=== Aum Shinrikyo / Aleph
1. The House That Aum Built
2. Core of Aum Shinrikyo sect includes former guards
3. Aleph school to alter name after complaints
4. Even AUM doesn't deserve this law

=== Life Space
5. Life Space guru arrested

=== Japan
6. Arresting cult leaders

=== Waco / Branch Davidians
7. Sect gives details of ex-FBI official's deposition about assault
8. Davidian admits firing at ATF agents
9. Computer search angers House panel

=== Scientology
10. Scientologists 'got in over their heads'
11. Scientology's view
12. For now, file is closed

=== Hate Groups
13. State to keep after supremacist to register
14. Tiny town a flashpoint in Southern 'strain' over Hispanics
15. Inside Bob Jones University
16. Bob Jones: A Magnet School for Controversy

=== Nation of Islam
17. Islamic leaders find Farrakhan a changed man
18. Mainstream Islamic leaders welcome overtures by Farrakhan
19. 3 US Muslim Groups Expected To Meet
20. A Glance at U.S. Islamic Groups

» Part 2

=== International Churches of Christ
21. Controversial group to hold a conference

=== Mormonism
22. Construction under way on new Mormon temple
23. Thousands Take Temple Tour

=== Unification Church
24. Brazil Green lawmaker campaigns against Rev. Moon

=== Witchcraft
25. Truth Commission plans public hearings into witchcraft

=== Other News
26. Chopra, Weaver dispute in trial again
277. Pala cult leader's trial begins (Gatekeepers)
28. Passage urged for 'vampire' legislation
29. Logging coalition votes to appeal dismissal of lawsuit
30. High Court bans nun from acting as midwife (Church of God In Trinity
Orthodox)
31. Venerable Voodoo
32. Apologetics Journal Criticizes T.D. Jakes
33. Dalai Lama makes online debut
34. With posters and campaigns against the doomsday sects
35. Church sets trend for ''Do-it-yourself Religion''
36. Decision by appellate court points to new Wenatchee trial

=== Apparitions
37. 'Face of Jesus' discovered on church wall
38. Wheeler family ropes off yard

=== UFOs
39. N.J. group awaits E.T.'s call
40. Do you believe?

=== Religious Freedom
41. Baptists to blitz Chicago in conversion convention
42. Measure lifts curbs on home religious meetings

=== Death Penalty / Human Rights
43. Book review: Jailhouses rocked

=== The Believers Around The Corner
44. Lawyer appeals Christmas decision
45. Canadian tries to sell his soul; gets bid of $20.50


=== Aum Shinrikyo / Aleph

1. The House That Aum Built
Investigation proves that the prohibited sect still active in Russa
Russia Today/Izvestiya (Russia), Feb. 24, 2000 (Summary only)
http://www.russiatoday.com/press.php3?id=137751
Izvestiya has conducted an independent investigation of the Japanese sect Aum
Sinrikoe's activities in Russia. The sect became world-known after its
members conducted a poison gas attack in a Tokyo subway. Previously, Aum
leaders came to Russia and were received at the highest government levels -
by First Deputy Premier Oleg Soskovets and Security Council Secretary Oleg
Lobov.

Lobov and a certain ministry official Muravyev established a Russo-Japanese
University providing visas for the Japanese visitors. Apart from missionary
purposes, the totalitarian sect was looking for weapons in Russia - they
wanted to buy machine guns and find out the technologies to produce the
chemical weapon sarin gas. The members of the sect visited several research
institutes in Moscow, including the Gas and Hydrodynamics institute, where
explosions and gas pollution were studied.

The sect has been officially prohibited in Russia since 1995, but it still
has monasteries in the Russian provinces and prints a lot of religious
literature in Russia. A well-organized group of Aum resides in Moscow. They
provide Internet access to the rest of the Russian sect and also deal in real
estate and other trades. The source of their money is primarily Japanese.
[...entire item...]


2. Core of Aum Shinrikyo sect includes former guards
Northern Light/Itar-Tass, Feb. 25, 2000
http://library.northernlight.com/FB20000225470000167.html?
cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc
The core of Aum Shinrikyo sect illegally operating in Russia now consists of
four secret groups numbering of some 200 people. They broke off contacts with
their families and obey rigid discipline. Itar-Tass learnt this on Friday
from well-informed sources in Tokyo connected with investigation bodies.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Aleph school to alter name after complaints
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Feb. 23, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/news07.html
An Osaka cram school called Aleph will change its name after AUM Shinrikyo
announced in January that it also wanted to be called Aleph, according to
school officials.

The decision was the result of complaints from students, their parents and
even school employees, who claimed they felt uncomfortable mentioning the
school's name in public.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Even AUM doesn't deserve this law
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Feb. 25, 2000 (Editorial)
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/news02.html
The doomsday cult formerly known as AUM Shinrikyo has been put under constant
monitoring since the introduction of a law against "groups that carried out
indiscriminate mass-murder," which, in effect, was invoked to tame just one
group.

There can be no excuse for what guru Shoko Asahara and those indicted AUM
members have allegedly done, but normal members of AUM, now known as Aleph,
who had not committed any crime are quite a different matter.

Do they really deserve to cop it under this "purge" authorized under the
hastily drawn up anti-AUM law?

Osamu Watanabe, a professor of sociology at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo,
says that persecuting innocent members of the cult won't resolve any
problems, and may even drive them underground and make them hostile toward
the society.
(...)

"AUM is a fanatical group whose executives are prepared to kill somebody
under orders of Asahara, but no member joined the group with an intent to
carry out mass murder, they started to do so due to their interest in the
idea of deliverance, yoga and so on," Watanabe said.

He said that there were no grounds for labeling AUM as an organization that
carries out indiscriminate murder. It would be like assuming that the Liberal
Democratic Party's chief aim as a group is to make profits from bribery just
because of past bribery scandals.
(...)

The professor said that AUM deserves the hostility it receives from people
living close to its facilities since its failure to admit or offer apologies
for its wrongs.

However, he argued that open discrimination against members of the cult, such
as the refusal by Saitama's Tokigawa Municipal Government to admit 6-year-old
twins of an AUM Shinrikyo executive from their local elementary school, had a
detrimental effect in resolving the problem.

"It is much better to integrate AUM children to the normal school life and
free them from religious mind control."

Watanabe believes that the role of central and local governments, not
security authorities, is essential.
(...)

Watanabe said that administrators should introduce rules that makes it
obligatory to the cult, for example, open their facilities to local
communities; make an oath not to cause any inconvenience to anybody through
its religious activities; not to recruit from non-adult member of the
society. It is also crucial for the cult to allow a member to leave AUM, and
permit free communication between members and their families.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Life Space

5. Life Space guru arrested
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Feb. 23, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/news02.html
Koji Takahashi, leader of the mummy-making Life Space cult, was arrested
Tuesday alongside seven of his associates in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on
suspicion of letting a sick man die last year in a hotel here, police said.
Seven others included 31-year-old Kenji Kobayashi who is the eldest son of
the dead man; his mother, Akiko, 61; and Takahashi's 38-year-old wife,
Nobuko.

They are all members of a Life Space affiliate Shakty Pat Guru Foundation
(SPGF).
(...)

All the arrested people are denying the charge and insisting that Shinichi
was alive until his body was sent for autopsy by police.
(...)

It is believed that on July 2, 1999, Kobayashi had taken Shinichi from a
hospital in Hyogo's Itami, where he was recovering from a brain hemorrhage,
and transferred him to the Narita hotel under the instructions of Takahashi,
61.

In the hotel room, Takahashi reportedly patted ailing Shinichi's head to
deliver his alleged healing power in what he called "Shakty Pat" therapy. A
record kept by the SPGF on Shinichi's condition stated that he "stopped
breathing" the very next day.

But when police raided the hotel room and recovered Shinichi's mummified
body, Takahashi and others insisted that the victim was still alive,
according to their "well-established theory," or teisetsu in Japanese.
(...)

Last month, Kobayashi and several members of the SPGF flew to the United
States, saying that they will ask INTERPOL, an international organization
which coordinates international police cooperation, to stop the Narita police
station's unfair investigation on them since the discovery of the body.

INTERPOL's headquarters is located in Lyon, France, and it does not conduct
its own investigations.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Japan

6. Arresting cult leaders
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Feb. 24, 2000 (Feb. 23 in printed edition) (Editorial)
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/archive/200002/24/opinion.html
The leaders of the Life Space and Kaeda-juku cults both claim to have
supernatural healing powers. On Feb. 22, both men and their followers were
arrested on charges that they allowed people under their care to die. Both
cases involved therapy on mummified victims.

Ever since the AUM Shinrikyo cult was implicated in the sarin gassing of the
Tokyo subway five years ago, a string of strange incidents involving
religious groups have made the headlines.
(...)

Why are these enigmatic individuals attracting large numbers of followers
today? Most people would like to believe that they would never be duped by
such individuals. But our society remains vulnerable to the appeal of
religious leaders who may come along in the future with spurious claims of
supernatural powers. So we should formulate policies to fight such cults with
an awareness of our society's vulnerability.

The police investigation of the Life Space group took considerable time.
(...)
The police first raided the group's premises last December, but three months
elapsed before they were able to take action against group leader Takahashi.

The family members believed that Takahashi could cure the man with "Shakty
Pat" therapy. But Chiba Prefectural Police concluded that the man's oldest
son and others concerned with his care were aware that the victim's life
would be endangered if he were taken to a hotel without medical facilities,
and have decided that there is enough evidence to charge them with letting
the sick man die. But the police will need to gather additional evidence to
build a stronger case.

As society undergoes dramatic transformations, we should expect to encounter
more of these unusual cases. If the police insist on conducting their
investigations with traditional methods, however, they will continue to make
mistakes. Investigations of crimes committed by religious groups require the
services of officials with proficient knowledge of medicine, corporate
accounting, and electronic devices, and of criminal psychologists and other
types of experts. Policies need to be implemented immediately to provide
training for more police experts.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Waco / Branch Davidians

7. Sect gives details of ex-FBI official's deposition about assault
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 24, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/39615_WACO24.html
A former top FBI official has acknowledged that sending tanks into the Branch
Davidian compound was inconsistent with the Washington-approved plan for
ending the 51-day siege, the sect's lead lawyer said Wednesday.

Former deputy assistant FBI director Danny Coulson also testified in a
deposition on Tuesday that he and other senior FBI leaders were stunned when
they saw live network TV images of FBI tanks ramming deep into the sect's
compound on April 19, 1993, said Houston attorney Michael Caddell.

Mr. Coulson is the first top FBI official involved in the 1993 incident to be
questioned under oath in the Branch Davidians' wrongful-death lawsuit. The
founding commander of the FBI's hostage rescue team and one of its most
experienced tactical experts, Mr. Coulson was one of the bureau's key
decision-makers in drafting the detailed gassing-operation plan that Attorney
General Janet Reno ultimately approved.
(...)

Mr. Caddell said the former official's testimony will bolster his argument
that the two former FBI officials who led the Waco operation, Jeffrey Jamar
and hostage rescue team commander Dick Rogers, should be held legally liable
for the tragedy. U.S. District Judge Walter Smith dismissed the two men as
defendants last summer, but lawyers for the sect filed a motion earlier this
month arguing that they should be reinstated.
(...)

Mr. Coulson has previously said that he did not know of another FBI operation
in which armored vehicles were used to assault a barricaded building. He
vetoed use of tanks in the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, when Mr.
Rogers asked to use armored vehicles to demolish the building where white
supremacist Randy Weaver was holed up.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Davidian admits firing at ATF agents
San Antonion Express-News, Feb. 23, 2000
http://www.mysa.com/pantheon/homebase/hbm&s/2401a-waco.shtml
For the first time, a Branch Davidian survivor of the Feb. 28, 1993, shootout
at Mount Carmel has admitted that he fired at two of the four U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who were killed during the battle.

Livingstone Fagan, who was one of 11 Davidians tried in San Antonio six years
ago, said in a deposition that he shot at ATF agents on the roof of Mount
Carmel. Fagan gave the deposition in a wrongful death lawsuit Mount Carmel
survivors and their families are bringing against the federal government.

Fagan was convicted in 1994 of manslaughter and a weapons charge and is
serving a 40-year prison sentence. It's unclear whether prosecutors will file
new charges based on his admission.
(...)

Fagan is a party to the wrongful death suit because his mother, Doris, 60,
and his wife, Evette, 30, died in the April 19, 1993, fire at Mount Carmel.
In suit pleadings, attorneys for Davidians and their family members argue
that the ATF used excessive force in its Feb. 28 raid, and that federal
authorities were to blame for the fire seven weeks later in which about 80
Davidians died.

During their 1994 trial, Fagan and his fellow Davidian defendants did not
take the stand. In the years since, three survivors of the shootout have
testified before Congress, but none admitted firing on federal agents.

Fagan maintains the shooting in which he took part isn't the one for which he
was convicted in 1994.
(...)

Other Davidians who were imprisoned as a result of the 1994 proceedings are
appealing their sentences, and the U.S. Supreme Court has set a hearing on
their case for April.

But Fagan refused to join the appeal, he says in a recent letter to the San
Antonio Express-News, because "when Judge Smith did what he did, he took the
matter out of the realm of the judicial"- a phrase that in the argot of the
Davidians, means the Mount Carmel gunman has placed his future in God's
hands.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Computer search angers House panel
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/39960_WACO25.html
Efforts by federal prosecutors to access files from the government computer
once used by a Waco whistle-blower prompted angry complaints to the Justice
Department this week from a congressional committee investigating the Branch
Davidian siege.

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton sent a letter to
Attorney General Janet Reno late Tuesday demanding a full explanation for the
search, which occurred days after that committee's investigators conducted
lengthy interviews with the whistle-blower, former federal prosecutor Bill
Johnston.
(...)

Mr. Johnston left the U.S. attorney's office in Waco in early February, five
months after warning the attorney general of a possible cover-up of key
information about government actions during the 1993 Branch Davidian
standoff. The warning made national headlines because it came from a career
federal prosecutor who had worked longer on the Branch Davidian case than
anyone else in the Justice Department.

After going public with his concerns last August, Mr. Johnston says he was
largely ostracized by others in the U.S. attorney's office for the Western
District of Texas, which includes Waco.
(...)

Mr. Johnston said he felt compelled to speak out after being shown 6-year-old
documents detailing the FBI's use of military gas grenades capable of
sparking fires during the April 19, 1993, assault.
(...)

Even before that, however, Mr. Johnston had drawn criticism for his efforts
to allow public access to government evidence from the Branch Davidian case.
Last June, after a documentary filmmaker raised questions about evidence from
the siege stored since 1993 by the Texas Rangers, Mr. Johnston began helping
the state law enforcement agency investigate.
(...)

Mr. Johnston said he learned Tuesday that his e-mail traffic had been
downloaded from the computer earlier this month, and his remaining old files
had somehow been removed last week. "The staffer tried to log on, just out of
curiosity, and all my stuff was gone," he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

10. Scientologists 'got in over their heads'
St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/022400/TampaBay/Scientologists__got_i.shtml
(...) "The whole thing was just such a fiasco," Minkoff said three years
later in a 1998 sworn statement to prosecutors, who charged the church's
Clearwater operation with two felonies.

His account is contained in nearly 1,000 pages of sworn statements from five
Scientologists with first-hand knowledge of McPherson's final days at the
Fort Harrison Hotel, where church staffers tried to nurse her through a
severe mental breakdown.

Prosecutors released the statements in December to buttress their case that
the church abused McPherson and illegally practiced medicine on her.

Now, the statements loom large after a judge's ruling Wednesday that delayed
the release of the 10,000-page investigative file on McPherson's death. In
the absence of that file, the five Scientologists provide the most complete
telling thus far of Lisa McPherson's death and of the investigation that
followed.

Among the disclosures:

Alain Kartuzinski, a church counseling supervisor, admitted lying to police
in 1996, telling them he had little to do with McPherson.
(...)

Janis Johnson, a church medical officer, also misled police, telling them her
office gave only "basic first aid" and considered McPherson a regular hotel
guest.
(...)

David Houghton told how he filled a large syringe with ground aspirin, liquid
Benadryl and orange juice, then worked it along the outside of McPherson's
teeth and squirted the mixture behind her tongue. He had help from his fellow
Scientologists, who held McPherson's arms and legs. A veteran dentist from
Iowa and Ohio, he was not yet licensed in Florida and had no doctor's
authorization and no medical history on McPherson.

Judy Goldsberry-Weber, once a licensed practical nurse, heard of Houghton's
procedure and was outraged. "What doctor's order did you have to do this?"
she demanded to know, almost coming to blows with Johnson. She later reported
her fellow staffers to the church legal office.

Minkoff, a longtime Scientologist who is not on the church staff, told
prosecutors he violated standard medical procedure by prescribing sleep aids
for McPherson without ever examining her. "It was foolish to do what I did,"
the doctor admitted.

Three of the five Scientologists admitted to prosecutors the effort to help
McPherson was hurt by poor decisions and miscommunication. Also, some of
those caring for McPherson missed or minimized the signs of her physical
decline.

But they were motivated, they told prosecutors, by a sincere desire to help
McPherson. They tried to be gentle, and many suffered bruises and scrapes
from violent encounters with McPherson.
(...)

Once a senior Scientology executive, Kartuzinski was demoted to a file clerk
in a church warehouse after McPherson's death became public.

He told prosecutors he made three big mistakes.
(...)

On Nov. 18, 1995, McPherson took off her clothes at the scene of a minor auto
accident and was taken to Morton Plant Hospital by paramedics. Kartuzinski
was one of several Scientologists who arrived to secure her release, fearing
she would be subjected to psychiatric care, which is shunned in Scientology.
(...)

It was Kartuzinski who determined McPherson was a "Potential Trouble Source,
Type 3," a psychotic person who is not only a threat to herself and others,
but to Scientology in general. He believed she was stuck in a disturbing
"mental image picture" from her past, perhaps from a previous life.

The antidote was a Scientology procedure called the "Introspection Rundown,"
which calls for a regimen of vitamins and forced, quiet isolation, followed
by "auditing."
(...)

Talking with police in 1996, he minimized his role in McPherson's care and
said she did not receive the Introspection Rundown.

"Yes, I was lying to them," Kartuzinski told prosecutors in 1998. "I was
scared. Scared for myself. Scared for the church, possibly." He said he
thought the police were against Scientology and wouldn't understand.

He began telling the truth after church attorneys reprimanded him, he said.
(...)

On the evening of McPherson's death, Kartuzinski and Johnson, the church
medical officer, called Minkoff at the emergency room at Columbia New Port
Richey Hospital. She had a severe infection, had suddenly lost 12 pounds and
had diarrhea, they said. Johnson asked Minkoff to prescribe penicillin but he
declined.

He told them McPherson should be seen by a doctor immediately. He advised
them to take her to Morton Plant Hospital, just five minutes from the Fort
Harrison. But Minkoff agreed to see McPherson when Kartuzinski expressed
fears about the Morton Plant psychiatric ward. Plus, Johnson assured him the
situation was not dire, he said.

Minkoff viewed Kartuzinski as highly competent and thought Johnson had her
Florida medical license. In fact, she let it lapse in Arizona after an
inquiry into her alleged drug use.
(...)

That night as Lisa McPherson lay dead in his emergency room, Minkoff said he
screamed at Johnson for bringing someone to his door in such "horrific"
shape. He told prosecutors: "I was shocked out of my wits."
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* For an explanation of terms like "Potential Trouble Source" and
"Introspection Rundown" see the

ARS Acronym/Terminology FAQ v3.5



11. Scientology's view
St. Peterburg Times, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/022400/TampaBay/Scientology_s_view.shtml
In a 2 1/2-hour interview Wednesday, officials for the Church of Scientology
said the accounts of five Scientologists released recently by prosecutors do
not accurately portray what happened to Lisa McPherson.

Of the 40 Scientologists interviewed by investigators over the past four
years, prosecutors released "the worst of the worst," choosing only those
statements that supported their view of the case, church officials said.

There are many other statements and facts that Scientology wants to make
public but can't, the officials said, because the criminal case against the
church's Clearwater operation is pending.

Church lawyers recently prepared a legal brief responding to the
prosecution's records, but it will not be filed because of this week's
developments.

Medical examiner Joan Wood has ruled McPherson's death was an "accident,"
which has caused prosecutors to re-evaluate their case against the church.
Scientology officials said Wednesday they don't want to say anything that
would adversely affect that process.

For that reason, they spoke mostly in general terms.

Marty Rathbun, a top Scientology official, addressed the lies told to
Clearwater police by church staffers Janis Johnson and Alain Kartuzinski.

"I'm not here to defend them," he said, adding: "Internal measures were taken
for people who did things that were wrong."

He suggested the reason the staffers lied was the tense atmosphere in
Clearwater during the mid-1990s between between Scientology and city
government, particularly the Police Department. The church has worked to fix
the rift, Rathbun said. But in that environment, he said, he wouldn't expect
a Scientology staffer to be open with police. "That was just a huge factor in
all of this," he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* For a different look at the role lying plays within Scientology, see

Scientology Lies

"Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious...It is corrupt,
sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based on lies and
deceit."
- Justice Latey , ruling in the High Court of London


12. For now, file is closed
St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/022400/TampaBay/For_now__file_is_clos.shtml
The investigative file on the death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson will
remain secret for the time being, the result of a judge's ruling Wednesday.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt C. Downey III decided the Church of
Scientology could rescind its demand for all the evidence gathered by
prosecutors.

The church, which has been charged in McPherson's death, has a right to the
prosecution's records, which lawyers call "discovery." But the records also
become public when they are released to the defendant.
(...)

Church officials said Wednesday they did not want the records to be public
while prosecutors rethink the case. The records total an estimated 10,000
pages.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hate Groups

13. State to keep after supremacist to register
Chicago Tribune, Feb. 23, 2000
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/
article/0,2669,SAV-0002230284,FF.html
An aide to Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan says he will continue to fight white
supremacist Matt Hale and his World Church of the Creator in court over the
group's claim to be a religion.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Floyd Perkins said his office will either appeal Cook
County Circuit Judge Julia Nowicki's dismissal of Ryan's suit against Hale's
organization or ask her to reconsider.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Tiny town a flashpoint in Southern 'strain' over Hispanics
Boston.com/AP, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/055/nation/Tiny_town_a_flashpoint_in_Sout:.shtml
(...) Hispanics represent the fastest-growing segment of the population
nationwide, a trend reflected in communities like Siler City, a town of 5,500
about 50 miles west of Raleigh.

To some, that's a problem. They voiced their opinions over the weekend, at
an anti-immigration rally led by former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke that
underscored the tension underlying the rapid, unprecedented influx of
Hispanic immigrants into North Carolina
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


15. Inside Bob Jones University
MSNBC, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.msnbc.com/news/373878.asp?cp1=1
The most controversial stop on the campaign trail is creating problems for
George W. Bush. Bob Jones University is a small school with just over 5,000
students. Over the years prominent politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Dan
Quayle and Bob Dole, have visited it. But when George W. Bush made his
pilgrimage to the campus, he paid a big penalty.
(...)

Evangelist Bob Jones founded the school 73 years ago, for whites only.
Today, many say his grandson, Bob Jones III, runs it as if it were still
1927, with only one policy change -- other races are now welcomed at its
campus, but no interracial dating or marriage is permitted and no
homosexuals.

The school, which charges a flat $10,000 a year for full board and tuition,
lost its federal tax exempt status 16 years ago because it would not change
its interracial policy.

And in what many see as the epitome of religious intolerance, the school's
leaders have described Catholics as members of a cult and the pope as a
dangerous leader.


16. Bob Jones: A Magnet School for Controversy
Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31506-2000Feb24.html
(...) The school, which dubs itself ''The World's Most Unusual University,''
has always attracted some attention. Its 5,000 students follow rules on
everything from rock music to holding hands to skirt lengths. All dating is
chaperoned and none is permitted between any of three defined racial groups.

Its fundamentalist teachings promote ministering to the poor, but also
classify Catholicism as ''a satanic counterfeit.'' The current president, Bob
Jones III, called then-Vice President George Bush ''the devil'' and former
secretary of state Alexander Haig ''a monster in human flesh and a
demon-possessed instrument to destroy America.'' In 1983, the Supreme Court
upheld an IRS decision to deny Bob Jones tax-exempt status because of its
discriminatory policies.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Nation of Islam

17. Islamic leaders find Farrakhan a changed man
Chicago Tribune, Feb. 25, 2000
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/
article/0,2669,ART-42553,FF.html
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, striving hard for mainstream
legitimacy since his brush with death last year, will get an important boost
this weekend when a representative of the largest Islamic organization in the
United States appears onstage in Chicago alongside the controversial black
nationalist.

The unprecedented appearance is evidence that a few prominent skeptics, at
least, are now willing to take at face value Farrakhan's recent pledges to
move away from his incendiary anti-white, anti-Jewish rhetoric, and toward a
more orthodox faith.

Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Indiana-based Islamic Society of North
America, has agreed to speak at a Nation of Islam event called "The Second
International Islamic Conference," leading up to the annual Saviour's Day
ceremony Sunday.
(...)

That gives Farrakhan the tacit support of two of the nation's most prominent
Islamic groups at a time when his own health and the financial health of the
Nation of Islam empire have been questioned.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Mainstream Islamic leaders welcome overtures by Farrakhan
St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP, Feb. 24, 2000
http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/
CC291E3F5E6AEFD48625688F00609D90?OpenDocument
(...) Meanwhile, Farrakhan and W. Deen Mohammed, son of the late Nation of
Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, have scheduled a news conference Friday.
Mohammed is head of a third group, the Muslim American Society, which is the
major black orthodox Muslim group in the United States.

Mohammed also planned to attend Farrakhan's annual Saviour's Day speech on
Sunday, when Farrakhan plans a formal ''Tribute to the Family of the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad,'' according to a statement issued by The Final
Call, the Nation of Islam's newspaper.
(...)

Elijah Muhammad led the Nation of Islam for decades and followed teachings
not recognized by orthodox Islam internationally. After Muhammad died, his
son led the movement toward orthodoxy.

Farrakhan then re-established the Nation of Islam and followed Elijah
Muhammad's original doctrines, including belief that whites are ''devils.''

The Islamic Society has recognized and cooperated with Mohammad's Muslim
American Society mosques but has seen Farrakhan's Nation of Islam as not
truly Islamic because of doctrinal differences.

Islam rejects the race theology that Farrakhan has preached.

In addition, the Nation of Islam has held a unique revision of the Muslim
creed, ''there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet.'' The Farrakhan
group has believed that God became incarnate in W. D. Fard of Detroit, who
was Elijah Muhammad's teacher, and that Elijah Muhammad is the final prophet
to mankind, not the prophet Mohammed of Mecca who founded Islam in the
seventh century.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. 3 US Muslim Groups Expected To Meet
AOL/AP, Feb. 25, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=01&id=2000022406218981
The Rev. Louis Farrakhan will have the full attention of rival orthodox
Muslims who plan to attend the Nation of Islam leader's annual Saviour's Day
speech - an event that could lead to unification of U.S. followers of the
fractured religion.
(...)

In an article posted Feb. 16 on the Nation of Islam's Web site, Farrakhan
assistant Ishmael Muhammad said the ''mega-highlight'' of the Saviour's Day
weekend would be the unification of the Nation of Islam with followers of W.
Deen Mohammed.

Some observers say Farrakhan will have to walk a fine line to woo more
traditional Muslim leaders while placating hard-line Nation of Islam
followers.

Mohammed said he'll also be watching for anti-Semitic or anti-white remarks
in Farrakhan's speech - language orthodox Muslims find offensive.
(...)

The Nation of Islam already has begun to embrace orthodox traditions,
including observance of Friday prayers and the Muslim holiday Ramadan, a
period of fasting in December.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


20. A Glance at U.S. Islamic Groups
Waco Herald-Tribune/AP, Feb. 25, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/shared/news/ap/ap_story.html/
National/AP.V0549.AP-Islamic-Unity-G.html
The three U.S. Islamic groups that may be moving toward reconciliation:

Islamic Society of North America--Based in Plainfield, Indiana. Led by
Secretary General Sayyid Syeed. Founded in 1981 as an outgrowth of the Muslim
Student Association. Often considered the major umbrella group for U.S.
immigrants who follow orthodox Islam, estimated to number several million.

Muslim American Society--Based in Calumet City, Ill. Led by W. Deen Mohammed.
His father, Elijah Muhammad, was the longtime prophet of the Nation of Islam,
which originated among Detroit blacks in the 1930s. When his father died in
1975, W. Deen Mohammed became the leader but renamed the organization and
moved it toward orthodox Islam. Estimated paid membership: 200,000. Overall
estimated membership: more than 2 million.

Nation of Islam--Based in Chicago. Led by Minister Louis Farrakhan. In 1978,
Farrakhan revived Elijah Muhammad's teachings, deemed heterodox by world
Islam, under the original name. Estimated membership: 20,000 to 200,000.
[...entire item...]

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