Extra! Extra! Religious-right Oregon Citizens Alliance chairman Lon Thurston Mabon is "First Presiding Patriarch."
And he was appointed to this prestigious position in "33 Anno Domini … by Jesus Christ, the anointed One, Crucified, Risen, and Coming again...."
I am not making this up. This claim is signed and sealed in the Articles of Incorporation of "New Covenant Ministries International for the Office of the Presiding Patriarch (Overseer) and His Successors, a Corporation Sole" on file with the Oregon Corporation Division. Furthermore, this organization claims to have existed since "before the foundations of the earth."
Anti-gay crusader Mabon told supporters in 1995 that he was God's only messenger: "God doesn't send two messages. I get the message" (Sunday Oregonian, March 10, 1996). At the time, the media failed to ask the obvious questions: Is Lon Mabon God's only messenger for the entire universe or just the Western Hemisphere? Does he cover all of the United States, or is California out of his jurisdiction? For Catholics, is he superior to the Pope? Now we know the answers: He's the international First Presiding Patriarch, and the claim of 33 A.D. seems to predate the apostolic succession that Catholics ascribe to the Pope.
The documents present "notice to all mankind" of Mabon's "ordination to this Office" and refuse to recognize the authority of the "alleged State of Oregon," stating that the filing is merely a notification of the prior existence of "this Lawful sovereign-entity," which claims to be "not subject to the Jurisdiction of laws made by man." Furthermore, "all Secular courts must accept the decisions of the Ecclesiastical Judicatories." And on top of that, this entity claims to be "paramount"—that is, supreme above all others.
Mabon has been going off the deep end for some time since becoming God's only messenger. In response to Catherine Stauffer's lawsuit attempting to collect the nine-year-old judgment she won after the OCA's Scott Lively assaulted her in a Portland church in 1992, he engaged in "bizarre" and "crackpot" behaviors and "weird courtroom antics" (Oregonian editorial, February 23, 2002) by claiming that many Oregon judges were "impostors" because a clerical error had inadvertently omitted two words and a comma from the required oath, that Stauffer was a "fictitious juristic entity" who didn't actually exist since her first and last names weren't registered with the Corporation Division, and that legal documents were invalid because they referred to him as "Lon T. Mabon" rather than by his "full Christian name" (Lon means "noble"; Thurston means "stone of Thor, the Norse god of thunder"; and Mabon is an ancient autumn pagan holiday).
New Covenant Ministries seems to claim to be a church, but it may "Deal in every way in Prime Notes, Noble metals, Planchets, Commercial Liens, Stamps, Rare Earths, Mortgages, all manner of Edge Banking"—which appears to reference a court case where Mabon came to the defense of John Nolan, a militia-type Freeman who was accused of printing and passing fraudulent notes, some of which bore a picture of himself alongside a picture of the Queen of England: "John Nolan's instrument is sounder than the Federal Reserve note is. This case will bring all that out," claimed Mabon; the judge was not convinced as to the soundness of Nolan's homemade money and thus soundly convicted him anyway (The Oregonian, October 3 and December 12, 2002).
The documents state that unless Mabon appoints another "Peculiar Member" to succeed him in case of his abdication or demise, the line of succession will pass through his wife, two sons, and one daughter; it appears to be a radical feminist statement that even women can become "Patriarch."
The documents are witnessed, signed, and sealed with thumbprints "on the Soil of Oregon Country" by Richard Orrin Jones (formerly an OCA chief petitioner), Byron M. Mabon (Lon's father and NCMI corporate agent), and Jeremy Bowen (founder of the OCA-front Committee for Constitutional Courts, which was slapped by the Elections Division in 2002 for illegally using campaign funds to pay for Mabon's personal legal expenses). Bonnie Jean Mabon is "duly appointed Scribe of/for an unincorporated religious society, by virtue of Spiritually and Divinely inspired appointment...."
Mabon formed New Covenant Ministries on April 25, 2002, shortly after he got out of jail for contempt of court; the documents weren't filed until July 22. Longtime OCA opponent M. Dennis Moore discovered the existence of the group in early May 2003 while updating his research on the OCA's unpaid back taxes and other debts, learning from the Marion County Tax Collector that ownership of the OCA office equipment had been transferred to the new group. He obtained a copy of the Articles from the Corporation Division, and in late May, Mabon announced that New Covenant would sponsor and finally begin to collect signatures on the three initiatives he filed in October 2002.
Moore wrote satirical "arguments in favor" of OCA anti-gay initiatives for the Voters' Pamphlet in 1992, 1994, and 2000. But now he says, "I surrender. Lon Mabon has totally outdone me. My parodies ridiculing the OCA can no longer compete against Lon Mabon's superior lunacy. Truth is stranger than fiction, and Lon's claim that he was appointed as First Presiding Patriarch in 33 A.D. is weirder than any satire I could ever write. I give up."
Meanwhile, back at the OCA in 2003, the group's seven PACs have a $60,000 debt in unpaid loans and accounts payable, about $3,500 in more than thirty-five unpaid fines for election-law violations dating back to 1992, and seven liens for unpaid state income tax and one for federal tax. The Mabons have ten liens for unpaid state income tax, an apparent foreclosure on their house, and three business failures resulting in losses to investors of more than $280,000. And then there's more than $20,000 in principal and interest owed on Stauffer's 1992 judgment, plus attorneys' fees and $42,000 in court-ordered fines. It appears that New Covenant Ministries International is just another fraudulent attempt to avoid paying this debt.