Southend-on-Sea, England: Kung Fu master Tony Anthony and Avanti Ministries

[littleoldme]

did you get my youtube message?

I assume that stedmanbnicely is your youtube account?

[stubbe78]

IKF does infact stand for International Kungfu Federation. Now, if you confront him, he would probably just say, that it is a mistake(that they put on 2 F's instead of one) and that it will be corrected in the next edition. But then again, in Geneve and before 2003.
Then he would probably claim that it is a secret organisation, therefore we couldn't have heard of it. But a secret international federation that has schools all over? And is situated at Rue de la confederation. I just don't believe it.

[littleoldme]

Hi all,

Let's not digress too much, here. Some of Tony's fellow evangelists may well be very genuine and sincere people (although, i admit all those biogs at avanti ministries don't make for light reading!)

If you want to stick to just checking out TA that's fine, but if you look at what some of the other evangelists have written about themselves both on the avanti site and on other sites then there is a whole lot of very serious crimes including conspiracy to murder, kidnap, false imprisonment, robbery, impersonating a police officer and various other violent offenses that these people are claiming they committed but that they were never prosecuted for.

Personally I think that all of that is very important.

[stubbe78]

Littleoldme: It is of course not a proof, but actually, I noticed the same yesterday. It should at least make people wonder. As a christian, I would very much like to know more about that church.
I will also try to pass on the word of Jesus, but neither will I use a falsh story, nor will I hide my true purpose until halfway through a book or something like that

[littleoldme]

[COLOR=#cccccc]stubbe78[/COLO"]No BS MMA and Martial Arts - View Profile: stubbe78@@AMEPARAM@@View Profile: stubbe78</title>@@AMEPARAM@@stubbe78

Thing is I know a few people who did terrible things as young adults and who turned their lives around and now help others. I strongly believe that people can and do change and that we should all give people a second chance.

My concerns relate to the very filmic and dramatic accounts of these people's pasts and that some of them seem to be describing very serious crimes that they were never punished for.

Where I live recently a group of young adults and teens who were committing all kinds of antisocial crimes were given ASBOs after they filmed themselves committing crimes and then posted the footage on youtube.

The situation with these evangelists is in some ways very similar.

I don't know whether these people are genuine or not either in terms of repenting from their past crimes or whether their accounts of their past lives are partly or wholly fictional.

Someone needs to runs some checks on them though IMO as right now it looks rather worrying. IMO

[stubbe78]

Littleoldme: Exactly, there are people who had a painful past, who now help others. And I feel that Tony(and maybe also Avanti ministeries) uses it as a trick. Their(Avanti) evangelical message is clear, and therefore I mainly suspect Tony of being a liar.
Maybe he actually does it to spread the gospel as far as possible in order to follow one the main philosophy that Avanti has: Efficiency(a word I actually don't like in the context of mission)
But that can never excuse him lying. Always be clear, never hide your intentions, be an example.

[DerAuslander]

Hi Stephen.

Thanks for your email.

The point i am making is that Tony saw what he saw. In the end it's hard to prove one way or the other and as with most biographies there will always be incidents where you just have to take the authors word as truth.

With regard to your conclusion about the book as a whole and your opinion of Tony, we will simply have to agree to disagree! As the publisher we stand by Tony and his book. You are of course at liberty to pursue your efforts to counter the claims he makes and i'm sure in the end the truth will prevail.

With regards to the financial proceeds from the book, what i can tell you is that every penny of Tony's royalty's go back into buying books which he largely gives away so making money is actually the very least of his concerns.

Regards

Malcolm

As a publisher, what sort of fact checking went into your reviews and and editing process of Tony's work?

[filehelp]

Filehelp

Thanks for your post and that video

Can you please describe Tony's visit to your school?

How old were the children who saw his presentation?

Did he give free books to kids?

I'm very interested in hearing about his visit in as much detail as possible

Thanks again

[filehelp]

IKF does infact stand for International Kungfu Federation. Now, if you confront him, he would probably just say, that it is a mistake(that they put on 2 F's instead of one) and that it will be corrected in the next edition.

You could catch him out there as he has called it the IKFF in numerous occasions.

Check out this interview, he uses the double F at about 20 seconds and describes the competitions in little detail.

http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/noel...onyAnthony.mp3

[stubbe78]

I went to a free "show" here in Denmark. Now, I don't know if the churches paid, but I can find out.
I actually think he is doing this to reach out with the gospel, but it is so wrong to do it this way.
His ministering is based on efficiency in spreading the gospel(seen on his website). So my point is that he uses the story to hype up christians in order to get us to give his book away and invite non-christians to his "shows"
As christians we believe that God has the power to do amazing things and then we sometimes tend to get less critical to some extend.
I'm not intending to preach, just trying to find different explanations.
Because seriously, I don't get it. It could be the fame, it could be a misguided zeal.
I mainly believe the last one actually. He has done it for such a long period of time that he actually believes it is allright to lie, while spreading the truth of the gospel.
That is my guess.
Furthermore, I don't like this "fishbait" method he is using, whether it's true or not.
He should be clear about his intentions from the beginning of the book.

And from the view of a christian: He should believe that the power of God saves souls, not the power of a very questionable story. It would have been better to put the book away and just focus on the gospel. Instead of telling a story that a lot of people can't relate to and actually find very hard to believe. True or not.

[stubbe78]

If the story is true, it is so full of bad editing that it loses its credibility either way. That is my point

[stephenprunetti]

email to Tony Anthony.

Hi Tony,

Allow me to be blunt here. As i'm sure you are aware, i believe that your book 'Taming the Tiger', (that you claim is your life-story), is utter nonsense. There are many other people who share this belief. You have made many bold claims, within the pages of this book, without ever having produced a shred of evidence to support these claims. Indeed, your wikipedia page was deleted for this very reason. The verdict there was 'fantasist.'

As you may be aware, i have recently been in correspondence with Malcolm Down. He has informed me that within a month you will have a part of your website at www.avantiministries.com, dedicated to answering the questions that many people would like answers to. And not before time. My queries still remain unanswered after two years.

Until then however, can you, in advance of your website developments, answer me just one question? In your book you claim to have shot a man, at close-range, in the head, in Saudi Arabia. Have you ever been held accountable for this murder?

Sincerely

Stephen Prunetti

[filehelp]

"My grandfather took on the majority of my upbringing and passed on to me the family heritage of Kung fu. As a grand master my grandfather trained me rigorously and by the age of 7 I was already a black belt." - source http://www.crimperman.org/1997/10/01...ony-testimony/http://www.facebook.com/tamingthetiger?ref=share

[littleoldme]

If you look at the various Tony Antony videos on youtube you can see that he does in fact give away lots of signed copies of books to children.

When I have worked with children nobody in my organisation is permitted to give personal gifts to children, for obvious boundary reasons. Any little freebies that we give to children are given only through teachers of youth workers.

Even if all of the money from Tony's book royalties go to buy more books, then Malcolm must be absolutely raking it in, as he effectively profits from the sales of the books directly through sales. He is in the enviable position of publishing Anthony's best seller and even the royalties he pays to Anthony go back into book sales. He must be laughing all the way to the bank

As for Anthony's revenue, I would have thought that most of that would come from ticket sales to evangelist events and through donations.

This is interesting

The following shows the true impact of your gift...


http://www.avantiministries.com/giving_financially.php

I'm wondering whether someone at Avanti Ministries didn't like my post above

They seem to have removed the information I included in it and the page does not now work
http://www.avantiministries.com/giving_financially.php

Maybe it's just a techincal glitch?

seems a bit strange

[filehelp]

YouTube - Tony Anthony part 3 - Walking with God about 2 minutes in.

A bit of research shows that this guy is real and a quite well known convict in Cyprus.

http://www.postimage.org/Pqk0Vdi.jpg - Picture

"CONVICTED murderer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas, better known as Al Capone... http://www.cyprusedirectory.com/arti...w.aspx?ID=6249