Since Pastor Manning has become such a popular figure in this forum I think it is important to be informed about his ideology and principles.
Here is a page,
http://www.atlah.org/ministries/fatherham.html, from ATLAH, about "Father Ham":
Ham is the son of Noah. As the sons of Noah boarded the ark, Almighty God commissioned Shem to be the keeper of the flocks and beasts. Ham was assigned the task to preserve the knowledge of creation and pre-creation. He also carried the science of mathematics and medicine with him into the ark. Japheth wasn't given anything to carry aboard the ark.
Ham is the father of the dark-skinned, kinky-haired people. He is also the founder of the nation of Egypt, and his knowledge has enabled his sons to become the builders of the Great Pyramids in Egypt. These are the inheritances of the sons of Father Ham, and they have been passed onto his descendants. Yet, when you see the dark-skinned, kinky-haired people today, they have fallen from their level of greatness.
However, Almighty God has raised up The Honorable James David Manning, as the Priest for this generation to speak a word of deliverance unto them. That word is called, ATLAH - the land of The Great Light People. God is returning world power to the dark-skinned, kinky-haired people, and when they rise, they shall institute a level of superiority that cannot be denied nor rivaled by the existing world.
So apparently Ham (the youngest of the three sons, father of the colored people), was the clever son, Shem (father of the Semites) was the industrious son, while Japheth (father of the Indo-Europeans) was a bum. I have no idea on which source he relied on when making this claim. And while the bible says that Ham is the father of Kush (Nubia) and Mizraim (Egypt), (and also the cursed Canaan), there is nothing about Ham and his descendants from Kush as being superior. In fact Ham is reported to have committed a deviant act against his own father.
"God is returning world power the the dark-skinned kinky haired people..." - returning ?! As if they had ever had superiority before. This is not a righteous message. This is bible-revisionism and black supremacism.
And another important issue is that Pastor Manning is a self-proclaimed prophet who claim to have been directly addressed by the Lord in at list three occasions. Here his is own testimony (
http://atlah.org/about/contact.html):
ATLAH: That's What God Said!
"ATLAH Explained"
by The Honorable James David Manning
On September 14, 1991, I was home praying at my favorite place. For many years I had used an old chippendale
armchair as my place to kneel before the LORD. My routine
in prayer was well established; I knelt, observed the verses
of the Lord's prayer as found in Matthew 6. From there as was my custom, I waited on the Holy Spirit to inspire me.
I am not sure how long I had been praying, but I heard myself say the word
ATLAH: then the Holy Spirit stopped me. He then said, "see now the word
you have spoken is the new name I have given for the land formerly called
Harlem."
For the past thirteen years I have been preaching The Vision of, 50,000
Righteous Men Living for the Lord in the community formerly called
Harlem. Essentially the answer to the problems of this Ghetto can be solved
by the men becoming Righteous Men, but more importantly Almighty God will
get the glory when He raises up a people who are now not a people; and the
world will have to acknowledge it was the Living God who raised up this
community.
The name ATLAH came from the LORD in the middle of the week, and my first
opportunity to tell the congregation was Sunday.
The worship on Sunday was per-usual, but during of the worship I made the
announcement, that Almighty God has given me a new name for the community
formerly called Harlem and it is ATLAH. Some members took out pens and wrote
the name on scratch paper, some asked how to spell it, and we all returned to
our normal worship.
Two weeks later while at prayer at the altar in the sanctuary, the LORD spoke
again and said, now the word ATLAH mean, "The land where the people shall
walk barefoot, because the land is Holy Ground." I need to say that when I first
heard the word, and what God said about it being a new name, I did not like it.
I thought that it sounded too much like the word Allah, the Muslim deity. Beyond
that it did not have the usual english sound that I am so accustomed, so I did not
like it. I bordered on being ashamed of it, but continued in many smalls ways to
talk about ATLAH.
Shortly after that time the LORD spoke to me again in a prayer meeting, and said
the word ATLAH is from Him, and if I would look in the Bible I would discover that
nearly every name of power in the Bible ends in in the letters "AH." I began to
look and discovered that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Noah , Sarah, Deborah, Shiphrah, Puah,
Micah, Zephaniah, Zachariah, Moriah, Hallelujah, Jehovah, Messiah, Elijah, and
the list goes on and on, all ended with the "AH." In fact, nearly every name in
the Bible ends in "AH." I had studies at Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and
was aware of the "EL" endings, and that it meant God, for instance Emmanu-el
means that God is with us.
The "EL" was the prefix for the various names of God; Elohim, El Shaddai, and
others, but never in all my studies had any one ever pointed out the "AH" endings
to names in the Word of God. ATLAH ends in "AH."
During that same time the LORD led me to the Book of Genesis 2:11, there it talks
about the land surrounding the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve's paradise. It names
the rivers that flow out of that land, and the name of the land is Havi-lah. There
we again have not only the "AH" ending, but we have the "LAH" ending, and it is
related to the land. The LORD showed me further in the Book of Isaiah 62:4, where
it talks about the land that the nation of Israel did conquer, and the name of the
land is called Beu-LAH, again with the Anointed "LAH" meaning.
Formerly known Harlem has been renamed: ATLAH
ATLAH means, the land where the people shall walk barefoot, because the land is
holy ground.
Given to Pastor James David Manning, by Almighty God, 14 September 1991
First of all, regarding the importance of AH in the bible:
In the case of 'Noah' and 'Messiah' the 'h' stands for a different consonant, a khet- 'ח', rather than he- 'ה', so it doesn't belong there at all. In the cases like Hallelujah or Zachariah (in Hebrew the ending has the same spelling), it is totally incorrect to separate just the -ah, since the last vowel of the word is -jah. And -jah indeed represents the name of God. There are many names and letter combinations that represent God in Hebrew, other than 'El'. 'LAH' however, is NOT one of these combinations. Not in Hebrew at list. In Arabic 'lah' (from al-lah), means a god (small 'g'). In names like Michah I think that the j ('י') was dropped to make easier to pronounce. The 'h' in 'Sarah' is significant since the orginal name had been 'Sarai' until God changed it to 'Sarah' so to honor the Matriarch.
On the other end, the 'ah' ending of many other words and names such as 'Ziporah' and 'Havilah' is incidental- the 'ah' simply indicate that these are feminine words.
Now, I don't want to completely discredit Pastor Manning. He apparently does good things for his community, and politically he seems aligned with JTF on much of the issues. He may be a special type of black supremacist but he is not a hater. It is legitimate that his main concern is the betterment of his own community through self improvement, which is a refreshing difference from the hate preaching of self-entitlement to commit crime and to rob the whites through affirmative action, that are the mainstay of most other leaders and ideologists of the black community.
Still It is important to be well aware of his ideological/theological views about race and religion. I can't just disregard the racist and somewhat ridiculous part of his teaching, which happen to be the core of his beliefs.
