=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Senior AUM member Joyu moves to Tokyo's Kita Ward

=== Falun Gong
2. China Fears Overthrow by Banned Sect
3. Falun Gong Members Detained

=== Scientology
4. Trial scheduled for Scientology protester
5. Murded man in car was son of Scientology Reverend
6. Scientology Organization sues Interior Agency and ''sect commissioner''
7. ''Scientology is accusing me of doing my job''

=== Unification Church
8. Million Moon March

=== Catholicism
9. Nuns 'killed themselves' following jail torture

=== Mormonism
10. Mormon Church Leader Lauds Growth
11. Hinckley: Center related to Isaiah prophecy
12. Hatch talks religious tolerance
13. News Admits It Negotiated With AT&T
14. Mormon Elders Warn of Pitfalls of Technology

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
15. Slain Pregnant Woman Remembered
16. Baby Beatrice: Docs can't overrule parents
17. 'Bloodless' surgery: It's mainstream

=== Attleboro Cult
18. Cult mother mum as birth nears

=== Witchcraft
19. Wiccan wants anti-pagan law to disappear - ACLU agrees

=== Hate Groups
20. New leader emerging for hate groups

=== Other News
21. Ritual Killings Cause Panic in Nairobi
22. Police Worry About Mob Justice In Child Killings
23. Church Universal and Triumphant to sell ranch
24. Fertility statues attract believers
25. Minister concerned over spread of sects in Russia
26. Christian advocate chastised for visit to gay bar

=== Noted
27. Loosening the Bible Belt New mix of religions hits the South
28. Religious diversity unfolds
29. UFO believers stand on tower


=== Aum Shinrikyo

1. Senior AUM member Joyu moves to Tokyo's Kita Ward
Kyodo News Service/Associated Press, Oct. 9, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
TOKYO, Oct. 9 (Kyodo) -- Senior AUM Shinrikyo member Fumihiro Joyu has moved to an apartment in Tokyo's Kita Ward, near the cult's facility in Adachi Ward where he temporarily lived after leaving the sect's Yokohama branch last month, police sources said Monday.
(...)

Adachi Ward had requested the owner of the building to evict the AUM members and local residents had begun preparations for a protest movement.

Joyu gave a letter dated Sept. 25 to the owner, in which he pledged to move out within two weeks.

Kita Ward set up a task force on Monday headed by ward chief Masao Kitamoto to deal with incoming AUM members and work out measures to prevent the apartment from becoming the cult's new head office, ward officials said.

Kitamoto called the move by Joyu and other AUM members to the ward ''very regrettable,'' as it could cause anxiety among residents and adversely affect their lives.

''I will discuss this issue with the ward assembly and local people and immediately work out countermeasures,'' he said.

Kita Ward has confirmed that the apartment in the seven-story building is the only place in the ward where AUM members reside, the officials said.

According to the police, the apartment in Kita Ward was formerly used by AUM members to develop computer software.
(...)

Joyu became well-known to the Japanese public through his media exposure as AUM's spokesman until his arrest in October 1995.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

2. China Fears Overthrow by Banned Sect
The Associated Press, Oct. 9, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING (AP) - China launched a scathing verbal attack Monday on
the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, accusing it of trying to
bring down the government and of colluding with the communist
regime's opponents.

The lengthy, acidly worded critique by the state-run Xinhua News
Agency signaled the government's anger and frustration that its
14-month crackdown on Falun Gong and the arrests of thousands of
adherents have failed to crush the group.

Xinhua labeled Falun Gong ``reactionary,'' a politically charged
term used in China to tar the government's opponents. It accused
the group of joining forces with pro-democracy campaigners and
supporters of independence for Taiwan, Tibet and China's unruly
Muslim far west.

Falun Gong ``openly opposes the party and government and has
transformed completely from head to tail into a reactionary
political organization with the goal of overthrowing the People's
Republic of China and the socialist system,'' Xinhua said.
(...)

Xinhua's attack, among the most vitriolic carried by the wholly
state-run media in recent months, appeared to have been prompted by
a dramatic protest by hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners on
Tiananmen Square during China's Oct. 1 National Day celebrations.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Falun Gong Members Detained
The Associated Press, Oct. 9, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG (AP) - Two Falun Gong adherents were arrested after filing a lawsuit in mainland China accusing President Jiang Zemin of carrying out a brutal crackdown against the spiritual group, local followers said Monday.

The Falun Gong practitioners, Chu O-ming, 43, and Wang Jie, 37, sent their lawsuit through the mail on Aug. 29 to the Chinese court, according to a Falun Gong spokesman in Hong Kong.

Spokesman Kan Hung-cheung told a news conference that Chu, a Hong Kong businessman, and Wang, an editor with a survey and map publisher in Beijing, were arrested in the Chinese capital on Sept. 7.

Kan said the two were being held at the Fangshan District Jail in Beijing, and none of their relatives has been officially informed about why they were arrested.

The meditation sect is banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

4. Trial scheduled for Scientology protester
The Press-Enterprise, Oct. 9, 2000
http://www.inlandempireonline.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An Oct. 30 trial has been set for a Northern California man accused of making terrorist threats against the Church of Scientology's film studio in Gilman Hot Springs.

Keith Henson, 58, pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment this week, Deputy District Attorney Thomas Gage said.

Henson remains free on his promise to appear at his next hearing. The misdemeanor charge carries a sentence of up to one year in jail.

Prosecutors allege that Henson posted threats against the church's film studio, Golden Era Productions, on a Internet news group site earlier this year. He is also accused of making verbal threats against the church while picketing at the site. A Golden Era employee reported hearing the alleged threats.

Church officials believe Henson, an electrical engineer, has the ability to carry out the alleged threats, according to Golden Era General Manager Ken Hoden.

The alleged threats on the Internet were discovered by church employees and turned over to law enforcement officials, Hoden has said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

''Henson said the church hates him because of the people that left as a
results of his picketing. It cost the church a lot of money invested on the
people that have left. When asked if he could build an atomic bomb. He said
no, but anyone could get the instructions on how to build one on the
Internet. He denies having access to an ICBM missile. He had no reputation of
ever using explosives of any kind to damage people or property.''
- from legal papers, reposted in A.R.S. Week in Review

The Church of Scientology has a long record of harassing its critics.

5. Murdered man in car was son of Scientology Reverend
From Edmonton Journal, Oct. 7, 2000
http://www.geocities.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An 18 year old man found dead in his car Tuesday in a west-end neighbourhood
is the son of Allan Buttnor, a local Church of Scientology reverend.

Andrew Fletcher Buttnor died from a gunshot to the head. Police have not
recovered a weapon and no motive has been established.
(...)

Although Andrew Buttnor was not a member of the Church of Scientology, Jurt
said the church is going to increase its youth presence in the community in
response to his death. Members will focus on activities that promote a
drug-free life.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Scientology Organization sues Interior Agency and ''sect commissioner''
taz (Germany), Oct. 5, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/001005a.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Scientologists are showing that they are lawsuit-happy. They intend to prohibit the Hamburg Interior Agency from letting their sect commissioner Ursula Caberta continue her research and information work on the Scientology Organization. A cease-and-desist application was filed yesterday by Munich attorney Wilhelm Bluemel in the Hamburg Administrative Court to that effect, verified court spokeswoman Angelika Huusmann.

The reason for the new attacks against Caberta: the director of the Interior Agency's Work Group on Scientology (AGS) was said to have accepted a private loan from U.S. millionaire and Scientology opponent Bob Minton. Two weeks ago the Scientologists had filed complaints for accepting bribes and favors with the state attorney's office. Now the Hubbard disciples are trying to force the Interior Agency to put Caberta on hold. At the least they want the AGS director to be prohibited from performing her function of information work outside of her job.

Caberta disputes the accusations. She said she had only accepted Minton's invitation to an informational trip to the USA after Minton had been the guest of the Interior Agency in April. ''The matter has been given to the Department of Internal investigations,'' said Interior Agency spokeswoman Susanne Fischer. She is not surprised that the Scientologists, who fight their critics with all legal and illegal means, have now taken the ''legal administrative stage.'' And that can last a while, ''The court will send the agency the complaint for a position,'' said Huusmann. Then the complaint will be taken up in the normal business schedule. ''Nobody can count on getting that decision in less than a year.''

It was just last April that Scientology failed in its attempt in the administrative court to have the AGS prohibited from distributing its ''Technology Statement.'' Businesses can use the ''sect filter'' to distance themselves from the ''practices and technologies'' of Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard.
[...entire item...]

* ''The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The
law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who
is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized,
will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible,
of course, ruin him utterly.''
- L. Ron Hubbard, A Manual on the Dissemination of Material, 1955

Again, the Scientology cult has a long history of harassing its critics

7. ''Scientology is accusing me of doing my job''
Psycho-sect attacks sect commissioner Gandow in glossy brochure
Berliner Morgenpost (Germany), Oct. 2, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/001002b.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Zehlendorf/Steglitz - Thomas Gandow shakes his head again and again while paging through the document. The sect commissioner of the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg has already paged through a Scientology sect paper entitled ''How one handles Black Propaganda'' a hundred times [translator's note: these are not literal quotes; they have been translated from English to German back to English.] The whole thing is a sort of a PR guideline from Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for the members of the psycho-sect. It explains how a Scientologist can ''break through hostile propaganda lines.''

For instance there is the example of the fictitious company ''Worm Biscuits''. It managed to discredit the competition, ''Chomp Biscuits'', by staging an alleged outbreak of rabies there. ''Chomp Biscuits'' denies it, thereby engaging in ''the enemy's'' game. The message of the lesson, ''Never conduct the enemy's campaign on your own lines! Come up with a better campaign.'' Never deny; instead counter-attack immediately. ''Double-curve'' is what the Scientologists call this procedure, explained Gandow.

These days the clergyman has found himself more than ever a target of the ''Black Propaganda'' of Scientology, an organization he has been telling people about for a good twenty years. The sect has recently mass-mailed copies of its ''Freiheit'' print organ to numerous households in Zehlendorf and Steglitz.

On the cover page is Thomas Gandow's portrait; the sub-text describes him as ''Chief Inquisitor.''

The Evangelical preacher came into the sights of the Scientologists as a cofounder of the ''European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA.'' With the other twelve founding members of the committee, Gandow initiated an ''Alternative Charlemagne Award'' to protest the ''liberal attitude'' of U.S. President Bill Clinton towards Scientology. Clinton received the Charlemagne Award in June in Aachen.

Gandow and his cosponsors awarded the alternative distinction to American businessman Robert S. Minton, who has financially supported opponents of Scientology in his own country. That was excuse enough for the sect to describe the organization and Gandow in ''Freiheit'' as a ''cover organization directed by the state church to fight minority religions.''

''They are accusing me of doing my job,'' said the minister. He said the words ''cover organization'' were also false, of course, ''because everything about us is in the open.'' Nevertheless, the sect's assertions weigh heavily upon Gandow. ''Naturally we don't want to behave like the Scientologists, so we will deny what they say. After all we have nothing to hide.''

How much of an impression the Hubbard adherents' recent campaign has left upon people in Zehlendorf and Steglitz is difficult to judge, said Thomas Gandow. But he still has bits of encouragement. In his office there is a large bouquet of flowers given to him from a woman to express her appreciation for his involvement in Scientology. And recently a Zehlendorf mail carrier apologized to him for distributing the Scientology paper.
[...entire item...]

About Scientology's hate campaigns

About Scientology unethical PR practices

About OSA, the Scientology office behind the attacks

=== Unification Church

8. Million Moon March
Salon, Oct. 9, 2000
http://www.salon.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Oct. 09, 2000 | Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Minister Louis Farrakhan are trying to pull off what may be the oddest alliance in recent American history.

The two aging demagogues -- one the leader of the Unification Church and the other the African-American head of the Nation of Islam -- are collaborating on the sequel to Farrakhan's wildly successful Million Man March -- the Million Family March, scheduled for Oct. 16 in Washington.

The march's pièce de résistance will be a spectacular ceremony in which Farrakhan will renew the vows of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of married couples -- modeled after the mass marriage ceremonies led by Moon for the past 30 years.

''This reflects the ways Rev. Moon has influenced Minister Farrakhan,'' explained Rev. Phil Schanker, an official of Moon's Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU).

Schanker says that Moon's role in the Million Family March is the fruit of a three-year personal relationship that began when Farrakhan helped officiate at one of Moon's marriage ceremonies at Washington's RFK Stadium in 1997. Though Moon may not address the march himself for what Schanker describes as ''security reasons,'' internal FFWPU memos posted on a church Web site state that Moon, who turned 80 in February, decided to back the event after learning from his aides ''of Minister Farrakhan's personal desire to ask him to bless all the families at the MFM.''

The alliance took some scholars and experts of the religious groups by surprise. Martha Lee, the Canadian author of ''The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement'' found it ''curious ... that the two of them are trying to become respectable by allying with each other.'' But Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, Mass., was quick to point out similarities between the leaders: ''They are both completely authoritarian, theocratic, male-dominated and homophobic.''

As Moon and Farrakhan edge toward the ends of their respective scandal-prone careers, they are increasingly mindful of their legacies. Both have sought to move beyond their controversial reputations to achieve mainstream legitimacy.

Each group has a checkered history that it would rather people forget.
(...)

Farrakhan's efforts at entering the mainstream not withstanding, he sounded like a leader of the Christian right at a Sept. 11 press conference in Chicago to promote the Million Family March. He blamed a ''moral and spiritual decline'' on society's supposed ''extreme position in the separation of church and state,'' and compared America to ''ancient Rome, which fell due to corruption from within.''

But it's the appearance of Moon's organization that looms largest over the event. Moon, the self-proclaimed Messiah, is a multinational businessman, media mogul and a convicted felon. His career of controversy and deep political involvement has usually involved the international far-right. The Moon empire publishes and subsidizes the conservative and famously unprofitable Washington Times, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in its business of producing a pro-Messiah alternative to the Washington Post. (Moon's media company also purchased the venerable but financially vulnerable United Press International wire service earlier this year; prompting the immediate resignation of veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas.)

The Moon organization and its numerous subsidiaries came to prominence over the years for, among other activities, funneling aid to the Nicaraguan contras after the U.S. Congress cut off funding in 1984 and staging mediagenic rallies in state capitols and at the Statue of Liberty to whip up popular support for the war against Iraq.

Moon has advocated ''an automatic theocracy to rule the world'' and often denounced American constitutional democracy, individualism and feminism. ''You must realize that America has become the kingdom of Satan'' he insisted in a 1995 sermon.

Snapshots of the evolution of the Farrakhan/Moon relationship can be found in the online official newspapers of the two religious organizations they represent, the Final Call and the Unification News. According to one pre-march report in the Final Call, Farrakhan thanked Moon as he rallied MFM supporters in a plush ballroom of the Manhattan Center -- a Moon-controlled entertainment venue in New York. Similarly, Unification News frequently notes the presence of NOI leaders and delegations at a wide range of Moon-sponsored events. NOI leaders and activists are also frequently mentioned in accounts of the activities of the Moon-sponsored Pure Love Alliance, which promotes sexual abstinence and abstinence education.

In 1998, a Final Call writer published a story in Unification News detailing a pivotal moment in the pas de deux. Under the headline ''Friendship in Korea: Min. Farrakhan meets with Rev. Moon'' -- an article recounting how a Farrakhan-led delegation had visited Moon's religious, business and industrial facilities in South Korea on the last leg of a ''World Friendship Tour.'' Farrakhan praised Moon to the heavens, and suggested ''that some union with the Nation of Islam and Rev. Sun Myung Moon'' might be productive.

In addition to the mass nuptials, Moon plans to host a high-profile, three-day conference of international leaders that will overlap with the march. ''This is truly a moment that comes only once in history,'' one FFWPU memo declared. The conclave will ''bring together all the heads of Religions and Denominations and top political leaders, (i.e. presidents, kings, ambassadors and U.S. leaders) that True Parents have educated over the last 30 years. They will be asked to sit in a prestigious World VIP area of the MFM at the base of our nation's capitol building displaying absolute unity for world peace.''

Although he declined to name any confirmed participants, Schanker said that ''hundreds of former presidents, prime ministers and university presidents'' will participate.

Improbable and grandiose as such rhetoric may seem, Moon has often managed to attract A-list celebrities and politicians to his events.
(...)

In 1998, investigative reporter Robert Parry revealed how a Moon subsidiary organization funneled $3.5 million into a nonprofit organization in Virginia, in a scheme intended to ease a major financial crisis at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Falwell has been ubiquitous at Moon-sponsored events since at least the early 1980s when he led a chorus of complaints that Moon was ''persecuted'' rather than prosecuted on criminal charges of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his federal tax fraud case. (Moon was convicted and spent 13 months in federal prison.)

Since his release, Moon's people have sought to burnish the church's image. FFWPU's Schanker says that the Unification Church has now ''matured'' and does not engage in deceptive practices. If any occurred, he asserted, they were in the 1970s and were not authorized.

''They are trying to mainstream, and don't want to be viewed as controversial,'' says Steven Hassan, a former Moonist leader, anti-cult activist and author of ''Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves.'' Hassan says, however, that a scandal has been rocking the church and caused some longtime members to leave and others to think about it. In her tell-all book, ''In the Shadow of the Moons,'' Moon's ex-daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, alleges she was abused by Moon's son and heir-apparent Hyo Jin Moon. Hong describes her former husband as a cocaine addict who engaged in frequent extramarital sex and drank heavily while watching pornographic videos. He also apparently financed a lavish lifestyle with cash smuggled into the U.S. from abroad.

According to the court records of Hong's divorce from Moon, in 1994 alone church members delivered $1 million in cash to Hyo Jin who ran the church-controlled Manhattan Center in New York. Hong also describes the elder Moon as a philanderer who likes to gamble in Las Vegas casinos.

All the high-level shoulder rubbing not withstanding, some believe Moon's involvement with the Million Family March contradicts the event's stated goal of strengthening the traditional family.

''Bizarre,'' said Pricilla Coates, president of the Leo J. Ryan Foundation in Bridgeport, Conn., when asked what she thought of Moon's involvement. Coates blasted what she considers to be the Unification Church's record of deceptive recruiting and indoctrination tactics that separate people from their biological or adoptive families. ''Moon has had no respect for families that I've dealt with,'' she said. ''They are not allowed to see their children. The True Family means that the family that you grew up with is nothing,'' she concluded. ''It's only the True Family that matters.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Buddhism

9. Nuns 'killed themselves' following jail torture
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Oct. 7, 2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0010/07/world/world15.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Beijing: Five Buddhist nuns committed suicide in a Tibetan prison after being severely beaten, shocked with cattle prods and forced to stand in the hot sun for days, according to a report due to be released yesterday.

The deaths occurred after the nuns in Drapchi prison refused to sing patriotic Chinese songs, according to the report issued by the Tibet Information Network, an independent news and research service based in London.

Although the deaths occurred in 1998 and were briefly reported last year, the document details for the first time the circumstances leading up to the suicides while offering a rare glimpse into the lives of political prisoners in Tibet.

The 64-page report, which contains 188 footnotes, portrays Drapchi as a brutal place where nuns were sometimes beaten senseless with wooden planks, belt buckles and rubber hoses filled with sand. Police and prison guards punished them by applying electric batons to their tongues, ears and genitalia.

The Tibet Information Network maintains research operations in India and Nepal. The report was pieced together over two years, relying in part on the accounts of nuns who had been released from Drapchi and then fled into exile.
(...)

The People's Republic of China is celebrating the 51st anniversary of its founding this week and officials were unavailable for comment on the Drapchi prison report. In the past, though, Lobsang Geleg, the former warden at Drapchi who now oversees Tibet's prisons, has dismissed such allegations.

The nuns who died at Drapchi two years ago had been arrested in the mid-1990s for peacefully protesting against China's occupation of Tibet and government restrictions on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mormonism

10. Mormon Church Leader Lauds Growth
The Associated Press, Oct. 8, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Mormon church president Gordon B. Hinckley praised the faith's exponential growth Sunday, announcing that the church had passed the 11-million member mark.

But he also alluded to the conflict that comes from such growth, especially in Salt Lake City, where residents have protested the church's new park on what used to be a block of Main Street.

The two-acre plaza opened Saturday with little fanfare from the church and with protests from environmentalists, gay residents and animal-rights activists.

The park been at the center of debate since the city sold the stretch of road to the church for $8.1 million in 1998. Since the property is now church-owned, church officials have said they won't allow ``offensive, indecent, obscene, vulgar, lewd or disorderly speech, dress or conduct'' or smoking, sunbathing or loud stereos, and proselytizing will be allowed only by Mormons.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued, claiming the restrictions placed on the area violate the public's free-speech rights.
(...)

Hinckley devoted much of his talk to the church's recent accomplishments, including changing Ricks College in Idaho from a two-year to a four-year institution that will be called Brigham Young University-Idaho, and dedicating the church's 100th temple, in Boston.

The 90-year-old church leader recalled Salt Lake City's centennial celebration in 1947, when the church had 1 million members, half of them living in Utah.

``To think that today we have a membership of 11 million is a tremendous and wonderful thing that brings with it the promise of the future,'' Hinckley told Sunday's audience of 30,700.

Other church leaders reminded attendees of the importance of keeping the Sabbath, repentance and missionary work, which brought in 300,000 new converts last year, and warned young people against body piercing, pornography, premarital sex and same-sex relationships.

On Friday, Mormon parents of gay children demanded that church leaders stop distributing decades-old pamphlets they say condemn their offspring as ``latter-day lepers.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Theologically, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity. It does not represent
Christianity.


11. Hinckley: Center related to Isaiah prophecy
Standard-Examiner, Oct. 9, 2000
09confprophecy@Ogden.asp">http://www1.standard.net/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SALT LAKE CITY -- The mountaintops of Utah, as re-created on the roof of the new Conference Center, opened to the public for the first time following Sunday's afternoon session of the semi-annual LDS General Conference.

Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, said he envisioned the center as related to the prophecy from the Book of Isaiah which states, ''And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The same chapter reads:

(Isaiah 2:11-18 NIV) The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the
pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. {12}
The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all
that is exalted (and they will be humbled), {13} for all the cedars of
Lebanon, tall and lofty, and all the oaks of Bashan, {14} for all the
towering mountains and all the high hills, {15} for every lofty tower and
every fortified wall, {16} for every trading ship and every stately vessel.
{17} The arrogance of man will be brought low and the pride of men humbled;
the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, {18} and the idols will totally
disappear.

Mr. Hinckley may want to read up on Isaiah 2:2

12. Hatch talks religious tolerance
Standard-Examiner, Oct. 9, 2000
09hatch@Ogden.asp">http://www1.standard.net/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
PROVO -- Because of his background as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch told an international conference of religious leaders Sunday he understands the dangers of religious intolerance and oppression.

''As a Mormon, I know of the failures of the state to protect the faithful,'' Hatch told the opening meeting of the seventh annual International Law and Religion Symposium, held at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
(...)

But he said Americans have the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which aims to guarantee the free exercise of religion, ''and we are still working to advance these protections.''

The three-day conference at BYU has attracted more than 60 delegates from 36 nations. It concludes Tuesday. The sponsors include George Washington University Law School, Catholic University of America, and the International Religious Liberty Association.

The purposes of the conference include ''clarifying and promoting protection of religion,'' said David Little of the Harvard University Divinity School and president of the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief. It also hopes to bolster religious freedoms in new republics.

In America, Hatch said, the First Amendment lays down a necessary line between government and the religious rights of people. ''The state, with its legal monopoly of police power, must be limited to ensure the liberty of its citizens,'' he said.

When the United States looks abroad, he said, people in many other nations often believe Americans are trying to impose their values on their foreign neighbors.

Part of that comes out of the International Religious Freedom Act passed by Congress in 1998. It tries to ensure that U.S. foreign policy does what it can to uphold international standards in the field of religious freedoms.

The act doesn't try to impose U.S. values on others, Hatch said, but it does require the administration to condemn religious persecution in other countries and encourage other nations to promote the individuals' fundamental right to religious freedom.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Contrary to Mr. Hatch's claims, America does try to impose its values on
sovereign, foreign countries. It promotes cults and extremist groups like
the Church of Scientology, and goes as far as to threaten economic
sanctions against countries that disagree with America's views.

13. News Admits It Negotiated With AT&T
The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 7, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Mormon church-owned Deseret News acknowledged Friday it has been negotiating with AT&T, owner of The Salt Lake Tribune, in hopes of altering management of the agency that handles advertising, promotion, production and circulation for the two newspapers.

L. Glen Snarr, chairman and president of the News, said unspecified Newspaper Agency Corp. policies have been harmful to the newspaper.
(...)

Managers of the The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., the management company operating the newspaper, have been urging AT&T to honor contracts they believe foil efforts by the News to acquire The Tribune's parent company,
Kearns-Tribune, or a controlling interest in NAC. The management company insists
it has an option to purchase Kearns-Tribune in August 2002.
(...)

Snarr and Salt Lake City attorney B. Lloyd Poelman confirmed the News had negotiated with TeleCommunications Inc. (TCI) -- which acquired The Tribune in 1997 -- and then AT&&, which acquired TCI in April 1999.

Leo Hindery, then-president of TCI, told The Tribune he approached The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1997 and subsequently reached an oral agreement to sell a majority interest in NAC to the church. TCI was acquired by AT&T in April 1999 before any agreement was consummated.
(...)

Snarr has repeated in interviews this week that the News does not want to control the editorial content of The Tribune, a prospect that has raised concern in the predominantly Mormon state that The Tribune's independent voice could be suppressed. Dominance of NAC would allow the News to control the economic conditions of both newspapers.
(...)

If the church were to acquire Kearns-Tribune, it would own two-thirds of Utah's newspaper circulation as well as the state's top television and AM radio stations, KSL television and radio.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Mormon Elders Warn of Pitfalls of Technology
The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 8, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/2
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Citing the pervasive evil of Internet pornography and increasing immorality, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley warned Mormon fathers Saturday night that their own examples could ultimately win or lose the battle for their sons' souls.
(...)

Repeating a theme from his speech two weeks ago to women at the church's Relief Society conference, Hinckley also hit hard at so-called rave parties, saying they were dens of drug abuse. ''What does it all lead to? Nowhere. It is a dead end,'' he said.

But the 90-year-old ''prophet, seer and revelator'' of the LDS Church saved his strongest broadsides for pornography and its easy accessibility on the Internet.
(...)

Year of Advances: The annual gathering capped a remarkable year for the Mormon faith, which a week ago dedicated its 100th temple in Boston -- completing a goal Hinckley set three years ago when he announced plans for an ambitious expansion program based on small-scale temples. Since June alone, the church has opened 15 temples; more than 20 others are in planning or under construction around the world.
(...)

Foundation in Faith: Mormons must look more than ever to their faith, particularly its most precious elements, said Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy.

He specifically spoke about Latter-day Saints' unique, and controversial, practice of proxy baptism for the dead. In the past, the LDS Church has come under fire for performing the temple rites for Roman Catholic Saints and Jewish Holocaust victims.

''Our anxiety to redeem the dead, and the time and resources we put behind that commitment, are, above all, an expression of our witness concerning Jesus Christ,'' Christofferson said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The Mormon ''Jesus'' is not the Jesus revealed in the Bible and worshipped
by Christians, but rather one of their making

=== Jehovah's Witnesses

15. Slain Pregnant Woman Remembered
AP, Oct. 9, 2000
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
KENT, Ohio (AP) - More than 1,000 people filled a high school auditorium and dozens of others waited outside in the rain at a service to remember a pregnant woman whose killer cut her baby from her womb.

Theresa Andrews, 23, was abducted Sept. 27 and shot to death by a woman she and her husband had met a few weeks earlier while shopping for baby clothes at Wal-Mart.

''In a sinful world where people have a choice to follow their own sinful and sometimes sickening ways, tragedy will sometimes result,'' Dave Iannelli, a Jehovah's Witnesses religious leader from New York, told mourners at Sunday's memorial service. ''Jehovah is not to blame when bad things happen to good people.''

Police say Michelle Bica, 39, had lied to neighbors, relatives and even her own husband for months, telling them she was pregnant. With her fake due date quickly approaching, she lured Andrews to her house and killed her with a single shot to the back, then performed a crude Caesarean section to deliver the baby, police said.

Bica passed the baby off as her own until five days later, when she committed suicide in a locked bedroom as police arrived to question her about calls made to the Andrews' house.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. Baby Beatrice: Docs can't overrule parents
The Times of Zambia (Zambia), Oct. 7, 2000
http://www.times.co.zm/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Professor Lupando Munkonge of the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) yesterday said that his medical team could not overrule the parents of Baby Beatrice to administer a blood transfusion to save the toddler's life because of legal repercussions.

He said that in the past doctors who have overruled parents were sued in the courts of law and lost the cases in which their respective institutions were made to bear huge costs.

The baby's parents have refused to consent to a blood transfusion because of their Jehovah's Witness beliefs.

He said he would not put his job at risk and lose his 25 years of medical practice.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights Convention on the rights of the child which Zambia has assented to, part 1 Article 2 states that:

Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind irrespective of the child's or his or her parents or legal guardians race, colour, sex, language religion: political or other opinion, national.

Though the child's condition is stable, there was need for her to get a blood transfusion in order to boost her HB levels if she was to survive.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. 'Bloodless' surgery: It's mainstream
Miami Herald, Oct. 9, 2000
http://www.herald.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Years ago, a seriously injured patient who refused a transfusion might have been deemed virtually suicidal by doctors, who flatly rejected the biblical admonition ``abstain from blood'' that is passionately embraced by Jehovah's Witnesses.

But a recent court fight over a blood transfusion given involuntarily to an injured Jehovah's Witness at Jackson Memorial Hospital was quietly resolved without becoming the extreme controversy that it once might have been.

Now surgeons are more disposed than ever to go ``bloodless.'' At Jackson and at hospitals nationwide, doctors are turning to bloodless surgery not only to accommodate Jehovah's Witnesses, but also to ease blood donor shortages, battle blood-borne diseases and cut costs.
(...)

Since 1994, bloodless surgical programs in hospitals have jumped from 34 to 120 nationwide. In South Florida, they can be found at Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Coral Gables Hospital and Jackson in Miami, which has the oldest and busiest program.
(...)

Other bloodless medical centers are in early stages of development across the state, including Tampa and Orlando. Each of the programs in Florida and nationwide works with Jehovah's Witnesses, who pushed the medical community for more than a half-century to provide the option.

The religious group operates a national network of 121 hospital liaison committees with 900 members to keep doctors informed of the latest techniques. The committees, founded in 1988, also intervene on behalf of hospitalized Jehovah's Witnesses.
(...)

At Jackson Memorial, a father got a court order from a Miami-Dade judge last month to force a transfusion for his injured son, a Jehovah's Witness. Soon after, the judge reversed his ruling when he learned that the patient, Edel Carvajal Jr., had refused blood and that his wife also opposed transfusions. Carvajal is recovering from arm and leg fractures from a fall on a construction site.

But Jehovah's Witnesses aren't the only patients objecting to transfusions. In bloodless medical programs across the nation, about 13 to 40 percent of patients skip transfusions because of allergies or fear of infection.
(...)

A Jehovah's Witness who willingly takes blood can be shut out of his congregation.

``We are not looking to excommunicate the person from the church,'' explained Jorge Martinez, a director of Jehovah's Witnesses Department of Hospital Information Services in New York.

But ``if their actions demonstrate they no longer want to live by the tenets of our faith of their own free will, they have left the organization.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Attleboro Cult

18. Cult mother mum as birth nears
Boston Herald, Oct. 7, 2000
http://www.bostonherald.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A pregnant Attleboro cultist hospitalized against her will is continuing to stonewall authorities, despite the fact her husband has hired a lawyer and is trying to work out a deal with prosecutors probing their last baby's death.

``She's still refusing to say anything,'' Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Gerald FitzGerald said of Rebecca Corneau.

Corneau, 32, is expected to give birth any day now to a baby that prosecutors say will immediately be put into Department of Social Services custody. A member of an Attleboro religious sect under investigation for the deaths of two young boys, Corneau was placed in Roxbury's Neil J. Houston House against her will last month because of prosecutors' fears that her unborn child would be harmed.

Thursday, she was back before Attleboro Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth Nasif for an update on her condition, but once again, she balked at giving out any information about her pregnancy.

``She refused to say how far along she is,'' FitzGerald said. Officials estimate, however, that the baby could be born within days.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Witchcraft

19. Wiccan wants anti-pagan law to disappear - ACLU agrees
Deseret News/AP, Oct. 7, 2000
http://deseretnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
NEW ORLEANS - A pagan worshipper wants an ordinance struck from the books that bans him from practicing witchcraft.

Monte Plaisance filed a lawsuit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, in U.S. District Court seeking to overturn a Terrebonne Parish ordinance that punishes fortune telling and palm reading with up to $500 in fines and one year in jail.

Plaisance said that on Aug. 18, a city detective showed up at the witchcraft museum he owns in Houma, a town of about 30,000 people about 30 miles southwest of New Orleans. The detective told Plaisance he was investigating a complaint about the goings-on at the museum.

Plaisance, a 28-year-old Wiccan minister who says he communicates with ancient Greek deities, let the detective photograph the museum's Tarot cards, altar, crystal balls, trident wands and pentagrams. The museum also serves as a church for a coven of about 20 witches, Plaisance said.
(...)

The ACLU argues that if the parish bans fortune telling, then it effectively bans weather predictions, fortune cookies, commodities predictions and doctors' prognoses.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hate Groups

20. New leader emerging for hate groups
Seattle Times, Oct. 8, 2000
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SANDPOINT, Idaho - R. Vincent Bertollini is a city slicker, a man who drives a red Harley-Davidson and wears Armani suits, a retiree rumored to have made a fortune from Silicon Valley technology ventures.

He is also rapidly becoming one of the most prominent faces of white supremacy in Northern Idaho.

His anti-Semitic group, the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, has only two public members. When he ran for mayor, only 33 people voted for him.

Still, human-rights organizations worry that Bertollini is bidding to become the successor to Richard Butler, founder of the now-crippled Aryan Nations, which recently lost a $6.3 million lawsuit and possibly its compound.

Those rights organizations say that of the known racists in the Inland Northwest, which include everything from a neo-pagan Nazi organization to a man who tried to get ARYAN88 on his license plates, Bertollini could pose the biggest threat - simply because he is willing to put his money where his freedom of speech is.

''He considers himself an evangelist,'' said Jonn Lunsford, research director for the Seattle-based Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity. ''He doesn't have a church. He doesn't have a compound. He doesn't necessarily have a large following.

''What makes Bertollini a man to watch is he has reportedly millions of dollars to spread his racist views.''

In 1998, Bertollini told a reporter for The Spokesman-Review of Spokane that he and Carl Story, a former business partner and the other member of the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, had spent $1.5 million to spread their message, of a conspiracy involving Adam and Eve and Satan and Jews. Human-rights groups believe that amount probably isn't an exaggeration, though they don't know what the money was spent on.

The past two years, Bertollini's organization has sent out increasingly threatening anti-Semitic pamphlets and brochures to thousands of area residents.

Bertollini, 61, also has become the most visible champion of Butler, the grandfather of neo-Nazi groups in North Idaho.
(...)

The Southern Poverty Law Center says the 11th Hour is one of seven hate groups operating in Idaho, compared with 19 in Texas, 25 in California, 33 in Alabama and nine in Washington.

Idaho is important in the realm of white-supremacist groups because of the Aryan Nations' efforts to draw followers and media attention.
(...)

In North Idaho, Bertollini's is one of several groups that hold different views with the same racist theme. To the groups, the differences are important: Some adulate Adolf Hitler; some insist the Holocaust never happened; some preach white supremacy, others white separatism.

Butler's public attempt to create a unified movement led to infiltration by law-enforcement agencies and, ultimately, the successful lawsuit against him. So some anti-government types and white supremacists have pushed for ''leaderless cells,'' where tight-knit groups can plan insurrection without being infiltrated. Then some started to push the idea of ''lone wolves,'' where people act without a group, as Furrow is accused of doing.

With no formal following, Bertollini's group may be insulated against lawsuits such as the one against the Aryan Nations, which hold an organization responsible for the actions of others.

And while raising money has been a constant challenge for the movement, some human-rights activists say Bertollini and Story might change that, creating some unity among the fractured groups.
(...)

Sandpoint, population 5,200, is a marriage of right and left shot through with libertarian views. A lot of people don't like the government.
(...)

The town is home to the America's Promise Ministries, a Christian Identity church that, like Bertollini, believes Jews are descendants of Satan. Three anti-government activists - self-proclaimed ''Phineas Priests'' - met at this church and then bombed businesses in Spokane and robbed a bank twice.
(...)

In the past two years, the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger has sent out two glossy mailings to as many as 6,000 North Idaho neighbors, a videotape of Bertollini interviewing Butler, two anti-Semitic fliers and a copy of Bertollini's July speech to the Aryan Nations Congress, urging whites to stand behind Butler.

The best known mailing is a glossy 6-by-3-foot fold-out chart of the ''Adamic Race'' and of ''Adam's Pure Blood Seedline.'' It promotes the Christian Identity theory that Eve and Satan gave birth to Jews, while Eve and Adam gave birth to the white race.

''It is essentially a propaganda operation at this point,'' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that successfully sued the Aryan Nations and has successfully sued eight other hate groups nationwide.

Although Story also is a partner in the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, Bertollini has become the face man. He has appeared at public events with Butler, and he once was photographed kissing Butler on the cheek, a picture that caused much amusement and speculation in town.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Other News

21. Ritual Killings Cause Panic in Nairobi
Panafrican News Agency (Kenya), Oct. 5, 2000
http://allafrica.com/stories/200010050461.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Panic and riots enveloped Nairobi, the Kenyan capital Thursday as the number of children killed in mysterious circumstances increased to three within two weeks.

The bodies of girls aged between 6 and 10 years have been found dumped with their genitalia removed in a series of killings believed to be the work of either a serial killer or devil worshippers.

At least two people have been killed in clashes among residents on the one hand and between the police and the suspects on the other.

Scores of people were injured Wednesday as armed police fought to restrain residents of eastern Nairobi from lynching arrested suspected children kidnappers.
(...)

In the Kayole incident, after the mob apprehended the seven suspects, they later turned their wrath on a local Church building, which they tried to burn down.

However, rapid police action saved the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which the crowd claimed was one of cults behind the deaths.

The Universal Church, with Brazilian roots and three branches in Nairobi, was not an unlikely target because many people have often questioned its worship style which promises instant material and physical prosperity to new members.

Its services are characterised by recorded screams and shouting, drawing suspicion from the public. Most of its leaders are Brazilians.

And apart from their native Portuguese, they lack a language of communicating with the faithful neighbourhood, making them more susceptible to suspicion.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. Police Worry About Mob Justice In Child Killings
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 8, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Mob attacks to avenge a spate of child killings have left three people dead and set off violent clashes with police, who are appealing to angry and frightened residents to stop taking justice into their own hands.
(...)

The enraged mobs who believe the child killings are the work of devil worshippers have killed three people they suspected of involvement in the deaths, and have attacked police for trying to rescue and protect possible suspects.
(...)

A gang of youths on Sept. 30 attacked the headquarters of a religious sect they suspected to be devil worshippers and tried to kill the leader. But police intervened.

Three days later, a man was beaten to death as he got off a bus with a young child who was crying. The man turned out to be her grandfather who had taken her on an errand.
(...)

The Kenya office of the United Nations Children's Fund has condemned the kidnapping and inhuman treatment of children in Kenya. UNICEF said reports indicate that serial killers have kidnapped between 30 to 50 children in Nairobi and neighboring districts in the past year.

''A few of the children who were able to escape have given accounts of despicable, inhuman acts by the kidnappers, including lashing and beating, sometimes to death; tying victims to trees to die of dehydration; and forcing victims to witness the killings of other children,'' the statement said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Church Universal and Triumphant to sell ranch
The Spokesman-Review/AP, Oct. 9, 2000
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=100900&ID=s863382&cat=
CORWIN SPRINGS, Mont. -- The Church Universal and Triumphant intends to sell its 9,300-acre cattle ranch that is 40 miles north of the sect's Paradise Valley headquarters, a spokesman said Sunday.

Chris Kelley said an asking price for the property, which the church bought in 1983 and leased to another party, had not been decided.

''Our lands to the north have not been relevant to what we're doing for more than five years now,'' Scott McBride, a Seattle member of the church board, said in a news release. ''They served a purpose once, but are no longer essential to our mission of helping people everywhere realize their divine potential.''

Church members got news of the sale earlier in the weekend, during the church's quarterly meeting at the headquarters near Yellowstone National Park, Kelley said.

The church intends to sell the property as one piece. The ranch has agricultural land, rangeland and timberland plus a number of buildings.

''Given our mission as a spiritual activity, this land is more valuable to us as a liquid asset,'' said Tina Storti, a board member from Dallas.

Other church property, near Yellowstone, meets needs of the church, Storti said.

''We're not giving those lands up and we're not moving from there,'' she said. ''It's just that we don't need this other agricultural land to help people become one with God.''

The Church Universal and Triumphant is a New Age sect.
(...)

The church's annual report last year said that contributions fell by almost $1 million between 1997 and 1998, and that further decline was likely in 1999. The church reported 1998 revenue of $11.5 million and assets of $24.3 million, down from $25.6 million in 1997.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Fertility statues attract believers
The Sun News, Oct. 8, 2000
http://www.charleston.net/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MYRTLE BEACH - Mother was right - hands off if you don't want to get pregnant.

Only she probably didn't know touching a couple of wooden African fertility statues could have the same effect, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Apparently hundreds of couples do.

And the statues standing in plain sight in front of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum in Myrtle Beach are attracting believers and nonbelievers alike.

Hundreds of women worldwide said nine months after they touched the statues - one of a man holding a mango and a knife, the other of a woman cradling a baby - they became mothers.
(...)

There are even stories of male Ripley's employees who have touched the statues, which come from the Baule Tribe of the Ivory Coast, and then their wives have become pregnant.
(...)

The statues have become the museum's top attraction and are on a world tour because of people's interests, Marsh said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Minister concerned over spread of sects in Russia
ITAR-TASS News Wire, Oct. 6, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
VOLGOGRAD, October 6 (Itar-Tass) - Various sects have been spreading in Russia's regions of late. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo pointed this out at a meeting with representatives of religious confessions in Volgograd on Friday. ''We are concerned over the fact that emerging sects aim for undermining statehood in Russia,'' the minister said.

He believes that in order to prevent such development, the Interior Ministry and the clergy should pool their efforts and act jointly. ''It is precisely at meetings with the clergy that we determine the basic trends of our interaction,'' the minister said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. Christian advocate chastised for visit to gay bar
Denver Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 6, 2000
http://insidedenver.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
John Paulk, a self-described ''ex-gay,'' has been disciplined by two Christian ministries, including Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, after a visit to a Washington, D.C., gay bar.

Exodus North America, a Seattle-based group that urges gays to abandon homosexuality, removed Paulk as chairman of its board Wednesday. It allowed him to continue as a nonvoting board member on probationary status.

Paulk was also suspended last month as head of a Focus on the Family seminar program called ''Love Won Out,'' aimed at preventing homosexuality in youths. He remains employed by the ministry.

The 37-year-old Paulk has built a media image on his self-described abandonment of homosexuality. He married an ''ex-lesbian,'' and the couple have a child. He's been prominent in the national debate on whether homosexuality is a lifestyle choice or a biological trait. He and his family were on a recent cover of Newsweek.

Exodus said it took disciplinary action after Paulk admitted lying about his Sept. 19 visit to Mr. P's, which gained national publicity.
(...)

Focus on the Family spokesman Tom Minnery called Exodus' actions ''appropriate.''

Minnery would not discuss disciplinary actions taken by Focus, other than to say Paulk remains with the ministry and he expects ''that John will eventually resume his role.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

27. Loosening the Bible Belt New mix of religions hits the South
The Birmingham News, Oct. 8, 2000
http://www.al.com/news/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The South used to be known for religious uniformity. Things are changing.

A Hindu temple in a former Roebuck church last month had a guru from India visit to dedicate six new marble statues that are treated like living gods and brought food every day by a brahmin, or priest.

Mormons, among the fastest-growing religions in the world, this year built a temple in Gardendale where they conduct distinctive secret rituals such as sealing married couples for eternity and baptism of the dead by proxy.

Jehovah's Witnesses, who, like Mormons, are known for extensive door to-door evangelism and taking a stance contrary to Catholics and Protestants on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, annually draw tens of thousands to regional conventions in Birmingham. Other faiths seen in South 1A

Muslims have a mosque in Homewood, with dreams of one day adding a minaret that would be visible on Red Mountain. North Birmingham also has a mosque.

The Chabad Lubavitch movement recently added an ark for their Torah scrolls in a $2 million educational center built two years ago in Mountain Brook, showing an increasing Hasidic Jewish presence in Birmingham to go along with the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform synagogues that have long histories in the city.

As Japanese business executives begin to move to the Birmingham area to run the new Honda Motor Co. automobile plant in Lincoln, they bring with them an eclectic religious philosophy influenced by Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism and ancestor worship.

As a new millennium dawns, faiths outside the Southern mainstream are gaining visibility in Birmingham. Religious pluralism has arrived in Alabama, and the Bible Belt has been loosened a few notches.
(...)

All of these different religious traditions can be a bit bewildering to members of the evangelical Protestant majority of Alabama, who are beginning to realize they are in a less monolithic religious culture than they used to be. More than one in four people in Alabama is a Baptist, followed by Methodists, Pentecostals and other Protestants. Catholics are strongly entrenched. But that quaint, time tested Southern evangelism method of bluntly asking strangers, ''Where do you go to church?'' doesn't quite get the same responses it once did.

The changes have been noted with public concern on some fronts.

Dozens of evangelical Christians handed out tracts in front of the Mormon temple during an open house week, questioning the theology and secret temple rituals of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons.
(...)

Southerners are grudgingly coming to grips with surrendering cherished rituals such as pre-game prayer ''in Jesus' name'' over the intercom at high school football games - a practice banned this year by the U.S. Supreme Court.
(...)

But the dominant evangelical Christians won't stop sharing their faith publicly, said Bruce Pickell, associate professor and chair of pastoral theology at Southeastern Bible College.

As they encounter people of other faiths in Alabama, which is more likely than ever, they should show Southern hospitality but maintain theological integrity, Pickell said.
(...)

Morgan, who taught history at Temple University of Japan in Tokyo in 1989, said the Japanese have a completely different approach to religion than America's Southern evangelicals.

''If they go to Buddhist temples once or twice a year, this to them is religion,'' Morgan said. ''They don't have to go once a week or once a month. They think they ought to have a religion, but they don't think they have to give much to it.''
(...)

Some of the Japanese will be getting their first exposure to evangelical Christians.

''People are curious because there are a lot of churches here,'' Mrs. Beck said. ''Kids will be invited to go to church through school friends. They've never seen churches everywhere, on every corner. Many are not interested, but some will get interested in Christianity.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Religious diversity unfolds
Daily News, Oct. 6, 2000
http://www.bgdailynews.com/cgi-bin/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
While southcentral Kentucky remains a Christian protestant stronghold, a smorgasbord of non-Christian worshippers are making themselves known at the region's table of faith.

That was the message heard Thursday during a ''World of Religions'' program at Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
(...)

Jainism and the Muslim faith were among those represented.
(...)

Still, no one really knows how many religions are in Bowling Green, said Larry Snyder, a Western religion professor.

Snyder expects to have a better idea of the numbers after his religion students conduct a year-long study for Harvard University, he said.

The project will catalog all religions between Bowling Green and Nashville, Tenn., and should be completed in May, he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. UFO believers stand on tower
Standard-Examiner/AP, Oct. 8, 2000
08ufowatchers@Ogden.asp">http://www1.standard.net/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HOOPER, Colo. -- ''I want to believe.'' It's the message plastered on the office wall of UFO-hunting FBI agent Fox Mulder in television's ''The X-Files.'' It also could be Judy Messoline's personal mantra.

She wants to believe, like the people who visit her San Luis Valley ranch in search of the mysterious lights and other-worldly craft, rumored for decades in the area.

Messoline, a big fan of ''The X-Files,'' admits having seen strange lights in the sky. As for believing in UFOs, she said: ''It would take one landing so I could take a look.''

Messoline, 55, and partner Stan Becker have built a 10-foot-high UFO-watching platform on their 620-acre ranch near Hooper, a town of about 120 residents 220 miles southwest of Denver.

They charge $2 admission and rent binoculars for the faithful and the curious to watch the skies. The ranch also offers rustic campsites and a domed gift shop stocked with ''alien dust,'' posters, big-eyed, shiny extraterrestrial dolls and pyramid candles.

Stories of supernatural phenomena abound in this naturally spectacular 50-mile-wide, 125-mile-long valley, which is 7,600 feet in altitude and ringed by the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Messoline's watchtower gives a view of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, with its 750-foot-tall dunes.

The book ''The Mysterious Valley,'' by Christopher O'Brien, examines reports through the years of cattle mutilations, mysterious helicopters and oddly shaped aircraft hovering over the San Luis Valley.
(...)

On the Net:
http://www.ufowatchtower.com
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]