Wolrd Religion

The pastor of a scandal-plagued Toronto church told a parishioner that evil spirits would turn her into a hunchback-like creature, before he sexually assaulted her, an Orangeville, Ontario court heard on Tuesday.

Jae-Kap Song, once pastor of the now closed Jesus First Church, also told the alleged victim her husband was cheating on her and pressured her to have "revenge" sex with him, the woman testified.

 

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For more than six years, an Arizona con man maintained his innocence in a fraud that bilked millions of dollars from churchgoers in Arizona and 12 other states.

But on Tuesday, Edward Purvis of Chandler pleaded guilty to orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that involved fake gold mines, phony businesses and a bogus promise to fund Christian causes with investor money.

 

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A 15-year-old Christian girl in western Uganda who lost the use of her legs after her father locked her in a room for six months for leaving Islam has begun to take tentative steps.

Susan Ithungu had been hospitalized since September 2010 after neighbors along with police rescued her.

 

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Gerald Robinson, the Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun inside an Ohio hospital chapel a day before Easter in 1980, won't get a new trial.

A judge has ruled that police reports discovered after the priest's trial didn't contain any new information that would have changed the outcome.

 

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Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs may be serving a life-plus-20-year sentence in a Texas prison, but his grip on most of his 10,000 followers doesn't appear to be lessening and some former insiders say he's imposing even more rigid requirements that are roiling the church and splitting its members.

 

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After 25 years in operation, the Cult Information Centre in England fears it may no longer be able to work effectively.

The Cult Information Centre (CIC) was granted education charity status in 1992 but has recently run into difficulties with the commission after complaints were received from the Church of Scientology that it is in breach of the rules governing status.

 

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