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Latest Religion & Cult News

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New Jerusalem is a theocracy where soccer balls are illegal, John F. Kennedy is a saint, freedom of religion doesn’t exist and the end of the world is just around the corner.

It is the largest and longest surviving of a string of traditionalist Catholic colonies that have sprung up around the world.

But now, 35 years after its founding, things have gone terribly wrong in New Jerusalem, many residents say. Palace intrigues, purges and the deaths of the sect’s spiritual leaders this year have left followers divided and confused.

The dogma has become increasingly bizarre, with apocalyptic deadlines that come and go and mysterious “seers” who order one monolithic construction project after another.
» Full Story

A Garda investigation into a prophetic religious cult accused of duping followers out of donations is winding down after the House of Prayer returned €250,000 to aggrieved donors.

Complaints flooded in earlier this year after publicised claims of a €4m mansion at Ms Gallagher’s disposal and a property portfolio.
» Full Story

In the weeks leading up to the slaughter of a Medicine Hat family, Jeremy Steinke exchanged e-mails planning the murders not only with his underage girlfriend - whom he describes as the mastermind of the plot - but also with two unnamed friends, an Alberta court was told yesterday.

Many of the Internet musings and exchanges were presented during the girl’s trial last year, when she was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder. But new e-mails were made public yesterday at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary, where Mr. Steinke is facing the same set of charges.
» Full Story

Lawyers for Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs have scheduled interviews with Texas authorities involved in the raid on the polygamous sect’s YFZ Ranch.

A judge has ordered the men to give interviews to Jeffs’ criminal defense team, which wants to know what information and evidence from the raid was shared with Arizona authorities.
» Full Story

A top Islamic council in mostly Muslim Malaysia has told Muslims to avoid yoga because it uses Hindu prayers and encourages a union with God that is blasphemous.

The latest edict from the National Fatwa Council reflects a growing swing towards a conservative brand of Islam in the multi-ethnic country that has prompted worries among non-Muslims.
» Full Story

After a 14-month investigation, the Ontario Provincial Police said yesterday it had decided not to lay charges in response to allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a former private school run by Anglican priests.

A series of articles in The Globe and Mail - revealing harsh, cult-like religious activities and the abuse of students from the 1970s to the 1990s - led first to an investigation by the bishop of the Anglican diocese of eastern Ontario and then a criminal investigation by the OPP.
» Full Story

Two girls taken from Tony Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas can eventually be reunited with their parents if the parents sever some of their ties with the church, a judge ruled Friday.

Meanwhile, two days after their children were taken from them in a sweep of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries properties, church members opened the church to reporters, denying that they had ever abused their children and saying the government is trying to destroy their church.
» Full Story

Germany is dropping its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity, security officials said Friday.

Domestic intelligence services will continue to monitor the group, officials said.
» Full Story

A peace group involved with the controversial Unification Church, who are often given the name of Moonies, is tomorrow staging its biggest ever event in Britain.

Anti-cult activists fear it could mark a British renaissance for the group, which experienced a growth in numbers during the 1970s and 80s.
» Full Story

Court documents do not list the exact age of the girl, nor do documents released in the course of the seven-month case provide any immediate indication of how old she is or reference to her parents, Sarah Barlow and Joseph Steed.

According to the motion filed Nov. 14 by CPS’ new lead attorney for the case, John R. Dolezal, the girl is still younger than 18 and was married at 14. The girl “has a child,” Dolezal said in court Thursday.
» Full Story

Authorities said dozens of children missing from Tony Alamo ministries in Fouke and Fort Smith, Ark., listed on a court order may be out of the reach of child welfare agencies if they’ve been taken across state lines.

Not a single child was found on Alamo properties in Fort Smith after officials with DHS and members of the Arkansas State Police searched more than a dozen sites Tuesday.

The orders authorizing removal listed many more children than the 20 taken Tuesday.
» Full Story

Pop singer Michael Jackson has confirmed his conversion to Islam — nearly two years after brother Jermaine introduced him to the religion.

The star — whose hits include The Way You Make Me Feel — was spotted looking “a bit down” by a producer and a songwriter who had both embraced Islam.

The source said: “They began talking to him about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea.
» Full Story

In papers filed last week in a Kingman, Ariz., court, Jeffs’ attorneys said they have scheduled a Nov. 24 interview with Flora Jessop in Phoenix. Jeffs’ criminal defense team has asked her to bring copies of “any recordings of any phone calls between yourself and Rozita Swinton,” the woman suspected of making the hoax call that launched the raid.
» Full Story

The Order of Christ/Sophia has chapters across the U.S.

They call themselves Christian Mystics, but some experts on mind control like Steve Hassan, call them “a destructive mind control cult where dependence and obedience is demanded.” [video]
» Full Story

The executive of a religious sect that’s accused of orchestrating threats against Shawano, Wisconsin, officials has been picked up by the U.S. Marshals Service for extradition to Maryland on an unrelated contempt of court warrant.

Authorities in Shawano and the FBI said her arrest had nothing to do with the Shawano threats case.
» Full Story

A French appeals court overturned on Monday a ruling by a lower tribunal that had annulled the marriage of two Muslims because the bride had lied about being a virgin.

The court in Douai ruled that virginity “is not an essential quality in that its absence has no repercussion on matrimonial life.”
» Full Story

Arkansas authorities have taken into protective custody 21 children associated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries based on allegations of neglect and physical abuse.

Julie Munsell of DHS says, “We had been gathering information, gathering evidence over the last several weeks, but was actually sped up by the reported movement of families and children in the area. So we went ahead and decided to execute the court order that we had received for the removal of the children.” [video]
» Full Story

At a hearing on the custody status of two girls removed from Tony Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas, a 14-yearold girl testified that Alamo had touched her inappropriately, and an 18-year-old man described beatings at the hands of another church member.

e girls, along with four others, were removed from the compound in Fouke after a Sept. 20 raid by federal and state authorities investigating allegations that children at the compound had been physically and sexually abused.
» Full Story

In an unusual development for a murder case, an alleged member of a religious cult accused in the starvation death of a toddler was released from custody Monday and will remain free with minimal supervision until trial.

Four other members of the now-defunct 1 Mind Ministries remain held without bail.
» Full Story

A woman charged with helping to hide a corpse in her Necedah home is also a victim of the man who is charged with directing that failed resurrection, lawyers for both the prosecution and defense said Monday.

“We do regard (Tammy Lewis), at least in part, as a victim of this cult activity,” said County District Attorney Scott Southworth.
» Full Story

An opinion writer with a poor grasp of the facts claims that the term ‘cult’ has fallen into disuse.

In doing so he merely apes the opinions of a handful of cult defenders, while ignoring the fact that the term ‘cult’ actually has precise sociological and theological meanings.

Used properly, these cult terminology is as valid today as it has ever been.
» Full Story

30 years ago more than 900 men, women and children were massacred in a murder-suicide ritual thought up by cult leader Jim Jones.

On Nov. 18, 1978, members of the Jonestown security unit shot and killed congressman Leo Ryan, three journalists and one defector as they attempted to leave an airstrip near the settlement on two planes. The gunmen injured 10 other people, including Speier, who sustained five gunshot wounds.

By the time the airstrip gunmen returned to Jonestown, Jones had gathered his people in the pavilion and had begun preparing them for the end. He used news of Ryan’s shooting to convince the throng that they had no hope, no future, no place to go. “The congressman has been murdered!” he said. “Please get the medication before it’s too late. Don’t be afraid to die.”
» Full Story

A jury awarded $2.5 million in damages on Friday to a Kentucky teenager who was severely beaten by members of a Ku Klux Klan group because they mistakenly thought he was an illegal Latino immigrant, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.

The verdict included $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages against “Imperial Wizard” Ron Edwards.

The law center said before the verdict that a large damage award could break the Klan group, allowing the teen and the law center to seize the group’s assets, including its headquarters, a 15-acre compound in Dawson Springs, Kentucky.
» Full Story

Ted Haggard may have revealed during recent sermons at an Illinois church that he was sexually abused as a child, but he’s not revealing whether his appearance hints at a desire to return to the pulpit permanently.

Several church leaders with ties to the disgraced founder of New Life Church, however, have a piece of advice: Don’t do it - at least not yet.
» Full Story

Members of a religious sect based in nearby Wescott generated a list of elected officials, residents and members of the media they wanted “taken care of,” authorities said Friday.

A Canadian citizen — a former business associate of the sect, Samanta Roy Institute for Science and Technology — contacted authorities on Oct. 30 with information about the threats and received the list from sect members on Nov. 3, Whealon said.
» Full Story

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Religion News Blog (RNB), published by Apologetics Index, highlights news items and other resources on world religions, cults, religious sects, new religious movements, alternative religions, abusive churches and - to a lesser extent - related issues (e.g. ethics, human rights).

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