Tag: Church and State

Affinity fraud, Rabbinical courts, Abused Missionary kids, More…

Among the topics in today’s Religion News Briefs: Affinity Fraud (and how you can protect yourself against it). Missionary Kids speak out about abuses they have suffered. And we meet a woman who lost her religion — and subsequently her childen. She is now battling a rabbinical court to regain custody.

Plus: 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned prayer in school religion can be found everywhere in public school environments.

Mexican authorities detain leader of religious sect that opposes secular education

Bob Grenier In today’s Religion News Briefs: Ritualistic murderer Robin Marie Murphy has been denied parole. A Calvary Chapel pastor sues one of his sons, who accuses him of abuse, for defamation.

Also: Dominican Republic jails leader of a doomsday cult. Meanwhile, Mexican authorities detain the leader of religious sect that opposes secular education. Plus lost more…

Iowa pastor preaches politics to oust 3 justices who backed gay marriage

The Rev. Cary K. Gordon has a prayer he recites as he campaigns against the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who are up for retention in next month’s election.

“Dear God,” he says, “please allow the IRS to attack my church, so I can take them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Gordon, an associate pastor at Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, says he will defy federal law this month when he urges the congregation to vote to not retain the three justices, who participated in a unanimous ruling that allowed same-sex couples to wed. His mass mailing to 1,000 church leaders in September prompted one national religious liberty group to file a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service.

Advocates of the separation of church and state and some religious leaders say Gordon’s plan is illegal, immoral and an attempt to falsely frame his dispute as a freedom-of-speech violation. The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., called Gordon’s actions one of the most outrageous attempts to politicize a church that he has ever seen.

Others, such as Jeff Mullen, senior pastor of Point of Grace Church in Waukee, are urging Iowa pastors to communicate to their congregations the “biblical mandate for involvement in local and national elections.”

Seems to us at Religion News Blog that some other, more important Biblical mandates are being skipped in the process.