JESUS ARMY HAVE A SMASH HIT

Source : 03/06/1988 Northampton Post

The row between the controversial Bugbrooke based Jesus Army and the pop group the Shaman has taken another bizarre twist.

Copies of the group's single that had been sent to the Army were symbolically cut into pieces with a pair of scissors in front of 1,000 sect members.

The battle between the two groups started when the members of the band posed at university students doing a project to gather information on the Jesus Army.

A photograph they took appeared in the pop journal Melody Maker as part of an interview with the band in which they accused the Jesus Army of being 'skinheads who wreak of fascism.'

Three records made by the band were sent to the Jesus Army at different addresses but all were chopped into pieces at a convention in Birmingham.

Jesus Army spokesman Liz Donovan told the Post: 'We see the group as anti-Christian Satan worshippers and we cut the records to symbolise their break with evil.'

'We hold nothing personal against any members of the band and prayed for each by name - it's what they stand for that we dislike.'