Charles Koen and Alex Brooks, ministers for Christian Hope Church in Chicago, Illinois ran a fictitious carpentry school scam that stole more than $2 million from banks and tax payers.
Charles Koen, a convicted felon and purported civil rights leader who runs United Front Inc. in the St. Louis area, and Alex Brooks are accused of running the sham training program to provide job skills in carpentry. Koen and Brooks identified themselves as ministers with Christian Hope Church, 7543 S. Aberdeen.
James Hatfield, former pastor of The Center of Life Church in Paw Paw Michigan, admitted to sexual assault of a girl at The Center of Life Church.
It was while he was a pastor there that authorities say he started abusing a girl that was in his care, abuse that began when the girl was in middle school, and continued through high school.
The parents of two boys in the United Kingdom were found guilty on several counts of cruelty toward their two sons. The father would put pins through their tongues and lips and cut their mouths with razor blades. The mother watched and did nothing to protect the boys.
It was alleged the father told the boys he inflicted the injuries because God had his tongue cut off in the Bible.
The jury is still considering verdicts on three further counts of cruelty and will continue its deliberations on Wednesday.
I don't know how it is that I only came across this story today, but.... nearly a month ago on December 27th, priests from two different Christian sects who share responsibility for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem got into a little dispute. Apparently, a ladder being used by one of the sects to clean the church crossed over a line that separates who cleans what. Any good Christian certainly knows what must come of such a horrific offense...
For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.
A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.
Yup, that's right, they beat the holy crap out of each other, and Palestinian police had to break it up. I'm sure at some point one of the priests exclaimed something like, "WWJD? Shove this broom stick up your ass, that's what!"
Keep in mind, these weren't wannabe pseudo-Christians in a remote third world country that aren't all that familiar yet with Christ's teachings. No, these are THE priests responsible for maintaining THE church that sits atop THE birthplace of their supposed Lord and Savior. If anybody knows Christianity inside and out, these guys do. This is strong evidence to support the suspicion that the secret 11th Commandment truly is something like "Thou Shalt Physically Pummel Whomever Dost Offend Thee."
"But wait," you declare. "This is just a rare, unfortunate and isolated incident, right?" Wrong!
"As usual the cleaning of the church after Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.As usual! I guess that explains why the priests needed to be separated to different parts of the church in the first place.
Jeffrey Grous, vice president and controller Conning Company in Hartford, Connecticut, was found guilty of embezzling more than $5,000,000 from his employer.
Grous was raised in a Christian fundamentalist family, where he learned that homosexuality was a sin, according to his therapist, Dr. Elliott Strick.Yup, that family had their priorities straight. Drill into an impressionable child that being born gay is certainly far, far worse of an offense than stealing. No worries about permanent psychological trauma with that philosophy.
Paul Tuck, former pastor and teacher at the Mississauga Christian Academy in Ontario, Canada was convicted today of sexual assault of a 13-year-old student.
But Blacklock pointed to one particular revealing excerpt of a chat conversation in which Tuck asked the young girl to rate on a scale of one to 10 how "horny" she had been during an earlier encounter in school when he touched her bare thigh.
George Gay, former principal of Mission Viejo Christian School, and founder of the Heritage Christian School in Mission Viejo, California knew of an ongoing sexual relationship between school staff member and son-in-law Armando Lucero and a 15 year old student, but did not report it to authorities.
"It's a privilege working with children," said Darrin Smith, executive pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. "Once you allow exploitation of one child, you don't get that right anymore."
Sicelo Dludlu, Pastor of the Church of God Ministries in Swaziland beat a 21 year old boy who admitted to stealing money from the pastor's house with sticks ultimately resulting in the boys death.
When he repented and converted to Christianity Pastor Dludlu confessed to numerous members of the community that he was guilty of adultery as he had slept with their wives and had thus begged for their forgiveness.
"I still cannot comprehend how he lost his cool towards my son, soon forgetting how I had forgiven him when he confessed that he had also committed adultery with my wife," said Maseko. He added: "I would have expected him to discipline my son and not kill because I thought the nature of our relationship was based on forgiveness."
Archbishop Earl Paulk, of the suburban Atlanta Megachurch "Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church" has until Wednesday to turn himself in to authorities.
The charge stems from a civil lawsuit filed against him by a former church employee who said Paulk forced her into a sexual affair, by telling her it was her path to salvation.
Brian White of Humble, Texas pleaded innocent on Monday for beating a stranger to death with a rock in New Jersey.
Christian apologists will be quick to point out the mental health issues as the reason for the attack and that Brian's Christian beliefs have nothing to do with it. I ask however, where was god's moral guidance that Christians claim to own when this Christian was picking up the rock?White is accused of murdering a stranger, Michail Makarenko, 75, of Virginia by pummeling him with a rock after the victim refused to buy a religious CD from him. The incident took place at the James Fenimore Cooper Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike in Mount Laurel in March.
State police have said White, a disc jockey, appears to have mental health issues. The CD was a Christian recording.
Charles Thomas Hogland, pastor at Greggton Church of Christ in Longview, Texas admitted to fondling a 10 year old on six different occasions in the church parsonage, according to police records.
Doug Scott, former pastor of the now defunct River of Life Church in Colorado Springs was found guilty buy a jury on Friday for his part in directing church members to an illegal hedge fund, led by businessman and fellow Christian Alan Bird.
Bird's Christian connections gave investors faith. Investors said Scott and Bird's father- in-law, the former president of the Christian nonprofit Bethesda Ministries, eased any concerns they may have had.
Lindani Mangena led a scam with several co-conspirators to con fellow Seventh-Day Adventists in London out of £3.2 million.
“You may think, as you hear the evidence, that the victims were much more ready to believe what they were told because it came from members of the same tight-knit religious community.
“They naively accepted the absurd claims of the returns that they could make on the money they gave to the defendants, and their suspicions were not aroused by the absence of things like receipts that you might expect when you invested money."
James Downs of Phoenix Arizona was convicted Tuesday of 28 counts of sexual conduct with a minor. Downs was a youth worker at New Destiny Christian Church in Phoenix and all of the victims attended the church.
Thomas said all of the convictions for counts of sexual conduct with a minor under the age of 15 must be consecutive to each other. That means the minimum sentence on those counts alone would be more than 500 years.
William "Buck" Lanham, former basketball coach for Orlando Christian Prep and Bishop Moore Catholic High School in Orlando, Florida was found guilty on Tuesday of having sexual activity with a child and ordered to register as a sex offender.
Lanham, 48, also must wear an electronic monitor for two years as part of sex offender community control. That follows 15 years of supervised probation. He has to hold a full-time job but cannot be around children under the age of 18 without supervision, according to court records.
Ray Robinson, former minister of the Lane Metropolitan Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Cleveland, Ohio was indicted today for theft of about $300,000 from the church.
Robinson just got out of federal prison in December after serving 10 months for a real estate scam in Mississippi.
Robinson, 56, secretly mortgaged the church's parsonage, used the building as collateral to obtain illegal loans and laundered the money through many bank accounts, Gutierrez said.
The minister also drained the church's Benevolent Fund earmarked for the poor, stole the identities of church members to obtain illegal credit cards, and pocketed a $5,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation for a computer training program, Gutierrez said.
Joshua R. Stetar of Granville New York allegedly drove 40 hours non-stop across the country to Spokane Washington to stalk and threaten to rape a 15 year old girl he met online and her 6 year old sister. Stetar is a self described "very conservative" Christian who's myspace page is filled with Bible verses.
James Howard Brown, the Music Minister at Heritage Christian Center in Denver was arrested on charges of sexual assault and incest. Brown has allegedly admitted to fondling his 15 year old stepdaughter, according to police documents.
Joseph McEnroe, one of the suspects arrested in regards to the Christmas Eve murder of 6 people (ages 3 to 61) near Carnation, Washington is expected to be charged on Friday with first degree murder. The suspect's mother described him to reporters as a "good Christian."
Update: Joe and his girlfriend Michele Anderson have apparently admitted to the murders. Michelle killed her parents, and Joe shot the other four people, including a 6 year old girl and 3 year old boy.
The treasurer of the Trinity Christian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota was arrested Christmas eve for the theft of over $11,000 from church funds.
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Because it is obscenely offensive to rational people for anyone to use their personal superstitious beliefs as a basis to tell other people what they should or should not do, GodMocker proudly displays this depiction of the prophet Muhammed.
