» Part 1 » Continued from Part 2

=== Other News
27. China blows up churches and temples in religious crackdown
28. U.S. Critical as China Cracks Down on Religion
29. Religious Association Launches Cult Probe
30. Bell takes stand against far right group in Essex
30a. Court tells Rasta lawyer to spill the seeds
31. Cult Fire At Lagos State University
32. IRS Church Seizure Sparks Fears
33. Political Polygamists Coming Out of the Closet
34. RSS pamphlets: Sikhs are part of Hinduism
35. Ex-minister stands by 'biblical rod'

=== Death Penalty
36. Death Penalty Doubts

=== Noted
37. Constitution Protects Beliefs, Not Practices

=== The Virgin Around The Corner
38. Church hails Britney as virgin role model


=== Other News

27. China blows up churches and temples in religious crackdown
AFP, Dec. 12, 2000
http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Authorities in eastern China have shut down, and in some cases blown up, 450 Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as Taoist and Buddhist temples, officials said Tuesday.

The campaign launched in mid-November in the easern province of Zhejiang was aimed at wiping out ''illegal'' religious groups which had not registered with the State Administration for Religious Affairs, they said.

The 239 unregistered religious facilities that were shut down and the 210 churches and temples that were destroyed were all located in the Ouhai district of Wenzhou city.

A spokesman for the Wenzhou foreign affairs office told AFP the churches, temples and religious halls were shut down to protect the public.

''In order to maintain social stability, the local government demolished underground churches and temples and other illegal places. These organizations were operating under the cloak of religion. They hoodwinked people, interfered in normal religious activities,'' he said.

A spokesman from the Beijing-based Administration for Religious Affairs said the campaign was not a national one, and as far as he knew, it was only happening in Ouhai.

China's communist government only allows organised religion to function under the control of the state and it frequently launches crackdowns against the ''underground'' churches which do not recognise the state's authority.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. U.S. Critical as China Cracks Down on Religion
Washington Post, Dec. 12, 2000
http://washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING, Dec. 12 - Less than a month after China agreed to resume human rights talks with the United States, a senior U.S. diplomat today protested two new actions by Chinese authorities: the apparent destruction of scores of underground Christian churches in southern China just weeks before Christmas, and the sentencing today of a Chinese-born U.S. resident to prison for investigating repression of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The diplomat, briefing reporters in the U.S. Embassy here on the condition he not be identified, said he remained hopeful that new human rights discussions promised by Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a meeting with President Clinton in Brunei last month might still result in changes in how China treats its people.

But he said he was disturbed and disappointed by reports in Chinese newspapers of a renewed crackdown on religious activity in the southern province of Zhejiang, and by a Beijing court's decision today to sentence New York acupuncturist and Falun Gong adherent Teng Chunyan to three years in prison over the repeated protests of American diplomats.

''Razing churches before Christmas? I'm incredulous,'' the diplomat said. ''It doesn't sound like a very good situation, and when we find out more facts, we'll try to take the appropriate action. It's certainly disappointing.''

He said U.S. officials will also take up Teng's case with the Chinese government again, but noted that the chances of success are limited now because Chinese officials often say they cannot intervene after sentencing. ''It doesn't look good,'' he said. ''This isn't the result we were looking for.''

On Monday, Chinese officials also confirmed that a court had rejected the appeal of Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent businesswoman from the restive Xinjiang region who is serving eight years in prison for mailing Chinese newspaper articles to her husband in the United States. Both the U.S. Senate and the House had passed resolutions demanding her release.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Amnesty International documents on China

29. Religious Association Launches Cult Probe
Africa News Service, Dec. 10, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - A Kenyan Christian Association says it has set up a Commission to probe ''devil worship'' in learning institutions countrywide.

The Commission to begin operation in January 2001, is expected to come up with a report on the current situation and possible solution, of cult practices, said to be rampant in many learning institutions in Kenya.

Peter Nyarogwa, Secretary General of the Christian Churches Education Association (CCEA), said Sunday in Mombasa at a conference on institutional leadership, that devil worship in Kenyan learning institutions was increasing at an alarming rate.

He said the CCEA probe report, to be made public on completion, will suggest solutions and how to curb the practice.

It will also recommend to the authorities, stern actions to be taken against individuals found luring students into the practice.
(...)

The CCEA's probe will mark the first time an independent Commission is probing cult practice in Kenya.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. Bell takes stand against far right group in Essex
The Scotsman (Scotland), Dec. 9, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent turned MP, yesterday announced his intention to stand for election in a seat where a controversial religious group has been accused of taking over the local Conservative party.
(...)

He told electors that he planned to sit in parliament for only one term but concerns that the evangelical Peniel Pentecostal Church, which has been described as a cult, could have undue influence in the area are thought to have persuaded Mr Bell that he should reconsider his stance.

Concerns about the activities of the Peniel Pentecostal Church arose in 1998 when the first wave of 200 members joined the local association and began electing prominent figures from the sect into positions of influence.

The church was founded by a former insurance salesman with strong right-wing views.

The self-styled ''Bishop'' Michael Reid preaches that homosexuals are ''filthy perverts'', Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are ''foul heathens'' and has volunteered to act as executioner if capital punishment is reintroduced.
(...)

The Peniel Pentecostal Church is listed with organisations who monitor cults.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30a. Court tells Rasta lawyer to spill the seeds
Independent (South Africa), Dec. 12, 2000
http://www.iol.co.za/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Gareth Anver Prince, a Rastafarian and candidate attorney, has until late January to provide the Constitutional Court with details of how followers of his faith get their dagga and when it is used within the religion.

In an unanimous judgment in Johannesburg on Tuesday, the court indicated that Prince's application to allow adult Rastafarians to use dagga was of fundamental importance and went beyond the candidate attorney's own narrow interests.

Prince, who obtained his LLB degree in 1993, launched a legal battle after he was refused permission to register as a candidate attorney in February 1997.

The Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope found him unfit to practise law in light of two convictions for dagga possession and his avowed intention to continue using the drug.

Neither side produced sufficient evidence for a ruling. In its ruling on Tuesday the Constitutional Court gave Prince until January 24 to supply his affidavit on dagga use.

The law society has until February 14 to submit a responding affidavit outlining, among others, what practical difficulties would be encountered if an exemption for ''sacramental use of cannabis'' was allowed.

Judge Sandile Ngcobo found that both sides had failed to produce sufficient evidence to determine whether a religious exemption was possible.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Cult Fire At Lagos State University
Africa News Service, Dec. 11, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Lagos - Lagos State University, LASU, was a theatre of blood-shed on Wednesday November 15, when secret cult gangs from other institutions invaded the campus in the early hours of the day in a commando style. Armed with sophisticated weapons and wearing face masks, the cult gangs clashed with officials of the university's students' union government.

At the end of the clash, four students, among whom was Gabriel Okolo, a 200- level student believed to be a cultist, were killed. Several students were wounded. Monday, November 13, the cultists burnt part of the students' union building and vandalised computers, decoders, typewriters, books and chairs. But for the timely intervention of the university's security men, the entire students' union complex would have been destroyed by the rampaging cultists. Okolo and another student cultist were set ablaze by irate students.

Kenny Ogundairo, general secretary, LASU students' union government told Newswatch that the cultists invaded the school to discourage them from continuing their anti-cult rallies. Students' union officials were also apprehending identified cultists and handing them over to the police. Okolo was reportedly angered by the anti-cult campaign. Newswatch learnt that he allegedly mobilised cultists in other institutions to silence the operations of the students' union government. Ayo Suleiman, the students' spokesman issued a release, declaring war on cultism in the university.

Ogundairo said the students took the mob action against the cultists because there had been several cases reported to the police and many cultists also handed over to the police but ''we always find the cultists back on campus, threatening students. It has become useless to report cult activities on our campus to the police'', he said.
(...)

Lagos State University is not new to cult activities. In February 1999, secret cult gangsters took over the institution and destroyed many lives and property in a clash between two rival groups, Black Axe and Eiye.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


32. IRS Church Seizure Sparks Fears
AP, Dec. 10, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) To the Internal Revenue Service, the Indianapolis Baptist Temple is simply a building waiting to be seized to make up for $6 million in back taxes.

But for the congregation's supporters across the country, including numerous right-wing groups that share some of the church's ideology, the impending seizure is the fulfillment of long-held fears that the government is out to silence its critics and control what preachers say from the pulpit.

''If we lose,'' says pastor emeritus Greg Dixon, ''it will mean that we no longer have religious liberty in America.''

The church stopped withholding federal income and Social Security taxes from its employees' paychecks in 1984, saying payment would make the church an agent of the government.

Dixon says his is a New Testament Church, an independent congregation governed only by God's law and thus not subject to any form of taxation. He also believes taxing a church is a violation of the First Amendment separation of church and state, and he refuses to register for tax-exempt status.

Registered churches are exempt from certain taxes, but still must pay employee withholding taxes.

The dispute came to a head Sept. 28 when U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ordered the property seized. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but since Nov. 14 federal marshals have been authorized to seize the church property, by force if necessary.

Marshals haven't said when they will seize the property. Because the case has been appealed, Justice Department officials declined to comment.

The church has about 1,000 members, and 20 or so at a time maintain a 24-hour vigil behind locked glass doors. They say they'll wait peacefully, allowing the marshals to shatter the front doors if necessary and carry each of them out.
(...)

The elder Dixon has spoken out against the IRS and the taxation of churches for years.

Once the national secretary of Jerry Falwell's now-defunct Moral Majority, Dixon has walked in extremist circles. He spoke at a 1992 meeting in Estes Park, Colo., that attracted more than 150 white supremacists and tax protesters. That put the Baptist Temple on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of Patriot groups that adhere to anti-government doctrines.

Patriot Movement leader James ''Bo'' Gritz recently broadcast his syndicated radio talk show from the church, and numerous militia leaders have come to show support.

The Dixons say their beliefs are based on Scripture, and they deny links to hate groups or extremists.

''Liberty has strange bedfellows,'' the younger Dixon says. ''If your only friends are those that you agree 100 percent with, you're not going to have many friends.''

U.S. Marshal Frank Anderson and the Dixons have agreed that, when the time comes, the church should be taken peacefully.

Still, the very act of the government seizing a church over a tax debt is ''an extraordinary event unparalleled in American history'' that could have a ripple effect, says attorney Richard Hammar, a prominent specialist in church and tax law.

''I'd say there are just literally thousands of New Testament Churches that will all be threatened if this happens,'' Baptist Temple attorney Al Cunningham says.
(...)

Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, agrees that the situation is volatile.

''I think if men, women and children are carted out of there by SWAT teams, that this is very likely to raise real tensions on the radical right,'' Potok says.

On the Net:
Indianapolis Baptist Temple: http://www.indianapolisbaptisttemple.com
IRS: http://www.irs.gov
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


33. Political Polygamists Coming Out of the Closet
Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 11, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Anne Wilde, mother of three, graduate of Brigham Young University and second cousin to one of Utah's most influential religious and political leaders -- the late Ezra Taft Benson -- climbs the marble steps inside the Utah Capitol.

Few notice. Fewer still understand the significance.

In a moment, Wilde will walk into a legislative committee room. She won't speak, but she will stand, jaw set firm, before roughly 40 Republican lawmakers who offer only awkward smiles to the announcement of her forthcoming book, Voices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage.

This woman -- who was married in the Los Angeles LDS Temple and later sealed in a polygamous marriage -- will turn, walk out of the room and exhale.

Not often does a Utah polygamist stroll sure-footed into the halls of state government. But on this November day, Wilde is not alone. She comes with a handful of polygamous husbands and wives wielding a book and a hope that activism and openness can alter the course of political history in Utah.

''Polygamists are here and we are not going away,'' Wilde's co-author, Mary Batchelor, told The Salt Lake Tribune. ''This is about breaking stereotypes.''

Wilde, Batchelor and co-author Marianne Watson accept comparisons to other civil objectors. They understand the plight of gays and lesbians whose protest call -- ''We're queer and we're here'' -- in a way echoes their own.

''All we want is equal civil rights,'' Wilde says. ''We want to live in a home or trailer and not be asked to leave because we're polygamists. We want to walk and pray and live without persecution.''

This month's release of Voices in Harmony, a book about polygamist women written by polygamist women and praised by a handful of scholars, could be a stepping stone for a political movement by Utah's roughly 30,000 men, women and children who live in polygamous households.

It is a constituency driven to secrecy by years of legal setbacks. Coming out now, though, could be a mistake, says Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park, who has led efforts at the Capitol to fund investigations of child abuse, sex crimes and welfare fraud among Utah polygamists. Allen points to Utah's constitutional ban on polygamy, to laws against bigamy and to a culture that he says is ripe for abuse.

''If what I hear about this book is true, I hope the public will remember the last 20 years of negative stories about polygamy -- the shootings, murders, child abuse and fraud,'' he says. ''I hope people won't be taken in because three people paint a pretty picture.''

Such reaction is reason enough for Wilde, Batchelor and Watson to decline to name their husbands. They are careful about personal details, knowing Utah's bigamy law -- a felony -- has been newly leveled at polygamists in recent years.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


34. RSS pamphlets: Sikhs are part of Hinduism
The Hindustan Times, Dec. 9, 2000
http://64.225.143.242/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Punjab unit of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come out with yet another folder in which it has tried to establish that Sikhs were part of Hinduism.

The folder, in Punjabi language, under the heading of ''Rashtra Jagran Abhiyan'' (national awakening campaign), has quoted noted Sikh leader Master Tara Singh and Sikh sants to prove its point of view.
(...)

It read ''Sikhs and Hindus are not separate. The progress of Sikhism is linked with survival of Hindus. Sikhs are an inseparable part of Hindu society.''
(...)

It has also tried to establish that whenever in any part of the country the number of Hindus, which also included Sikhs, Jains, Bodhs, Sanatani and Arya Samaji, came down that part of the country was taken away. It gave the example of Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Multan, Sindh, west Punjab (now Pakistan) and East Bengal (now Bangladesh).

It also said Christian missionaries, with foreign funds, were engaged in large-scale conversion in the N-E and RSS was trying to stop it.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. Ex-minister stands by 'biblical rod'
National Post (Canada), Dec. 4, 2000
http://www.nationalpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...More news items on religious insanity...]
VANCOUVER - A former evangelical pastor who spent 123 days in jail for assaulting his two step-children with a wooden dowel says softening his views on discipline would defy the word of God.

''It would go against the very Scriptures,'' said Darryl McDowell, of South Kootenay, B.C. ''We would have to give up our faith, rip sections out of the Bible.''

Mr. McDowell repeatedly used a wooden dowel to punish his common-law wife's 10-year-old daughter and four-year-old son.

The children were apprehended before the trial and remain in foster care.

His wife, whose name is protected by a publication ban, is standing by her husband, who believes it is his religious right to use a ''biblical rod'' to spank the children.
(...)

''I have agreed, since they are biologically her children, that any corporal punishment will be solely in her hands,'' said Mr. McDowell, who was arrested in July.
(...)

He still insists the rod will remain integral to discipline.

''They want us to take psychiatric evaluation. I won't be because, number one, I don't support that profession. They are anti-Christ, anti-Christian,'' he said.

Mr. McDowell said he knows his defiance may sabotage their chances of having the children returned by the ''ministry of child kidnapping and family breakup services.''

''We're up against a juggernaut,'' he said. ''There is a movement, an anti-spanking, anti-corporal-punishment movement, of which these people are part.''

From his own childhood experiences, Mr. McDowell said he can discern discipline from abuse.
(...)

Mr. McDowell's wife, who was abused as a child, said her husband took pains to explain to her children why they were being ''rodded.''
(...)

She is convinced she was the victim of ritual satanic abuse before she met him, resulting in multiple personality disorder, and that only he can save her.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Death Penalty

36. Death Penalty Doubts
The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2000 (Opinion)
http://www.nytimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
President Clinton's decision last week to delay the execution of Juan Raul Garza for six months pending further study of troubling racial and geographic disparities in the federal death penalty system was a small but significant act of conscience.
(...)

While reaffirming his support for the death penalty, Mr. Clinton lamented the glaring inequities in the imposition of federal death sentences identified in a Justice Department study in September.
(...)

In postponing the execution, Mr. Clinton recognized that it would be unconscionable for the United States, whose continued embrace of the death penalty is out of step with the rest of the civilized world, to go ahead with an execution amid the swirling uncertainty about the system's fairness. But the temporary stay for Mr. Garza - the second Mr. Clinton has granted in the case - fell short of the complete moratorium on federal executions that the evidence of unfairness the president cited in his remarks logically and humanely calls for.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Amnesty Internation Report on U.S. Human Rights Abuses

=== Noted

37. Constitution Protects Beliefs, Not Practices
Albuquerque Journal, Dec. 9, 2000 (Editorial)
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Constitution guarantees religious freedom, but over the years that protection has required the implementation of many conditions, usually when religious practices are found to violate some law.

Sometimes religious bodies have been exempted from the law. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church may ordain and employ only male priests, and a synagogue need not give equal consideration to all applicants regardless of creed when hiring a rabbi.

But sometimes the law does apply. Followers of Santeria may not sacrifice animals, nor may members of breakaway Mormon sects practice polygamy. Recently, a woman's claim that she was practicing the ancient religion of temple prostitution was rejected by a court.

The law has gone both ways, though, concerning entheogens natural substances considered to give one a divine experience when ingested.

For instance, members of the Native American Church may ingest peyote ritually, but Rastafarians are not permitted to smoke marijuana.

Both are controlled substances in the United States, but the Native American Church has been able to protect its ritual in part because its ancestral roots in North America may predate Columbus; the church has been legally recognized since 1885, before drug laws were enacted; and the church has about 250,000 members today. Rastafarianism is a relatively new practice that spread here from Jamaica and doesn't appear to have an organized structure in the United States.

The Native American Church has been able to convince the courts over the years that it was not just a group of recreational drug- users trying to get around the law to get high.

This is the religion/drug law conflict in which U.S. District Judge James A. Parker is being asked to decide about the group O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal (Portuguese for ''union of the plants'').

Santa Fe resident Jeffrey Bronfman, whose family owns a substantial interest in Seagram Co. Ltd., is president in the United States of the Brazil-based religious group. U.S. Customs agents seized a barrel of a hallucinogenic tea called hoasca that had been shipped to Bronfman a year and a half ago. Bronfman and the Uniao do Vegetal have been accused of attempting to illegally import a controlled substance the hallucinogen DMT (dimethyltryptamine) which a chemist detected in the tea.

The church argues the herbal tea is a harmless part of a sacrament that is central to their religious practice. They claim the tea made from two plants is neither addictive nor harmful to human health.

They want the return of the barrel of tea and the declaration that hoasca is not a controlled substance.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act says the government must have a compelling interest in interfering with a religious practice and must do so by the least restrictive means when such an interest exists. And the burden on the court should be heavy, for it is impossible to judge another person's religious conviction.

In this case, however, the court may have a compelling interest in protecting society from yet another drug in the ever-growing list of substances that must be controlled because they present a danger.

Uniao do Vegetal has the burden of proving that hoasca is not addictive and poses none of the common risks associated with illegal drugs. Here is one case where science may be needed to settle a religious dispute.

The courts have long held that every religious belief is protected by the Constitution, but that is not the case for every practice.
[...entire item...]


=== The Virgin Around The Corner

38. Church hails Britney as virgin role model
New York Post, Dec. 13, 2000
http://www.nypost.com/news/17936.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...more offbeat news...]
She's sexy and she's sultry - and now Britney Spears is ''a saint.''

The sexy pop singer is being hailed as ''a saint'' by the influential Church of England for remaining a virgin.

The church has praised the 19-year-old star as ''a great ambassador for virginity,'' in its monthly magazine, Celebrate, which has also published several eye-popping photos of her.

''Britney is very sexy but she has very strong principles and religious views,'' a church spokesman told London's Daily Star.

''We are trying to show readers that there are famous people who have religious beliefs.

''Britney has been criticized for being a hypocrite, and some of our readers will be up in arms that we have featured her. [But] she is a great ambassador for virginity.''

Unlike many young pop sensations, Britney has made a point of flaunting her virginity, although she's famous for her flesh-baring outfits.

''I'm a Christian. I go to church. But my mom taught us, 'Don't be ashamed of your body. It's a beautiful thing,''' Britney said recently.

The blond hitmaker, who's dating *NSYNC's hunky Justin Timberlake, says there's nothing wrong with showing off her figure and dancing suggestively.

''What's the big deal? I have really strong morals, and just because I look sexy on the cover of Rolling Stone doesn't mean I'm a naughty girl,'' she said.

Britney has also said she prays every night - and before she goes onstage.

''I find a lot of comfort and strength in knowing I can talk to God and He's listening. That's the way we were raised, and my family still goes to church on Sundays,'' said Britney, who grew up in Louisiana

''I don't think I could ever look at how lucky I am and not think that God had a hand in it.''

The Church of England's ''saint'' designation is not official - a person cannot become a saint until they are officially canonized and recognized as someone who has led an exceptionally holy life.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]