A 58-year-old local pastor is accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with a 5-year-old girl, deputies of the Logan County Sheriff's Office reported this morning. The Rev. James Alan Hazlett, 206 N. Taylor St., West Liberty, was charged Wednesday afternoon with one count of gross sexual imposition, stemming from an incident July 9, while he served as pastor of the West Liberty United Methodist Church, 202 W. Newell St. Detectives said the case was forwarded to them from Delaware County Children Services on Tuesday and the pastor was arrested at about 3 p.m. Wednesday at the sheriff's office. Sgt. Jeff Cooper, lead detective at the sheriff's office, said Mr. Hazlett has cooperated during their investigation. The detective declined to comment on where the victim resides. "Pastors are in a position of trust; they're someone everybody looks up to and goes to with their problems," he said. "I would say he violated that position of trust." The Rev. ...

Ex-cult members say it's time to set the record straight The All Saved Freak Band started in 1968 with (from back left) co-founder Joe Markko on guitar, co-founder Larry Hill, piano; Mike (last name unknown), drums, and Randy Markko on bass. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a three-part series resulting from former members of an Ashtabula County church coming forward to tell their stories after reading about the reported cult-like activities at the Apostolic Faith Church in Jefferson Township. In 1963, Larry Hill was a street evangelist working in Chicago, when he invited 15-year-old Joe Markko to say "the sinner’s prayer." Five years later, the twosome would start one of the first Christian rock bands in America. In 1971, Hill convinced Ron Taggart to move to his farm/church in Windsor Township. After leaving the church, Taggart began a movement to educate the public about cults. By SHELLEY TERRY starbeacon.com When Joe Markko walked away from the Church of the Risen...

A man who was arrested last weekend on sex charges involving two girls was a youth director at a Kernersville church. Timothy Paul Rowell was charged with a sexual offense in which the defendant is six or more years older than the victim, and with indecent liberties with a child. Main Street Baptist Church pastor Michael Willard said Rowell worked as his church's youth director for a year and a half. He told WXII 12's Damany Lewis that he performed background checks on Rowell and that they came back OK. Willard said he fired Rowell and began counseling him after learning of the allegations. Rowell was placed under a $125,000 bond at the Forsyth County Jail. link

DENVER (AP) -- Critics demanded an apology Thursday from the founder of the Christian ministry Focus on the Family after he compared the ethics of embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experiments on Holocaust victims. James Dobson made the comments Wednesday during his radio show, which reaches an estimated 220 million people worldwide. Dobson was criticizing Sen. Bill Frist and others who support expanded stem cell research in hopes that stem cells one day could be used to replace cells damaged from such conditions as diabetes, spinal cord injury or Parkinson's disease. Dobson and other opponents object to the research because embryos are destroyed to harvest the cells. "We condemn what the Nazis did because there are some things that we always could do but we haven't done, because science always has to be guided by ethics and by morality," Dobson said. "And you remove ethics and morality, and you get what happened in Nazi Germany." Abraham H. Foxman, natio...

Several years ago I was still deeply entrenched in Christianity when a tragedy struck one of the Christian families in town. I knew this family, or more accurately I knew the patriarch of the family whom I’ll call T.H. He was involved in a variety of ministerial pursuits, which to the best of my knowledge was the way he earned his daily bread. A lawyer by education, he held a loose partnership with other Christian lawyers that devoted time and talents to assisting churches and ministries with legal problems. I don't know how the group was actually remunerated for their services, but since the group was always promoting their agency as a ministry, I had the understanding that “love offerings” kept the organization afloat. Beyond the legal-beagling, T.H. had big plans for doing something important for his God. He'd been writing hymns and church music, self-publishing children’s' stories, producing Evangelical tapes aimed at kids, and I don't know what else. His "god-...

Ultra-Orthodox man charged with three counts of attempted murder over Jerusalem gay parade stabbing By Tal Rosner JERUSALEM – An ultra-Orthodox man suspected of stabbing three people during Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade last week says he acted in God’s name. “I came to murder on behalf of God. We can’t have such abomination in the country,” Yishai Shlisel said during his interrogation. On Tuesday, Shlisel was indicted on three counts of attempted murder at the Jerusalem District Court. According to the indictment, Shlisel purchased an 18-centimeter (approximately 7 inches) knife in preparation for the attack. During the parade, he stabbed three people, two 18-year-olds and one 50-year-old man. One victim sustained moderate wounds in the attack while the other two suffered light injuries. Prosecutors asked that Shlisel be kept in custody until the end of legal proceedings against him because he constitute a danger to the public. Thousands of participants took part in the parade last Thur...

© 2005 Tim Simmons (10) Irreconcilable Differences The accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection as depicted in the gospels are in serious conflict. Furthermore, Jesus’ resurrection appearances were not originally part of the gospel of Mark (the earliest of the four gospels). Mark originally ended at 15:8 with the women running from the tomb frightened. Verses 9-20 were a later addition. What the Christian scholars often overlook is the interesting phenomenon of later gospel manuscripts knowing more details than the earlier ones! This is a clear indication that those details were never part of the original oral and written accounts but were inserted into the later copies. (9) Been There, Done That The concepts of heaven, hell, eternal life, etc., all predate Christianity as does a savior-god who died and was resurrected. (See Zoroastrianism, Osiris, Dionysus, etc.) (8) The Silence of the Lamb There are no historical writings by any first century historian that mention Jesus by name alt...

FRANKLIN, Ind. -- A couple convicted of reckless homicide for relying on prayer instead of medical care for their seriously ill newborn say they would do so again if a similar situation arose. Dewayne and Maleta Schmidt's daughter, Rhianna, died from an infection typically treated with antibiotics less than two days after she was born at the couple's rural Indiana home. The Schmidts, who were convicted in May, will be sentenced Aug. 12 on reckless homicide charges in Rhianna's August 2003 death. They both face two to eight years in prison. The couple has two other children. "I thought we lived in a country where I had freedom of religion," Maleta Schmidt said. The church to which the Schmidts belong -- the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn in Morgantown, Ind. -- advocates prayer and faith healing over medical intervention but does not require members to shun medical care. local6.com

By ANDREW TILGHMAN Houston Chronicle Some followers collapse and wail after their pastor found guilty in '94 sex abuse of teen Several members of a small Pentecostal church in Aldine collapsed on a Harris County courthouse floor and wailed unintelligible prayers Thursday after their longtime pastor was convicted of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than 10 years ago. The Rev. Curtis Bass of the International Pentecostal Church was sentenced to 10 years in prison on two charges of indecency with a child. A woman, now 26, testified that he touched her breasts and vagina on two occasions when she was 16 years old in 1994. "God is still in control," Bass, 53, said to dozens of church members seated in the courtroom after his sentencing. He took off his silver wristwatch before court bailiffs took him away. Defense witnesses said the former construction worker who went to theology school in Jackson, Miss., was a longtime youth minister known for encouraging teens to partici...

By LORNA THACKERAY Of The Gazette Staff Church group to picket its own summer camp after unwittingly renting it out to coven of witches There's not much Gail Beauchamp can do about a circle of Montana pagans who rented a nearby church camp for a summer festival next month, but the Red Lodge woman says Bible-believing Christians won't let it pass unnoticed. "I believe in the right to freedom of religion,'' she said. "But I also believe in my right to protest.'' Beauchamp, who has Bible verses at her fingertips and considers spreading Christianity a moral responsibility, said she and other like-minded people will try to organize pickets at the entrance to the Westminster Spires Camp during the Mountain Moon Circle festival Aug. 11-14. Nytewind, a retired schoolteacher living in Billings and priestess of the Circle, said she doesn't understand the animosity and fear that people harbor for what she describes as a "very beautiful, very positive re...

By HARVEY RICE Houston Chronicle Edgar Lopez Bertrand, a televangelist regarded as one of the most influential ministers in El Salvador pleaded guilty Thursday to faking a passport for a girl he falsely claimed as his daughter. Bertrand, 65, pleaded guilty in a Houston federal court after reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of time served if a background check finds no criminal convictions, Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Davis said. U.S. District Judge David Hittner scheduled Lopez Bertrand's sentencing for Aug. 11. He will have served about three months in the federal detention center by then. Hittner questioned the leniency of the plea agreement, considering Lopez Bertrand's admission of guilt to a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Assistant Public Defender Peter Bray told the judge that Lopez Bertrand had tried to adopt the girl, and a Salvadoran lawyer ...

Article from " The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents " by Franklin Steiner - [ 1878 - 1968 ] Washington: Born, February 22, 1732. Died, December 14, 1799, President, April 30, 1779 -- March 4, 1797. Forward That much myth and legend is to be found in most of the past biographies of George Washington is admitted by practically all conscientious and discriminating writer's of today. That the "Father of His Country" has been delineated more in the character of a god or a superman than as a real human being is a fact now known to all who think as well as read. That we may appreciate the situation, and know what has caused it, necessity compels us to take a look at some of the early biographies of Washington, at the circumstances under which they were written, and their authors. The,first 'Life of Washington,' and the one that has had the largest circulation, was written by the Rev. Mason L. Weems, and first published in 1800. This book sold well because of...