NEW YORK (Reuters) - One Saturday morning in August, Pastor Farris Wilks, a brawny man with a close-cut beard, walked up to the altar of the church he leads, the Assembly of Yahweh, 7th Day.
The church, which sits off a two-lane, 75-mph highway, draws most of its members from nearby Cisco, Texas, a town of 3,800 filled with empty storefronts, idled derricks and beat-up houses. Church doctrine considers being gay a serious crime, the Bible to be historically and scientifically accurate in every detail and abortion to be murder, including in cases of rape or incest.
