Robert Anton Wilson on church and state…
Tag: religion
State Lawmaker Advised Mormon Bishop Against Reporting Church Member Who Sexually Abused Daughters, Lawsuit Filings Say
A Utah state representative told a Mormon bishop not to report a church member’s sexual abuse, advice that led to seven years of rape and abuse committed by the church member against his own daughters, according to new lawsuit documents.
State Rep. Merrill Nelson (R-UT), a prominent lawyer for the Mormon church, allegedly answered the first call from a help line when Bishop John Herrod told him that Arizona church member Paul Adams had admitted to sexually abusing two of his daughters. For more than two years, Nelson communicated with Herrod and another bishop who knew about the abuse allegations, according to call records, the Associated Press reported.
Nelson told Herrod “that he could be sued if he reported, and the instruction by counsel not to report Paul [Adams] to the authorities was the law in Arizona and had nothing to do with Church doctrine,” according to the plaintiff’s filings. However, as the AP reported, Arizona law allows blanket immunity for those who report child sexual abuse or neglect.
The sex abuser’s two daughters and one of his sons are trying to gain access to records from the Mormon church, but the church has refused them based on confidentiality. After a county judge ruled in the victims’ favor to see the records, the Mormon church took the case to the Court of Appeals.
Former Utah mayor, bishop arrested for sex abuse of multiple children, including toddlers
A former bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been arrested as part of an ongoing sex abuse investigation involving multiple victims over the course of several decades.
Carl Johnson, 77, was arrested in Orem on Wednesday and booked into the Davis County Jail on seven counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Detectives say Johnson abused children as young as 2 years old and held numerous positions of trust in the Church, including as a bishop. Johnson also served as Mayor of West Bountiful City in the 90s.
“In all these cases, the victims were told not to tell anyone else about what happened to them. In some cases, these crimes were suppressed in one way or another by Johnson when any disclosures were made. Johnson used his position of trust to influence any disclosures,” a police affidavit says.
More than 100 students baptized without parents’ permission at North Carolina school
A North Carolina school apologized after baptizing more than 100 children without their parent’s permission, according to the Fayetteville Observer.
Northwood Temple Academy in Fayetteville posted on Facebook on Thursday, “I feel it in my bones, You’re about to move! Today we had over 100 middle and high school students spontaneously declare their faith and get baptized today. We will have more pictures of these powerful moments posted over the next couple of days!”
That morning, three students had their scheduled baptisms at the school as part of Spiritual Emphasis Week before the offer was extended to other students who had not been scheduled. More than 100 students in total were baptized.
Renee McLamb, the head of the school, sent families a letter to explain as the unplanned baptisms sparked mixed responses from families.
“The Spirit of the Lord moved and the invitation to accept the Lord and be baptized was given and the students just began to respond to the presence of the Lord,” McLamb said in a letter, obtained by the Observer, that was sent to families.
The school says it typically notifies and invites parents to be present for any baptisms that happen on campus, and “it was not the intention of any faculty member to do anything behind a parent’s back or in any kind of secret way.”
“I do understand that parents would desire to be a part of something so wonderful happening in the lives of their children, and so I apologize that we did not take that into consideration in that moment,” McLamb said. “I pray that at the end of the day we will all rejoice because God truly did a work in the lives of our students.”
Resurfaced Documentary Uncovers Accusations of Child Abuse Against Former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley
The documentary The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley and its accusations against Mormon Church leadership has not been seen by the public in almost 30 years — until now.
In late May, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office announced an investigation into “ritualized child sexual abuse” in 3 different Utah counties. Following that announcement, The Last American Vagabond (TLAV) produced a series of 5 articles focused on the sheriff’s investigation, as well as claims of child sexual abuse in Utah at large, and within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
In our 5th report we investigated the history of claims of child abuse within the Mormon Church. From the Pace Memo to Paperdolls, accusations of various church members and officials participating in and/or covering up organized sexual abuse of children are not hard to find in LDS history.
On the heels of our reporting on these historical accusations, The Associated Press dropped a bombshell of an investigation which is causing headaches for the LDS. Their reporting shows that church leadership used their “help line” to cover up reports of pedophilia.
The AP obtained almost 12,000 pages of previously sealed records from a child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon Church in West Virginia. These documents and testimony from victims make it clear that the so-called help line can “easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.”
Inside the Bizarre and Dangerous Rod of Iron Ministries
Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon’s childhood was, to put it mildly, far from typical.
He grew up cloistered in his family’s 19-acre church compound in Westchester County, outside of New York City. Because of security threats his family faced, Moon recalls in a 2018 book, he was “not permitted to wander the neighborhoods, hang out with friends, or ride our bikes outside.” His outlet from bitter isolation — home, he writes, “seemed like a prison” — was self-defense training, including Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, of which he’s now a blackbelt, and, eventually, firearms.
Sean’s father, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, was the founder and leader of the Unification Church, the conservative global religious movement founded in South Korea. The elder Moon presented himself as a biblical messiah, and famously presided over mass “wedding” events in which believers were purportedly absolved of sin. For the elder Moon, homosexuality was a grave trespass against God, and he compared gay men to “dirty dung-eating dogs.”
In the United States, the elder Moon overcame legal troubles — he was once sentenced to 18 months in prison for filing false tax returns — and founded the conservative Washington Times, which he used to cultivate political power inside the Beltway, including forging close ties to the Bush family. In a bizarre 2004 ceremony, Moon was coronated inside the Dirksen Senate building, declaring himself God incarnate in front of more than a dozen members of Congress.
When the patriarch died in 2012, it sparked a bitter succession battle for control of the Unification Church and its vast business enterprises. Moon’s wife, Hak Ja Han, known to followers as the “True Mother,” consolidated control. She boxed out her son Sean, who’d trained at Harvard Divinity school and insists he was his father’s handpicked successor.
Feeling betrayed by his mother, whom he now likens to the “Harlot of Babylon,” Sean launched his own sect in 2013. The younger Moon’s church has evolved to fetishize AR-15s, rebranding in 2017 as “Rod of Iron Ministries.” The church burst onto the national consciousness with a 2018 ceremony in which members were invited to bring their assault weapons to church, held just days after the school massacre in Parkland, Florida.
Moon, who wears a crown of polished bullets made for him by a religious follower, preaches that the AR-15 is the biblical “rod of iron” — an instrument of divine power. This bizarro reading of the bible springs from passages like Psalms (“You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery”) and Revelations (“And He shall rule them with a rod of iron.”)
How to get rich, according to L. Ron Hubbard…
‘Serial Killer’ of Muslim Men Identified as 51-Year-Old Afghan Migrant
The suspect the media labeled a ‘serial killer’ of Muslim men in Albuquerque has been identified as 51-year-old Afghan migrant Muhammad Syed.
Now wait for the story to disappear completely.
On Sunday, President Biden tweeted about the murders, suggesting that they represented some sort of hate crime committed against Muslims.
“I am angered and saddened by the horrific killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque. While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community. These hateful attacks have no place in America,” tweeted Biden.
And with much of the media no doubt waiting with sick anticipation for the killer to be revealed as a white man, they’re probably crestfallen by the revelation of the actual culprit.
Indeed, tweets by major media outlets refused to name the suspect, with CNN merely calling him a “51-year-old man.”
After police in Albuquerque received tips from the Muslim community about the suspect, officials announced that Muhammad Syed had been taken into custody.
Syed, a Sunni Muslim, reportedly targeted the victims because he was angry over his daughter marrying a Shiite Muslim.
Possible serial killer targeting Muslim men in New Mexico
Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are investigating a possible serial killer case involving three young Muslim men who were shot to death within a 5-mile radius over the past nine months.
Each slaying was an ambush outside during evening hours, and it doesn’t appear that the men knew each other. Police are working with the FBI and are open to the idea that these could be hate crime killings, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
“While we won’t go into all the specifics of why we think that, there’s one strong commonality in all victims: the race and religion,” Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock with the Albuquerque Police Department said Thursday. “We are taking this very seriously. We want the public’s help in identifying this cowardly individual.”
All three men reportedly were immigrants who worked hard to make better lives for themselves in America. One man wanted to bring his fiancee to Albuquerque from Pakistan and start a family.
“We can’t call it a [hate crime] until we have someone identified and really know what their intention is in doing this,” Hartsock said. “And we don’t know enough yet to clearly say that — but that could change.”
Things Just Got A Whole Lot Worse for Bishop Robbed During Sermon, as His Criminal Past Suddenly Gets Exposed
A New York City pastor who said he was robbed in the middle of his sermon on July 24 may not be the innocent victim he portrayed himself as.
According to The City, a lawsuit filed last year in Brooklyn Supreme Court accused the pastor, Lamor Whitehead, of defrauding 56-year-old Pauline Anderson out of $90,000.
Anderson alleged Whitehead convinced her to invest most of her savings into one of his firms. She was a parishioner at the Brooklyn campus of Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches, where Whitehead is a bishop.
Anderson said Whitehead promised in turn for the money, he would help her buy a house despite her bad credit history.
In the lawsuit, she said she wrote a $90,000 cashier’s check to Whitehead in November 2020. She said he was supposed to give her a monthly allowance of $100 to pay living expenses.
According to the lawsuit, Whitehead allegedly had not paid the monthly payments or given any update on buying her a home.
When Anderson questioned him about it, he allegedly said he was treating the $90,000 as a donation to his then-campaign for Brooklyn borough president and did not need to pay it back.
“Mr. Whitehead fraudulently induced Ms. Anderson to liquidate her entire life savings to pay him the ‘investment’ of $90,000.00, promising to use the funds to purchase and renovate a house for her,” the lawsuit alleged.
“Ms. Anderson was instead left with nothing but a vague promise by Mr. Whitehead to pay the funds back in the future followed by an assertion that he had no further obligation to do so.”
Hellbound and Down 
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