=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Outcast Aum aids landlord's plan

=== Falun Gong
2. China Sect Members Ask Singapore Aid
3. News Corp. Heir Woos China With Show of Support

=== Scientology
4. A church for celebrities, but what about me?
5. Police work for Scientology

=== Unification Church
6. Clergy split over controversial Moon's visit
7. Chief of Moonies stops in Jackson on U.S. tour
8. Reverend Moon goes mainstream in 50-state tour
9. Moon plans to speak at revival in W. Baltimore
10. Moon, in D.M., pushes marriage

=== Islam
11. Muslims demand halal foods be served in Dearborn schools

=== Militia Groups / Hate Groups
12. Texas farm standoff enters second year
13. 100 held as Met launches dawn raids on hate crime
14. Nobody enjoys an apologist

=== ISCKON / Hare Krishna
15. Living with Krishna
16. Spiritual school
17. Food of the gods
18. Chic Krishna

=== Hinduism
19. Boutique Deities Offend

=== House of Prayer (Atlanta)
20. Minister has prior conviction for beating
21. Abuse claims not new, files say
22. 19 children to remain in state custody
23. Pastor says he'll take chance with jury
24. 'Who's supposed to be the villain?'
25. Child Beatings: 'They'd beat them for every simple little thing they'd do'
26. Corporal punishment part of black American culture
27. Welfare officials acknowledge the value of spanking

=== False Memory Syndrome
28. Fairlie sues over daughter's 'false memory' claims

=== Other News
29. LA County Pays $85,000 Settlement
30. Muslims fear for their lives as cannibal cult leader escapes
31. Fortunetelling legal again in Coeur d'Alene
32. School rejected girl's religious cards, suit says
33. Woman Detained After Vampire Assaults

=== Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
34. Bush's initiative could help groups that promote faith healing

=== Death Penalty and other Human Rights Abuses
35. Texas fight takes on race and death penalty


=== House of Prayer (Atlanta)

20. Minister has prior conviction for beating
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 22, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Rev. Arthur Allen Jr., was sent to jail in 1993 after ordering members of his church to beat a 16-year-old girl with belts and then taunting the bleeding girl when she cried.

Now, the pastor of the House of Prayer church in northwest Atlanta is at the center of a massive abuse investigation that has led to the removal of 41 children from their parents' homes.

''He stood over me and said, 'I had you whining like a baby,' '' the girl, Ivory Johnson, testified during a 1993 trial in DeKalb County State Court.

Allen admitted in court that he ordered the August 1992 beating - which he said may have lasted from 20 to 30 minutes. The beating continued, he testified, until the girl was ''beaten into submission.'' The teenager had defied his authority, Allen said, and she ''had to be beaten, or she would take over the church.''

Allen, 68, said he and his church will be vindicated in the new case.
(...)

Allen was released from jail Wednesday, one day after he and five members of his church were arrested by Atlanta police on charges that they encouraged or participated in the beatings of two children last month. The others, and a seventh church member, Sharon Duncan, who turned herself in to authorities Wednesday, were expected to remain in jail overnight. Two of the six church members charged in the new case were convicted in 1993 along with Allen.

Earlier in the day, an Atlanta Municipal Court judge ordered Allen and five of the others to stand trial on the charges, which were filed after state social workers removed 41 children from the homes of church members.
(...)

In a separate hearing Wednesday afternoon, a Juvenile Court judge delayed hearing testimony on whether the first 19 children taken from church members should remain in state custody. Six cases were dismissed because of a technical error, but those children remain in custody.
(...)

The whippings were administered at the urging and direction of Allen, police Investigator C. Dean testified during the parents' preliminary hearing on the criminal charges. One parent, James Smith, told Judge Elaine Carlisle that the beatings were so common he had lost count of how many he had seen.

Children being punished were suspended in the air by their hands and arms and beaten with switches, sticks or belts, Dean said. Photographs shown to the parents in court showed welts that Dean said were between 1 and 3 inches long, including one she described as the shape of a belt buckle.
(...)

Atlanta police said injuries have been found on only two of the 41 children. But D'Annacq Libercq, chief of the DFCS Special Investigative Unit, said the other 39 children were taken because several of the families refused to cooperate with investigators. Another family turned the children over to DFCS without protest, according to Department of Human Resources spokeswoman Renee Huie.
In interviews since news broke about the investigation, Allen has acknowledged that he encourages ''whippings'' for ''unruly'' children. But he has denied that the beatings constitute abuse.

He said that his 1993 conviction came after a girl was caught having sex in an upstairs room during Bible study. He said he advised the girl's mother to ''give her a whipping.'' The next day, he said, the girl reported him to police and he faced charges.

He said he was not surprised that he went to jail.

''The Bible says if you live godly,'' he said, ''you're going to suffer persecution.''

But court records and the prosecutor from his 1993 trial tell a different story.

On the night of the beating, the church was talking about marriage, said Johnson, who had married a member of the church when she was 14. Allen ''makes you get married,'' she testified. A girl in the church raised her hand and told the preacher that Johnson was trying to ''poison their minds against marriage.''

Johnson said she raised her hand and said the girl was lying.

''Brother Allen got mad,'' Johnson said.

He ''told some people in the church to take me in the back and 'whoop her ass.' ''

Two church members held her down, she said, while two more beat her with belts.

''Then the pastor called my mother and brother to the back of the room to beat me, too.''

''I dropped to the floor,'' Johnson testified. Two women helped her up and took her to a bedroom in the house where the church was holding a service. ''They cleaned me up and cleaned up the blood.''
(...)

Allen was convicted of battery and of being a party to the crime of battery. He was sentenced to 30 days in the DeKalb County Jail, but served only 20 days. The jury also convicted six other church members, including Johnson's mother and brother. The others include Duncan and Emanuel Hardeman, who face charges along with Allen in the new case.

At the 1993 trial, Johnson said she was no longer married, and that her ex-husband had married another 14-year-old girl.

Johnson had been a member of the House of Prayer since she was a small child. She didn't leave the church before the whipping because, according to court documents, Allen had told her that ''bad things would happen to her in the real world outside the church.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

» More about abusive churches

21. Abuse claims not new, files say
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 24, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
State investigators were looking into claims of child abuse involving a House of Prayer member in late October, four months before allegations of frequent whippings at the church generated a major investigation.

Department of Family and Children Services investigators went to the home of David Duncan Sr. in October after a teacher told investigators about a mark on one of Duncan's children's neck or head, said spokesman Andy Boisseau.

The department opened a case file a few days later when the teacher reported a second mark. But the family was uncooperative and efforts to remove the children began only days before the House of Prayer case broke this month, Boisseau said.

''We didn't know anything about the House of Prayer at the time,'' Boisseau said. ''We were dealing with an individual family.''

He said investigators also were unaware of Duncan's 1993 battery conviction for participating in the beating of a 16-year-old church member.
(...)

On Friday, Allen called the investigation ''religious persecution.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Investigating alleged or apparent criminal conduct committed under the guise of religious practice is not ''religious persecution.''

22. 19 children to remain in state custody
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Municipal Judge Elaine Carlisle ordered six House of Prayer members held on bonds ranging fron $4,000 to $20,000 pending trial on criminal charges they participated in or allowed whippings of two children last month.

Another church member, Sharon Duncan, was charged with cruelty to children, according to Altanta police. She was being held without bond today pending a preliminary appearance.

At another hearing, a juvenile court judge delayed hearing testimony on whether 19 children taken from church members earlier this month should remain in state custody because of the abuse allegations. Six of the cases were dismissed because of a technical error.

A hearing to determine whether those cases should go forward was scheduled for Friday. The remaining cases were delayed until later this month at the request of the parents, who said they were not prepared to defend themselves.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Pastor says he'll take chance with jury
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 22, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. was sent to jail in 1993 after ordering members of his church to beat a 16-year-old girl with belts and then taunting the bleeding girl when she cried.
(...)

But in an interview Wednesday, Allen, 68, said the conviction was based on ''false'' testimony, and he disputed some of the allegations the girl made against him and his church.

''She had to say certain things to get revenge against her mother and to get revenge against me,'' he said.

And he said he expects vindication in the current case.

''I hope we are charged,'' he said, ''and I look forward to a trial by jury.''
(...)

In interviews since news broke about the investigation, Allen has acknowledged that he encourages ''whippings'' for ''unruly'' children. But he has denied that the beatings constitute abuse.

The details of the 1993 case seem to contradict suggestions that discipline at the House of Prayer has involved nothing more than spankings.
(...)

Debra M. Sullivan, who prosecuted the case, said Wednesday that evidence showed the teenager received ''serious'' injuries, including cuts and welts on her legs.

''Their theory was she was this wild child and we're making her better,'' Sullivan said. ''He had a big thing about resisting authority.''

Allen did not deny the allegations against him, Sullivan said.

''His attitude was defiance --- that people in the community were trying to tell them what to do,'' she said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. 'Who's supposed to be the villain?'
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 23, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. feels misunderstood.

He sits in the living room of his modest home in northwest Atlanta, surrounded by half a dozen members of his church, the House of Prayer. His 25-year-old wife, Trina, sits nearby with their new baby on her lap.

It's Wednesday evening, five hours after Allen, 68, has been released on bond from the Atlanta jail, where he was booked on charges of ordering the beatings of two young church members --- two of the 41 whom the state has taken into protective custody.

''I've really been painted a monster,'' Allen says.
(...)

In one week, Allen has gone from being the pastor of an obscure nondenominational church in a downtrodden part of Atlanta to a controversial figure in the national news, as many of the children of his 130-member congregation were taken from their homes.

Allen is a complex figure, a charismatic leader of a poor congregation who exerts enormous influence in the lives of his church members. He helps them buy homes, strengthen their marriages, improve their lives.

Outside his church, though, Allen hasn't found universal validation for his views, not only on disciplining children but also on other church matters, including his approving marriages for girls as young as 14. He has received little sympathy from state social services officials, who blame him for ordering systematic beatings with switches and belts that, in some cases, left welts and abrasions. And he has gotten little support from other ministers, even some who think the government may have overreacted in its mass seizing of so many church members' children.

''Lord knows, everybody interprets the Bible in different ways,'' says the Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church and a prominent member of Concerned Black Clergy. But ''I know of very few churches that use this type of behavior to discipline children.''
(...)

Even after serving jail time in 1993 for ordering the beating of a 16-year-old girl, Allen continues to take a literal approach to passages from the Bible's King James Version dealing with discipline, such as Proverbs 23:13:
Withhold not correction from the child: for (if) thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

''If you're going to give a meaningful lesson,'' Allen says, ''give them a meaningful lesson. . . . It's hard to give them a meaningful whipping without putting a mark on a child.''

But whipping ''is the last resort,'' he says, after parents have tried other measures such as taking away privileges or sending a child to his room. ''If they show some remorse, they can get out of it altogether.''

Corporal punishment was a constant in Allen's early life. He grew up as a preacher's son in Chamblee, and both his parents whipped him, he says, usually with a belt.

''And I loved them for it,'' he says. ''I thank God. It didn't convert me, but it slowed me down. I'd be like some of the young hoodlums today with a wasted life.''

At Chamblee High School, where he played football, the principal made frequent use of a black strap. ''Even though he whipped us, we still loved him.''
Allen had an older brother, Woodson.

''He went the other way,'' Allen says quietly of his late brother. ''Alcohol.''
(...)

By 1957, he was an ordained Baptist minister, licensed in the same church attended by ancestors back to his great-grandmother, who had lived in slavery.

After preaching in Baptist churches for several years, Allen started his own church in 1966 --- ''from scratch,'' he says. He sought members in some of Atlanta's most decrepit public housing projects --- Perry Homes, East Lake Meadows, Hollywood Courts.

''All the people I dealt with were underprivileged. And the kids didn't have daddies. But when they come into the church, they were no longer underprivileged.''

Decades later, Allen's lifestyle is far from lavish. He has lived in the same house, in the same northwest Atlanta neighborhood as his church on Hollywood Road, for more than 30 years. He and his wife own a Jaguar and a Lincoln, but he bought the cars used for under $10,000 each, he says.

Allen has never drawn a salary from his church, he says. He made his living as a landscaper and house painter until he decided he was too old for such physical labor.

He owns an apartment building and, in the Dunwoody area, a parcel of Allen family land that he's in the process of selling. A few years ago, he sold about two acres for more than half a million dollars. He immediately gave $100,000 to the House of Prayer for a renovation that included two new classrooms and restrooms, he says.
(...)

Allen also used some of the money to build flower beds for his first wife, Mary. The couple had no children, and she died of liver cancer on April 2, 2000, at age 62.
(...)

A woman at his church had five children, all younger than 7. Her husband had deserted her, and she had divorced.

Allen married her three days after his wife died.
(...)

The 43-year age difference between the pastor and his new wife is unusual in the House of Prayer. But Allen approves marriages between girls as young as 14 and older men from the congregation.

Georgia law does not allow girls that young to get married, he says, ''but it's
legal for them to marry in Alabama. . . . If they decide it and the parents agree on it, we let them go to Alabama and get married. And when they come back, we give them a nice reception so they'll have a good start.''

He says he would prefer that if girls marry, they find husbands close to their age.
(...)

Allen bases the views he imparts to his congregation on his reading of the Bible, he says, specifically the King James Version that is favored by charismatic and fundamentalist churches.

He opposes gay relationships: ''Their nature is backwards. God said male and female.''

He opposes birth control: ''The Bible says if you can't contain, it's best to marry rather than to burn.''

And he opposes abortion: ''I'm against killing babies.''

But he denies suggestions that he controls the lives of his church members. And church members agree.

'' 'Approval' sounds so, like, cultish,'' Ogletree says. ''We come to him for guidance. My pastor has better judgment than I have.''

Others say social workers, law enforcement authorities and the media want to believe only the worst about their pastor.

''They just want to see all the lies, the false allegations,'' says Vickie Hightower, sitting in Allen's living room. ''He's a human being after all.''
(...)

In 1993, Hightower was one of six church members convicted of battery alongside Allen in the beating of a 16-year-old girl. The girl, now grown and estranged from the House of Prayer, is Hightower's daughter.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Child Beatings: 'They'd beat them for every simple little thing they'd do'
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 23, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Jason Bates doesn't go to church anymore. The church of his childhood was a place for fear, not a house of prayer.

It was a place to be plucked from sleep for a whipping, for watching helplessly as his sisters' dresses were lifted to reveal their young bodies for a beating.

Bates, his mother, Linda, and several siblings are former members of the Rev. Arthur Allen's House of Prayer, the center of a child abuse investigation that has left seven worshippers facing criminal charges and 41 children in state custody.

''I get nervous just talking about it,'' Bates, 19, said Thursday, seven years after his mother took him out of the church.
(...)

A hearing was scheduled for this morning to determine whether to proceed with six child abuse claims dismissed Wednesday on a technicality. Hearings will be held in the next few weeks to determine whether children in the remaining cases were abused.

That question haunts Jason Bates, his sisters and his mother. Five siblings remain members of the church, although they weren't among those taken by the state.

''I can't imagine what they're going through,'' he said.

He said his years at the church were filled with unexpected beatings, sermons laced with curse words and a stern sense of order.

''They'd sometimes have kids back there lined up'' for whippings, Bates said.

''They'd beat them for every simple little thing they'd do.''

His sister Joanna Bates said she was beaten when she was 12 after Allen accused her of being a prostitute. She protested being exposed to the congregation after the preacher lifted up her dress to spank her.

'' 'You're used to men seeing you,' '' she quoted Allen as telling her.

Linda Bates took several of her children out of the church after Allen prohibited her from visiting Jason in the hospital after he suffered severe injuries in a fire.

''It was like a cult. He controlled everything,'' she said of Allen.

In a 1993 court case, Allen accused Linda Bates of involvement in suspicious injuries to her children. But Jason and Joanna Bates and another sister, Darcus, say their mother was a hero.

''I really thank God that my mother came and got me,'' Jason Bates said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. Corporal punishment part of black American culture
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar 23, 2001 (Opinion)
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Child abuse or child discipline? That is the question raised over and over by children's rights advocates. I have worked as a director of foster care and adoptions for a social service agency in Georgia. There is, in many cases, a very fine line between corporal punishment and child abuse.

I am not advocating disciplining children with sticks and switches. However, it would be difficult to find an African-American over 40 years old --- or younger in many instances --- who has not received what most child advocates today would classify as child abuse.

It bothers me that if these modern-day social workers were to have come by my home when I was growing up, they would have taken me away and placed me in the home of a stranger and placed my loving and hard-working parents in jail. The so-called abusive treatment I received as a child produced a law-abiding, taxpaying and reasonably productive citizen.
(...)

Older African-Americans brag about the days of community parenting when neighbors watched out for everyone's children and provided physical and yet loving discipline on the spot. The neighbor would spank a child for doing wrong, the neighbor would call home and report the incident and the mother would give the child a spanking. When the father got come home from work, the child would get a third spanking.
(...)

Our jails are full of people who missed corporal punishment but are on the road to capital punishment.

Historically, African-Americans parents worked so hard they did not have the luxury to place their children in ''time out'' and discuss every detail with their children.

Our parents answered ''why?'' with ''because I said so,'' and the verbal was enforced with the physical.

African-Americans had to teach their children the art of obedience to the slave master. The stakes in some cases would be life or death. Corporal punishment was the best way to get the message across.
(...)

House of Prayer Pastor Arthur Allen Jr. should not be punished for being raised during a time when switches and belts were used and community parenting was the norm.

_Frederick J. Zak is pastor of Reaching for Christ Ministries in Atlanta._
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. Welfare officials acknowledge the value of spanking
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 22, 2001
http://www.accessatlanta.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
State child welfare officials and House of Prayer parishioners may not agree on much, but they agree that spankings can be appropriate discipline. Where the two sides disagree is when spankings become abuse.

Members of the House of Prayer say their brand of corporal punishment is nothing more than an old-fashioned spanking. State officials say the ''spankings'' administered to at least two of the children in that church crossed the line.
(...)

The manual for state child protective services workers says: ''Children need consistent discipline to develop into responsible adults. Parents have enormous freedom and control over decisions affecting their children, and they have the right to discipline and punish children as they determine appropriate. Law does not prohibit using corporal punishment.''

Corporal punishment, the DFCS manual says, is ''any physical punishment of a child to inflict pain as a deterrent to wrong doing. It may produce transitory pain and potential bruising. If pain and bruising are not excessive or unduly severe and result only in short-term discomfort, this is not considered maltreatment.''

Where the line is crossed, Liber said, is when the discipline causes injuries to the child. ''Once physical injury is left [on the child], it constitutes child abuse and we have to intervene,'' she said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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