GHANA — A 28-year-old self-styled pastor, Yaw Dadzie, who claim to have divine powers to heal the sick, especially lunatics, has been arrested by the police for his violent behaviour towards his patients. Pastor Dadzie, who starts prayers for his patients by attacking them physically, said the people who went to him and the lunatics on the streets were possessed by multiple demonic spirits which could only be dealt with through violence. Speaking to the Daily Graphic at the Sekondi Police Station where the Crime Officer of the Western Regional Police Command, Chief Superintendent Alex Bedie, briefed this reporter on the arrest, Pastor Dadzie said he was not mad but that he was under the instruction of the Holy Spirit. He said the powers and the size of the demons which attacked the people were beyond human comprehension, adding, “Since the Kingdom of God suffered violence, it must be taken by force to bring God’s people out of bondage”. He said he had been a member of the Christ L...

LITTLETON - A local woman says a pastor now preaching in Tulsa, Oklahoma bilked her father of hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Sandy Chrisman, Reverend Johnny Chambers encouraged her dad to give him and his worship center in Arizona his entire life savings, more than $300,000. Chrisman's dad died in 1997 and she has been looking for the money and for answers ever since. "It's really master manipulation," said Chrisman, "give and it shall be given to you." She said her father, Robert Stickel, met Chambers at a revival in Arizona in 1997. In six months, he gave the Chambers and the Chambers' Worship Center all the money he had. "I mean come on, $314,000 gone, the guy goes around the country and does this," she said. Chrisman says her dad gave the money, hoping Chambers could heal her brother of brain cancer. "They would say. 'If you will give all your money Bob, I know I've never met you before, I know God will heal y...

Doug and Vicki Porter stand by Hickman Community Church in 2004. A Stanislaus County sheriff's detective and the district attorney have been investigating Porter for two years. HICKAM, CA — A former Hickman Community Church pastor has been arrested on a murder warrant linked to the death of an 85-year-old Hickman man in 2004. Doug Porter was detained by federal authorities Monday afternoon at a border checkpoint near San Diego while trying to return to the United States from Mexico. Stanislaus County authorities said they believe Porter, 55, intended to kill Frank Craig in a pair of auto crashes two years apart in order to inherit Craig's reportedly multimillion-dollar trust. Craig died in the second crash in April 2004. Porter is in custody in San Diego. He will be handed over to Stanislaus County sheriff's deputies and returned to Modesto, said Vince Bond, a public information officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in San Ysidro. Stanislaus County Superior Court ...

DAYTON OHIO — Riverside police arrested Pastor Dennis Bowling early Tuesday after a group of women associated with the Kingdom Harvest Church at 2360 Valley Pike told police Bowling had sexually assaulted female members of the congregation over a 10-year period. Police met with the women Monday night and gathered physical evidence at the church, said Riverside police Sgt. David A. Crigler. "There were 12 victims there (Monday) night and they alleged either improper contact or rape," Crigler said. Extras The ages of the alleged victims ranged from 10 to adulthood, Crigler said. Bowling, 45, has been pastor at the church for 19 years, according to Crigler. After the meeting, Riverside police and Miami County sheriff's deputies arrested Bowling at a relative's home in northern Miami County. He was taken to the Montgomery County Jail, where he is being held on one count of rape as police continue their investigation. Crigler said he will meet with Montgomery County prosec...

Tyrone Moore appears on South Carolina's sex offender registry. On Sundays, he also appears behind the pulpit at a nondenominational North Charleston church. Police on Tuesday arrested the senior pastor at Full Word Ministries on a new charge of second- degree criminal sexual conduct. An arrest warrant affidavit accuses Moore, 39, of performing sex acts on a male parishioner in 2002 and 2003, when the parishioner was 17 years old. Moore's past criminal record includes a 1989 conviction for committing a lewd act on a child under 16 and a 1991 conviction for criminal sexual conduct with a minor between the ages of 11 and 14, according to State Law Enforcement Division records. During a bond hearing Wednesday, much of the discussion centered around whether Moore would be able to return to preach. "I think the state would be imposing on his religion if he's not allowed to come to his church," said attorney George Counts, who represented Moore during the hearing. ...

A lavishly illustrated " Atlas of Creation " is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey, proclaiming that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism. Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species. At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of United States creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible. But the author's name, Harun Yahya , reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence U.S. creationists could only dream of. Creationism is so widely accepted here that Turkey placed last in a recent survey of public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries — just behind the United States. "Darwinism is dead," said Kerim Balci of th...

Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, warned that "the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,” or when a Nobelist in chemistry, Sir Harold Kroto, called for the John Templeton Foundation to give its next $1.5 million prize for "progress in spiritual discoveries" to an atheist — Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist whose book "The God Delusion" is a national best-seller. Or perhaps the turning point occurred at a more solemn moment, when Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, hushed the audience with heartbreaking photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects — testimony, he suggested, that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control. Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been...

An Anchorage pastor accused of molesting a teenage girl he led in worship has been arrested. The Anchorage Police Department said Pastor Dwight Greene turned himself in Wednesday afternoon. Late Tuesday, police had actually sought the public's help in finding Greene on suspicion that he was intentionally evading them. Greene, who leads the Calvary Chapel of Anchorage , is now in jail and waiting to appear before a judge to answer charges of felony sexual abuse. "There is a warrant for felony sexual assault of a minor," said APD spokesperson Anita Shell. Greene is accused of sexually abusing a teenage member of his congregation, a young person he taught in bible study. APD said she was a 15-year-old member of the church who had cataloged sexual abuse by Greene in her diary and that her father discovered the confessions in the diary. The girl wrote, "Today he told me he wanted to kiss me. When he does this stuff I don't even know what to do or say. It's scary b...

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo . -- A high school pastor at Greenwood Community Church surrendered to authorities Wednesday after stating he had been sexually involved with a 16-year-old girl. The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office said that Donald Richard Ryan, 33, of Highlands Ranch, Colo., was arrested for investigation of felony sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and investigation of unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor. "For the past two and one-half years, he has been counseling the 16-year-old female," a sheriff's statement said. "During the relationship, inappropriate cell phone text messages and e-mails were exchanged, which culminated with sexual contact." Ryan was being held Wednesday on a $50,000 bond while deputies continued their investigation of the allegations. The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has asked anyone in the community, who may have information pertaining to inappropriate activity regarding Ryan, to call the Sheriff...

The passionate, sometimes rhythmic, language-like patter that pours forth from religious people who “speak in tongues” reflects a state of mental possession, many of them say. Now they have some neuroscience to back them up. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania took brain images of five women while they spoke in tongues and found that their frontal lobes — the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do — were relatively quiet, as were the language centers. The regions involved in maintaining self-consciousness were active. The women were not in blind trances, and it was unclear which region was driving the behavior. The images, appearing in the current issue of the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, pinpoint the most active areas of the brain. The images are the first of their kind taken during this spoken religious practice, which has roots in the Old and New Testaments and in charismatic churches established in the United State...

Organizers of an evangelical summer camp for children featured in the documentary " Jesus Camp " are discontinuing the camp because of negative reaction sparked by the film and recent vandalism at the camp site in Devils Lake, North Dakota . "We have decided to hold different activities in future," Pentecostal pastor and camp organizer Becky Fischer told Reuters. Fischer was the central figure in " Jesus Camp ," a documentary about Pentecostal evangelical Christians , some of whom send their children to summer camp where they pray, "speak in tongues" and are urged to campaign against abortion. In the months since the film was released the campground was vandalized and Fischer was inundated with negative e-mails and phone calls. In one of the film's scenes, a cardboard effigy of President George W. Bush is placed on stage before an assembly, so attendees can pray he make America "one nation under God." The film has no voice-overs or...

After resigning as head of a national evangelical group, Ted Haggard is removed from his New Life leadership post. DENVER — An investigative committee of independent pastors concluded "without a doubt" on Saturday that the Rev. Ted Haggard had committed "sexually immoral conduct" and removed him from his duties as senior pastor at a mega-church in Colorado Springs, Colo. The committee's decision took away Haggard's last position of church leadership — and cast doubt on his assertion that he had visited a male prostitute for a massage but never had sex with him. Last week, Haggard resigned from the presidency of the 30-million member National Assn. of Evangelicals under allegations that he had a three-year sexual relationship with the man. Haggard also has said that he bought methamphetamine from the prostitute but did not use it. The statement from New Life Church 's investigative committee did not list the evidence the group considered. But the stron...

Pensacola evangelist and tax protester Kent Hovind winked at his wife and gave her a reassuring smile as he was led away to jail. Jo Hovind clutched the necktie he had been wearing. She kept her eyes on her husband until he was out of sight. A 12-person jury deliberated for 21/2 hours on Thursday before finding the couple guilty of all counts in their tax-fraud case. Kent Hovind , founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison. Jo Hovind was charged and convicted in 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements. She faces up to 225 years in prison but was allowed to remain free pending the couple’s sentencing on Jan. 9. Kent Hovind briefly held onto her arm as the verdict was read. Neither reacted at first. But minutes later, she held her face in her hands. “Nobody likes to pay taxes,” Assistant U.S....

A prominent evangelical preacher is denying allegations by a former gay male escort that the two had a three-year sexual relationship. Ted Haggard , founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals , told KUSA Channel 9 that the escort is lying. "I’ve never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I’m steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife," Haggard said. Mike Jones, 59, of Denver, made his allegations on the Peter Boyles show on KHOW 630 AM, saying he was compelled to come forward because he believes Haggard, an opponent of same-sex unions is being hypocritical. "After sitting back and contemplating this issue, the biggest reason (for exposing it) is being a gay man all my life, I have experience with my friends, some great sadness of people that were in a relationship through the years" and were not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as a married man and woman," Jones told Boyles on air. ...