Jesus had a son named Judah and was buried alongside Mary Magdalene, according to a new documentary by Hollywood film director James Cameron. The film examines a tomb found near Jerusalem in 1980 which producers say belonged to Jesus and his family. Speaking in New York, the Oscar-winning Titanic director said statistical tests and DNA analysis backed this view. But Mr Cameron's claim has been attacked by archaeologists and theologians as unfounded. Archaeologists said that the burial cave was probably that of a Jewish family with similar names to that of Jesus. But Mr Cameron said the combination of names found on the tombs convinced him of their heritage. Samples tested Israeli construction workers building an apartment complex in Jerusalem's East Talpiot district first uncovered 10 of the 2,000-year-old ossuaries - or limestone coffins - in a tomb in March 1980. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, six of those coffins were marked with the names Mary; Matthew; Je...

Neighbors and friends of Camden pastor Kevin Ogle, who is charged with sending pornographic messages and pictures via the Internet to a police officer posing as a teenage girl, said they were shocked by the arrest of a “very loving, kind, caring individual.” “You could’ve taken a gun and shot me in the heart, and it would’ve had the same effect,” said Mike Clifton, chairman of the deacon committee at Northgate Colonial Baptist Church. “He is just like a brother. He loves his church, and he loves his family.” The 42-year-old pastor waived his rights Wednesday to stay in Kershaw County and will be transferred to Walton County, Ga. Sheriff Steve McCaskill said Ogle will be sent either today or Friday to Loganville, Ga., where he will have a bail hearing. Ogle was arrested Tuesday and charged with 11 counts of sexual exploitation of children. Authorities say he chatted with and transmitted pornographic depictions of himself online to a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl. According t...

Ted Haggard’s “dark side” apparently spread farther than anybody thought. “Numerous individuals” — some of them later described as young male staffers — have outlined what church leaders call a pattern of improper and even “sordid” behavior by the founder and former chief pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. Haggard’s former flock learned of the findings Sunday during two morning services, when the overseers of the church read a letter to filled auditoriums. “We have verified the reality of (Haggard’s) struggle through numerous individuals who reported to us firsthand knowledge of everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships,” the Rev. Larry Stockstill told the congregation. The presentation, by the head of the church’s board of overseers, was the first comprehensive update since Haggard admitted last November to methamphetamine purchases and “sexual impropriety” involving a male prostitute, Mike Jones. A...

A former Herndon pastor convicted of sodomy and statutory rape has made the list of the " America's Most Wanted " television show. Jack E. Clark, former assistant pastor of a Pentecostal Church that once owned property at the intersection of Park and Monroe streets in Herndon, was listed as a "Fugitive From Justice" on the Feb. 17 airing of the TV program, according to the show's Web site. On April 16, 1996, Herndon Police charged Clark with forcible sodomy and statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl whom he knew from his congregation. Lt. Jerry Keys of the Herndon Police Department remembers the case, and Clark himself, well. Keys said that Clark grew up in Herndon and that Keys came in contact with him occasionally. "He seemed very gung-ho, very religious," Keys said. Keys was working as part of the Criminal Investigative Section when Clark was originally arrested. Sgt. Dennis Royal of the Herndon Police headed that investigation. Royal said the vi...

"If you have faith, you see it." CRYSTAL CITY — Consuelo Sanchez guided her 63-year-old mother, Olga, across the street, pointing to a tree near a fence line. "That's the arm," she said, pointing to a branch yielding to the right. "That's the other arm. "See where it's cut right there, that's his head." The elder Sanchez nodded in agreement. The pair was the latest to make the trip to Avenue D here Thursday afternoon to examine a pruned backyard tree that many believe resembles a crucified Jesus. "They say something like this doesn't happen just anywhere," the 38-year-old daughter said. "To me, it's a sign." The Sanchezes stood under the tree for several minutes, studying both the tree and the handful of pictures and notes that have been left behind the past few days after the image of Jesus was first spotted in the gnarled limbs by Betty Jo Hernandez. Hernandez, 31, took a photo of the tree and shared it w...

The polls repeatedly show that the United States is a religious country, with 90 percent of Americans saying they believe in God or a supreme being and more than 40 percent saying they attend religious services each week. But there is another group, much smaller and less-often heard from: unbelievers. In recent months, in books and on a sold-out off-Broadway stage, these religious skeptics have been raising their voices. In the one-woman off-Broadway show Letting Go of God , for example, Julia Sweeney , the former Saturday Night Live star, tells the audience: "This Old Testament God makes the grizzliest test to people's loyalty. Like when he asks Abraham to murder his son Isaac -- as a kid we were taught to admire it. I caught my breath reading it. "What kind of sadistic test of loyalty is that, to ask someone to kill his or her own child -- and isn't the proper answer, 'No'?" She is just as hard on the New Testament. "It was really hard to stay...

The battle for the hearts and minds of American school children took another turn this week. The infamous Kansas school board that voted to banish Darwin from the science curriculum has welcomed him back with open arms, spurning instead the language of intelligent design. The school board has voted, 6-4, to remove the language of intelligent design from the curriculum: science teachers will no longer have to say that the central ideas of evolution are controversial in scientific circles. The explanation of the "nature of science" has also been reworded. It is now described as the pursuit of rational explanations for things that happen in the Universe. "Today the Kansas Board of Education returned its curriculum standards to mainstream science," said board chairman, Dr Bill Wagnon. "This assures that Kansas children are appropriately educated for the 21st century." But while the change should be seen as significant, it is the fourth shift in policy in Kansa...

I would like to respond to Matt Cowan's bizarre and insulting letter " Christianity doesn't need column to incite reaction ," in which he relates Christianity and atheism to two bars of metal. In Cowan's misguided argument, he claims the atheistic bar looks shiny on the outside, but only because it is a piece of lead covered in gold paint. "It looks appealing on the surface but is ugly underneath," he said. He then says, "the ugly Christian bar is revealed to be made of pure gold. The more it is cleaned and explored, the purer it is revealed to be." Apart from being one of the most ridiculous analogies for religion I have ever heard, the argument is completely without substance. At no point does he offer any insight to why atheism is ugly or worse than Christianity — only that it is made of lead. Christianity, on the other hand, is a beautiful piece of gold. Why? Because the more it is explored, the purer it is revealed to be. That's it. Th...

A youth group coordinator for a Mill Creek church was charged Tuesday with having repeated sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl on church grounds. A judge Tuesday signed a $100,000 arrest warrant for Joshua Tanner Beals, 22. He's charged with two counts of second-degree child molestation in Snohomish County Superior Court. Deputy prosecutor Mark Roe said in court papers that he sought the arrest warrant because "it appears that a number of adults connected with either the church or the defendant do indeed blame" the girl for the sexual activity. He also said church authorities have been "evasive" with Snohomish County sheriff's detectives. Roe declined to identify the church. The girl told authorities the two had sexual intercourse at least three times, all at Beals' residence on the church property. "They even memorialized some of the sexual contact by taking pictures" of the couple kissing, Roe said. He wrote that Beals told the girl not ...

By Nathan Bupp "What if the most influential man in human history never existed?" Without any assumptions or conclusions in view, that is the daunting task of the new Jesus Project, announced on January 28th at the University of California at Davis before an audience of Biblical and Koranic experts. The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), a project of the Center for Inquiry/Transnational, announced the new project at conclusion of its January 25-28 “ Scripture and Skepticism” conference at the University of California at Davis. Articles featuring the new endeavor have already appeared in the Ottawa Citizen (January 10) and the Buffalo News (January 29). The Jesus Project will be devoted to examining the case for the historical existence of Jesus, based on a rigorous application of the historical critical method to the gospels and related literature. Unlike the “Jesus Seminar,” founded in 1985 by the late University of Montana Professor ...

A pastor of a Stanton church accused of having sex with a 16-year-old female parishioner appeared in court this week during his arraignment, which was continued until Feb. 23. Ronald Hernandez Tovar, 56, of Placentia was charged on suspicion of three counts of having unlawful sexual intercourse and one count of oral copulation of a minor, prosecutors said. Bail was set at $100,000. If convicted, Tovar faces up to five years in state prison. Tovar, who is married, reportedly had sex with the teen from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, prosecutors said. Tovar, a pastor at the Shadow of the Almighty Church in Stanton, is accused of having unlawful sex with the girl on multiple occasions and locations, including his church office in Anaheim Hills, prosecutors said. Anyone with additional information can call Supervising District Attorney Investigator Craig Kelsey at 714-347-8794. link

Youth pastor Aaron Rediger stood in Van Wert County Court of Common Pleas Wednesday morning and offered an acknowledgment of his guilt. Flanked by his lawyers and choking back tears, he admitted, "I know that after all this, I've been wrong." Rediger, a former youth pastor of Liberty Baptist Church , was sentenced to two terms of two years in prison to be served concurrently with no time off for good behavior. He will also be placed on five years of post-release control. In a plea agreement, Rediger pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery, a third-degree felony. Appearing before Judge Charles Steele, the 28-year-old Ohio City man was classified as a sexually-oriented offender. After his release from prison, he will be required to register with the sheriff of his county of residence, employment, and schooling as an offender and not to live within 1,000 feet of a school. This classification was influenced by psychological reports which concluded that Rediger "...

Ted Haggard, founder and former senior pastor of New Life Church, plans to leave Colorado Springs and move to Iowa or Missouri to return to college, according to a message he e-mailed Sunday to some church members. Haggard’s family has been “offered two places” in the Midwestern states, Haggard wrote. He and his wife, Gayle, will go back to school together, but Haggard didn’t specify what college or university they would attend. “We are both planning on getting our masters in Psychology so we can work together serving others the rest of our lives,” Haggard wrote. The nationally known minister was dismissed from the pulpit in the wake of a sex and drug scandal that rocked the evangelical movement. On Nov. 1, Denver escort Mike Jones said he and Haggard had a three-year tryst and that he watched Haggard take methamphetamine. Haggard initially denied the allegations, but he resigned as president of the National Association of Evangel- icals on Nov. 2. Church officials then confirmed some...

Nearly a year after preacher Matthew Winkler was murdered inside his home in Selmer, the wife accused of shooting him in the back is still front-page fodder. Now, cell phone pictures first obtained by Action News Five, are the talk of this quiet town. People who took the photos say Mary Winkler spent New Year's Eve in a McMinnville bar drinking and smoking. We gave the ladies at a Selmer hair salon a closer look. "Well, I'm a pastor's daughter and I can't imagine my mother doing that--it's shocking," said Claire Plunk. Seeing Mary Winkler seated at a bar, cigarette in hand, beer bottle in front of her, does not sit well with some. "I definitely don't think she's a poor, innocent victim," said another lady in the salon. At a different salon, we found another opinion. "Because she confesses to be a Christian--so she ain't got no business being in there whether she killed her husband or not," said June Wood. While we had some ...

A Bexar County, Texas, jury this morning convicted a former youth minister of capital murder in the deaths of his 17-year-old pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child. Jurors in the 226th District Court took about an hour and 15 minutes to find Adrian Estrada, 24, guilty of capital murder in the Dec. 12, 2005, choking and stabbing death of Stephanie Sanchez. Estrada, a former youth pastor at El Sendero Assembly of God church, showed no emotion when the verdict was read. He faces either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The punishment phase of his trial is set to begin Tuesday. Sanchez's body was found on the kitchen floor of her family's West Side home. She was about three months pregnant at the time of her death, and DNA evidence showed Estrada was the father. Estrada was arrested the following day after he admitted to stabbing the teen. Prosecutors and defense attorneys this morning presented their closing arguments. In her closing statements, prosecutor...