A judge has ordered Thomas Kinkade to pay more than two-million dollars to two gallery owners. They claim he left them financially ruined by using religion to get them to make large investments in a project that had no chance of success. Other investors sued Kinkade but were not successful in court. Kinkade is considering an appeal of this latest ruling.
SunTrust Banks has filed a lawsuit against Pat Robertson for $3.6 million. Robertson tried to get a Los Angeles oil refinery going in the 1990s but the project failed because of environmental roadblocks. SunTrust claims Robertson should reimburse it for costs related to the deal. The Regent University president says the property was sold several years ago and he owes the bank nothing.
Robert Schuller is turning the Crystal Cathedral over to his eldest daughter. Sheila Schuller Coleman has a doctorate in administration and leadership. She’ll take the place of interim senior pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz. Her brother, Robert Anthony Schuller, resigned and is now part of the leadership of AmericanLife TV. Sheila Coleman’s husband, Jim Coleman, is president of Crystal Cathedral Ministries. She wrote the book Mommy Grace: Erasing Your Mommy Guilt. She was the principal of a private Christian school on the Crystal Cathedral campus.
Mel Gibson reportedly told parishioners at his Holy Family Chapel in Agoura Hills, California he would not stand by and be judged and scrutinised. Gibson ordered those in attendance to stop gossiping about him. There have been reports about the end of his marriage to the mother of his seven children, and Gibson's relationship with a Russian musician who is said to be pregnant with his child.
A naked man broke through a church window this weekend in Seattle, spattering HIV-positive blood inside the sanctuary. He left a trail of the tainted blood and destruction throughout the church. The Unity Church of God in Christ moved its services outside because health officials declared the church interior a bio-hazard. It turns out his brother killed himself on the church’s property on the same Sunday 29 years ago. KOMO-TV has this video report.
Alyssa Stanton became the African-American woman to be ordained as a rabbi by a mainstream Jewish seminary yesterday. The ceremony took place at the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College. She will take leadership of an mostly synagogue in Greenville, North Carolina later this summer. Here's more on her background from a New York Times article.
Michelle Pfeiffer admits she joined a cult in her early acting days. The actress tells the London Daily Telegraph that after she arrived in Hollywood she would up with a group dedicated to “vegetarianism and metaphysics.” For a while, the unnamed group controlled her life, taking most of her money.
Here are some exerpts from President Obama's speech today at Cairo University in Egypt:
The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.
I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.
As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment.
I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.
So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. In Ankara, I made clear that America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam.
The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as -- it is as if he has killed all mankind. And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace.
Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it's being challenged in many different ways.
The full transcript can be read here.
KWCH-TV interviews witnesses who saw the killing of a Kansas abortion doctor this past weekend.
A one-time Southern Baptist leader says, "I am glad George Tiller is dead.” Wiley Drake made the remark during his Crusade Radio program yesterday. Drake once served as the Southern Baptist Convention’s second vice president in 2006-2007,. He described Tiller as a “brutal, murdering monster". Drake went on to say the killing is an “answer to prayer”. He serves as pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California. The current head of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Richard Land, condemned the shooting
The man suspected of gunning down a Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller is expected to make his first court appearance this afternoon. Tiller was shot to death in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church while serving an a usher shortly after the morning service began. He was one of a handful of doctors in the country performing late term abortions. He
The accused, Scott Roeder, describes himself a citizen of the Republic of Kansas who refused to recognized the US Government, failing to pay income or Social Security taxes. Roeder also belonged to a group called One Supreme Court that declared federal and state laws did not apply to him. Police found bomb-making materials during a search of his car in 1996. An appeals court overturned his conviction. The search was declared illegal. Roeder's brother has a history of mental illness.
This year's American Idol winner has been on the worship team at New Life Church in Greater Little Rock, Arkansas for several years - though Kris Allen downplayed his church connection during the competition. His pastor, Rick Bezet, flew to Los Angeles to attend the finale. The Christian fan-based is believed to have focused on Allen after Danny Gokey, who was open about his faith, was voted off the show. Although runner-up Adam Lambert has not publically announced he is gay, there is speculation that his perceived sexual orientation cost his the crown.
One of the the daughters of Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman was killed near Nashville on this day one year ago. Five-year-old Maria was run over by an SUV driven by her teenage brother in the family driveway. She had been adopted from China along with two other girls. The award-winning singer founded Shaohannah's Hope, a foundation that helps financially assist couples in the adoption process. The 45-year-old singer wrote a book about being a father called Cinderella: The Love of Daddy and his Princess.
Simpsons creator Matt Groening has written a little book called Flanders' Book of Faith. Flanders is the conservative Christian who lives next to Homer Simpson, the star of the popular cartoon series. As Homer once said, "If everyone here were like Ned Flanders, there'd be no need for heaven. We'd already be there." The book offers these details of Flander’s personal life:
Barack Obama addressed some 12,000 people attending graduation exercises at Notre Dame while hundreds of antiabortion protesters gathered outside the front gate of the university. The president got several loud, sustained ovations during his speech. When people attempted to interrupt him at the start the crowd came to his defense with boos and then chants. One protester yelled "Stop killing our children” and another "Abortion is murder!" and "You have blood on your hands." Some graduates taped a yellow cross and yellow images of baby feet to the top of their mortarboards. Obama called for "open hearts, open minds" in the pursuit of "common ground" and referred to "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose” and asked the audience:
"Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?Obama's upcoming nomination of a new Supreme Court justice is likely to cause the issue to heat up.
Remember, too, that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions and cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness."
A Phoenix pastor was tasered by police during a traffic stop - and now the video is on Youtube. The confrontation took place in April during a routine Border Patrol traffic stop at a checkpoint near Yuma about 50 miles north of the Mexican border. Steve Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church had his camera going when officers ordered him out of his vehicle. A canine signaled there was cause for a search but Anderson refused to get out. After busting his window, officers tasered him. Here's his video explaining what happened from his persepctive.
Here's a report from KPHO-TV on the incident.
Lynita Regis returned more than a quarter of a million dollars that wound up in her bank account by mistake. The single mom in Washington is behind in her rent and says she was tempted but told reporters she's a "child of God and gotta do the right thing." The money belongs to King County where she once worked at the jail. Regis had been given access to the adult detention center account.
A sculpture called 'Jesus in jeans' has been unveiled at a UK church. At a cost of more than $50,000, the bronze artwork is on display at Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri Catholic church in Uckfield near the Strait of Dover (located between England and France).Funding for the Marcus Cornish piece came from a member of the congregation who passed away last year. In a few days, the statue will be placed on top of the church’s bell tower, some 100-feet in the air.
