Last week in an article by Lisa Schencker titled "Summum attorney questions seminary decisions," The Salt Lake Tribune discussed the Salt Lake City-based new religion Summum whose attorney has raised concerns related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This piece revolves around the practice in Utah school districts wherein the LDS Church purchases land from the districts that are adjacent to junior high and high schools where seminaries are built. In the LDS context seminaries are used to teach Mormon students who are given periods of release from class in order to take the religious education.

In this case a religious group called Summum took exception to Canyons School District which made the decision not to sell the land for a seminary, but then would not make the land available for sale to Summum for their religious educational use. The article goes on to state that "Brian Barnard, a civil rights attorney and legal cousnel fo rSumum, said it seems suspicious."

Summum is a minority religious movement that was largely obscure until it made headlines in 2009 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the group in a dispute over a religious display in Utah. Summum's website describes the group:

In the fall of 1975, Claude "Corky" Rex Nowell (Founder) began to have a series of encounters with highly intelligent beings who he now refers to as the Summa Individuals. He describes them as beings who untiringly work the pathways of spiritual evolution, and who were referred to as the "Neters" in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. During his encounters, he received instructions concerning the underlying principles (Laws of Nature) which establish and maintain the universe. During these same encounters, the Summa Individuals would change his name to:

(Aman)
(Amen)
(Amin)
Summum Bonum (Amon) Ra
(Amun)

Soon after his initial experience, Corky founded a non-profit organization, giving it the name "Summum," a Latin term meaning "the sum total of all creation." The principles introduced to him were described as a "neverending story" and form the foundation for the philosophy of Summum. They are nothing new and have always existed. As an eternal work, these principles were presented to Corky who in 1980, would legally change his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra for governmental purposes and to reflect his spiritual path. He generally goes by Corky Ra."

Hinduism Growing Quietly, Almost Invisbly in America

The Association of Religion Data Archive (ARDA) reports that while various forms of Hinduism were small and exotic in America's past with Transcendental Meditation and the International Associatin of Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna), it has changed and grown over more recent decades:

"What is propelling Hinduism in the United States into a role as one of the nation's largest minority religions is a steady stream of Indian immigrants who have built hundreds of temples across the nation, according to a new study.

"In what it calls the first effort to conduct a Hindu census in the United States, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Institute of American Religion discovered some 1,600 temples and centers with an estimated 600,000 practicing Hindus.

"That number could easily rise up to the estimated 1.2 million who self-identify as Hindus in national studies by adding in the mostly Indian Americans who limit their involvement to private spiritual practices or celebrations of semi-secularized holy days such as Diwali, said J. Gordon Melton, the Institute executive director, Melton announced the results of the census at the recent annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Cultural in Washington."

Read the whole ARDA report here.

Harold Camping of Family Radio Predicts World's End May 21

From a report at SFGate, Christian fundamentalist radio and television preacher Harold Camping is predicting the end of the world later this month:

"Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.

"'That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,' Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. 'It's like a fairy tale.'

"The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.

"The Mayans and the recent Hollywood movie "2012" have put the apocalypse in the popular mind this year, but Camping has been at this business for a long time. And while Armageddon is pop science or big-screen entertainment to many, Camping has followers from the Bay Area to China."

This article can be read here, and you can view CNN's report on a group of traveler's connected with Camping spreading this warning here.