PASTOR CHARGED IN PARISH THEFT : ACCUSED OF TAKING $291,000 FROM THE CHURCH AND THE TRUST

The conservative Colorado Springs pastor who broke away from the Episcopal Church to form a new Anglican congregation in May 2007 now is accused of stealing $291,000 from Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish.
The Rev. Don Armstrong was indicted on 20 counts of felony theft by an El Paso County grand jury Wednesday. He surrendered to authorities Thursday but was soon free on bond, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Armstrong's spokesman did not return calls Friday.
Police and a special prosecutor conducted a two-year investigation into allegations of Armstrong's financial wrongdoings at the church.
In the indictment, Armstrong, 60, is accused of using the Clarice Bowton Trust, a scholarship fund for new ministers, to pay his own children's college expenses, including rent and tuition bills.
The trust was activated after Bowton's death in the late 1970s, and its terms were never amended.
The indictment further states that Armstrong's use of the trust was eventually questioned by a trust officer, who terminated its distribution to the church as of December 2001.
Once Armstrong's access to the trust was cut off, the indictment said, the pastor began using the general funds of the church to pay for his son's and daughter's educations. Court records say Armstrong siphoned $291,000 from the church and the trust over a 7 1/2-year period.
When Armstrong left the Episcopal Church, he said the split was over theological differences, such as his opposition to gay marriage and the church's ordination of openly gay clergy.
But Colorado Episcopal Diocese officials countered that they believed Armstrong, who had been Grace's pastor for 20 years, had left to escape reckoning for embezzlement uncovered by diocesan officials. The diocese notified police of its suspicions in May 2007.
In fall 2007, an Ecclesiastical Court in Denver found Armstrong guilty of financial and pastoral misconduct that included theft of almost $400,000.
Armstrong also was removed from active ministry in the Episcopal Church. The diocese would not comment further Friday.
In 2007, Armstrong affiliated his parish with the theologically conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
Armstrong and his group kept possession of Grace Church and St. Stephen buildings on Tejon Street until an El Paso County judge ruled March 24 that the pastor must surrender the $17 million property to the diocese around April 1.
Armstrong and followers then moved to a new house of worship, St. George's Anglican Church on Fieldstone Road. Officials there issued a statement Friday expressing full support for Armstrong and belief in his innocence, according to The Gazette of Colorado Springs.
Convocation of Anglicans in North America Bishop Martyn Minns said Friday that the indictment was a painful but necessary step in Armstrong's journey of publicly proving his innocence.
The case will be prosecuted by Pueblo County District Attorney Bill Thiebaut because the El Paso County DA at the time the case was opened had been a parishioner of Armstrong's and recused himself.

TWO PEOPLE KILLED & 14 INJURED IN NEPAL CHURCH ATTACK

TWO people were killed, including a teenage girl, and 14 wounded when a bomb exploded today in a Roman Catholic church packed with worshippers on the outskirts of the Nepalese capital, police said.
A Christian leader said the attack, the first on a Christian church, marked the "saddest day'' in the history of the religion in the impoverished mountain nation.
The church - Kathmandu's only Roman Catholic place of worship - was jammed with 500 people when the device went off at the start of morning Mass, creating panic as people rushed for the exits, police said.
A pamphlet of an obscure Hindu extremist group called the National Defence Army was found at the blast site in Lalitpur, a district adjoining Kathmandu, police said.
But police said it was too soon to assign blame for the attack on the Church of Assumption which came hours before lawmakers were due to vote in a new premier after weeks of political instability in the world's newest republic.
"A 15-year old student, Celestina Joseph, and 30-year-old Pabitra Paitri died in the bomb blast.
Five of the injured are in serious condition,'' police officer Ram Brish Chaudhary said.
It was the first attack on a Christian church in the Hindu-dominated Nepal.
The bombing came as lawmakers were due to choose a new premier, three weeks after Maoist prime minister Prachanda quit, plunging the nation into a crisis triggered by a stand-off between his ex-rebels and the army.

PENTAGON REPORTS NO LONGER BIBLE QUOTE ON THE COVER PAGE OF DAILY INTELLIGENCE

The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.
For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter. At the time, the reports focused largely on the war in Iraq.
The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise, according to the June issue of GQ magazine. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.
On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms — "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. ... To deliver their soul from death." — and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad.

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand," read the cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a U.S. tank driving through the desert, according to the magazine, which obtained copies of the documents.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on Monday said U.S. soldiers "are not Christian crusaders, and they ought not be depicted as such."
"Depicting the Iraq conflict as some sort of holy war is completely outrageous," Lynn said in a statement. "It's contrary to the constitutional separation of religion and government, and it's tremendously damaging to America's reputation in the world."

KRIS ALLEN'S " AMERICAN IDOL " VICTORY MARKS THE RETURN OF PEOPLE OF FAITH TO AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC

Apparently it took the Allen-Lambert showdown for Newsweek to figure out what has been happening all along with “American Idol” — the return of people of faith into the mainstream of American popular music, both as voters and performers. I’ve written about the trend in two books, The Rock & Roll Rebellion and Faith, God & Rock ‘n’ Roll, and I look closely at how religion has affected “American Idol” in my next one, “Rock Gets Religion.”
“…Most of his groupies have overlooked a possible roadblock to the title,” Newsweek observed about Lambert’s chances of winning. “Idol is the No. 1 show on TV at least in part because it’s so family-friendly, and it also appeals to a large demographic of Christian viewers….Many of Idol’s previous winners–Jordin Sparks, Carrie Underwood, Ruben Studdard–are devout Christians. Coincidence? Perhaps. But we don’t know much about Lambert’s faith, and that might hurt him with Christian voters. He could be extremely religious, but he’s kept his religious beliefs quiet.”
If my Facebook wall is any indication, Christians did indeed vote in large numbers for the “Christian” AI contestant for yesterday alone I saw several Facebookers urging fellow Christians to vote for the “worship leader” Allen.

Not that there’s anything wrong with affinity voting — after all 96% of African-Americans voted for Obama. Still, the voting patterns of “Idol” viewers and the large presence of Christian performers heralds a new era of integration into mainstream culture by people of faith which, I think, is a welcome one, but which is already producing radically different pop icons from those of a generation ago.
Beginning in the late 1960’s as many devout artists left mainstream music to join the “Christian music” sub-culture — often never to be heard from again — their influence on pop culture waned. But for the last decade the trend of Christian artists leaving the subculture behind and singing for mainstream record labels — and talent contests has been unmistakable. To be sure there have been attempts to create faux “Christianized” versions of ” American Idol” like this one, called Gifted, but they flopped and the net result means that, a strong presence by the most devout segments of our culture, both as performers and voters, will result in “American Idol” winners who go on to become pop icons of a radically kind different kind compared to those who were created in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s when the music business was run by highly secularized record executives who picked future stars instead of fans from the heartland as with “American Idol.”
For those who like their rock and religion served separately, the future of rock music may be bleak as more and more people of faith step up to the microphone and the “Idol” voting booth. But they can also take heart from at least one outcome of the Allen-Lambert showdown, the fact that the allegedly-gay guy and the Christian guy have been the best of friends throughout the competition, even rooming together at one point. If more Americans can hold to their strongly held beliefs and still build bridges of friendship as Allen and Lambert apparently have, it may portend well for the country and the red-blue divide.

SIX CABINET MINISTERS OF INDIA ARE ' NON-BELIEVERS' ; THEY DOESN'T BELIEVE IN GOD

NEW DELHI: Six cabinet ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's new team are 'non-believers'. These ministers "solemnly affirmed" that they would bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution while taking oath today.

The Prime Minister and 13 of his ministers took the oath in the name of God.

This who didn’t, are A K Antony, P Chidambaram, Sushilkumar Shinde, M Veerappa Moily, S Jaipal Reddy and C P Joshi, a first-timer in the cabinet. The other ministers who took oath in the name of God include Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Vayalar Ravi, S M Krishna, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kamal Nath, Meira Kumar, Murli Deora, Kapil Sibal, Ambika Soni, B K Handique and Anand Sharma.