Perhaps I'm not the right person to write about this subject. I'm
biased, you see.
I've encountered Jack Glass once in my life. I spoke to him for under thirty seconds, and on the basis of that conversation I came to the conclusion that he was an irredeemable, single minded bigot.
The incident occurred outside a rock festival at which Marilyn Manson was performing. I'm not particularly fond of Mr. Manson's music, but he's made a few enlightened comments over the years. As I approached the front gate I noticed a group of Christian protestors carrying banners demanding that Manson be banned from performing.
I politely approached their leader and informed him that I respected his religion and his right to express his views, but that I felt the right of artists to freedom of expression had to be taken into account. He looked into my eyes, drew himself up to his full height and, in a voice that reverberated through me, proclaimed:
Satanist!
before walking away.
This was Jack Glass, and he later picketted another Manson gig in Scotland at which a friend of mine smacked him in the face with his own Bible.
Pastor Jack Glass was a fundamentalist Protestant Minister who achieved something of a minor celebrity status in Scotland with his extreme and outspoken views. He genuinely hated Satanism and saw it manifest itself wherever he looked in the modern world.
During the Pope's visit to Glasgow in 1982, Glass led demonstrations under the slogan "No Antichrist Here!" The Pope responded by driving past the demonstrators and issuing blessings. When Leah Tutu, wife of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, attended an event in the city, Glass heckled her, shouting "Hang Nelson Mandela!" He opposed the opening of sex shops in Glasgow, protested against gay rights, expressed a desire to burn comedian Billy Connoly to death after he told a joke about the Last Supper and attempted to have the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian" banned, citing its representation of the times and society of Jesus as "blasphemous".
Pastor Jack's actual spiritual beliefs were represented by the Zionist Baptist Church of the Sovereign Grace, which he founded himself in 1967 after concluding that none of the existing Protestant churches were sufficiently loyal to a literal interpretation of the Bible. He also founded a newspaper which alleged of a Catholic conspiracy to control world governments. He vehemently opposed Ecumenism and close ties between what he saw as "rival" Christian factions.
Jack Glass died from cancer on the 24th of February, 2004, aged 67. He claimed that he had been inflicted with a tumor by Satan. He believed that the Devil was "trying to steal my voice, to destroy Christ's message." At one point he announced that he had been given the all-clear by doctors and proclaimed it as a miracle.
His death was met with mixed reactions in Scotland. Many people opposed to his views have stated quite frankly that they are glad he is dead while Ron Ferguson, who wrote Pastor Jack's obituary in the Herald newspaper, argued that he was a perfectly likeable man so long as one managed to "steer him away from the topic of religion."