Tag: religion

Retired pastor accused of exposing himself to 9-year-old at Wesley Chapel pool

A retired Temple Terrace pastor is accused of exposing himself two days in a row while at a community pool in Wesley Chapel last week

Allen Farabee, 76, is accused of exposing himself to a 9-year-old girl multiple times while swimming in the pool on July 21. According to an arrest report, Farabee was seen on surveillance video following the victim while in the pool and watching her “intently.”

It happened at the Meadow Pointe Clubhouse, according to the report, which said the victim was at the pool with her family.

In the report, a deputy with the sheriff’s office wrote the victim reported seeing Farabee’s genitals “approximately” five times and said she was uncomfortable with him constantly staring at her.

The report said Farabee, wearing goggles, would go underwater at the same time as the victim while he faced her.

In an interview at his home, Farabee initially denied exposing himself but later admitted to being an “exhibitionist” and said his genitals were exposed multiple times while at the pool, according to the report.

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Former pastor charged with killing 8-year-old girl who was walking to Bible camp nearly 50 years ago

An 83-year-old former pastor has been charged with the kidnapping and murder of a neighboring pastor’s daughter in 1975, Pennsylvania officials announced Monday.

The suspect, David Zandstra, was arrested on July 17 in Cobb County, Georgia, where investigators say he confessed to killing 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington nearly five decades ago when he was a pastor in Marple Township, Pennsylvania, according to the Delaware County District Attorney’s office in Pennsylvania.

His confession came after investigators presented him with new evidence gathered early this year, which came from an interview with a confidential informant and a diary entry the informant wrote in 1975 when she was a 10-year-old girl, the district attorney’s office said in a news release.

Zandstra has been charged with criminal homicide, murder, kidnapping of a minor and the possession of an instrument of crime, the release said.

“Justice has been a long time coming, but we are proud and grateful to finally be able to give the community an answer,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a statement.

This case has “haunted” members of law enforcement and the small area of Marple Township since Gretchen went missing, Stollsteimer said. The girl was last seen walking to summer Bible camp on August 15th, 1975, the release said.

The camp was held at both the Trinity Church Chapel Christian Reform Church – where Zandstra was a pastor – and the Reformed Presbyterian Church – where Gretchen’s father was a pastor, the release said. Gretchen’s father became concerned when she failed to appear at his church, the release says, and it was Zandstra who then called police to report Gretchen’s disappearance.

Investigators noted there were inaccuracies in Zandstra’s early statements and they had questions about how the pastor knew so much about what Gretchen was wearing that day, even though she never arrived at camp, according to a newly released criminal complaint.

At the time, Zandstra denied knowing anything about the disappearance, the complaint said.

Two months later, Gretchen’s skeletal remains were found in nearby Ridley Creek State Park. Her cause of death was homicide, and the medical examiner said Gretchen suffered “two or more blunt impacts to the skull,” according to court documents.

Nearly five decades went by as the case laid dormant. Ultimately, an interview with a woman who was friends with the suspect’s daughter in the 1970s – and her diary entries from that time – led to a pivotal break in the case.

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Idaho Christians Are Compensated $300,000 for Rights Violations

Just how untethered to the rule of law did the United States come during the Covid response?

Before March 2020, most Americans would think that monitoring church attendance, banning Easter services, and arresting hymn singers were practices reserved for Eastern-style totalitarianism. The Soviet Union persecuted Christians and the Chinese have Muslim concentration camps, but Americans’ freedom of worship is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

The free exercise of religion precedes all other liberties in the First Amendment. It was born of a core conviction that the New World could do it better than the Old World of religious wars and persecution. Freedom, the Founders believed, would not diminish religious experience but rather bolster it through toleration and peace. This was a radical conviction at the time, a dramatic departure from centuries and millennia of costly struggle.

Government guaranteed everyone’s religious liberty. And the system worked. Religious conviction did not diminish but rather intensified throughout the 19th century. Most governments in the world followed similar guarantees never to interfere with religious practice. Even in the 21st century, when the country in general had become increasingly secular, few could imagine that political leaders would launch a crusade against organized religion.

Yet that’s exactly what happened. As the Covid creed emerged as the national faith, the American tradition of religious pluralism withered away. Freedom of worship was replaced by widespread demands for conformity.

This wasn’t limited to the devoutly godless shores of Marin County or East Hampton. Christians in Idaho recently reached a $300,000 settlement with a local city after they were arrested for attending outdoor church services in September 2020. Christ Church Pastor Ben Zornes organized the worship. “We were just singing songs,” he explained at the time.

The local police chief had no patience for the violation of corona law. “At some point in time you have to enforce,” he told the press after arresting attendees at the “psalm sing.”

But did they have to enforce the orders? Was arresting Christians legally required, or was it an explicit violation of the First Amendment?

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“Morality Police” Return to Streets of Iran in New Campaign to Force Islamic Dress on Women

On Sunday, Iranian officials announced a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf.

Regime thugs had pulled back from crackdowns following nationwide protests after the murder of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini while in police custody.

Amini died from injuries sustained at the hands of police after her arrest for the “improper” wearing of a hijab.

Iranian men and women protested against the regime’s brutality and paid the price for daring to speak up.  Protestors faced  being fired on with an AK-47 , the indiscriminately firing on protesters in the street from moving vehicles, the murder of Hadis Najafi , a powerful symbol of the uprisings, the kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of Nika Shakarimi,  and a woman being dragged by police and sexually assaulted by a gang of Islamic Republic oppressive forces.

Iranian celebrity chef Mehrshad Shahidi was beaten to death by security forces during anti-hijab protests, reportedly killed by multiple violent baton blows at the hands of security forces just shy of his 20th birthday.

Over a thousand students were allegedly poisoned ahead of a mass protest.

More than 500 protesters were killed and almost 20,000 more were detained.

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Youth pastor who filmed underaged girls in church bathroom now facing 46 counts

Daniel Kellan Mayfield, the former youth pastor at First Baptist Gowensville in Landrum, South Carolina, who was arrested last month for allegedly recording girls, many of whom were underage, inside the church’s bathroom, is now facing 46 charges of criminal sexual conduct, court records show.

Court records and arrest warrants listed in South Carolina’s public online database show that Mayfield is facing 35 counts of criminal sexual conduct in Greenville County while he is facing an additional 11 counts in Greenwood County.

First Baptist Gowensville did not immediately respond to calls for comment from The Christian Post on Thursday. Early last month, investigators from the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office discovered that Mayfield, 35, had unlawfully filmed multiple girls, as young as 14 years old, inside the bathroom of the church in Landrum. He was previously charged with five counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of voyeurism.

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How young religious Australian women were ‘brainwashed’ and lured into a South Korean sex cult to become ‘spiritual brides’ of a convicted rapist

A South Korean cult has been accused of recruiting vulnerable young Australian women at shopping centres to be brainwashed and then sent abroad. 

The victims were told they were the ‘spiritual brides’ of Jung Myung Seok (JMS), the self-proclaimed second coming of Jesus Christ and messiah of the Providence church he founded in 1978.

But JMS is a convicted rapist and the women were sent to his Wolmyeongdong compound not for any spiritual reasons, but to allegedly be sexually assaulted.

The recruiters are reportedly told to find tall, slim white women for JMS, and two Australian survivors, Liz and Amy (not their real names) have spoken out to warn others to be aware they could be targeted too.

Amy was recruited while on her way to meet a friend to go bowling at Melbourne Central shopping centre, she told Channel 7’s Spotlight program.

‘All of a sudden, somebody tapped me on my shoulder, I turned around and two girls were smiling at me … they asked me to do a survey about my faith,’ she said. 

Amy was 22 at that time in 2014 and had a growing interest in Christianity. The chance encounter would change her life for the worst. 

‘I believed that this was a almost an elevated version of Christianity because that’s how they pitched it to me,’ she said.

Liz had just finished Year 12 when she was approached at the Canberra Centre and thought it ‘sounded really fun and exciting’.

‘I was on a gap year, so I was looking to travel, I was working part-time, and I was also thinking about what I was going do with my life. 

‘I was in a really good position to be susceptible to psychological coercion, and they definitely took advantage of that.’

The young women attended bible study classes and lecturers and eventually moved into cult houses in Australia, where their lives were strictly controlled, including getting up at 2am every day to pray to JMS. 

In time, their physical and mental resistance was worn away and the people they thought of as friends told them they were ‘faith stars’.

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Supreme Court rules businesses can refuse service to LGBTQ+ customers

Businesses can refuse to serve same-sex couples if doing so would violate the owners’ religious beliefs, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

Why it matters: The court has significantly expanded LGBTQ rights over the past several years, but is now carving out some exceptions.

Driving the news: The case concerns Lorie Smith, a Colorado web designer who wanted to create and sell wedding websites, but not to same-sex couples.

  • Colorado’s civil rights law prohibited her, or any business that serves the general public, from turning away customers because of their sexual orientation. She said complying with that law would force her to espouse views she does not agree with.
  • “The artwork that I create is speech,” Smith told Colorado Public Radio in December, adding that, “those messages must be consistent with my convictions.”

The big picture: The conservative-majority Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Smith, saying she has a First Amendment right to refuse to design custom wedding websites for same-sex couples.

  • “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Colorado cannot deny that promise consistent with the First Amendment,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

  • “The opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong,” Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

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Summer solstice celebrations: Rituals for the longest day of the year at Stonehenge and around the world

In 2023, the longest day of the year falls on Wednesday 21 June – the same date as last year – although it can be any date between 20th and 22nd of the month.

This is known as the summer solstice, and it is a time of great importance for some religions, while for other people, it is simply a day to enjoy the (hopefully) bright summer weather well into the evening.

According to Greenwich Museums, the summer solstice will take place on Wednesday 21 June at 3.58pm.

It says: “While most people consider the summer solstice to be a day, it is in reality an exact moment in time that falls upon that day. This moment comes when whichever hemisphere you’re in is most tilted towards the sun.”

The summer solstice marks the beginning of summer by the astronomical calculation, with the season lasting until the autumnal equinox, which this year lands on Saturday 23 September.

The simpler meteorological definition splits the year into four seasons of three full months apiece, with summer beginning on 1 June and lasting until 31 August.

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Man Arrested for Citing Bible Verse While Protesting Pride Event — Charges Withdrawn After Video Evidence Emerges

A Christian preacher who was targeted by the law for reading from the Bible at an LGBT Pride event has been cleared of charges of disorderly conduct after a review of video evidence led prosecutors to conclude that said preacher had not behaved in violation of the law.

Evangelical preacher Damon Atkins was arrested on June 6th on allegations that he was “engaged in fighting” when he protested a pride event several days earlier in Reading, Pennysylvania.

“After a review of the incident which took place on June 3, 2023, in the 800 block of Washington Street in the City of Reading, the District Attorney’s Office has withdrawn the charges of disorderly conduct filed against Damon Atkins,” the DA’s Office said in a statement released on Wednesday.

“The charges were withdrawn after the District Attorney’s Office reviewed the videos of the incident along with applicable case law.”

Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach said in a statement to the Lancaster Patriot that Atkins’ arrest was unlawful and that further pursuing the case could expose the city of Reading and its law enforcement agencies to legal action.

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Baptist official in Louisiana arrested on sex crime charges

A prominent Louisiana Baptist leader in the central Louisiana area has been arrested, law enforcement said.

Daryl Stagg, 60, of Pollock, was arrested on Thursday and is being held at the Grant Parish Detention Center in Colfax.

The Louisiana Baptist Convention confirmed that Stagg has been the associational mission strategist for the Big Creek and CenLa Baptist associations.

Stagg has been charged with felonies: three counts each of oral sexual battery, first degree rape, aggravated crimes against nature and indecent behavior with juveniles.

Bond has been set at $500,000. He remains in jail at this time.

The Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office said that there will be a press conference on Monday to discuss a recent investigation involving sex crimes with young children as victims.

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