New York - Eyewitness News investigates the Word of Life Christian Church in our week long series. "What Faith Allows?" The Word of Life Christian Church had many elements inside the walls of its Chadwicks location, including the congregation itself, a dog breeding business and even a classroom. The Agape Christian Academy was a school inside of a cult. "Like Jerry, like me, we didn't want our kids to go through public school," former member Gregory Ames said. "In light of that, he found a way that we could start a school and have his kids educated through that, so he wouldn't have to send them to public school. The school was started for Jerry and his kids. He used us because we were members and brought us in on it." Nathan Ames and his brothers attended the academy every Monday through Thursday, returning Sunday for church service. While Jerry Irwin preached from the pulpit, his daughter's role was sculpting young minds. "When I was in fifth grade, Tiffanie Irwin was my teacher," Nathan Ames said. "She was only two years older than me. I don't know what grade she was. I think she had moved up two or three grades more than she should have been, because she stayed home and did a bunch of homework. It was all self-taught, so it was home schooling, but done at a private school building. "We sat in these desks, and what we would have to do is look forward at the wall, and we would just have to do our homework and raise our flags," Ames continued. "When they came to answer the flag, either you were doing a check-up on the pace or you were getting ready for a test or you had questions." However, requests for help weren't always answered. "Tiffanie, she was very controlling. She would look down at everyone like she was better than everybody. She wouldn't answer any questions," Nathan Ames added. "I remember one time, just sitting there waiting, and I looked up onto my computer screen, and there was a body standing behind me. It was Tiffanie with a note pad, looking at me with my flag up, and she's just writing stuff down about me. I was just waiting on her to answer my flag, and this happened a lot." Pastor Jerry Irwin held students to strict standards. Those with a grade mark below 90 were considered failing. "Jerry would tell us our kids are doing this wrong; our kids are doing that wrong," Gregory Ames said. "Years later, we find out those stories weren't true. We believed Jerry more than we believed our kids. I'm believing everything he is saying because I believe that his word is the word." http://www.cnyhomepage.com/news/what-faith-allows-classroom-in-a-cult/853892024
'We were weeping. It was like something out of a horror movie,' says Sarah Edmondson
Yvette Brend
CBC News October 27, 2017
Vancouver actress Sarah Edmondson is warning people about what she describes as a "secretive" organization that she once embraced and now fears.
Edmondson, 40, said she regrets if she inadvertently helped deliver Vancouver recruits to the group, which she said eventually led her to travel to Albany, New York, last spring, where she underwent a harrowing flesh branding on her abdomen.
The event prompted her to cut ties with Executive Success Programs (ESP), a self-help organization she first joined in 2005, drawn by its positive messages of female empowerment.
At one point, Edmondson spearheaded a Vancouver chapter for the group, opening an office on Georgia Street in 2009.
But her role in the group took a dark turn last January when an ESP mentor and friend flew to Vancouver and urged her to join a secret splinter group.
The two arranged to fly to Albany in March for an initiation.
There, Edmondson joined four other women at a private condo where they took turns holding each other still while a brand was burned into their lower abdomens. Stench of burnt flesh
"We were looking at each other, at the beginning, and we had surgical masks on because the smell of burnt flesh was so strong," she said.
She left the group two-and-a-half months later.
Back in March, Edmondson said she believed that the ritual would help her become more empowered.
But now she believes her consent was fuelled by what she calls anti-female indoctrination.
"It's not OK to carve another person's initials into someone's flesh," she said.
The branding ritual was never mentioned when her friend, a long-time ESP leader first invited her to join the secret group of women in January 2017. Secretive group
After leaving the group in June, Edmondson says she was shunned and faced police questions.
She believes another highly-placed ESP leader told police she committed fraud and theft.
Vancouver police confirm its financial crime unit is investigating, but can't confirm who is under investigation.
Police say that investigation connects to NXIVM (pronounced Nex-ee-um), the parent company to ESP, which markets personal development classes.
NXIVM was founded in 1998 by Keith Raniere, an enigmatic leader from Clifton Park, New York, who calls himself "Vanguard" and is linked to actresses and heiresses but does few interviews. NXIVM says it is not involved in alleged 'branding'
NXIVM leaders did not respond to CBC's requests for an interview.
But following similar allegations reported in other media, an official statement from the company said it had nothing to do with the "social" group allegedly engaged in human branding.
The statement adds that the company condemns violence and has provided educational tools to 16,000 people in 30 countries aimed at human empowerment. The 'stripe path'
Edmondson said she decided to share her experiences to warn other active members, despite promising to keep them secret.
She said ESP members routinely sign confidentiality agreements to protect course content, which introduces ideas about collateral and penance at higher course levels.
In the past few years, she said more women were assigning themselves voluntary penance, in the form of low-calorie diets or handing over collateral, such as cash paid to the organization, if they failed to hit recruitment goals.
She said the group has changed since she first joined in 2005, when she was searching for personal fulfillment and the classes helped her overcome fears and barriers in her acting.
But there were inklings that something was wrong.
Edmondson read news stories that made it sound "cultish," but says coaches persuaded her that the negative stories were not true.
"I felt like they were family," she said.
CBC News spoke to six former ESP members who described following the so-called stripe path, a merit system that involved earning neck sashes and different coloured fabric stripes as they progressed.
Edmondson earned a green-hued sash after reaching a level of teacher or "proctor." Hands over nude photo
She says she recruited hundreds of people who paid $300 to $10,000 for workshops and seminars, held all over the Lower Mainland, in New York and Washington States.
In late summer every year the group holds a retreat near Albany to honour Raniere.
The events that led Edmondson to the branding ceremony began last January, when she says a long-time ESP friend — and mentor — came to visit and stayed at her home.
The friend invited Edmondson to join a "bad-assed" secret sisterhood.
She told Edmondson if she wanted to be part of something called "DOS," there were extra hurdles.
DOS was described to her as a secret group of women who would work to change the world.
She said she was asked to provide collateral to ensure the group remained secret.
That collateral included submitting self-incriminating material such as a nude photos and written confessions of past misdeeds, even handing over a condo deed.
She handed over a nude photo of herself and written confessions.
She said she learned she would receive a "dime-sized tattoo." And she would be compelled to refer to her sponsor as "master," and eventually wear a necklace to symbolize a slave collar.
Edmondson said she was reluctant, but her friend eventually persuaded her.
By the time she headed to New York, Edmondson said she had already experienced years of ESP "indoctrination," which introduced ideas about women being emotional, weak, lacking character, and at the same time reinforcing obedience.
She said that DOS, which she was told stood for dominant over submissive, translated from Latin, was a safe place where women could become stronger by learning to "humiliate" each other.
"If a man does it he's seen as an abuser," said Edmondson, who said she now cringes at her former beliefs. 'She was squealing'
In Albany she said five women from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were blindfolded and taken to a condo.
There they kneeled, naked, and recited a script that began: "Master please brand me. It would be an honour."
Then they took turns holding each other down on massage table while a female doctor burned lines into their lower abdomens with a small cauterizing iron, as they writhed and screamed in agony.
"We were weeping. It was like something out of a horror movie. We were shaking. The woman on the table was squealing like a pig. She was squealing like an animal being branded."
Medical face masks helped with the stench of burning flesh, she said.
Three weeks later, she said she discovered that the third-degree burns etched on her lower abdomen were not a symbol of the four elements, as she believed.
She said her mentor told her that the crude marks are letters forming the initials KR for Keith Raniere.
Edmondson said she felt horrified and misled.
"Branding means you are owned by another person," she said.
By June 2017, she closed her chapter of ESP in Vancouver.
In July, she filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Health against the doctor involved in the branding. Officials there told her to go to police because the issues did not represent "medical misconduct."
Edmondson said she then went to Albany police but her complaint went nowhere because she had consented to the entire exercise.
Police did not respond to queries, but a spokesperson for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CBC that his office is looking into the "disturbing allegations."
Edmondson insists she broke no laws, and just wants to warn others who may get lured in.
"I hope they wake up," said Edmondson.
But she says in an odd way the work she did in the personal development program did make her stronger.
"Crazily enough, they taught us to stand up for our principles. I had to leave ESP to figure out what those principles are," she said.
How ISIS Resembles the Doomsday Cults of the 1970s
Can the lessons we learned from extremist cults decades ago be used to fight ISIS recruitment today?
A disturbing 1981 film from Canada could serve as an enduring learner’s manual for any family worried about a son or daughter succumbing to the lure of a religious cult. The movie, “Ticket to Heaven,” describes how a young man, adrift and vulnerable, falls prey to a sect closely resembling the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Deprogramming — rescuing him from the zombielike state into which he has fallen — proves a challenge for his friends and relatives.
More than three decades later, a ticket to heaven is what Abdirizak Warsame thought he had bought when he and other young Minneapolis men of Somali origin came under the spell of recruitment videos posted online by the Islamic State. The power of that propaganda to inspire acts of terror was evident again last week in New York, where the authorities said such videos impelled Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant, to drive a truck along a bicycle path at high speed, killing eight people and injuring 11 others.
In Minneapolis, the aspiring jihadists were like the fellow in the 1981 film: nowhere men. They felt distant from both family traditions and the conventions of their adopted country. In 2015, they set out to join Islamic State fighters in Syria, only to be arrested by federal agents who had them under surveillance.
“My son was brainwashed because he was watching this propaganda video,” Mr. Warsame’s mother, Deqa Hussen, said to Retro Report. “He thought that if he go to Syria, he’s going to go to heaven and all my family is going to go to heaven.”
Retro Report, a series of documentary videos that mine past news events for their continuing relevance, explores the behavioral threads that run through the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and apocalyptic cults from years ago. “When you’re in a vulnerable situation,” Leslie Wagner-Wilson said, “by gaining your trust, slowly, you become indoctrinated into the ideology of the organization.”
That description fit Ms. Wagner-Wilson and her family 40 years ago. They were mesmerized by Jim Jones, a charismatic figure who declared himself God incarnate. He founded the Peoples Temple, a cult that promised a future utopia where poverty, racism, injustice and war were banished. Based first in Indiana and then Northern California, Mr. Jones drew thousands to his side. But he became ever more paranoid, and his behavior ever more erratic and menacing.
In the mid-1970s he moved his flock to a jungle base in Guyana called Jonestown. On Nov. 18, 1978, feeling threatened by deepening scrutiny from American officials and the news media, Mr. Jones organized one of history’s most devastating acts of mass suicide and murder. He compelled his followers to drink a fruit punch laced with cyanide.
Ms. Wagner-Wilson managed to escape in time with her young son. Others in her family were not so fortunate. They died, along with more than 900 others, including at least 270 children, their bodies strewn across the jungle floor. The horror shocked the world (and gave rise to a lasting expression for blind adherence to a perilous idea: drinking the Kool-Aid).
Jonestown was not the last cult twisted by visions of apocalypse. Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, the Branch Davidians in Texas, Heaven’s Gate in California, the nonreligious Manson Family — all had faithful disciples. All embraced death.
Now, groups like the brutal Islamic State and the Shabab in East Africa are magnets for several thousand readily duped Westerners, including scores of Americans. Many of them feel isolated from family and community, and long for something to believe in. They’re typically young men like the Minneapolis Somalis. “ISIS tries to instill that there is something greater that you can be doing,” Mr. Warsame said in an interview last year with the CBS show “60 Minutes,” after his arrest and before a federal judge sentenced him to 30 months in prison. “It kind of takes control of you,” he said.
Social media and online videos are powerful recruiting tools that the Islamic State has exploited skillfully and aimed at young people like him and his friends. “If they’re living in a context where they feel alienated, they feel like they’re not getting a fair deal, they can be open to indoctrination,” Charles B. Strozier told Retro Report. Mr. Strozier, a psychoanalyst who is the founding director of the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, added, “They’re susceptible to thinking of these larger messages which come flooding at them through the internet.”
They are not necessarily beyond salvation, though. Almost as if “Ticket to Heaven” were a training film, the federal court in Minneapolis has turned to a version of deprogramming as a possible solution. Only the word used in connection with jihadists is deradicalization. The court invited in Daniel Koehler, founder of the German Institute on Radicalization and Deradicalization Studies in Berlin. Mr. Koehler has concluded that extremists of all stripes share a sense that what is wrong with the world and what is wrong in their own lives are intertwined.
Many high school or college students feel woebegone: Parents are annoying or teachers are oppressive. Most young people figure out that there are various ways to cope. But for someone who has been radicalized — say, a teenager led to believe that his religion is being persecuted — the perspective can narrow and obvious solutions fade (except maybe violence). Mr. Koehler calls it “depluralization.” What he attempts, he told Retro Report, is to “repluralize the worldview, make it broader again, make them understand that there are no easy answers for single problems.”
That means, in part, reintegrating them back into the larger society and inculcating skills other than how to fire an AK-47 or strap on a suicide vest. He thinks that progress has been made with some of the young Somali men, but not all. The judge in Mr. Warsame’s case, Michael J. Davis, said he remained unpersuaded that the defendant had abandoned jihadist aspirations.
While the Islamic State in recent months has lost much of its territory in Syria and Iraq to United States-backed coalition forces, experts say it is not defeated. Thousands of militants remain in those two countries and presumably are still able to tempt gullible Western recruits, who are within reach via laptops and smartphones. And there’s always a chance that new death-hugging cults will arise. If the past is a guide, some young people are bound to be seduced into picking up a gun, convinced it’s their ticket to heaven.
The video with this article is part of a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report, led by Kyra Darnton, is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle. Previous episodes are at nytimes.com/retroreport. To suggest ideas for future reports, email retroreport@nytimes.com.
In 2011, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that Canada’s anti-polygamy law was valid and “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
But Canada’s best-known polygamist Winston Blackmore — a man with at least 24 wives and 149 children — disagrees. And he is challenging that law starting Tuesday in a Cranbrook courtroom in the hope that his conviction on one count of polygamy will be stayed, the trial declared an abuse of process, or an order is granted to stop any further prosecutions against him based on evidence prior to 2011.
In July, Blackmore was found guilty of having married 24 women between 1990 and 2004, but that verdict has yet to be registered pending the outcome of the constitutional challenge. If it is upheld, the former Canadian bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail.
The 60-year-old Blackmore, who leads a splinter group of several hundred in the community known as Bountiful in southwestern B.C., contends that the law breaches his constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
In addition to claiming a constitutional right to practice polygamy, Blackmore will argue that his right to a fair and speedy trial has been denied because, for years, the provincial Crown refused to approve polygamy charges due to concerns about the law’s validity. Blackmore has been investigated off and on for nearly 30 years.
Also in July, James Oler was found guilty of polygamy and of having married five women in religious ceremonies. Oler, Blackmore’s former brother-in-law and another past FLDS bishop, refused legal counsel for the trial. Whether Oler is joining Blackmore in the appeal is only expected to become clear when the hearing begins on Tuesday.
What will be up for debate is whether or when Parliament can limit constitutionally guaranteed rights. The measuring stick used by Robert Bauman, who is now B.C.’s chief justice, was whether the harm caused by the exercise of those freedoms justifies limiting them.
His decision was overwhelmingly yes and included a catalogue of harms to women, including: Higher rates of domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse; elevated rates of depression and other mental health disorders, including lower self-esteem; competition for material and emotional access to a shared spouse; higher risk of death during childbirth because they tend to marry younger and have more children; less autonomy; and higher poverty rates because of inequitable division of familial wealth or simply lack of sufficient income for the larger-than-average families.
He provided an equally long list of harms to children. Infant mortality rates are higher even when controlled for economic status. Children in polygamous families have more emotional, behavioural and physical problems and lower educational achievement than those in monogamous families.
There is also polygamy’s cruel arithmetic that results in boys and young men being forced out of their communities or choosing to leave because there are simply not enough young women to meet the skewed demand for wives.
Both during and since the reference case, legal scholars criticized parts of Bauman’s analysis, especially his contention that the polygamy ban is essential to protect the institution of monogamous marriage.
One of polygamy’s greatest harms, he wrote, is that it “directly threaten(s) the benefits felt to be associated with the institution of monogamous marriage.”
“The prevailing view through the millennia in the West has been that exclusive and enduring monogamous marriage is the best way to ensure paternal certainty and joint parental investment in children,” he wrote. “It best ensures that men and women are treated with equal dignity and respect and that husbands and wives (or same-sex couple), and parents and children, provide each other with mutual support, protection and edification through their lifetimes.”
Although inequality, domestic assault and child abuse clearly exist within monogamous families, Bauman said that wasn’t relevant to his analysis.
During the reference hearing, some — including from the FLDS lawyer — urged him to adopt the broadest possible reading of the law so that it would only apply to relationships where there was exploitation or undue influence. Bauman refused.
Blackmore’s lawyer Blair Suffredine has provided few clues about how intends to deal with these complex issues. His rambling, 12-page draft application was almost entirely focused on the improper appointment of special prosecutors that eventually led to the constitutional reference case being called in 2009, rather than any analysis of the reference decision or legal arguments.
As for Blackmore? “Anybody can explain the Constitution,” he said outside the courtroom in July.
“Twenty-seven years ago, adultery was a criminal act. Twenty-seven years ago, when they started with us, same-sex marriage was criminal.”
After nearly 30 years of waiting for his day in court, Blackmore is banking on his application having the same result for polygamy.
Barry W. Bussey: Last week, the Supreme Court was asked to do something courts never do: review the solely religious decision of a church
Special to National Post November 9, 2017
On November 2, the Supreme Court of Canada was asked to do something Canadian courts never do: review the solely religious decision of a church community. Until now, the courts have recoiled from getting involved in religious disputes—and for good reason.
The case involves Randy Wall, who was dismissed from a Jehovah’s Witness church for failing to repent of his religious offences: getting drunk on two occasions and verbally abusing his wife. Wall’s appeal to another church entity was unsuccessful. He then appealed to a court of law by means of “judicial review,” on the grounds that the church had denied him a proper hearing.
In Canadian law, in a process known as “judicial review,” a person can ask a court to “review” (i.e. hear) whether the decision of a “public actor” (such as a government licensing agency) was unfairly decided. Courts rarely review decisions of “private actors” (such as a church); they generally do so only if a private actor’s decision engages property or civil rights. In Wall’s case, the court had to determine whether the Jehovah’s Witness church’s decision involved property or contractual rights, which would then enable the court to review the church’s decision.
The church argued it was a private religious body, not a public body, and that its decision did not affect Wall’s property or contractual rights. It also argued that its disciplinary procedure was a religious process involving prayer and scripture reading aimed at reconciling the relationship between Wall and the church. The lower courts both held that religious decisions can be reviewed by courts to determine whether a church gave a fair hearing, even if no property or contractual rights were engaged. However, both courts were also of the view that property rights were an issue in the case. The Supreme Court of Canada must now decide whether those courts were right. The Supreme Court reserved judgment after last week’s hearing; we can expect its decision early in the new year.
Courts like to “fix things.” They naturally want to find resolutions to disputes; this is what they exist to do. However, courts have historically avoided getting involved in religious cases, recognizing that they lack the expertise and authority to settle religious disagreements. They handle legal cases, such as contractual disputes, but not religious cases that raise metaphysical truths, such as the definition of God.
Wall argued his case did involve a “property right,” because his dismissal from his church meant the church members were no longer willing to do business with him. As a real estate agent, 50 per cent of his clientele were Jehovah’s Witnesses. His business folded from the loss of their support. He says there is a direct line of causation between his loss of church membership and business loss. It’s likely the case that one caused the other, but that doesn’t mean Wall’s claim is a legally enforceable property right.
The reality is, Wall chose to limit his business to Jehovah’s Witnesses and took a personal risk in doing so. The church did not tell him to do so, and certainly there is no known legal principle that says a church is responsible for the economic losses that might flow from a loss of membership. A church member is not required to patronize the business of a former member. In the same way, we would not expect a former husband to maintain business with his ex-wife’s family.
At last week’s hearing, Wall’s legal counsel tried to persuade the court that, if there are no grounds under Canadian law for the court to interfere in purely religious matters, the court should then consider adopting U.K. law, which does allow this type of review. “Good luck!” Justice Rosalie Abella quipped, prompting everyone to burst into laughter.
That exchange suggested the court was not persuaded that it is time to change the law to allow courts to get tangled up in reviewing decisions of religious bodies. That would be a good thing, as courts don’t have the moral or legal authority or doctrinal expertise to decide such matters.
This hearing occurred around the time of the 500-year anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. If we have learned anything since then, it’s that the law does not need to apply to every nook and cranny of our lives – especially our religious affairs.
Barry W. Bussey is Director Legal Affairs at the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. He blogs at lawandreligion.org
MONTREAL — Three Quebecers have lost an appeal of their conviction in connection with the extreme-sweating death of a woman who was wrapped in mud and cellophane at a spa.
The Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision means Gabrielle Frechette, Ginette Duclos and Gerald Fontaine will head to prison for the death of Chantal Lavigne.
Lavigne, 35, died in July 2011 after a sweating session organized by the accused.
Participants were plastered with mud, wrapped in a plastic sheet and a blanket and had their heads covered with cardboard boxes for nine hours.
A coroner described the process as the equivalent of being cooked alive.
The accused were found guilty in December 2014 of criminal negligence causing death and were sentenced in January 2016.
Frechette, who was considered a spiritual guide and organized the personal-growth seminar in Durham-Sud, was sentenced to three years, while her two assistants were handed two-year prison terms.
As numbers grow, many in impoverished community realize their way of life is unsustainable, but protests expose open resistance from within community ARON HELLER
Times of Israel November 8, 2017
AP — A string of protests by ultra-Orthodox activists against Israel’s compulsory military service has paralyzed Jerusalem in recent weeks in what their leaders had hoped would be a show of strength by the traditionally insular society.
Instead, the demonstrations reflect a desperate attempt by members of a vocal minority trying to preserve a lifestyle that is rapidly changing around them.
Widely seen as a drag on the country’s economy, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox world is being forced to adapt — with growing numbers embracing technology, pursuing higher education, entering the work force and even serving in the army.
Experts say tomorrow’s ultra-Orthodox will look much different from the community that mainstream Israel fears today.
“If you are expecting everything to change tomorrow morning — that is not going to happen. But if this is done quietly and it is not forced upon us, it will happen on its own,” said Gidon Katz, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who runs an advertising and public relations agency in Jerusalem.
For decades, the ultra-Orthodox have leveraged their significant political power into maintaining a segregated lifestyle. They run a separate network of schools, enjoy sweeping military draft exemptions and raise large families on taxpayer-funded handouts.
The system has fed a visceral culture war between the largely cloistered ultra-Orthodox and the secular majority resentful of what it considers preferential treatment.
As their numbers have grown, many in the impoverished community realize their way of life is unsustainable. In a previously unseen phenomenon, the recent protests have exposed open resistance from within the community.
“Judaism never said there was anything wrong with working,” said Katz, noting that it is no longer uncommon to see ultra-Orthodox lawyers, accountants and high-tech executives. “The study of scripture is the highest calling. That’s the ideal but it’s not for everyone.”
The ultra-Orthodox, known in Hebrew as “Haredim,” or “those who fear God,” are the fastest growing sector in Israel. Due to their high birth rate, they now number more than 1 million people, or about 12 percent of Israel’s 8.7 million citizens. The majority live beneath the poverty line, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent think tank.
Their numbers are expected to rise to 14 percent in 2024, 19 percent in 2039 and 27 percent in 2059, the think tank predicted — figures that have sparked fear of Israel’s developed economy being saddled with a workforce that’s not prepared for the modern world.
Gilad Malach, an institute researcher who specializes in the community, said such fears are exaggerated. He believes the modernizing effect will make the Haredi community far more educated and employable, much the way ultra-Orthodox communities in the United States and Europe have adapted.
“The apocalyptic vision will not come to fruition because they will be different,” he said. “For those trying to cling to the old ways, the war is lost.”
Malach estimates about 10 percent of the ultra-Orthodox belong to a modern camp that has embraced technology and modern society, while an equal-sized hard-line group shuns any engagement with the establishment. He believes the remaining 80 percent are open to change, to varying degrees.
The percentage of Haredim entering Israeli universities has more than doubled since 2009, Malach said, though they still only make up 4 percent of the student body.
But Dan Ben-David, a Tel Aviv University economist and president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, said these figures are misleading.
Most Haredi university students drop out, in large part because of their poor elementary and secondary schooling, he said, adding that working-age Haredim who complete an academic degree has been relatively stable for the past decade.
In contrast, American ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are required to complete a core school curriculum, have more than twice as high a rate of academic degrees.
“There are no shortcuts in life,” said Ben-David. “Wanting to participate in a modern economy without the necessary tools is a recipe for disaster.”
To keep up in a knowledge-based marketplace, Ben-David said Haredi children must receive a basic education that would give them the skills to “pull their weight” in the future.
For decades, secular-led Israeli governments have maintained the status quo, either because of their dependence on ultra-Orthodox political kingmakers or fearing an angry backlash.
The most contentious issue has been induction in the military. Draft exemptions go back to Israel’s establishment in 1948, when the government allowed several hundred gifted students to pursue religious studies to help rebuild great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. Over the years, the numbers have ballooned, creating widespread resentment.
Repeated efforts to find compromise have failed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government recently rolled back previous legislation that had aimed to increase conscription — only to be struck down by the Supreme Court. The court has demanded new legislation within a year.
In the meantime, most Haredi men have the option of receiving repeated deferrals, as long as they register with the military — a loophole embraced by the Haredi leadership.
But Shmuel Auerbach, a prominent Jerusalem rabbi with some 25,000 followers, rejects even this model. When some of his followers were jailed for refusing to register, thousands took to the streets of Jerusalem, halting the city’s light rail system and snarling traffic at major intersections.
But in a dramatic shift, some Haredi counter-protesters showed up and cursed the demonstrators.
The Israeli military says the number of Haredi soldiers has surged thanks to its efforts to cater to their needs, such as providing strictly kosher food, limiting contact with female soldiers and a schedule synchronized with prayer times.
The military said 2,850 Haredi soldiers enlisted last year, a 30 percent increase from 2014. In all, there are currently 7,000 Haredim in uniform.
The Hebrew University’s Amiram Gonen, director of the center for the study of ultra-Orthodox society at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, said Auerbach’s followers are shrinking in a world that realizes it needs to adapt.
“There is no earthquake, but there is a dynamic of new norms creeping into the society,” he said.
The judicial committee of a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses asked the Supreme Court of Canada today to rule that Canadian courts do not have the authority to review the expulsion of one of their members — arguing that judicial review by the courts should not extend to decisions by private and voluntary associations that have no effect on the public at large.
The Highwood Congregation, located in northwest Calgary, brought its appeal to Ottawa after Randy Wall took the congregation to court for expelling him from the church. The congregation’s judicial committee “disfellowshipped” Wall in the spring of 2014 after his family reported to the group’s elders that he had been drunk on two occasions and was verbally and emotionally abusing them — and after determining he was not “not sufficiently repentant” for those actions.
After three internal and unsuccessful appeals, Wall applied for judicial review of the congregation’s decision-making process, insisting it was flawed and that the congregation’s judicial committee had “breached the principles of natural justice and the duty to be fair.” Both the Court of Queen’s Bench and Court of Appeal in Alberta declared that it is within the jurisdiction of the superior court to review Wall’s case.
The congregation’s appeal of those two rulings, heard by the Supreme Court Thursday morning, has attracted a lot of attention from legal experts and religious communities across the country. Echoing the congregation’s plea today in the packed Ottawa courtroom were 12 religious, political and civil liberties groups — all of them unanimous in arguing the top court should not interfere in the membership decisions of religious bodies.
The consequences of such interference, they said, would be detrimental to the self-determination of religious groups.
“It (would) fundamentally alter our nation and not for the better,” counsel for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said in court.
“The wish or desire of one person to associate with an unwilling person (or an unwilling group) is not a legal right of any kind,” the group wrote in its written submission to the Supreme Court. “For a court, or the government, to support such a ‘right’ violates the right of self-determination of the unwilling parties.”
This question of jurisdiction is one that has been explored and decided on by the courts — including the Supreme Court of Canada — in the past. Case law shows the top court has recognized the the autonomous ability of religious and private voluntary associations to govern their own affairs and dictate who can and cannot be a member of a congregation.
The courts have determined, however, there is room to intervene in specific cases when a membership decision turns on property or civil rights — or is of “sufficient importance to deserve the intervention of the court.”
Wall — who does not dispute the allegations against him that formed the basis of the congregation’s decision to kick him out — argues his case meets those requirements because his “disfellowship” caused him to lose business clients, suffer “significant economic harm” and experience fraught family relations.
In return, the congregation argues that neither Wall’s property rights, nor his civil rights, were affected by their decision. Justice Russell Brown also remarked during the hearing that “one does not have a justiciable right to earn a living.”
The congregation also argued that it did not ask or force its members to boycott Wall’s business — but people choose to do so in line with their religious convictions. Counsel for the congregation also said that “the door is not closed” to Wall and he can be reinstated in the congregation in the future.
More generally, the congregation argued that it would be inappropriate for the courts to review the internal decision-making processes of religious groups because those processes are ecclesiastical.
In a news release, the Association for Reformed Political Action — one of the 12 intervening groups — said the case before the Supreme Court has “profound implications for the separation of church and state” and it believes the court should maintain a hands-off approach to membership decision-making by religious groups.
“Secular judges have no authority and no expertise to review a church membership decision,” the association’s director of law and policy, André Schutten, wrote in the statement. “Church discipline is a spiritual matter falling within spiritual jurisdiction, not a legal matter falling within the courts’ civil jurisdiction. The courts should not interfere.”
The Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association took a slightly more nuanced position, arguing in its factum that “there will inevitably be cases where judicial intervention in the decisions of religious groups is ‘warranted'” but courts “should intervene … only in the rare case where required by a prevailing public interest.”
Thursday’s hearing was heard by all nine justices on the Supreme Court bench. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said the court will reserve its decision after today’s hearing.
Overflow seating was set up in the front hall of the Supreme Court to accommodate all the people who came to see the hearing live.
After years of silence, Dianne Lake – the youngest member of the infamous cult – finally tells her story in captivating, harrowing new book
Elizabeth Yuko Rolling Stone November 2, 2017
When Dianne Lake joined the Charles Manson's "Family," she was just 14 – the youngest recruit. A slight, comely girl with a cherubic face framed by shoulder-length ginger hair, Lake had recently started embracing the hippie attire and lifestyle proliferating in California by 1967, when she first met the clan. She spent two years with them, but since she didn't participate in the murders – and even testified against Manson et al during their capital trial in 1970 – Lake largely become a footnote to their history. But now, 50 years after she first stepped into Charles Manson's blacked-out bus, Lake is telling her story.
Part memoir, part compelling true-crime narrative, Lake's new book, Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside the Cult, and the Darkness that Ended the Sixties, is a painfully relevant account of manipulation, abuse and masculinity so toxic it ended in murder. And though it doesn't add much new information to the canon, Lake offers a detailed, heartfelt and strangely relatable telling of how a teenage girl fell in love with one of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century, and how she ultimately fought her way out.
Lake takes her time setting up her story. The first third of Member of the Family takes place before she even meets Manson, walking readers through her unorthodox upbringing from Minnesota to California. "It's been really good for me to unburden the secret and the shame and untether myself from that association by accepting it and realizing that I was a victim," Lake tells Rolling Stone. "It has helped me understand a lot about myself."
With an eccentric, overbearing artist father and a mother who did everything she could to temper his emotions, Lake spent her formative years moving between temporary homes, which included a large home in a middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, a trailer her father traded that house for, an apartment in the city's housing projects, a California beach bungalow and a retrofitted bread truck.
"As misguided as this seems today, they believed in what they were doing, giving up their own security to pursue what they hoped would be a better life for us and for the world," Lake writes.
Consequently, long before Lake joined the Family, she was forced to grow up fast. Her first exposure to sex came at the age of nine, when her grandfather molested her in a bathtub. In addition to a father who appeared to be more interested in dropping out of society than raising a family, Lake also contended with parents who not only took drugs like marijuana and LSD, but also shared them with her when she was as young as 13.
In the summer of 1967, Lake was living with her parents and two younger siblings at a well-known commune called Hog Farm, but was asked to leave because she was "jail bait" – 14 and sexually active. When Lake left Hog Farm to move in with a couple, her parents gave her a note, essentially emancipating her. After the couple introduced her to Manson, that note became the stuff of legend – it would go down in Family lore as a letter handing her directly over to Charles Manson.
Like many of the other women in the Family, Lake's recruitment into the group involved being made to feel as though she truly belonged and was wanted, as well as a sexual encounter with Manson, who she describes as being "magnetic."
"He took his time to explore my body," Lake writes of their first time together. "He avoided the places that made me purr until I could barely stand it. After a few minutes, he put himself inside me while staring into my eyes. He was tender as he held me up to meet his deep thrusts. When he finished, he sighed; I exhaled and realized I was hooked." But it was more than sex: Lake makes it clear that she was in love with him, too.
The beginning of her time with Manson and his girls was marked by group acid trips and orgies, sermons and sing-alongs, as well as dumpster dives for food. The Family led a largely transient life, moving between various houses in Topanga Canyon before landing at Spahn Ranch. But alongside the free love and shunning of worldly possessions in favor of a simpler life, there was also sexual and psychological manipulation and abuse.
From the beginning, Manson did little to hide his true colors. He could change his demeanor and entire face at will, immediately morphing between being impish and playful to acting demonic. After years of watching her mother read her father's temperament and acting accordingly, Lake put those skills to use with Manson. She learned early on to anticipate his needs, taking cues from his erratic behavior.
Lake writes about happier times as well, including life as one of the most famous house guests of the 1960s, when she, Manson and other Family members moved in with Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson in the summer of 1968. She tells Rolling Stone how she "just fell in love with that house and the grounds," including the sprawling estate, complete with a pool, a swing, and "a really fancy log cabin" – a far cry from a remote, crumbling movie set.
"It was really just a handful of us and Charlie that lived there," she says, noting that unlike some accounts, the entire Family didn't move in with Wilson; half went to Mendocino, another hippie enclave in northern. Lake enjoyed the dynamic of living with a smaller group of people; on top of that, she says that Manson was happy there – something important when your quality of life is largely dependent on one person's mood.
It was also exciting. Bands came through frequently; Lake says Manson and Wilson had what appeared to be a genuine friendship and camaraderie – that is, until Wilson and others in the music industry tried to turn Manson into a marketable rock star.
Used to getting his own way, Manson did not react well to getting feedback and direction on his not-yet-existent music career in the studio. Lake doesn't know what happened after she left the room, but notes that, according to other accounts, he may have pulled a buck knife on the rest of the Beach Boys. No matter what occurred, that was the beginning of the end for the Manson Family.
But it wasn't until the following year that things really came to a head. Lake recalls the night when she saw Leslie Van Houton frantically burning items in the fireplace, later piecing together that it occurred on the night that Van Houton, along with other Family members, murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. Lake never participated in any of the murders, but says that when the other women told her about their involvement crimes – which left a total of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate, dead – she was disturbed by their casual attitude about the crimes. "They were almost gleeful," she tells Rolling Stone. "It just shows how far gone they had descended into this madness.
In October 1969, Barker Ranch was raided by police and the Family members present – including Lake – were arrested. Because she was 16 years old, Lake was taken to a mental institution instead of remaining in jail with the rest of the girls. Upon her release, a police officer and his family took her in as a foster child, where she was living when it came time to face Manson and the three girls who committed the murders in court.
Attorneys warned her not to testify against Mason in court on account that she potentially could have been charged with perjury after she misrepresented events during her initial statement following the Family's arrest. In spite of that, Lake decided to testify.
Before her day in court, Lake says her biggest fear was not being charged with perjury, but seeing Manson in person again. Specifically, she notes, "that he'd have a hold on me – maybe from the good memories – or that he'd have this psychological control or input on me."
In fact, the opposite happened. On the witness stand, when asked if she was still in love with Mason, Lake said, "I guess so," at which point Manson shouted at her "You loved everybody. Don't put it all on Mr. Manson." The entire courtroom erupted in laughter, and in an instant, Lake says she felt as though God had lifted a veil from her eyes.
"Suddenly my eyes were open and I had him for the con that he probably always had been," she tells Rolling Stone. "Seeing his antics in the courtroom made me realize that that connection was gone."
Since she testified against Manson in court, Lake has only had contact with one other former member of the Family – Barbara Hoyt, who she visited Barker Ranch with 10 or 15 years ago. Lake visited Barker Ranch again recently during the process of writing the book, as well as going back to Spahn Ranch for the first time since the Family's arrest, which she says was "really an eye opener." It was much smaller than she remembered, and she had trouble getting oriented at a place she once tried to make her home.
Though Lake has been able to revisit some of the Family's former locations, other former members remain behind bars. When asked if she thinks Van Houton should receive parole for the murders of the LaBiancas, Lake says that that's "between the governor and God," adding that she's "not afraid if she gets out."
Lake says that if she could ask Manson one question today it would be whether he truly believed he was Jesus Christ. "I know he's not, but did he? Or does he still believe it?" she adds. "But no matter what I would ask him, I doubt very much I'd get an honest answer. He would be playing to the audience."
Lake hopes that the book helps people be aware the people they encounter. She finds it amazing that her story is becoming public at the same time as so many allegations are made against powerful men in the entertainment industry, following years of women remaining silent because they were ashamed.
"There are men out there who have no qualms about using you for their own purpose," she says. "It's a powerful position to be in for them, and it's so easy for lonely, disenfranchised kids, young adults to be drawn in. Be wary because people take advantage of people."
MOSCOW, November 2 (RAPSI) – Alleged founder of Kaula Dharma sect Sergey Kiriyenko, who stands charged with sexual assault and tortures, has been extradited from Bulgaria, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office reports via its Telegram channel on Thursday.
According to prosecutors, his accomplice Tatiana Severtseva has been extradited earlier on the same charges.
Investigators claim that in 2015 Kiriyenko organized a group bringing followers of the east techniques together. Adherents were to honor and implicitly obey the sect leader. Kiriyenko beat, emotionally and sexually abused the group members including children, the statement reads.
FaithLeaks.com is a non profit media organization founded on the belief that increased transparency within the religious organizations results in fewer untruths, less corruption, and less abuse. The organization provides sources and whistleblowers the technical ability to anonymously submit sensitive documents for use by professional and citizen journalists for starting and expanding news reporting, public commentary, and criticism related to religion.
FaithLeaks is a project by the Truth and Transparency Foundation, a non profit founded by Ryan McKnight and Ethan Dodge in November 2017.
Peggy Fletcher Stack Salt Lake Tribune November 6, 2017
Get ready to be scrutinized, “high-demand religions” (whoever you are).
MormonLeaks.com, which until now has focused exclusively on publishing purloined papers from within the LDS Church, is expanding into the larger universe of religious organizations.
The Nevada-based nonprofit announced that it is expanding its publication channels with the launch of FaithLeaks.com.
Like MormonLeaks, FaithLeaks is rooted on the premise that “increased transparency results in fewer untruths, less corruption and less abuse in any organization,” founder Ryan McKnight said in a news release. “It provides the same service of anonymizing sources from all religions, religious nonprofits, cults, and creeds with documented information they believe deserves to be made public.”
MormonLeaks began in late 2016 with the goal of providing a means whereby disgruntled or disillusioned Latter-day Saints could post internal and confidential documents without fear of discovery.
Since then, it has published on its website pay stubs of top LDS officials, minutes of meetings with church authorities, PowerPoint presentations about groups and individuals the faith considers apostate and private correspondence between leaders and members.
At the same time, McKnight and the site’s technical adviser, Ethan Dodge, have received queries from people eager to replicate MormonLeaks to divulge documents about other denominations.
At the end of July, Dodge, a cybersecurity expert who also goes by the moniker “Privacy P. Pratt,” gave a presentation to a packed audience at DefCon, the nation’s largest conference of hackers.
“A significant number of folks who aren’t Mormon understood our motives and the effects of our work,” said Dodge, who, like McKnight, has resigned from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Many attendees came up afterward, wanting help setting up a similar site.
“When it got right down to it, they didn’t want to put in the amount of work Ryan and I have put into MormonLeaks — anywhere from 20 to 60 hours a week,” he said Monday. “But the demand was obvious. Transparency is grossly lacking in so many of these groups.”
For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology are two faiths that could be considered “high-demand religions,” Dodge said, but the label might apply to any denomination, “depending on how believers allow that faith to control their lives.”
Is the team expecting lawsuits?
Yes, Dodge said, but MormonLeaks and FaithLeaks are prepared for them and remain undeterred by the prospect. The LDS Church, for instance, previously accused the site of copyright violations.
“We felt maybe there was a need to widen our net and broaden our mission,” McKnight said in an interview. “These tools give power back to the people, who may have been previously silenced.”
Still, determining the veracity of leaks from so many sources will be “magnitudes more challenging than it is with MormonLeaks,” McKnight acknowledged. “Not only because we don’t have the same level of sourcing, but because our own personal knowledge of many faiths is lacking.”
McKnight and Dodge, the two co-founders for FaithLeaks, have established relationships with people from various religions who “might be able to help us with the vetting process,” McKnight explained. “The more salacious a document is, the more proof it will require.”
Both sites have been put under the umbrella of a newly formed nonprofit called the Truth and Transparency Foundation, which can accept tax-deductible donations.
“We will just put documents out as we have been doing, and let the public and media decide their significance,” Dodge said. “That’s worked well so far.”
CRANBROOK, B.C. — Winston Blackmore’s application challenging the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy law was adjourned Tuesday before it even started.
The problem is that Blackmore’s lawyer, Blair Suffredine, has missed a long string of filing deadlines that were meant to keep this court process on track.
He failed to give notice of a constitutional challenge in the original pretrial conferences. He missed the deadline for filing the application after he indicated during Blackmore’s polygamy trial in April that he intended to make a constitutional application.
Suffredine also missed Justice Sheri Ann Donegan’s Oct. 2 deadline for filing the Blackmore affidavit, a set of agreed upon facts and a book of authorities.
On Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Peter Wilson told the judge that he only received Blackmore’s latest affidavit late Monday night and in a format that he couldn’t open on his computer.
Normally, Wilson said he would object to the filing, “I am painfully aware that Mr. Blackmore is due his day in court.”
And while the prosecutor said he he hadn’t intended to cross-examine Blackmore on the original affidavit, he needed time to review the new one and to prepare to question Blackmore on what he’s filed.
As for the material that he needs to review? It’s in Wilson’s office in Vancouver.
“In 35 years, I have never stood up to cross-examine a witness without being prepared and I’m not prepared to do that,” he said. “It’s not fair that I’m put in that position now.”
As Wilson predicted when he began his remarks, the judge was not happy.
“This is an important case and fairness is integral to the entire process including fairness to the Crown to be properly prepared,” she said. “With reluctance I will adjourn even after all of the steps that have been taken to manage to get to this point.”
In court, Suffredine said, “Certainly, I agree I have difficulty meeting deadline. But the affidavit is 80 per cent the same as what given recently.”
The Doctors November 6, 2017 How far would you go to “fix” a troubled teen? The Doctors investigate camps, programs, and treatment centers that are designed to help troubled teens.
Mexican police have detained a polygamous cult leader wanted in the United States on charges of pedophilia and who is a suspect in the murder of three U.S. citizens in Mexico.
Orson William Black Jr. was arrested in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua along with his four wives and 22 other people, including minors, state prosecutors said in a statement.
In a joint operation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), about 100 police officers swooped down on three houses and two ranches where Black and his followers were living, the statement said.
The arrests followed an investigation into the September 10 murder of three U.S. citizens in the region, aged 15, 19 and 23.
Black is a suspect in the murder of three men, but has not yet been charged. He is also facing human trafficking charges.
For now, Black and others arrested are accused of entering Mexico illegally, and animal cruelty, after police found butchered and frozen animals on the properties.
Black had been wanted in the U.S. for 15 years on pedophilia charges in the U.S. state of Arizona, before fleeing to Mexico.
Sarah Pulliam Bailey THE WASHINGTON POST October 31, 2017
Speaking from a stage encircled by 12 large wooden crosses, Gabriel Camargo held up wads of fake Brazilian money, showing his flock what could be theirs.
"God will bless you if you give a lot more to the church," said Camargo, a Pentecostal pastor with the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
Then he extended an arm and pointed a black pouch toward his parishioners in the working-class neighborhood of Osasco.
Pick up your wallets and purses, he said, instructing his flock to look for Brazilian reais. About a dozen people hurried forward to dump bills and coins into the bag.
Those without cash didn't have to worry: An usher held out a credit card machine. "You'll have so much money" after giving generously to the church, the pastor boomed, that "smoke is going to come out of the machine."
In a country struggling with the worst economic crisis in its history, with long lines at unemployment offices and public health clinics, perhaps it's not surprising that Brazilians are increasingly drawn to the promises of personal wealth.
The belief that faith can lead to riches — known as the prosperity gospel — is a form of Pentecostalism, a Protestant movement that, in a modern-day version of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago, is challenging the dominance of the Catholic Church in Latin America's most populous country.
Brazil, which has the most Catholics of any country in the world, is undergoing religious debates similar to those sparked in 1517 by a fiery German preacher named Martin Luther — over church riches and corruption, political power, and the proper way to read the Bible. By 2030, Catholics, now the religious majority in Brazil, are projected to become a religious minority.
Pentecostalism, which is sweeping across Latin America and Africa, is also challenging Catholicism worldwide. The Catholic Church has 1.1 billion members worldwide, about half of all Christians. But much of the global growth in Christianity is found in Pentecostalism, with about 300 million followers, according to the Pew Research Center.
Known for charismatic practices such as the laying on of hands for healing, exorcisms and speaking in tongues, and its emphasis on cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus, Pentecostalism has done a particularly good job of adapting itself to Brazilian culture, with pastors who tend to look and talk more like their flocks than Catholic priests do.
The prosperity gospel has spread quickly in poorer neighborhoods as the unemployment rate has climbed to a record 13 percent. The movement's promises of a better material life through actions such as giving and prayer, as well as its strict social rules in Brazil banning urban ills such as drinking and smoking, give followers a sense of structure and agency over their lives, said Paul Freston, a sociologist and an expert in Pentecostalism in Latin America.
"You learn to see yourself as an agent who has possibilities, who has the ability with God's help to achieve things, to get control of yourself," Freston said. "It doesn't mean you become rich, but it often means you rise from absolute destitution to dignified poverty."
Money matters
Much as they do in the United States, prosperity-gospel pastors also serve as role models for wealth attainment. Yet standing by the pool outside his $1.5 million house, Silas Malafaia, one of Brazil's most famous prosperity preachers, insists he doesn't live extravagantly.
Malafaia is one of the country's most prominent and controversial preachers, wielding enormous political clout on behalf of the evangelical population. In Brazil, the term "evangelical" is used synonymously with "Protestant," and about 70 percent of the country's Protestants are Pentecostal.
Many Brazilian pastors, like Malafaia, take their cues from prominent American prosperity-gospel preachers who have grown in influence as advisers to President Trump — even though only 3.6 percent of Americans are Pentecostal, compared with about a quarter of Brazilians. Evangelicals in Brazil have harnessed a voting bloc in the National Congress that enables them to lobby against gay rights and abortion and for the death penalty and limited government.
"Pentecostals have been a decisive element in tilting the Brazilian agenda toward conservative views and policies," said Joanildo Burity, who researches Brazilian evangelicals and politics.
Wearing a purple shirt, his hair slicked back, the 59-year-old Malafaia compared himself to evangelist Billy Graham, who was a friend of several U.S. presidents. There's nothing wrong with ministers having wealth if they get their money through side projects, he said, as he does through his spiritual bestsellers.
Pastors should also be compensated for the size of their ministries, Malafaia said.
"God wants me to be mediocre? The devil would give riches to everyone else," he said.
Malafaia said he is like Luther because he, too, wants the Bible in the hands of average parishioners instead of interpreted for them primarily by a religious elite.
"Have you ever seen the pope with a Bible in his hand?" Malafaia said. "The Catholic Church doesn't incentivize you to have the Bible in your hands. Catholics believe in leaders and the pope. Evangelicals believe in the Bible."
Indeed, most of the 4,000 people who streamed into his Assembly of God Victory in Christ church in a lower-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro for a Thursday night service came bearing Bibles in their hands. But even many Protestants in Brazil find it laughable that Malafaia is leading a reformation, because they believe leaders who focus on prosperity are selling a false gospel.
They put Pentecostalism's promise of personal wealth in exchange for donations on a level with the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences in exchange for the forgiveness of sins in the 16th century, a practice that was famously criticized by Luther.
Augustus Nicodemus Lopes, a Presbyterian minister, called the churches that promote a prosperity gospel "cults" and criticized their pastors for distributing healing cloths anointed with oil while asking for donations. "They're saying, 'Your pocket needs religion,' " Lopes said. He hopes for a reformation in Brazil — of Pentecostal churches.
Catholic Church competes
Pope Francis took his first overseas trip to Brazil right before it hosted the World Cup and the Olympics, when the country was riding a global commodities boom to prosperity. Many people here at the time felt the 2013 papal visit confirmed Brazil's position at the top of the world.
Manuel Jose da Penho and his wife, Maria, remember the exhilaration they felt when the pope showed up at their home. The couple recalled how their parish held Mass just once on Sundays before Francis's visit. Now the parish offers two Masses on Sundays and five on weekdays.
"After he came it was like a spiritual revival," said da Penho, who recently listed his two-bedroom house in a Rio de Janeiro slum for a premium price with the pitch "Pope Francis was here."
But experts say it's still too soon to tell whether enthusiasm for the first Latin American pope can counteract the rise of Pentecostalism, which had been well underway before the pope's visit.
The 2014 recession in Brazil complicated the church's challenge.
Now even with a popular pope, the church is desperately trying to keep young people like 28-year-old Marina Silva, who is unemployed, from leaving the faith. The prosperity gospel's promise of riches, however, is just one front in the competition.
Sipping orange juice in a Sao Paulo cafe before her next job interview, Silva explained that Brazilians are known for picking and choosing from different traditions in everything from food to art and music.
"We don't have strict characteristics," she said. "We mix things together to make them good. We are not like good little lambs."
To win over Brazilians, the Catholic Church is attempting to appeal to people such as Silva by mixing in charismatic components of Pentecostalism that have more emotional elements, including catchier music.
Catholic priests such as Marcelo Rossi, who has sold millions of CDs, have become increasingly popular. Rossi's Masses attract people from all over the city to his outdoor sanctuary.
At a recent service Silva attended, teenagers took selfies, live-streamed the service on Instagram and swayed along with their hands waving back and forth as if they were at a rock concert.
"Glory, glory hallelujah." Rossi sang, holding out his mic.
The competition for souls is so fierce in Brazil that every church must try mightily to stand out from the rest, said Odilo Scherer, archbishop of Sao Paulo.
"Today, people go by their personal subjective tastes and experiences," said Scherer, who was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI. "In our Brazilian context, religion is presented as a product in a marketplace which seeks to please the customer and present a product that is appetizing."
Church patrons outside a Pentecostal re-creation of Solomon's Temple in Sao Paulo wait in line to collect water believed to have healing properties. (Lianne Milton/Panos Pictures for The Washington Post)
Charges of corruption
To stand out in this marketplace and demonstrate their wealth and power, Pentecostal congregations have built enormous churches across the Brazilian landscape. Amid Sao Paulo's high-rises sprawls one compound that is perhaps the most lavish of all — a re-creation of the biblical Solomon's Temple.
Inside, an auditorium that seats 12,000 is flanked on both sides by menorahs, a nod to the church leaders' love for Jewish symbolism. Security guards in black suits buzz about as female ushers in white tunics and gold sashes hold large golden baskets in preparation for the offering. After services, members flock to a water fountain to fill up empty bottles with water that has been blessed.
The temple's construction in 2014 carried obvious symbolism: The biblical story of Solomon suggests that when he was king of Israel, he asked God for wisdom and was granted wealth, as well.
The massive church has also come to symbolize a challenge facing Pentecostalism in Brazil. Much like leaders of the Catholic Church in Europe during Luther's time, some prominent Pentecostals have become embroiled in high-profile political and financial scandals.
Edir Macedo, pastor at the temple and founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God denomination, has fought allegations of corruption, including that his church siphoned billions of dollars set aside for charity. In 1992, Macedo spent 11 days in jail on charges of charlatanism .
Still, Macedo maintains enormous reach through TV and social media, and his political endorsements are hugely influential. A 2015 Datafolha poll showed that his church was considered the fifth most-influential institution in Brazil, above the presidency. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Macedo's nephew, is a bishop in the denomination.
Other prominent Pentecostals have been involved in scandals splashed across Brazil's front pages. Megachurch pastors Estevam and Sônia Hernandes were arrested in 2007 in Miami and pleaded guilty to illegally smuggling money into the United States. A prominent Pentecostal, Eduardo Cunha, was the first major politician sentenced to prison this year in a huge corruption scandal called Operation Car Wash that has ensnared many high-profile politicians.
"What makes this scandalous, of course, is that the evangelicals set themselves apart rhetorically as a force for moral goodness and order," said Eric Miller, a professor at Geneva College in Pennsylvania who studies Brazilian religion.
Even so, many Brazilians are already jaded by political bribery in the country in general, so it's difficult to say whether scandals are enough to turn people away from Pentecostalism, Miller said.
But the Catholic Church has at least one advantage over its Pentecostal counterparts in Brazil. While it doesn't promise riches, it tends to do a better job of providing social services such as food and shelter, said Celso Rudeck, a pastor in a Catholic parish across the street from the re-creation of Solomon's Temple.
So sometimes when former Catholics tire of praying for money without result, they return to the flock for help in this world, he said.
Bailey reported this article on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project.
A perpetual injunction against a former Church of Scientology (CoS) member which prevented him from harassing or besetting two current members has been lifted by the High Court, writes Ann O'Loughlin.
Mr Justice Seamus Noonan said Peter Griffiths (63) had apologised and accepted it was wrong and unlawful to follow Zabrina Collins and Michael O'Donnell around when they delivered CoS-funded "Truth about Drugs" leaflets on December 20, 2014.
The judge was satisfied Mr Griffiths was a truthful witness and, by and large, a law abiding citizen. He also had regard to the fact that his fellow defendant, John McGhee, an embalmer from Clara, Co Offaly, was the main protagonist in the harassment on the day the CoSmembers were followed around the streets of north city Dublin.
Mr Griffiths, of Teeling Street, Ballina, Co Mayo, had brought an appeal against an injunction first granted a few days after the December 20 incident, preventing him, and Mr McGhee from door stepping, intimidating, approaching, harassing or videoing Ms Collins, who is a CoS director originally from Donegal and now living in Tyrellstown, Dublin, or Mr O'Donnell, of Cherrywood Lawn, Clondalkin, Dublin.
The injunction applied to interference at the plaintiffs' homes, place of work or CoS premises. It was later made perpetual when the case was remitted from the High to the Circuit Court.
Ms Collins and Mr O'Donnell opposed Mr Griffiths appeal over the permanent nature of the injunction. They said it should stay in place because Mr Griffiths' behaviour towards them had got progressively worse over a number of years until the injunction was granted.
Mr Griffiths believed the injunction was too wide because it prevented him from engaging in peaceful protest. Mr McGhee did not appeal.
Lifting the injunction on Wednesday, Mr Justice Noonan said the test for a perpetual injunction was whether a substantial risk of danger existed.
In this case, there was only one incident complained of, the following around of Ms Collins and Mr O'Donnell as they delivered leaflets in 2014 for half an hour.
Ms Collins and Mr O'Donnell had been awarded damages for harassment and assault, €3,500 against Mr McGhee and €2,000 against Mr Griffiths over that incident.
Since the injunction was granted nearly three years ago, there has been no suggestion Mr Griffiths was in breach of it, the judge said.
Taking these factors, and the fact that Mr Griffiths had apologised and was not the main protaganist on the day of the incident, the judge was satisfied the behaviour complained of "is small and certainly does not amount to a substantial risk it will recur".
He hoped Mr Griffiths had learnt his lesson from this saga and will stay well away from plaintiffs in the future. If not, he may expect the court to take an extremely serious view of any potentially unlawful acts that may occur.
However, the judge said even if he is wrong in that conclusion there was still another significant factor relating to the question that a plaintiff must have "clean hands" when they seek injunctive relief.
This was well explained in a 1972 case co-incidentally involving CoS founder L Ron Hubbard, who sought an injunction preventing Cyril Vosper, a former CoS member, from publishing a book critical of its practices and philosophies (entitled "The Mind Benders").
In that case, Mr Justice Noonan said, an English judge refused to grant Hubbard an injunction on the basis that CoS had been protecting their secrets by "deplorable means" as evidenced by CoS' own code of ethics. Hubbard therefore did not come to court with clean hands, the English judge said, when asking the court to protect those secrets by means of an injunction preventing publication.
Ms Collins, who had been ordered by the Circuit Court to pay Mr Griffiths €5,000 over untrue allegations she made about him following a talk on scientology he gave in a Dublin school, had herself engaged in an attempt to demonise and discredit Mr Griffiths, Mr Justice Noonan said.
This attempt to undermine any criticism he (Griffiths) had, legitimate or otherwise, of the CoS, cannot be viewed "as other than a failure to come to court with clean hands".
The judge dissolved the perpetual injunction and adjourned the question of costs for two weeks.
Two towns on the Utah-Arizona line have agreed to pay $350,000 to people who allege they were wrongly arrested by police loyal to a polygamous sect.
The settlements noted in court records last week resolve two civil rights lawsuits against Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and their joint police force, referred to as marshals. The towns are the longtime home of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The settlements arrive as Arizona’s police regulators are seeking to remove six of the community’s seven marshals for allegations including making false arrests, failing to investigate crimes and lying to investigators.
The plaintiffs’ attorney in both lawsuits, Bill Walker, on Thursday said the settlements are “significant victories” for his clients. He also called the payouts further proof that the marshals still favor members of the FLDS and why the state of Arizona should boot them.
“I think it pretty much puts the last nails in the coffin of these marshals,” Walker said.
The lawyer for Colorado City, Jeff Matura, on Thursday said the towns were not admitting any wrongdoing. The settlements, he said, are “a business decision to limit the exposure and settle the case.” The money will be paid from city funds, Matura said.
Seth Cooke and a company he formed, Prairie Farms LLC, will receive $200,000, according to Walker and Matura.
Cooke and another man named Patrick Pipkin in 2015 obtained an agreement from the owner of an old Colorado City zoo to farm and ranch on the property.
Pipkin and Cooke went to take possession of the zoo, and a third man, Andrew Chatwin went with them. The towns’ marshals arrived and said the three were trespassing. Pipkin and Cooke refused to leave and were arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of trespassing for the first time on Oct. 13, 2015.
Four days later, Pipkin and Chatwin returned to the zoo and were arrested again. Pipkin and Chatwin settled their cases in August and received a combined $221,000.
In the second lawsuit recently settled, Isaac Wyler and his girlfriend, Twila Carstens, will receive a total of $150,000. On Dec. 23, 2015, they were changing the locks on a home in Hildale where sheriffs deputies had recently served an eviction.
According to the plaintiffs’ complaint, marshals arrived, accused Wyler and Carstens of trespassing and handcuffed and arrested them. Wyler and Carstens also accused the marshals of taking them to the Arizona side so sheriff’s deputies from Utah couldn’t provide assistance.
The marshals have been the subject of scrutiny for years as a series of civil rights lawsuitshave made their way through the courts. Then in November of last year, Arizona’s police regulators, called the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, voted to begin the process of removing six of the marshals. The marshals have remained on the job while they appeal. An appeal hearing has still not been scheduled.
Matura on Thursday said the standards and training board during the summer had asked his clients for more records about past incidents involving the marshals. Matura said the marshals have thus far not provided those records.
Matura explained he was trying to ascertain whether the records are part of the ongoing case against the marshals or part of a new investigation. Fact finding has ended for the current case, Matura said, and if Arizona is starting a new investigation, the marshals have a right to be informed of that before any records are provided.
“We’re trying to figure out why, what the scope of this request is,” Matura said.
Jack Lane, the director of the standards and training board, on Thursday declined to specify which records he requested, but said they address issues that have been raised previously. Providing them could be beneficial to the marshals, he said.
“It’s possible that these documents might actually clear some of these matters up that have been brought to the board,” Lane said.
The charges against the marshals include falsely arresting the men at the zoo. The marshals also are accused of failing to investigate crimes ranging from vandalism to child sex abuse, of lying to investigators about what names they have used over the years and whether they served on a church security force.
The marshals facing discipline are Chief Jeremiah “Jerry” H. Darger and deputies Samuel E. Johnson, Hyrum S. Roundy, Daniel R. Barlow, Jacob L. Barlow Jr. and Daniel N. Musser.
A seventh marshal, Curtis L. Cooke, resigned in 2016 rather than face discipline from the Arizona regulators. Cooke’s replacement is the only marshal not under suspicion.
The Hildale and Colorado City marshals are certified in Utah and Arizona. Utah’s police regulators in 2016 closed an investigation into the marshals with no action.
Laws in the two states are different. Arizona’s police board can take action against “malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance,” according to its regulations.
Utah once had similar language. Then, in 2010, the Utah Legislature changed the law to limit police discipline cases to a few specific offenses, including criminal conduct, sex on duty, and drug and alcohol problems.
