(Rick Ross /Culteducation. com) On November 18, 1978 912 followers of American cult leader Jim Jones ("Peoples Temple") died in a remote South American jungle compound called "Jonestown" in British Guyana.
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Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.
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(telegraph) The new rules issued by the Vatican puts attempts at ordaining women among the “most serious crimes” alongside paedophilia and will be handled by investigators from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), considered the successor to the Inquisition. Women attempting to be priests, and those who try to ordain them, already faced automatic excommunication but the new decree goes further and enshrines the action as “a crime against sacraments”. The unexpected ruling follows Pope Benedict XVI’s open-armed welcome to Anglican clergy dissatisfied with General Synod attempts to compromise over calls for the ordination of women as bishops. Under current plans the first women bishops could be ordained in the Anglican Church as soon as 2014, a move which has caused a deep schism between reformers and traditionalists, who threaten to leave the Church of England in droves and defect to Rome. .  More...

Heil Hitler! Wotan is the god of our blood. He represents the creative force in the universe that guided the human races through evolution! The fact that he made you niggers so massively stupider than us Aryan supermen is clear evidence of his intent that we should rule the Earth! I am a fucking pagan National Socialist (I'm sorry, I forgot I was on a nigger forum. I am a NAZI). That means I fucking don't like you! You hear me?! I fucking dislike you! Get out of our sacred lands! Jiggaboos, get the fuck out or we'll throw your lousy asses out! SIEG FUCKING HEIL!!!. .  More...

(nydn) The Harlem Gospel Choir has backed out of a holiday performance with controversial conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, the Daily News has learned. The famous choir, which has performed for Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II, was set to appear in the simulcast film of Beck's novel "The Christmas Sweater - A Return to Redemption," which opens Thursday in theaters nationwide. The choir canceled the appearance Monday, citing financial reasons. James Rucker, executive director of Color for Change - which has helped persuade more than 80 advertisers to ditch Beck's show - said the group did an about-face after he called the choir. "We wanted to make sure they understood who Beck was," Rucker said.  More...

(atlantic) America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong.  More...

(cal) Pastor Steven Anderson who preaches from the pulpit at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona had this to say to his congregation: Now, look, if somebody wants me, it somebody twisted my arm and tells me to pray for Barack Obama, this is what I'm going to pray, because this is the only prayer that applies to him: 'Break his teeth, O God, in his mouth. You know, as a snail which melteth, let him pass away. Like the untimely birth of a woman, that he thinks -- he calls it a woman's right to choose, you know, he thinks it's so wonderful. He ought to be aborted. It ought to be, 'Abort Obama.  More...

(revike) With hearts full of emotion, we must announce that Rev. Ike made his transition on July, 28, 2009. He was an extraordinary man, and we’ve lost a loved and respected leader, husband, father, and teacher. We will all miss him terribly but, without a doubt, Rev. Ike will continue to live on through his timeless teachings, and through his students.  More...

(politicsdaily) After more than 60 years together, Jimmy Carter has announced himself at odds with the Southern Baptist Church -- and he's decided it's time they go their separate ways. Via Feministing, the former president called the decision "unavoidable" after church leaders prohibited women from being ordained and insisted women be "subservient to their husbands. " Said Carter in an essay in The Age: At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities. .  More...

(NYDN) Determined to drive evil spirits out of her daughter, a Queens mom performed a bizarre voodoo fire ritual that left the 6-year-old girl scarred for life, prosecutors say. While young Frantzcia Saintil was "engulfed in flames," Marie Lauradin let the screaming girl burn, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Thursday. The girl told cops "the flames crawled up her body and burned her," the criminal complaint said. Eventually, Frantzcia's grandmother doused the flames with cold water, but the women then put the girl to bed instead of getting her help, Brown said. Frantzcia suffered for a whole day before a relative begged them to take her to a hospital.  More...

(abc) Terry Durham, an ordained pastor, speaks in tongues and claims an ability to heal the sick. He is a proven draw, filling churches with adoring congregants across the country. A little bit shy in person, Terry has a beautiful singing voice. But what really makes him unique is his age: Terry Durham is just 11 years old. Terry is hardly the first child preacher.  More...

(abcnews) New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents. "It's a huge change," says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research. Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans. Putnam calls this a "stunning development.  More...

(John Meacham/Newsweek) According to the American Religious Identification Survey, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1. 2 percent; the Muslim, 0. 6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans.  More...

(ap) President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an order establishing a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush. Obama said the office would reach out to organizations that provide help "no matter their religious or political beliefs. " Obama is calling his program the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He said in this time of economic crisis, it was proper for the government to be providing help to Americans.  More...

(aol) Not everyone was happy with President Barack Obama's nod to nonbelievers and non-Christians in his inaugural address. And some of the stiff criticism about Obama’s religious inclusiveness is coming from African-American Christians who maintain that no, all faiths were actually not created equal. "For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness," the new president said. "We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth," he also said. Nothing too controversial, proclaiming that America's strength lies in its diversity.  More...

(lat) The pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest and most prominent black congregations in Los Angeles, used church credit cards to pay for at least $122,000 in personal expenses over a three-year period, including jewelry, family vacations, clothing and auto supplies, according to documents and church sources. The spending came to light during the course of an independent audit and Internal Revenue Service investigation into the financial affairs of the pastor, John J. Hunter; his wife, Denise Brown Hunter; and the church, according to people connected with the church, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation. Earlier this year, field officials in the Los Angeles office of the IRS' criminal division issued summonses to two banks and a charge card company to testify and produce financial records involving Hunter and the church, documents obtained by The Times show. IRS officials would not respond to questions about the status of their investigation.  More...

(wapo) In a video interview T. D. Jakes explains his take on the Palin Family, th pregnancy crisis, his support of Obama and why he does not want Christianity to be the law of the land. . .  More...

(nyt) There was a time when a minister like James David Manning could stand in the pulpit of his little church on 123rd Street in Harlem and say pretty much anything he liked about a presidential candidate. Beyond his community of devoted parishioners, who was to know? But when Pastor Manning, who is black, posted an angry sermon in February on the Web site of his church, the Atlah World Ministries, denouncing Senator Barack Obama as a “pimp” and Mr. Obama’s mother as a “trashy white woman,” his preaching spread like a virus on YouTube, earning lavish attention on right-wing talk shows — and two weeks ago, the less-welcome attention of a watchdog group, which filed a formal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service. The I. R.  More...

(slate) Serena Williams told reporters at Wimbledon on Wednesday that she's excited about Barack Obama's candidacy but won't vote for him because Jehovah's Witnesses "don't get involved in politics. " Her sister Venus—who is also a Jehovah's Witness—wouldn't even comment on the presidential election. Why don't Jehovah's Witnesses vote? Because of John 17:14 and other passages in the Bible. In that verse, Jesus says of his followers: "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. " Jehovah's Witnesses have interpreted that statement as a call to remain neutral in all political matters.  More...

(ajc) Bishop T. D. Jakes is moving MegaFest, the giant Christian entertainment and teaching event that ran in Atlanta from 2004 to 2006, to another continent. MegaFest International 2008 will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct. 11-12.  More...

(abc) Governor Mike Huckabee and Former Republican Candidate for President of the United States: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus.  More...

(nyt) This Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, many pastors will start their sermons about the Resurrection of Jesus and weave in a pointed message about racism and bigotry, and the need to rise above them. Some pastors began to rethink their sermons on Tuesday, when Senator Barack Obama gave a speech about race, seeking to calm a furor that had erupted over explosive excerpts of sermons by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. The controversy drove the nation to the unpatrolled intersection of race and religion, and as many pastors prepared for their Easter message they said they felt compelled to talk about it.  More...

(ajc) The president of Oral Roberts University, who is facing accusations he misspent university funds to support a lavish lifestyle, resigned from his position, officials said Friday. Richard Roberts' resignation is effective immediately, according to a statement e-mailed from George Pearsons, chairman of the school's Board of Regents. Roberts and the university have come under fire since a lawsuit was filed by three former professors. The lawsuit includes allegations of a $39,000 shopping tab at one store for Richard Roberts' wife, Lindsay, a $29,411 Bahamas senior trip on the university jet for one of Roberts' daughters, and a stable of horses for the Roberts children. Roberts, son of school founder and televangelist Oral Roberts, had been on temporary leave from the evangelical university, fighting the accusations against him.  More...

(ajc) The gospel message that links God with dollars has been called to judgment before a powerful U. S. senator. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters requesting detailed financial documents to two metro Atlanta preachers and four other ministries nationwide whose leaders are known for opulent, or as the ministers would say, blessed, lifestyles.  More...

(abc) The defendant in a state senator's lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He's everywhere. State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.  More...

An inspiring message of endurance and faith. Watch it from start to finish. . . .  More...