A Baptist minister, John Henry Walker, just got himself an express ticket to hell.  But first he's got a long layover in prison before he arrives at his final destination.  Before his arrival in hell, he must do more than five years in prison.  This outstanding "Man of God" pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to federal agents - - and was found guilty of tax evasion and stealing from his Charlotte, NC,  congregation.  In addition, U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney also ordered the 48-year-old pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church to pay more than $277,000 in restitution to the government.  His wife, Rosie, an associate minister at the church had not been charged.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Meyers, cast Walker as unrepentant and as a minister who used charisma and bullying to get congregation members to help him steal money from the church for years.  “He is an admitted predator and an admitted liar,” Meyers said. “And he will steal again.”  Prosecutors charged that he stole $160,000 from his congregation through the unauthorized use of the church’s credit card. They say Walker used the church credit card for personal expenses, including hotel rooms with paramours, erectile dysfunction medication, dental work, and airline trips for him and female acquaintances.  He was also accused of taking more than $70,000 in cash advances from the church credit card between 1998 and 2003.  Prosecutors say he provided no receipts or accounting of any kind for the cash advances and refused to do so when asked.  Walker earned almost $600,000 in taxable income from the church and other sources between 1999 and 2003 but reported taxable income of less than $55,000 to the government, the indictment alleges.  Prosecutors accused Walker of failing to pay nearly $400,000 in federal and state income taxes for the years 1998 through 2004.

He requested to remain free long enough to preach a goodbye sermon at his church.  The judge, adding insult to injury, ordered marshals to take him immediately into custody, adding that Walker had defrauded his church and that the evidence of his crimes was overwhelming.

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Visit the Macedonia Baptist Church

This is a "you've gotta be shittin' me" story showcasing our dear, sweet, evangelicals.  Over the course of years, so many evangelical ministers are more involved in money and political power and forget about "being a Christian."  In this classic example, evangelical pastor Thomas W. Weeks III had enough of his wife - - - met up with her at Renaissance Concourse Hotel near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport  - - - and proceeded to beat her up.  A bellman at the hotel had to pull him off his wife.  By that time she was battered and purple bruising around her neck and upper torso.  This is where it gets really interesting.  It was discovered that his wife, Juanita Bynum, is also a very successful Pentecostal evangelical whose fiery and frank sermons about women’s empowerment have won her a national following.  She has parlayed her evangelism into a one-woman industry, writing several best-selling books, recording inspirational CDs and preaching to millions on television. 
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Yes they are!  In fact they are so horny  that nearly 80 people are now eligible to join a class-action sex abuse settlement against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston.  An exact number of victims covered by the settlement won't be known until the deadline for filing claims ends in four months. Potential victims and their relatives could begin making claims August 9.  Abuse victims could get anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000, while spouses and parents would receive $20,000. A judge formally approved the settlement July 30.

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Investigations have revealed that the Pentagon has had a disturbing relationship with private evangelical groups.  It also shows how our current administration ignores the Constitutional requirement of "Separation of Church and State."

In the first incident, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering “freedom packages” to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.  The packages contained Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which “soldiers for Christ” hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.  The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department’s “America Supports You” program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin.

The second incident involved the Christian Embassy, a group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking officers and political appointees. Christian Embassy, which holds prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he’d assumed the organization was a “quasi-federal entity.”  The Pentagon’s inspector general recently released a report recommending unspecified “corrective action” for those officers who appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations.  Appearing in the video are (source) Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, Major General Peter Sutton, Major General John Catton Jr., Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, Brigadier General Robert Caslen, and Pentagon Chaplain Ralph Benson. Also appearing in the video are six congressmen, two ambassadors to the U.S., as well as the Under Secretary of Benefits for Veterans Affairs and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

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A husband and wife who lead one of Brazil’s largest evangelical churches were sentenced to nearly five months in prison Friday after pleading guilty to smuggling more than $56,000 into the United States hidden in luggage, a child’s backpack and a Bible case.  Estevam Hernandes Filho and his wife, Sonia Haddad Moraes Hernandes, must serve an additional five months of house arrest in the U.S. and pay $60,000 in fines under a sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno.   Hernandes, 53, is to surrender Monday to begin serving his prison term. His 48-year-old wife will serve her house arrest term first at their home in Boca Raton and then report to prison Jan. 21. Both must also serve a probation period after their 10-month combined sentences are up.  Both were given credit for 10 days they spent in custody after their initial arrests at Miami International Airport. Their lawyers had asked for probation, and Moreno could have gone as high as 16 months in jail for each of them.  The couple - known as Apostle Estevam and Bishop Sonia to their followers - lead Brazil’s Reborn in Christ Church, which they founded in 1986 and which now claims hundreds of thousands of followers. Brazilian authorities are seeking the couple’s extradition on charges of looting parishioners’ donations for their own use.

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An American evangelical pastor and his wife who have been living in Israel for nearly two decades have been ordered to leave the country within two weeks, after their request for permanent residency was turned down.  Ron Cantrell, 59, and his wife Carol, 54, have run a small Jerusalem-based ministry, Shalom Shalom Jerusalem, for the past four years. Cantrell previously worked for Bridges for Peace, an evangelical organization, for 14 years.  Two of the couple’s children have married Israelis and have Israeli ID cards. Interior Ministry officials said the decision was made following suspicions that Cantrell was involved in missionary work. The pastor categorically denied the allegations as baseless.  Cantrell, who has been active in raising money for Israel as well as working on behalf of Soviet Jews, had resided in Israel on a special clergy visa during his work for Bridges for Peace, but then went back to a regular tourist visa, which needed to be renewed every three or six months.  The highly-coveted but sparsely-distributed clergy visa is primarily given to officials from mainstream Christian organizations.  Cantrell, who travels extensively on lecture tours, could have continued living in Israel if he had left the country at least once every three months, but said that was an “unworkable solution” for his wife.  Cantrell said the Interior Ministry had cited no reason for rejecting the residency request.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said that the couple’s request to receive residency status, after residing in Israel for years on various temporary permits, had been brought before all ministry levels up to the acting head of the population authority, who was also the director-general of the office.  The request was turned down last month, she said. Ministry officials cited suspicions of missionary work.  The Shalom Shalom Jerusalem Web site says that the couple “encourages Christians and Messianic Jewish believers in their understanding of the prophetic Scriptures” and “encourages believers to participate in God’s end-time plans by being involved in positive support for the nation of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide … in the regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland.”  The issue underscored the delicate balancing act evangelical Christian supporters of Israel face, between proselytizing, which is banned in Israel, and their fundamental belief that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land was foretold in the Scriptures and heralds the return of the messiah.

Visit the Shalom Shalom Jerusalem Website

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Now that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has reached a record settlement with the victims of clergy sex abuse, the next legal battle is heating up. Under the settlement, the archdiocese is preparing to release personnel files of the accused priests. Plaintiffs' lawyers say these files could implicate Cardinal Roger Mahony in a widespread cover-up.  Mahony has withstood strong criticism for the way he's handled this scandal. He chose to fight the release of priests' files all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also challenged the California law that gave people a one-year window to file sex abuse claims no matter when they occurred. 
Plaintiffs' attorney John Manly is one of a handful of lawyers who has seen all of these files. He says they show the cardinal routinely covered up sexual abuse in the archdiocese and shuffled abusing priests from parish to parish.  Manly believes the release of these files will force Mahony to resign.  "There will be a volcanic reaction by the public and the media," Manly predicts. "And one of two things will happen: Either he'll be indicted, or he will be effectively promoted to the Vatican, by Rome, because his position here is untenable."  That's precisely what happened to former Boston Archdiocese Cardinal Bernard Law in 2002, when he had to disclose personnel files. Law was forced to resign and now presides over one of the five basilicas in Rome where the pope oftentimes celebrates mass. 

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I don't know if I'm on a religious kick, or if it's because the stars and moon are all lined up correctly that is making so many religious folks in America go bonkers.  What ever the explanation . . .

A dispute between the longtime pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington DC, an institution in the District's Shaw neighborhood, and some of his congregation erupted over the weekend when more than 140 members of the church crowded onto a patch of grass outside and voted that he should leave. But their Saturday vote of 138 to 6, with one abstention, was renounced by the chairmen of the deacon and trustee boards. They declared yesterday that the vote to remove Rev. Wallace Charles Smith (pictured on right) was "not authorized" under the church's constitution. Instead, they scheduled a congregational meeting for mid-September to discuss Smith's tenure.  In an extraordinary display of discontent with Rev. Smith, congregation members announced their intentions weeks ago. But when they arrived Saturday morning, they discovered the sanctuary was locked. So they set up lawn chairs, tables and tents that they brought with them. 
Black-bordered signs posted on a door cited the church constitution and declared: "There will be no official meeting of Shiloh Baptist Church." Church members loyal to Smith came out of the church and tried to photograph the dissenting members, organizers said.  At the end of the two-hour meeting, they placed ballots in a box, checking "Go" or "Stay." Hired auditors announced the vote to remove Smith from the pulpit, prompting the gathered members to applaud and then sing the hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."
The dispute over Rev Smith, who has led the church since 1991, has pitted church leader against church leader. Many of Smith's opponents have been members since before he was hired in 1991 and remember worshiping under his predecessor, the Rev. Henry C. Gregory III. Many of Smith's supporters are relative newcomers.  The church -- which has a membership of about 2,500, according to church officials, or as little as 1,000, according to the dissidents -- has been in turmoil over Smith's pastorship for months. The unhappy church members have said Smith has sold off church property and used the proceeds to pay operating expenses and has not been forthcoming about what has happened to money and property left to the church in the estates of deceased members.

Rev. Smith also angered some members by accepting a full-time job as president of the Palmer Theological Seminary near Philadelphia without telling the church first. The pastor now spends several days a week at the school, Henderson said. 
Pamela Bethel, attorney for the dissident group, said that if the church does not accept the group's vote to remove Smith, the group might go to court to have him removed. "We probably won't wait until September 15th," she said.

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Folks. . . if the congregation goes to war with themselves, then something is seriously wrong with the church and it's leadership.  And if the congregation has to hire a lawyer, then that's disturbing.

In another absurd behavior by our American religious leaders gone punch-drunk with power, a California pastor in Buena Park, Wiley S. Drake, who is also the former national leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, called on his followers to pray for the deaths of two leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The request was in response to the liberal group’s urging the IRS on Tuesday to investigate Drake’s church’s nonprofit status because Drake endorsed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee  for president on church letterhead and during a church-affiliated Internet radio show.  Pastor Drake said Wednesday he was “simply doing what God told me to do” by targeting Americans United officials Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, whom he calls the “enemies of God.” 
Conn said he was “startled” at Drake’s reaction to the complaint against Drake’s First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. “We expected him to try to defend his actions,” Conn said. “Instead he goes on spiritual blitzkrieg against us, praying for our destruction. He completely glossed over the fact that his actions are clearly a violation of federal tax law.”

Ladies and Gentleman . . . another classic example of "religion" gone bad.  Another "religious leader" who disregards one of the core values of America.  "Separation of Church and State" is NOT a conservative or liberal agenda - - it's the Constitution.
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 Rev. Jerry Sutton, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor who lost a bid to become president of the denomination, is now facing an upheaval in the megachurch he leads, including complaints that he spent church money on his daughter's wedding. For nearly 21 years, Sutton has served as leader of Nashville's Two Rivers Baptist Church, which sits just across the highway from the Grand Ole Opry. The church hosted the "Justice Sunday II" rally in 2005, where then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others criticized judicial activism via satellite to a national audience of evangelical Christians. But now, some Two Rivers members are accusing Sutton of failing to abide by church rules and punishing those who question his authority. "We have a fractured fellowship. Somehow, with the Lord's help, we need to put this church back together," Harry Jester, who's been in the congregation for 32 years, said at a church meeting July 28.

One of Sutton's former administrative assistants has also said Sutton looked at pornography on his church computer and had an affair with a church staff member - charges that the church denies. The church's executive pastor, Scott Hutchings, said human resource officials at the church investigated those charges and found no evidence that Sutton had looked at porn or had an affair.

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Learn more about this questionable "Christian" leader at WikiPedia

Visit Two Rivers Baptist Church

A Catholic priest in Frederick, Colo., faces an indecent exposure charge because he went jogging in the nude about an hour before sunrise.  The Rev. Robert Whipkey told officers he had been running naked at a high school track and didn't think anyone would be around at that time of day, a police report said. He told officers he sweats profusely if he wears clothing while jogging. "I know what I did was wrong."  Whipkey, 53, was arrested in this small town about 20 miles north of Denver. An officer said he saw a naked man walking down the street at 4:35 a.m. The officer said when he shined his flashlight at the man, he covered himself with a piece of clothing he was carrying. The Archdiocese of Denver said it takes the incident seriously but is awaiting the outcome of the case. Whipkey, who also officiates at parishes in the nearby towns of Mead and Erie, remains an active priest. If convicted of indecent exposure, a misdemeanor, he would have to register as a sex offender, prosecutors said. 

A San Antonio pastor, Charles E. Flowers, 46, and an employee of his Christian boot camp, Stephanie Bassitt, 20, were arrested Friday on aggravated assault charges, accused of dragging a girl behind a van after she failed to keep up during a running exercise. Both were arrested and are being held on $100,000 bail at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi.  Both Flowers and Bassitt restrained the girl and tied her to the back of a van with a piece of rope before dragging her on her stomach at the Love Demonstrated Ministries’ boot camp in Banquete, about 10 miles west of Corpus Christi. Schertz police assisted Nueces County authorities in the arrests because the camp’s orientation sessions are held in Schertz, and the 15-year-old girl claimed she was assaulted there, too. Bailey said the second assault claim was turned over to the Comal County district attorney’s office, which hasn’t said if any criminal charges will result. Flowers, a retired U.S. Air Force instructor, holds the title of commandant of the boot camp he has operated with his wife, Janice, since the mid-1990s.

Visit the "Christian Boot Camp" here

What does George Bush and the White think of this "Christian" boot camp? On the White House website there is an item stipulating the White House has provided money to them.  You can get that here.  (look for it about one-third of the way down the page.)

This is what is says:

Partnering with Faith-based and Community Organizations

The San Antonio Weed & Seed Coalition consists of 120 community, neighborhood, and law enforcement organizations whose mission is to reduce drug-related crime and victimization. The coalition has helped to reduce crime in San Antonio by 43.5 percent from 1992–2000. One of the coalition partners, Love Demonstrated Ministries (LDMI), is a faith-based organization which focuses on youth offenders, gang members, and high risk youth. Over the past three years, 135 of 165 young offenders entering its Life Skills and Parenting Camp have graduated from LDMI, a success rate of 82 percent.

A megachurch in Arlington, Texas, canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start - because the deceased veteran was gay. Church leaders at the High Point Church had already known before hand that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to his his service.  But, after the obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, church officials called off the memorial service. The Pastor of the cold, un-Christian-like church is Gary Simons, pictured on the right.

The deceased veterans sister, Kathleen Wright, pictured on the right said, “It’s a slap in the face. It’s like, ‘Oh, we’re sorry he died, but he’s gay so we can’t help you.’” 

We have to ask ourselves:  Would Jesus do that?  Would Jesus hate you because you were gay? or disrespect you? And another thing - take a look at Rev. Gary Simons.  Doesn't he look like a gay, goofy guy? Sheesh - he's the last man that needs to be leading a church.  What has gone wrong with all these mean, hateful Evangelicals? I don't understand them.

Get more of the story here

Visit the website of the gay-looking, goofy pastor and his church

A Baptist minister of the Gospel Baptist Church on Reedy Creek Road in Bristol Tennessee and employee of the Christian radio station WZAP-AM was caught showing his "shortcomings."  Literally. The pastor, Tommy Testor, 58, of Bristol, Va., must have had a rough week.  Very rough! Listen to what he did:

- Urinating in front of kids at a car wash
- He was wearing a skirt!
- Pulled up in a Camry and offered to give each Johnson City police officer a blow job when they arrived to investigate the indecent exposure.
-  A search of his car revealed a half-empty pint-sized bottle of vodka and an empty bottle of Oxycodone
- He admitted to police that he had been drinking and then  failed all field sobriety tests and ultimately received a DUI and violation of the open container law

Wow!  I don't know if you should bust-up laughing, or just shake my head.

Get the rest of the story from national news

Get the rest of the story from the local news

Priests are behaving so badly they might as well drop their act and run for political office - become a Senator or something.  The Rev. Mark Sorvillo from St. Margaret Mary parish in Lousianna is the next priest going to hell.  So far, he's accused of stealing $200,000 from his parish, lavishing money and gifts on a male stripper such as cars, plane tickets and thousands of dollars in cash.  He's been caught stealing from the collection bags and skimming more than $40,000 from collections, writing checks from parish accounts to himself and his creditors, and charging more than $62,000 at Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Marshall Field's to the parish.

Get the full story here

One day I'm going to get soooo sick and tired of being broke, I'm gonna become "buddy-buddy" with the local priest.

Remember when the Catholic Church in Boston filed bankruptcy to avoid punishment for child abuse. The poor church - they're so broke. They're busy spending their money on the poor and needy. Now we're learning that Catholic Church has money. Lots of it. The Nebraska Archdiocese is suing one of there nuns to recover $820,000! Wow!  Read the full story here.  I can't believe a nun had that much access to so much money. Then more information reveals the nun's family was also involved.  Read the full story here. Greedy! The Los Angeles Archdiocese is now going to pony-up the dough and pay $660 million to the children they've sexually abused. Read the full story here. At least we have to give the Los Angeles Archdiocese credit for not claiming "bankruptcy."