherzadeh, A. (1992). The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh. Oxford, UK: George Ronald. ISBN 0853983445.
UN WIPO Decision- Ruling in domain name dispute
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Chase"
Categories: Converts to Christianity from Judaism | Bahá'í divisions | 1966 births | Living people | People from Bridgeport, Connecticut | People from Montana | Michigan State University alumni
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Leland Jensen and Neal Chase