An atheist civil-rights organization on Tuesday charged that a Harold Ford Jr . campaign ad filmed in a church sends a "divisive" message and is bringing religion into public policy issues. The television ad for the Democratic congressman from Memphis, who is running against former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, a Republican, shows Ford in a church talking about his religion and values. The two men are vying for the seat of retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. "To our knowledge, this is the first time a partisan political ad has been produced using the backdrop of a church," said Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, in a statement. "It's part of a larger and disturbing trend where candidates are invoking religion in order to woo constituencies and win elections." The Ford campaign had a quick answer to the criticism. "Being opposed by ( American Atheists ) makes us even more certain that Harold Ford Jr.'s Senate c...

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Each year, the Rev. Robert Ascolese, a well-liked pastor in this town of 6,400, ran a “power ball” raffle, selling $100 tickets to raise money for a new building for St. Joseph Catholic Academy. Half the proceeds were to go to the school, and half to the lucky ticket holder. But the authorities say the only winner was Father Ascolese, who stands accused of stealing more than $600,000 from his church and several charities. The pastor, known as Father Bob here amid the cornfields, stood handcuffed in front of a judge on Thursday in the Warren County courthouse, pleaded not guilty and was released on $75,000 bail. A 32-count indictment charges that Father Ascolese, 45, who came here in 1999 to start the academy, wrote checks — including one for $100,000 — to fake people or to real ones who had never heard of the lottery, and then diverted the money to himself. From 2001 to 2005, the indictment says, the church sold more than 4,000 tickets but no one ever collec...

WICHITA, Kansas, -- He is the well-known pastor whose abrupt departure from a popular Wichita church left many wondering what happened. Now we are learning more about why Terry Fox and Immanuel Baptist Church parted ways. Earlier this week, Immanuel Baptist Church issued a statement to " The Baptist Press " about Fox’s resignation. That statement includes some scathing allegations, including Fox’s misuse of church money. For nearly 10 years, Terry Fox was the person Immanuel Baptists’ huge congregation looked to for spiritual guidance but it all came to an end in August. In the statement, the church says, "careful examination of the church’s financial records revealed reallocation of cooperate program funds. A portion of the reallocation was used for a radio program — not affiliated with the church. This led to our agreement that it was time for him to resign." That radio show, " Answering The Call ", often focuses on controversial political issues such...

Los Angeles CA — A pastor was charged Monday with multiple counts of sexually abusing two girls who attended his church in the San Fernando Valley, prosecutors said. Joseph Gary Torres, 46, was ordered held on $2 million bail during an initial court appearance Monday, the district attorney's office said in a statement. He was arrested Thursday. He allegedly met the girls at his Sunland church, Iglesia Bautista Reformada, which is Spanish for Reformed Baptist Church. A call to the church seeking comment late Monday was not immediately returned. Prosecutors contend he molested a 12-year-old girl several times from July to August last year. They claim he molested a 14-year-old girl from July 2005 to last month. Torres was charged with 11 counts, including continuous sexual abuse, sexual penetration by a foreign object, sodomy by force, committing lewd act upon a child and oral copulation. He faces up to 30 years in state prison if convicted of all counts. link More on this: Pastor, s...

The pastor of a church in Jackson, Mississippi, has been arrested and charged with felony child abuse, a news release from the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department said. John C. Evans , 47, 3919 McGuffee Road in Clinton, was arrested Wednesday, the release said. Evans posted $2,500 bond, the release said. His case will be presented to a grand jury. Evans is a minister at Cathedral AME Zion Church , 428 W. Northside Drive in Jackson, according to the church’s Web site . Details of what led to the arrest were not mentioned. But the release said it was the result of a request for assistance from the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Efforts to reach Evans this evening were unsuccessful. link

From the Seattle Times Some folks like to say everyone worships the same God. But we know that isn't exactly so, and now we have a description of how American conceptions of God differ. The Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion and the Gallup organization recently finished a study that went beyond the usual questions — "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you go to church?" They tried to dig more deeply and find out how people see God, how they see themselves in relation to God and how that affects their ideas and behavior. What they found is that when Americans say "God," they are not necessarily talking about the same deity. The researchers asked 29 questions about God's character and behavior, sifted through the answers they got from 1,721 participants and identified "two clear and distinct dimensions" to people's ideas about God. Those are God's level of engagement and God's level of anger at human sins. People see God a...

CLEVELAND Oh — A well-known Cleveland-area pastor has been accused of defrauding the state’s Department of Education of $2.2 million. The is a well-known pastor who works with ex-convicts. Olds, 56, of Solon, is charged with conspiracy, money laundering and mail fraud in connection to his operation of a now-closed charter school, Cleveland Academy of Math, Science and Technology. Olds was the developer of the charter school. According a news release from Auditor of State Betty Montgomery, others are involved with the case. Two people have been arrested and another is expected to surrender. The former officers of the school, Shirley Haynes and Timothy Daniels are all charged with conspiring to defraud the DOE. Also, five corporations have been indicted as a result of the state audit, the news release said. The audit also discovered that the defendants: received funds from the school's bank account for their personal use. did not provide sufficient food to students during lunch. a ...

A Columbus, Ohio pastor was found guilty of three sex charges with children Friday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, and may learn his sentence on Monday. The Rev. Maurice L. Jackson, pastor of New Generation Church, 1173 Essex Ave., had been accused of having sexual contact about nine years ago with a girl who then was 7 or 8 and engaging in sex about eight years ago with a relative who then was about 14. Jackson was 22 when the latter offense was said to have occurred. After about 12 hours of deliberation over two days, a seven-woman, five-man jury returned guilty verdicts on two counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of corruption of a minor. Jackson could face up to 11 ½ years for the convictions. Duty Judge Richard S. Sheward revoked Jackson's bond and placed him in jail until Monday, when trial Judge Charles A. Schneider returns to decide when to sentence Jackson. The defense said the charges had been built on “lies and revenge” because Jackson had removed the o...

By David Horton Much talk on the Left in recent years about how the Right have been able to co-opt religion for their own evil purposes. And endless answers from leaders of the Left, about how progressive politicians should proudly talk about their religious faith. And they do; and are shown obediently trooping into churches, bibles under arms, and then meeting pastors, and sitting in front rows staring adoringly up at the preachers just as the rest of the congregation is doing. As Cenk Uygur said in a recent brilliant piece - 'We were told that if we didn't give up our freedoms and our way of life, the terrorists would win. No, you idiot, they win if we do give up our freedoms and our way of life.' Seems to me the same applies to religion. To paraphrase Cenk 'We were told that if we didn't go to church the Religious Right would win. No you idiots, if you go to church the Religious Right wins.' Need some politicians to stand up to the force of religion in societ...

By B.J. Paschal — a Christian Why are many religious conservatives obsessed with invoking the Founding Fathers? That is, why is there such a brisk book trade in re-examining the founders’ lives? For the religious conservatives, the fight is about proving that America was set up as a Christian nation. And their efforts to rewrite American history are paying off, since a recent Pew Forum survey found that 67 percent of Americans believe this falsehood. A cottage industry pushes the false argument that the founders intended virtually no separation between church and state, and this industry (authors such as Dee Wampler, James Kennedy, Gary Demar and David Barton; WorldNetDaily.com; and, especially, FOX News) has been very consistent in pushing the no-separation and Christian-nation messages. The “Creator” Jefferson employed in the Declaration of Independence is not specifically God the Father or the God of Abraham. This is also true for the God of public religion that the Continental...

The pastor of a Winston-Salem NC church has been indicted by a Burke County grand jury on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year old girl, according to Burke County authorities. Gregory Michael Butler Sr., 45, of Winston-Salem, was arrested in Forsyth County and returned to Burke County on Tuesday afternoon. Butler is the pastor of Emmanuel Apostolic Church in Winston-Salem, said Burke County Detective Dean Hennessee. Butler was charged on the indictments with two counts of felony statutory rape, two counts of felony statutory sexual offenses, and two counts of felony indecent liberties with a minor. He was jailed under a $100,000 secured bond. He was assigned a court date of Oct. 23. The arrest was the result of a joint investigation between the sheriff's Offices of Burke and Forsyth counties, investigators said. Hennessee said the investigation shows that Butler had sexual encounters with the minor in both Burke and Forsyth counties. He said evidence in the case showed Butler ...

From the BBC Christians in several countries have been offended by the Madonna's show. A 63-year-old Dutch priest has confessed to making a hoax bomb threat in an attempt to stop a concert by US pop star Madonna, prosecutors say. Her mock re-enactment of the crucifixion in one of the scenes offended some Christians during earlier shows in Italy and Germany. But the concerts in Amsterdam went ahead as planned on Sunday and Monday. A city official said the priest was arrested soon after making the call because he used his home phone. Emergency services quickly traced the number. The official, prosecutor's office spokesman Robert Meulenbroek, said that as this was probably the priest's first such offence, he was likely to receive a light sentence. He has been released from custody pending a verdict. "We take bomb threats seriously, but in this case it was clear very quickly that it was not real," Mr Meulenbroek told the Associated Press news agency. Madonna has since...

From The Times HUMANS have evolved over tens of thousands of years to be susceptible to supernatural beliefs, a psychologist has claimed. Religion and other forms of magical thinking continue to thrive — despite the lack of evidence and advance of science — because people are naturally biased to accept a role for the irrational, said Bruce Hood, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol. This evolved credulity suggests that it would be impossible to root out belief in ideas such as creationism and paranormal phenomena, even though they have been countered by evidence and are held as a matter of faith alone. People ultimately believe in these ideas for the same reasons that they attach sentimental value to inanimate objects such as wedding rings or Teddy bears, and recoil from artefacts linked to evil as if they are pervaded by a physical “essence”. Even the most rational people behave in irrational ways and supernatural beliefs are part of the same continuum, Pr...

By John Paulos A recent international study in the journal Science by Professor Jon Miller of Michigan State University and his associates finds that a growing number of Americans do not believe in the theory of evolution. In fact, the survey of 32 European nations and Japan reveals that only Turkey has a higher percentage of its citizens rejecting Darwin. The author attributes the results in the United States to religious fundamentalism, inadequate science education, and partisan political maneuvering. With regard to the latter Miller notes, "There is no major political party in Europe and Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform." But there's another contributing factor to this opposition to evolution that I'd like to discuss here. It is the concerted attempt by creationists to dress up in the garb of mathematics fundamentalist claims about human origins and to focus criticism on what they take to be the minuscule probability of ev...

NORFOLK Va - A Baptist minister who was ousted as pastor at a prominent Berkley church earlier this year now faces civil lawsuits accusing him of financial and sexual improprieties. The allegations have shaken the congregation of the nearly 80-year-old Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. The Rev. Charles F. Mc-Keller faces civil suits by an estranged couple who claim that instead of counseling them to repair their marriage he drove them further apart by engaging in a sexual relationship with the wife. Hayward and Patricia Cuthrell filed separate lawsuits in Norfolk Circuit Court against McKeller and Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. Each is seeking $2 million. According to court records and interviews, the church suspended, then fired Mc-Keller after the wife recorded one of their sexual trysts and presented it to a church deacon. After he was suspended, McKeller ran up thousands of dollars in charges on the church's credit card, according to another civil action filed in Norfolk ...

In the midst of religious revival, three scholars argue that atheism is smarter. From Newsweek Sept. 11, 2006 issue - Americans answered the atrocities of September 11, overwhelmingly, with faith. Attacked in the name of God, they turned to God for comfort; in the week after the attacks, nearly 70 percent said they were praying more than usual. Confronted by a hatred that seemed inexplicable, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson proclaimed that God was mad at America because it harbored feminists, gays and civil libertarians. Sam Harris, then a 34-year-old graduate student in neuroscience, had a different reaction. On Sept. 12, he began a book. If, he reasoned, young men were slaughtering people in the name of religion—something that had been going on since long before 2001, of course—then perhaps the problem was religion itself. The book would be called "The End of Faith," which to most Americans probably sounds like a lament. To Harris it is something to be encouraged. This was ...

SWEDEN — In an interview with TV4's news programme Nyheterna, Knutby pastor Helge Fossmo has admitted involvement in the murder of his wife in their home in 2004. Fossmo also said that several others were involved in the crime. "I feel that I have recovered. I lived a lie and I don't want to do that any longer," he said as an explanation for his confession. On January 10, 2004, Alexandra Fossmo was shot dead while she slept in the village of Knutby, not far from Uppsala. She was the wife of Pastor Helge Fossmo, one of the leaders of the extreme Pentecostal sect that dominated village life, and sister of the woman many claimed was the cult's real leader, Åsa Waldau - otherwise known as the Bride of Christ. A short while later, the killer knocked on the door of a neighbour - whose wife was having an affair with the pastor - and shot him as he opened the door. He survived. The Fossmos' nanny, Sara Svensson, admitted to the shootings from the start, but claimed th...

LEONARD RAY OWENS FORTWORTH -- A 63-year-old pastor accused of raping a church member last year during a ceremony to cast out demons has been indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury. Leonard Ray Owens, who is free on $25,000 bail, is now awaiting trial on a charge of sexual assault -- a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. Police have said that they began investigating Owens last year after a 22-year-old woman reported that Owens raped her on two occasions at his Fort Worth home. The woman told police that, several months after she began attending the Prayer House of Faith at 1303 E. Seminary Drive, she went to Owens' home for counseling after having a miscarriage. There, the woman told police, Owens said she had a sex spirit and lesbian demon inside her that he needed to cast out. The pastor then asked her to lie on the floor and began yelling at her as if she were a demon, saying "Loose her in the name of Jesus," according to an arrest warrant ...