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New Birth Missionary Baptist Church is a megachurch run by senior pastor Bishop Eddie Long in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, near Lithonia.〔"(Home )." New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Retrieved on October 7, 2010. "New Birth Missionary Baptist Church – 6400 Woodrow Road – Lithonia, GA 30038"〕 It has embraced a Pentecostal theology not typically found in African-American Baptist churches. The church was founded in 1939 in Scottdale as Travelers Rest Baptist Church. In 1983, it moved to Decatur and adopted its current name.〔(Archive of New Birth history page )〕 Long took over as pastor in 1987. At the time, the church had only 300 members. Since his installation, membership has grown to 25,000.〔(''New York Times'' article by James C. McKinley and Robbie Brown: Sex scandal threatens a Georgia pastor’s empire )〕 In 2002, New Birth was chosen to hold the live recording of Dorinda Clark-Cole, and was chosen by the family of rapper and R&B superstar Lisa Left Eye Lopes to host the funeral for the rapper, who was killed in a car accident in La Ceiba, Honduras. In 2003, New Birth planted a branch called "New Birth Charlotte" in Charlotte, North Carolina. That church has since grown to a megachurch in its own right, with 9,000 members. On August 15, 2004 the church opened a branch called "New Birth Memphis" in Memphis, Tennessee. The church has since closed and New Birth Memphis no longer exists. Then in the future years, there were more churches such as New Birth Metro, New Birth Knoxville, New Birth Oakland, and New Birth California. In 2006, the church was chosen by the family of Martin Luther King, Jr. to host and officiate the funeral for Mrs. Coretta Scott King, wife of the late civil rights pioneer. The event was attended by four Presidents (George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter). The church has also been marred by controversy, with four individuals filing separate lawsuits in DeKalb County Superior Court, Georgia alleging that Bishop Long used his pastoral influence to coerce them into a sexual relationship with him when they were teenagers.〔(''CNN'': Men allege sexual coercion by prominent Atlanta pastor )〕 ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Birth Missionary Baptist Church」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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