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Jewish Pork Bullet
Kills Moslem Souls
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Nazarene News Service
July 2, 1993
The Jerusalem News Service reported in June that chemist Rabbi Moshe Antelman has invented a bullet that he believes will do more than merely kill Islamic fundamentalist terrorists physically. The bullets contain small amounts of pork, and many Moslems believe that any contact with swine will kill their souls.
"Deadhead" Has No Clue
by Chuck Shepherd
source: San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune
May, 1993
Mark Kreider of Newcastle, Delaware, a full-time Grateful Dead concert-attender ("Deadhead"), was robbed of $5 and shot in the back following a Dead concert in Sacramento, California.
Kreider could not help police pinpoint where the crime was committed because he said he did not realize he had been shot until at least an hour afterward when his back began to hurt.
Fundamentalist Amish
Won't Register Outhouse
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Boston Globe -- Knight-Ridder
December 27, 1992
Clemens Borntreger was jailed for six days in Sparta, Wisconsin, for refusing to purchase a state sanitary-code permit for his outhouse, claiming that the permit system was an improper government dominance over his Amish life. (In other parts of Wisconsin, many Amish willingly purchase the permits.)
Religions Sued for Fraud
by Chuck Shepherd
May 18, 1993
The Atlanta Constitution reported that "U-John, King Priest of the Universal Sovereign" filed a $10 trillion lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Atlanta in April against 36 Bible-based religions for years of "fraud, breach of duty, global disruption of peace, slander, blasphemy, and wanton greed."
"Act of God"
Killed Preacher
by Chuck Shepherd
source: The News (Greenville, South Carolina)
June 7, 1993
The widow of Piedmont, South Carolina, preacher Edward Eugene Wood filed a lawsuit against the county in April, alleging that it was the government's negligence that allowed a dead tree to fall on her husband and kill him in 1991.
The county responded that the tree's falling was an "act of God."
Church Charges
Elderly Members
With Trespass
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Roanoke Times & World-News
April 7, 1993
The Calvary Baptist Church in Salem, Virginia, had Harvey and Pauline Richardson, age 82 and 74, charged with trespassing when they tried to attend Sunday services in February.
The feud started when the church denied the Richardsons, members for 39 years, the right to vote on church business because they had missed services for eight months beginning late last year, mostly due to various illnesses.
Jehovah's Witness
Sees Omen:
Stops Molesting Boy
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Arizona Republic
April, 1993
In Phoenix, Arizona, Paul Vernon Johnson, 26, stopped during his sexual molestation of a 13-year-old boy when the boy cried out, "Jehovah, help me."
Johnson said he was once a Jehovah's Witness, and he regarded the boy's cry as an "omen."
Christian Parents Oppose
Geography, Language Studies
by Chuck Shepherd
April 4, 1993
The Wilmington Star-News (North Carolina) reported that some parents from Gaston County had demanded that Africa and Germany be removed from maps and globes in local classrooms because they believe those places are anti-Christian.
They also called for the suppression of Greek letters from the curriculum because they believe their use constitutes an endorsement of homosexuality.
Vatican to Evangelize
Extra-Terrestrials
by Chuck Shepherd
November 19, 1992
The London Daily Telegraph reported that the new state-of-the-art telescope operated by NASA and the Vatican Observatory in Arizona will be used to search distant galaxies for signs of intelligent life so that, if any humans are discovered, the Catholic Church will be prepared to baptize them.
Oral Roberts Complex
Pulled From Market
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Chronicle of Higher Education
June 23, 1993
Oral Roberts University withdrew its City of Faith complex from the Tulsa, Oklahoma, real estate market after failing to attract a buyer in over a year and a half.
The three towers (one 60 stories high, unusually tall for Tulsa), once ORU's medical school, were built after Mr. Roberts revealed that God told him to build it.
Won't Deliver Time and Newsweek
Christian Postal Worker Resigns
by Chuck Shepherd
source: New Haven Register
July 2, 1993
Postal carrier George Yoerger resigned in Moville, Iowa, in June after refusing to deliver copies of Time and Newsweek because the covers featured sexual themes. "As a follower of Jesus Christ," Yoerger said, he had no choice but to resign.
The "Lord" Helps
U.S. Postal Worker
Cover Crimes
by Chuck Shepherd
source: San Jose Mercury News
February 9, 1996
Postal worker Douglas C. Yee, 50, was indicted in San Mateo, California, for pulling off bulk-mail scams totaling $800,000. Found in Yee's garbage were notes he had written to God expressing gratitude for his continued help in evading police detection. Read one: "Lord, I am having a difficult time myself seeing you as a God who hides crime, yet your Word says that it's your privilege (or glory) to do just that."
Gas Station Robbed
for Religious Rite
by Chuck Shepherd
source: USA Today
June 25, 1993
Kenneth Morseon, 36, was arrested in Portage, Indiana, after he forced a service station employee to sell him, after closing hours, three quarts of oil, which he then poured on himself in order to ward off evil spirits.
Back-Yard Chapel
Draws Complaints
by Chuck Shepherd
source: The Virginian-Pilot
July 22, 1993
Zoning officials in Virginia Beach, Virginia, began investigating neighbors' complaints against Anthony and Teresita Rodriguez, who have turned their modest home into a church and built an air-conditioned chapel in the back yard, where only a woodshed was authorized..
The Rodriguezes said God told them to build the chapel so that Teresita could conduct healing services.
As many as 50 people at a time come from as far away as California and Canada to attend, and the Rodriguezes' neighbors complain that noise from the services lasts until 2 a.m. and that all parking places along the street are occupied by worshipers.
Vatican Explains
Priest Sex Scandals
by Chuck Shepherd
source: New York Daily News
June 24, 1993
The chief Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, in a public statement, said the "real culprit" in the Catholic-priest sex scandals is a "society" that is so "irresponsibly permissive" that it can induce even priests to commit grave moral acts.
Bishop: Priest
Needed No Discipline
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Columbia Missourian
March 8, 1994
James J. Hogan, formerly the bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown (Pennsylvania) Roman Catholic Diocese, told a courtroom in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, that he did believe it was necessary to discipline one of his priests, who had been accused of rubbing his penis on the bottoms of young boys' feet. Said Hogan, "I did not recognize it as child molestation."
Nile Virgin Slaughter Ends
by Chuck Shepherd
sources: New Haven Register, Deutsche Presse
Agentur
August 18, 1993
Cairo, Egypt, governor Omar Abdel-Akher announced in August that the centuries-old tradition of throwing virgins into the Nile to hold back the floods would have to end soon because of concern that the river is becoming too polluted.
Paintings From the Dead
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Kingston Daily Freeman
June 11, 1993
Ashow in High Falls, New York, featured the paintings of Kansas City, Missouri, artist Reena Schultz, who says her works were inspired by her communing with famous dead artists, such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, Chagall, Rembrandt, Holbein, and Da Vinci. She reached them after suffering several out-of-body experiences following a car crash in 1989. She said she has no talent for art but depends entirely on the artists' guidance her as to colors, brushes, and design.
Sunday Law Urged
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Arkansas Democrat Gazette
March, 1993
Although no law forces them to open on Sundays, the 285 members of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association voted 285-0 to recommend that the legislature require them to be closed on Sundays.
Congressional Record
Barred from Classroom
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Columbus Dispatch, AP
April 10, 1993
Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker vetoed a bill that would have encouraged the state's public schools to use important public documents in class. He said he specifically objected to students' being exposed to the Congressional Record, which he said contains "bizarre polemics on religious and political positions."
Tribe Worships Pepsi Cola
by Chuck Shepherd
source: Globe & Mail
October 30, 1993
It's not the gods who must be crazy. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported on the religious importance of Pepsi Cola in the town of San Juan Chamula, in southern Mexico. Practicing a blend of Christianity and worship of Mayan gods, many parishioners believe their leaders' doctrine that because Pepsi has more bubbles than Coca-Cola, it is closer to the sun and thus more powerful. Bottles of Pepsi appear among holy artifacts inside local churches, and some leaders believe the cola has healing powers.
Coca-Cola officials say the dominance is due purely to Pepsi's payment of kickbacks to the leaders.
Pastor Sentenced
for Smuggling Kids
by Mary Pemberton
Associated Press Writer
July 28, 1999
BALTIMORE (AP) -- A pastor has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for smuggling Estonian children into this country on the promise of a Christian education, only to force them to work 15-hour days to support her lavish lifestyle.
"I think these kids were worked to the bone," U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis said Tuesday. "They were cheated."
Joyce Perdue, the 55-year-old pastor at Word of Faith Outreach ministry in Woodbine, was ordered to pay back nearly $65,000 to the children and was fined $25,000.
Associate pastor Robert Hendricks, 37, who handled the business end of the operation, received two years in prison. Administrator Elizabeth Brown, 40, was sentenced to one year in a halfway house.
The three were allowed to remain free pending an appeal.
The defendants pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to smuggle aliens and visa fraud after Garbis forbid them from claiming that church members and children lived and worked together as part of their Christian faith.
The children were told they would attend Calvary Chapel Christian Academy but from 1996 to 1998 they cleaned roach-infested apartments and bookstores and installed office furniture. Prosecutors said the children were threatened with being sent back to Estonia if they refused.
The children, ages 14 to 17, were paid $10 to $50 a week for working in the cleaning service.
Prosecutors said Perdue used the money to buy a $600,000 home, go on a Mexican cruise and purchase $200 bottles of perfume.
"My intent was never to harm these very young people," Perdue said. "I can state before the court, your honor, and the God of the Christian universe, I never remember abusing them. ... I now know it was wrong to allow these children to work."