Religion News Blog

Indictment against rabbi Elior Chen: Shook, beat, fed children feces

Religion News Blog — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:52:25 +0000

The Jerusalem District Prosecution issued an indictment against Elior Chen, known as "the abusive rabbi," for a series of grave abuse charges he allegedly committed against children in his care.

Chen was not charged with attempted murder, but the indictment claims that he abused and assaulted minors in eight separate cases. In addition, he allegedly encouraged members of the group he led to make "corrections" in their children by shaking, beating, binding, and burning them. He also instructed his followers to withhold food and drink from their children and to feed them excrement.

‘Cult’ program in NYC schools

Religion News Blog — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:21:49 +0000

Thousands of New York city public-school students and teachers are participating in a "Brain Education" program run by a group with ties to an alleged cult.

Dozens of former employees of an organization called Dahn Yoga said the school program is run by a group that is part of a vast web of interrelated companies conning participants into investing all their time and money in unproven health and healing activities.

NY case spotlights Dead Sea Scrolls, fake e-mails

Religion News Blog — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:40:21 +0000

Students and university officials started getting e-mails last year in which a prominent Judaic studies scholar seemed to make a startling confession: He had committed plagiarism.

The messages, it turned out, were a hoax. Prosecutors filed criminal charges, saying a lawyer sent the messages to tarnish the professor, his father's rival.

The court case has drawn attention to issues both ancient (the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and decidedly modern (phony online identities).

I know the dark side of Scientology…I almost lost my friend when she became obsessed with it

Religion News Blog — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:16:53 +0000

I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement – issues, as I have come personally to understand, that actually matter, Jonny Jacobsen writes in Herald Scotland.

After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology.

Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, denounced the practice of "disconnection", which sees members forced to cut off contact with anyone – even their loved ones – if they are deemed an enemy of Scientology.

In Edinburgh in the early 1990s, I found out just what the practice of disconnection could do to ordinary people when a close friend became involved in Scientology. It was an experience which marked me so profoundly that I have been tracking the movement ever since...

Church of Scientology told to drop Churchill images

Religion News Blog — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:37:41 +0000

The family of Winston Churchill has asked the Church of Scientology to stop using images of the former prime minister in its recruitment literature, The Times reports.

The controversial religious organisation has been circulating promotional material to recruit staff in the UK which includes photographs of Churchill along with quotes from some of his most famous speeches.

It has also used Churchill’s image to promote speaking engagements by its members and campaigns to raise money to create new Scientology facilities in Britain.

The church defended its use of Churchill in its materials and accused detractors of “trying to stir up mischief”.

The cult apparently sees aligning itself with respected causes (e.g. human rights), celebrities or respected personalties (e.g Einstein as an effective recruitment tactic.

Another favorite ploy is the use of the impressive sounding -- but basically useless -- Oxford Capacity Analysis test.

Prosecutor not malicious in Satanic sex abuse case, Canada’s Supreme Court says

Religion News Blog — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:33:28 +0000

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that a Crown prosecutor was not acting maliciously when he prosecuted 12 members of a Saskatchewan family in the early 1990s after three foster children accused them of sexual abuse and bizarre satanic ritual abuse.

In 1993, criminal charges against all but one member of the Klassen family were stayed and the children later admitted they had made up the story.

Supreme Court upholds cult AUM Shinrikyo members’ death sentences

Religion News Blog — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:03:26 +0000

Two former members of the cult AUM Shinrikyo, Toru Toyoda (41) and Kenichi Hirose (45), had their death sentences upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday for their involvement in the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and hospitalized thousands.

Jury takes 14 minutes to convict self-proclaimed pot pastor

Religion News Blog — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:09:50 +0000

Steven Swallick says he runs a ministry about marijuana. He says he mixed the marijuana with other ingredients to create anointing oil, a recipe he says he got out of the Bible.

But the jury didn't have to address the religious issue, just whether he grew it, possessed it and stole electricity to do it.

Fort Hood shooting: imam says Nalid Malik Husan ‘didn’t seem like an extremist’

Religion News Blog — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:49:39 +0000

An American imam who once led the mosque attended by Nalid Malik Hasan, the man suspected of shooting 13 people dead at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, has said the army major did not seem to be an extremist.

But a former aremy colleague quoted Hasan as saying Muslims should "rise up" and attack Americans in retaliation for the US war in Iraq.

Polygamist Sect Leader Convicted of Sexual Assault

Religion News Blog — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:22:26 +0000

Raymond M. Jessop, one of the leaders of a polygamist sect was convicted Thursday night of sexually assaulting an under-age girl whom the church elders had assigned to him as one of his nine wives.

The state used birth records, a marriage certificate and FLDS church records to show Jessop, already married, took the girl as a spiritual wife in 2004 when she was 16. [video]