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Latest Religion & Cult News

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Police will question Travolta, 54, and Preston, 46 about their son’s medication as part of routine inquiries into his death, the Daily Star reported.

Jett had been diagnosed with Kawasaki Syndrome, a vascular illness that leads to inflamed blood vessels, and his parents had always denied that he suffered from autism, despite the concerns of Travolta’s brother Joey, an autism campaigner.

Scientology-watchers have openly wondered whether the cult’s quackery may have contributed to Jett’s death.
» Full Story

The terrorists of Hamas — who use cartoons to encourage children to kill Jews — now threaten that fellow Islamists will kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s police incursion into the Gaza strip.

In doing so these cowards — bent on the destruction of the state of Israel — show their true nature.
» Full Story

A Moroccan immigrant was installed Monday as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation.

Ahmed Aboutaleb, who has dual Dutch-Moroccan citizenship, is the first Moroccan-born immigrant to be appointed a Dutch mayor. Some have compared his achievement to that of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.
» Full Story

In 2003 Cruise also claimed that Scientology helped cure his dyslexia. At the time, both Thomas Viall, executive director of the prestigious International Dyslexia Association, and Philip Pasho, executive director of the National Dyslexic Foundation, cast doubts on the actor’s statements.

Aside from its dubious medical claims, the Scientology cult is also involved in an extended hate campaign against psychiatry.
» Full Story

Allegations that members of a southern Utah polygamous sect are guilty of widespread welfare fraud were raised repeatedly this summer during a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing.

But welfare data from Utah, Arizona and Texas do not support the claims.

Yet six speakers at a July 24 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing said fraud and misuse of welfare funds is a primary reason the federal government should be more involved in investigating the sect.
» Full Story

A Liberian woman accused of smuggling endangered monkey meat from Africa to New York has failed to persuade a judge that she shouldn’t be prosecuted because she needed the butchered carcasses for religious reasons.

The judge also noted that her claim didn’t address the main point of the criminal charge: That she hadn’t applied for the permits needed to import such exotic foodstuffs and had misled border officials about what she was shipping into the country.

Nothing in her religion, Dearie wrote, “required her to abstain from truthful completion of paperwork.”
» Full Story

The tragic death of Jett Travolta has once again turned the spotlights on the insane medical claims of Scientology — the cult his parents, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, are deeply involved in.

Their faith in the bizarre fantasies — and claims regarding healing technology — of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard certainly can not have helped.

We also provide links to additional information about Scientology’s quackery, as well as other research resources on the cult.
» Full Story

AirTran Airways apologized Friday for an incident on New Year’s Day in which airline officials pulled nine Muslim passengers off a domestic flight and refused to rebook them, even though F.B.I. agents said they had done nothing wrong.

The incident occurred Thursday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after members of a Muslim family boarding a flight to Orlando, Fla., had a conversation about the safest place to sit in the event of an accident. Other passengers reported the remarks as suspicious to a flight attendant.
» Full Story

Kelly Preston, Travolta’s wife, has said that Jett became very sick when he was 2 years old and was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, an illness that leads to inflammation of the blood vessels in young children.

She blamed household cleaners and fertilizers, and said that a detoxification program based on teachings from the Church of Scientology helped improve his health, according to People magazine.
» Full Story

The mayor of a small town in eastern Germany has gone into hiding after a threat on his life appeared on a far-right Web site. The case follows the knife attack by a suspected neo-Nazi this month, generating fears that the far-right scene is becoming more violent.

Recent figures show that the number of far-right crimes committed in the first 10 months of 2008 exceeded the total for the whole of last year.
» Full Story

Despite defense contentions that Toledo Catholic priest Gerald Robinson did not receive a fair trial because too much time had passed when he was convicted in 2006 for the 1980 murder of a nun, the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday said it would not consider his appeal.

Robinson, 70, is serving a 15-year-to-life prison sentence in Hocking Correctional Facility in Nelsonville, Ohio. He was arrested by Lucas County cold-case investigators in April, 2004, and convicted in May, 2006, for the murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.
» Full Story

Just a few days into his 10-year prison sentence, cult leader (’son of God’ and false prophet) Wayne Bent has ended his hunger strike — now referring to it as a ‘religious fast.’

Throughout his trial, the 67-year-old sect leader repeatedly said he would refuse to eat if he was sent to prison:

“If I go to jail again, I am not going to live there. I will not,” he told the court. [video]
» Full Story

A video of a 16-year-old girl speaking with a forensic interviewer the day after she was removed from Tony Alamo’s residence in Fouke, Ark., has been placed on the Internet.

Filmed at the Child Advocacy Center in Texarkana, the video was intended only for use by law enforcement, the courts and child welfare officials. The Arkansas Department of Human Services filed a motion late Wednesday afternoon to have the hosting wesbite remove the video and related material.
» Full Story

The leader of a New Mexico cult has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The judge sentenced 67-year-old Wayne Bent to the maximum of 18 years on Tuesday, then suspended eight years.

Bent was convicted of 1 count of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor earlier this month. [video]
» Full Story

Conservative MP Reverend Fred Nile has rejected allegations that prudishness is behind a bill he has prepared to ban nudity, including topless sunbathing, on the state’s most popular beaches.

“Our beaches should be a place where no one is offended, whether it’s their religious or cultural views,” he said.

“If they’ve come from a Middle Eastern or Asian country where women never go topless - in fact they usually wear a lot of clothing - I think it’s important to respect all the different cultures that make up Australia.”
» Full Story

Colorado-based Focus on the Family has pulled an online interview with conservative television host Glenn Beck after concerns were raised about Beck’s Mormon faith.

Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family Action, said that “differences in the Mormon faith and the historical evangelical faith are not inconsequential.”
» Full Story

At last an official message to Muslim immigrants: if you want to live here, you must integrate.

If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims’ obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor’s chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: “The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance.”

Government and politicians had too long failed to acknowledge the feelings of “loss and estrangement” felt by Dutch society facing parallel communities that disregard its language, laws and customs.
» Full Story

From the possibility of a Mormon in the White House to a stream of Latter-day Saints on reality television, from being attacked as belonging to a cult (or mistaken for a polygamous sect in Texas) to participating in California’s bitter battle for traditional marriage, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would see their faith in the nation’s mirror. To many, such scrutiny was unlike any they had seen in their lifetime.
» Full Story

A fire this afternoon burned four structures at the House of Yahweh compound.

The sect’s leader, self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl Hawkins — whose doomsday predictions have come and gone — is scheduled to go on trial next year.

Hawkins is accused of having more than 20 wives and performing polygamous weddings.
» Full Story

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo.

The novel is “The Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture.
» Full Story

Cult leader Wayne Bent, convicted on sex abuse charges, will be sentenced tomorrow.

The self-proclaimed Messiah could be sentenced to up to 18 years behind bars.

He has said that he probably would not eat if he were locked up.

Son Jeff Bent said he believed it was the “end of the road for the world” because of his father’s conviction.

He has refused to say what would happen to the sect if his father were imprisoned.
» Full Story

Type the name “Martin Luther King” into the popular Google Internet search engine, and find a surprise: among the expected university and newspaper links, one site — the third highest ranked link — stands out.

It attacks the personal life of the slain civil rights leader and, by extension, the movement of nonviolence he championed. It rehashes allegations of plagiarism and adultery and accuses King of fraud, claiming he was not a “legitimate reverend” or “bonafide Ph.D.”

The site is run by a white supremacist group called Stormfront, described by one watchdog organization as the largest “hate group” online
» Full Story

The Ugandan army on Sunday accused Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels of hacking to death 45 people in a church in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

“They were cut with pangas (machetes) and hit with clubs but some luckily managed to escape. Our forces came to know about the killings while pursuing the LRA yesterday and the pursuit is on for the killers.”
» Full Story

Nearly nine months since state authorities raided the Yearning for Zion polygamist ranch and took hundreds of children into temporary custody, the families upended by the largest-ever U.S. child welfare case cling to their culture.

Some members of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hunker down in suburban subdivisions across Texas, struggling to maintain piety and an austere lifestyle in the face of influences they consider immoral. Others have moved back to the ranch, trying to restore sanctity and self-sufficiency to their once-thriving community.
» Full Story

Actor Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Holmes are said to be living in fear after receiving death threats.

Sources close to the star, a leading Scientologist, say the threats are believed to have come from groups opposed to the religious organisation.

Hence we remind our readers how the cult tried to frame one former Scientologist-turned-critic — and how the Scientology protesters have exposed Scientology’s human rights abuses.
» Full Story

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Religion News Blog (RNB), published by Apologetics Index, highlights news items and other resources on world religions, cults, religious sects, new religious movements, alternative religions, abusive churches and - to a lesser extent - related issues (e.g. ethics, human rights).

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