A “profoundly vulnerable” wheelchair-bound disabled woman was told she would die a horrible death unless she handed her life savings to doomsday cult leader Rocco Leo. The startling claims have surfaced during civil action launched by Silvia Melchiorre, 37, against Leo and senior members of Agape Ministries, Joe and Marie Antoinette Veneziano.
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Cult leader Rocco Leo told disabled woman that cash would save her
by Phillip Luke Sinitiere Ted Haggard , whose ministerial career seemingly ended amidst a gay sex scandal is 2006, is back in the news. The former minister of New Life Church, and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, announced today that he and his family have organized a new congregation in Colorado Springs: Saint James Church . It is likely the church takes its name from the New Testament epistle of James, a book that encourages perseverance in the midst of trials.
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Ted Haggard and Saint James Church
A number of former employees of the church have told ABC’s Lateline they were only paid a few thousand dollars per year for full-time work and had to resort to welfare payments to survive. The Church of Scientology claims people who sign up to work do so as volunteers.
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Scientology probed over underpayment claims
As I was thinking back on my post of yesterday on reading the Gospels, I remembered a discussion with one of my former spiritual directors, a Jesuit named Bill Walsh, about the Gospels. Once Bill suggested that I pray through the Gospels one by one, rather than simply using the daily Mass readings for my daily prayer (which is often, although not always, my practice)
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Gospel Differences
Charles Flowers, who founded Love Demonstrated Ministries, International with his wife, and Stephanie Bassitt, a former staff member, were accused of using a rope to tie a 15-year-old girl to a van on June 12, 2007, and then dragging her behind it. They were tried in 2008, but a judge declared a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict.
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DA’s office to refile assault charges in boot camp case
Australia’s industrial inspectorate has confirmed it is investigating the employment practices of the Church of Scientology .
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Fair Work Ombudsman looked into Church of Scientology
A day after City Harvest Church completed a massive five-day seminar which involved 30,000 people including foreign evangelists, police rounded up several individuals linked to the church for alleged misuse of church funds. The 17 people who are ‘assisting police with investigations’ included the megachurch’s founder and Senior Pastor Kong Hee, who was picked up early Monday morning.
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City Harvest Church under investigation by CAD and Commissioner of Charities
I’m pleased to guest post a contribution from Jon Rowe, who normally blogs at American Creation and at his own blog as well. Jon has done a lot of reading on religion and the American founding, and has the following thoughts on a popular history text, George Washington’s Sacred Fire by Peter Lillback, which has stormed from Glenn Beck’s show onto the top seller lists. On Glenn Beck’s show , they had the following conversation: BECK: Yesterday, it was like 475,000 on Amazon.com.
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George Washington’s Religion, the Founding, and the Perils of Glorified Self Published Books
AMRITSAR : A rare collection of hand-written manuscripts of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim religion along with outstanding relics of European Renaissance, collected by a Sikh scholar in Punjab village are in state of gross neglect. A Sikh scholar Dalip Singh of remore village Mallu Nangal on Indo-Pak border in this district who owns the collection is a disappointed man. He has got a collection of various religious books hand written even from the times of 15th centuary.
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Rare collection of hand written manuscripts in Punjab village getting ruined
Phillips Brooks once famously defined preaching as “Truth through personality.” Today the word “personality” is sometimes used in a more restrictive sense to refer to the quirks of an individual. “Oh, that’s just his personality” we sometimes say. Now when it comes to preaching, there is a potential tension that can surface
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Personality Excuses