Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 79
International Communion of Charismatic Churches
Earl Paulk, archbishop of the International Association of Charismatic Churches
(ICCC) has been forced to resign after a member of his local church — the 6,000-member
Cathedral at Chapel Hill, in Decatur, GA — charged him in a lawsuit with using his position
for many years to manipulate women to have sex with him as well as with members of his
family, and others, including visiting pastors. One of the litigants says Paulk persuaded her
that sex with him was her only route to salvation. The new ICCC presiding bishop said, ―It
appears Earl Paulk had become an entity unto himself. He answered to no one, and there
was no accountability for him, for other members of his family, or for his church staff.‖
Pastors of 13 independent charismatic churches in the Atlanta area stated, ―We offer a
deep-felt apology for tolerating this type of behavior and heretical teaching among those
who say they represent God.‖
Independence Party
New York‘s Independence Party has declared a ―zero tolerance‖ policy aimed at members
who make racist and anti-Semitic statements. The move comes after major candidates
seeking high office — U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and State Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer — said they would distance themselves from the Independence Party and reject its
support if it did not adopt such a policy. They were reacting to allegedly anti-Semitic
statements made in 2000 by Lenora Fulani, an Independence Party leader who was
removed from its executive committee last September.
Jehovah‟s Witnesses
A New York judge has ruled that the Jehovah‟s Witnesses must pay a former member
$400 per week in workman‘s compensation dating from an injury incurred in 1998 as she
was running to catch a bus at a church compound. The judge found that the woman, who
worked as a chiropractor for the group, was not a ―religious volunteer,‖ but ―engaged in a
number of work-like activities.‖ If the decision stands, religious organizations potentially
face millions of dollars in workers‘ compensation claims.
In her new book on her experience growing up among the Jehovah‟s Witnesses, ―Out of
the Cocoon: A Young Woman‘s Courageous Flight from the Grip of a Religious Cult,‖ Golden,
CO, resident Brenda Lee says writing it was a harrowing but therapeutic process. ―It really is
a destructive organization ...You‘re taught to hate the world, to see everybody else as
being led by Satan, that we are the only right religion, and to question or defy that is
turning your back on God,‖ she said.
A judge in Calgary has ruled that Lawrence Hughes can proceed with part of his wrongful
death suit against the Jehovah‟s Witnesses. His daughter Bethany died at 17 after
refusing on religious grounds to accept conventional treatment involving blood transfusions,
which the Witnesses oppose. The suit will be allowed to go forward not against the religious
group but against two lawyers who represented Bethany and her mother. The judge
dismissed a claim against the Watchtower Society (the corporate parent of the Jehovah‘s
Witnesses) because the suit did not question the sincerity of Bethany‘s belief, but rather
attacked the religious doctrine of the faith and the court, she said, could not be the arbiters
of religious dogma. ..The Witnesses are involved in an internal debate over apparent
contradictions in the organization‘s blood policy and over the issue of whether certain blood
‗fractions‘ — rather than blood‘s major components — are permitted in medical therapies.
Moscow police in April broke up a Jehovah‟s Witnesses prayer meeting at a rented hall. A
Witnesses spokesman said the police told him the worshippers were violating a 2004
Moscow ban on the group, deemed by authorities at that time to incite hatred or
intolerance.
International Communion of Charismatic Churches
Earl Paulk, archbishop of the International Association of Charismatic Churches
(ICCC) has been forced to resign after a member of his local church — the 6,000-member
Cathedral at Chapel Hill, in Decatur, GA — charged him in a lawsuit with using his position
for many years to manipulate women to have sex with him as well as with members of his
family, and others, including visiting pastors. One of the litigants says Paulk persuaded her
that sex with him was her only route to salvation. The new ICCC presiding bishop said, ―It
appears Earl Paulk had become an entity unto himself. He answered to no one, and there
was no accountability for him, for other members of his family, or for his church staff.‖
Pastors of 13 independent charismatic churches in the Atlanta area stated, ―We offer a
deep-felt apology for tolerating this type of behavior and heretical teaching among those
who say they represent God.‖
Independence Party
New York‘s Independence Party has declared a ―zero tolerance‖ policy aimed at members
who make racist and anti-Semitic statements. The move comes after major candidates
seeking high office — U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and State Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer — said they would distance themselves from the Independence Party and reject its
support if it did not adopt such a policy. They were reacting to allegedly anti-Semitic
statements made in 2000 by Lenora Fulani, an Independence Party leader who was
removed from its executive committee last September.
Jehovah‟s Witnesses
A New York judge has ruled that the Jehovah‟s Witnesses must pay a former member
$400 per week in workman‘s compensation dating from an injury incurred in 1998 as she
was running to catch a bus at a church compound. The judge found that the woman, who
worked as a chiropractor for the group, was not a ―religious volunteer,‖ but ―engaged in a
number of work-like activities.‖ If the decision stands, religious organizations potentially
face millions of dollars in workers‘ compensation claims.
In her new book on her experience growing up among the Jehovah‟s Witnesses, ―Out of
the Cocoon: A Young Woman‘s Courageous Flight from the Grip of a Religious Cult,‖ Golden,
CO, resident Brenda Lee says writing it was a harrowing but therapeutic process. ―It really is
a destructive organization ...You‘re taught to hate the world, to see everybody else as
being led by Satan, that we are the only right religion, and to question or defy that is
turning your back on God,‖ she said.
A judge in Calgary has ruled that Lawrence Hughes can proceed with part of his wrongful
death suit against the Jehovah‟s Witnesses. His daughter Bethany died at 17 after
refusing on religious grounds to accept conventional treatment involving blood transfusions,
which the Witnesses oppose. The suit will be allowed to go forward not against the religious
group but against two lawyers who represented Bethany and her mother. The judge
dismissed a claim against the Watchtower Society (the corporate parent of the Jehovah‘s
Witnesses) because the suit did not question the sincerity of Bethany‘s belief, but rather
attacked the religious doctrine of the faith and the court, she said, could not be the arbiters
of religious dogma. ..The Witnesses are involved in an internal debate over apparent
contradictions in the organization‘s blood policy and over the issue of whether certain blood
‗fractions‘ — rather than blood‘s major components — are permitted in medical therapies.
Moscow police in April broke up a Jehovah‟s Witnesses prayer meeting at a rented hall. A
Witnesses spokesman said the police told him the worshippers were violating a 2004
Moscow ban on the group, deemed by authorities at that time to incite hatred or
intolerance.
