=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Memorial held for sarin victims; bitterness lingers
2. Sarin gas victims press for state help
3. Group urges state to aid survivors of sarin gassing

=== Falun Gong
4. Sect ban pressure is denied by Tung

=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media
5. Reports from China's government-controlled media
6. Religion, cult different terms

=== Scientology
7. Cruise Dogged by Scientology Split Rumors
8. Columbine Counselor's Teen Sex Abuse Prompts CCHR's New Website Tracking System of Mental Health Criminals

=== Islam
9. Call to spread Islam's message on tolerance
10. Taliban Bans New Year's Celebration

=== Catholicism
11. Report: Priests, Missionaries Sexually Abuse Nuns
12. Reports of abuse

=== Mormonism
13. Mormons' Long, Strange Trip to the Mainstream

=== Hate Groups
14. Judge Sentences Supremacist Pastor in Abduction of Grandchildren.
15. Racist church heads to court
16. Calif. Supremacist Pleads Guilty
17. Brown Students Steal Univ. Paper
18. Brown Protest Targets Ad
19. State House passes hate-crimes measure
20. Germany Won't Stop Yahoo! Auction

=== House of Prayer, Atlanta
21. Pastor, 5 followers arrested in child beatings
22. Defendants have criminal records
23. Church faces abuse probe over whipping of children

=== John and Carrie Davis
24. Jailed father found dead
25. Torture suspect 'upbeat' before his death

=== Recovered Memory Therapy
26. New trial ordered in recovered-memory case
27. Brain: Some choose to lose memory

=== Other News
28. End Near For Ex-Devil Church
29. Some in Egypt shun religious freedom panel
30. Three held for distributing Christian literature

=== Science
31. Skull may alter theory of human evolution

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
32. Convicted Killer is Freed After His Sister Finds DNA Evidence
33. Judge bans use of electric chair

=== Noted
34. Worshippers in Paris flock to Afro-Christian cults
35. Exorcism thriving in Australia
36. A Herd of Psychics on Larry King
37. When a body can be worth $220,000

=== Books
38. Sects, death and the spirit of the age
39. Mainstream Publishers Get Religion for Christian Audience
40. Take a Web site test on religion

=== House of Prayer, Atlanta

[There are many churches and organizations that go by the name ''House of Prayer.'' This one appears to be unaffiliated with any other church or movement]

21. Pastor, 5 followers arrested in child beatings
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/newsatlanta/abuse0321.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Atlanta police on Tuesday arrested a pastor and five members of his church while social workers took custody of 22 more children, alleging they ran the risk of being abused.

The pastor and four members of the House of Prayer were charged with cruelty to children for the beating of two boys, ages 7 and 10. Another church member was charged with battery and reckless conduct.

The older boy had open wounds on his stomach and right side, said Atlanta police Lt. Elizabeth Propes, commander of the youth crimes unit. The younger boy had welts on his stomach and back. The boys told police they were held down at church and beaten with sticks, switches and a belt.

Church members say they will continue to whip unruly children even if it means defying police and the courts. During the past two weeks, state social workers have taken 41 children from parents who belong to the House of Prayer on Hollywood Road in northwest Atlanta.
(...)

Backed by a court order and uniformed police, the state Department of Family and Children Services picked up 22 children late Monday and early Tuesday.

Of the children taken into state custody, investigators have found injuries from beatings on only the two boys, Propes said. The police lieutenant said her team of investigators decided to seek charges because of those injuries.

The other 39 children, from five families, were removed from their homes because of the risk of abuse, said Department of Human Resources spokesman Renee Huie.
House of Prayer Pastor Arthur Allen Jr. admitted he condones corporal punishment for children who misbehave. He said he is following biblical teachings but denies he or any parishioners abuse their children.
(...)

Some religious groups who advocate harsh corporal punishment of children cite a passage in the Bible, Proverbs 13:24, to justify their actions. The passage has various translations, but the New King James version reads: ''He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

» More about abusive churches

22. Defendants have criminal records
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Four of six Atlanta church members charged in child beatings have prior criminal records, a judge said at their first court appearance this morning.

Municipal Court Judge Elaine L. Carlisle ordered the six held on bonds ranging from $4,000 to $20,000 and sent the case to Superior Court.

Their prior records included, she said:

- A simple battery conviction in 1981 against James Smith, now charged with one
count of cruelty to children;
- Convictions of David Duncan Sr. for criminal trespass, battery, armed robbery
and aggravated assault. He faces two counts of cruelty to children. He also
was arrested ona homicide charge in 1977.
- Two burglary convictions of Emanuel Hardeman, who is charged with two counts
of cruelty. He was convicted of burglary in 1984 and 1986, battery in 1993
and child abandonment in 1995.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Arthur Allen, was convicted in 1993 of a misdemeanor child abuse charge involving the beating of a 16-year-old church member.

At today's hearing, police Investigator C. Dean said members of the House of Prayer held the 7- and 10-year-old children of two church members in the air and beat one with a stick and the other with a belt, leaving welts and scars.

The defendants said the beatings were common.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Church faces abuse probe over whipping of children
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Authorities are investigating a massive case of alleged abuse by parents of as many as 60 children from the same northwest Atlanta church.

Already, state social workers have removed 19 children from the homes of three members of the House of Prayer, 1194 Hollywood Road. Another church member said Friday evening that social workers had indicated they soon would take 11 of his children.

Atlanta police and social workers are looking into reports that church members systematically held down their children while beating them with belts and other objects --- allegedly under the direction of the pastor, the Rev. Arthur Allen.

Allen acknowledged Friday that in 1993, a DeKalb County judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail for child abuse after he ordered a church member to beat her teenage daughter for having sex in a building where a Bible study group was meeting.

Friday evening, Allen took a defiant stance in the gravel parking lot of his church, as 75 church members crowded around and shouted encouragement under the glare of television lights.

The Bible, Allen said, gives parents the authority to ''whip'' their children.

''We believe in corporal punishment for unruly children,'' Allen said. ''If something is reported in here, the parent saying they cannot handle the child, then I suggest they give the child a whipping.''
(...)

The alleged abuse came to the attention of authorities on Feb. 28, when a first-grader at Atlanta's C.W. Hill Elementary complained to his teacher about back pain.

The teacher found welt marks and called in social workers, said Seth Coleman, an Atlanta Public Schools spokesman. After an investigation, three social workers came to the school on March 9 and took the first-grader, his younger and older sisters and three other children from another family, Coleman said.
(...)

Allen, 68, founded the church about 35 years ago, and many of the members who gathered there Friday evening said that they grew up in the congregation. About 130 people, many of them children, regularly attend services there.

Allen said children from the congregation have been beaten at church, at school and in their homes. He said he tells parents to restrain their children ''so that they would not hit the child in any vital spots to hurt the child.''

Church members said the punishment is appropriate.

''We don't overly abuse our children,'' said Tabitha Houston, 18, who was married two years ago with what she described as Allen's ''approval.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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