MOBILE, Ala. - A Mobile man is facing charges of murder, rape, sodomy, and incest. Police believe Anthony Hopkins murdered his wife, and kept her in the freezer putting his family through a reign of terror and sexual abuse. It happened on Rylands Street. Police say behind the yellow tape lived a family of eight children who've endured years of abuse. Police say their father, Anthony Hopkins; most likely killed his wife, and sexually abused at least one of his kids. But thanks to one brave child, it looks like the nightmare could be over. Police say inside the brick walls was a family in pain. Living there was a father, a so-called evangelical preacher named Anthony Hopkins. Eight children were also under his roof. Monday night, one of those children paid a visit to the Child Advocacy Center. She arrived with a startling accusation. "We had a victim present at our offices who complained about an on-going case of sexual abuse that had taken place over many years,"...

In the gentle hills of north Texas, televangelist Kenneth Copeland has built a religious empire teaching that God wants his followers to prosper. Over the years, a circle of Copeland's relatives and friends have done just that, The Associated Press has found. They include the brother-in-law with a lucrative deal to broker Copeland's television time, the son who acquired church-owned land for his ranching business and saw it more than quadruple in value, and board members who together have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking at church events. Church officials say no one improperly benefits through ties to Copeland's vast evangelical ministry, which claims more than 600,000 subscribers in 134 countries to its flagship "Believer's Voice of Victory" magazine. The board of directors signs off on important matters, they say. Yet church bylaws give Copeland veto power over board decisions. While Copeland insists that his ministry complies with the...

DAYTON — A former Riverside pastor convicted of multiple sex crimes against underage females was sentenced Friday, July 25, to 20 years in prison. "The damage done to the eight victims and their families is enormous," Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Dennis Langer told Dennis Bowling. Bowling, 47, who had been pastor of Kingdom Harvest Church , 2360 Valley Pike, Riverside, pleaded guilty June 25 to 15 felonies, including two counts of rape of a child under the age of 13. Langer said that the victims, which included two of Bowling's relatives, were all between the ages of 12 and 16 when the crimes occurred. The events span 10 years, Langer said. Under the plea agreement reached between assistant Montgomery County prosecutors and defense attorney Dennis Lieberman, Bowling was to be sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison, without any chance for early release. Bowling apologized for his conduct, but Langer told him than anything less than 20 years would not be ...

ANDERSON COUNTY — On Sunday an 18-year-old man returned to his home from a gay pride parade and was assaulted by his father with a baseball bat. According to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, the battering took place about 1 p.m. Sunday on P Street. During the assault, the teen’s 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a bat, prayed and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him,” according to the teen’s version of events to Deputy S.C. Weymouth, the incident report states. About 2 p.m. Wednesday, the teen said his father punched him when he returned to the house for clothes that he left on Sunday, the report states. The teen’s 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a bat, prayed and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him.” The teen told deputies that his father “has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat Sunday,” Weymouth said in his report. The teen filed both complaints about 10 p.m. Wednesday. Deputies, who have...

More than 1,600 years after it was written in Greek, one of the oldest copies of the Bible will become globally accessible online for the first time this week. From Thursday, sections of the Codex Sinaiticus , which contains the oldest complete New Testament, will be available on the Internet, said the University of Leipzig , one of the four curators of the ancient text worldwide. High resolution images of the Gospel of Mark, several Old Testament books, and notes on the work made over centuries will appear on www.codex-sinaiticus.net as a first step towards publishing the entire manuscript online by next July. Ulrich Johannes Schneider , director of Leipzig University Library , which holds part of the manuscript, said the publication of the Codex online would allow anyone to study a work of "fundamental" importance to Christians. "A manuscript is going onto the net which is like nothing else online to date," Schneider said. "It's also an enrichment of the...

A former pastor of a Lutheran church in Belmont County was arraigned Friday on kidnapping and rape charges. The charges of sexual misconduct against Peter Pilger, 36, include a period of time while he was pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church in Martins Ferry . Pilger is accused of sexually abusing a girl over the past six years, including a year while he was pastor of the Martins Ferry church between 1999 and 2003. After he left Martins Ferry, Pilger became pastor of churches in Massillon and New Albany , Ohio . Stark County prosecutors filed the charges after the girl told her friends about the abuse and they encouraged her to tell her mother, a Canton newspaper reported. Pilger has been in the Stark County Jail since his arrest on July 2. The current pastor of the Martins Ferry church said his congregation had two different reactions when they heard the news about Pilger. "(They either said), 'I really don't believe it,' or 'I always thought he was strang...

An Oklahoma church canceled plans for a gun giveaway Friday at its annual youth conference, a local news station reported . The church's youth pastor, Bob Ross , said the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle was a means of luring young people as far away as Canada, according to Oklahoma City's KOCO Channel 5 News. “I don’t want people thinking ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'” said Ross. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.” The gun giveaway is a part of the event's shooting competition. A gun was given away at last year's conference and this year, Windsor Hills Baptist used the giveaway in the marketing of the event on its Web site (see above picture). The pastor said the cancellation of the giveaway was due to the instructor of the shooting competition -- and a pastor of the church -- having injured his foot and being unable to attend. The cancellation occurred afte...

A Minnesota university instructor and avowed atheist is jousting with a national Catholic watch dog group over a smuggled communion wafer, which the associate professor dismisses as a "frackin’ cracker." Paul Z. Myers , who teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris , on his blog this week expressed amazement that a Florida college student who briefly took a wafer "hostage" from a church ceremony has been receiving death threats for an action that was characterized "a hate crime" by the Catholic League . Under the headline, "It’s a frackin’ cracker!" Myers wrote in an at-times profane blog entry: "Crazy Christian fanatics right here in our own country have been threatening to kill a young man over a cracker. This is insane." He added: "Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? ... I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage ... but will instead tr...

KNOXVILLE -- A Sevier County man is suing his former church in South Knoxville, after he claims he was overcome by the spirit, fell backward and hit his head. Matt Lincoln, 57, says pastors at Lakewind Church should have made sure someone caught him. His attorney is asking for $2.5 million to cover medical bills, lost income and pain and suffering. "I've fallen out in the spirit before, but have always been caught," Matt Lincoln says. "I always trusted that the catchers would be there because they always were." The case stems from a Wednesday night service at Lakewind in June 2007, when a visiting minister was praying for members individually. "I just closed my eyes. I was just asking God, I wanted to have a real experience. It's like you faint. It's almost like you pass out," Lincoln says. He also says that wasn't unusual. "I've fallen out in the spirit before, but have always been caught," Lincoln says. "I always tru...

A community and a congregation are in shock over the arrest of a minister on child sex charges. 67-year-old Dennis Hayes, a pastor at St. Martin's Lutheran Church in Watertown, South Dakota , is charged with 3 counts of sexual contact with a minor. Court records state that Hayes molested a boy in southwest Minnesota . That case led Watertown police to Hayes' home where investigators say they found child pornography on his computer. Hayes has been placed on administrative leave by his church. While his parishioners hope and pray that the charges aren't true. The arrest of a man of God on child sex charges has shaken a congregation to its core. Allen Steinmetz said, "It's very heartbreaking to our family." Allen Steinmetz is a lifelong member of St. Martin's Lutheran Church in Watertown who says suspect, and pastor, Dennis Hayes would go out of his way to help families in need. Steinmetz and his wife MarKay raised two daughters under Hayes' ministerial ...

The Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colleyville church Friday saying that church members involved in a traumatic exorcism that ultimately injured a young woman is protected by the First Amendment . In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God’s efforts to cast out demons from the Laura Schubert presents an ecclesiastical dispute over religious conduct that would unconstitutionally entangle the court in church doctrine. In a 1996 lawsuit against the church, Schubert described a wild night involving the casting out of demons from the church and two separate attempts to exorcise demons from her. "The First Amendment guards religious liberty; it does not sanction intentional abuse in religion’s name." Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson The 2002 trial of the suit never touched on the religious aspects of the case, and a Tarrant County jury found the church and its members liable for abusing and falsely imprisoning Schubert, ...