Nov 24, 2019

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/21/2019




Tajul Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf School, Robert Jay Lifton,  Jehovah's Witness, Church of Almighty God
"Police in Gowa, South Sulawesi recently arrested an elderly man named Puang Lalang on suspicion of blasphemy over his leadership of a sect that was considered too deviant for Indonesia.

According to the police, Puang Lalang founded the Tajul Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf school — an Islamic offshoot —  in 1999 and declared himself a prophet.

In mainstream Islamic beliefs, the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be the last messenger of God.

"The suspect spread misguided beliefs by having followers take a pledge, indoctrinating them and promising them safety in life and the afterlife," Gowa Police Shinto Silitonga told reporters this week.

Police suspect that the sect was a vehicle for self-enrichment for Puang Lalang. According to the police, Puang Lalang charged followers IDR10,000-50,000 (US$0.71-3.57) for the aptly-named "heaven card" to signify membership. He also mandated members to pay religious alms, which amounted to IDR5,000 for every kilogram of the followers' body weight."

The author, most recently, of 'Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry' selects books on the aftermath of cataclysm.

"In 2013, after Debbie McDaniel left her Jehovah's Witness congregation in McAlester, Oklahoma, she went to police and told them members had been sitting outside her apartment, monitoring her every move. The Witnesses, she said, were trying to make the case that she was unfit to parent her son, on account of being in a relationship with a woman. But it was something else she told a detective that most alarmed the cops, she said: "You would think an organization that would allow me to be molested for years could now just let me go in peace."

Within weeks, cops had arrested Ronald Lawrence, whom McDaniel, 50, accused of molesting her when she was underage, as Reveal News reported. At least two other people came forward with similar allegations. According to the Tulsa-World, Lawrence told prosecutors he had been "disfellowshipped" (basically excommunicated) from the church over sexual abuse allegations, that he had admitted misconduct in the past in order to be reinstated, and that law enforcement had never previously been informed. He has also denied abusing any Jehovah's Witness children, including McDaniel. When brought before a judge in 2014, 19 charges of sexual abuse against him were deemed to have passed the statute of limitations, and he walked free.

Eventually, Witnesses stopped waiting outside McDaniel's home."
" ... Chinese media reported a case involving the unusual deaths of Qian Xude and three of his family members from Xinzhuang village, under the jurisdiction of Nanjing city in the eastern province of Jiangsu. The bodies of Qian Xude and two others were found hidden in a freezer in a rental room in Shenzhen city in the southern province of Guangdong, while Qian Xude's daughter, Qian Limei, committed suicide by jumping off a building in Shangqiu city in the central province of Henan. However, the police never filed a case after investigating the deaths, attributing some to natural causes and others to suicide.

On October 17, The Beijing News, owned by the Beijing municipal Party Committee, and Southern Weekly, a well-known newspaper owned by the Guangdong provincial Party Committee, simultaneously published an article, repackaging and sensationalizing this sensational case, placing the blame on The Church of Almighty God (CAG). Afterward, this fake news story was widely reported by the official media, in an attempt to create a new public opinion campaign against the CAG."




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