Re: Update on Maranatha, Morning Star, Every Nation, Champions for Christ
Date: September 02, 2012 05:20PM
CONSPICUOUS SILENCE:
Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell has an awful lot of explaining to do. Never mind Skin Patrol's "Investigating the Mark Brunell Inigma." Brunell has something a lot more serious to explain.
Brunell introduced other athletes - and only he knows how many - to the notorious agent Greg Feste, who burned those athletes big. Brunell also was willingly the most prominent and outspoken member of the high profile, aggressive, and controversial Champions for Christ sports ministry. He defended Feste and Champions for Christ many times to the press.
He did the same for Greg Ball, cofounder of Champions for Christ and once America's #1 locker room evangelist. Ball has gone from a legend among the athletes he converted and discipled to a hasbeen and an outcast, completely off the radar. Since Ball and Feste's departure, which coincided with and had everything to do with the Wranglers investment scandal, DEAFENING SILENCE from Brunell.
Same with Darrell Green, former Redskins cornerback superstar and terse talking board member of Champions for Christ. Ball was his hero forever, since all the way back when Ball and Green were in Maranatha Campus Ministries. No word from Green on the guy he was so tight with for so long and defended so fiercely.
Brunell and two of his Jacksonville Jaguars buddies were deep in bed with Feste financially. After they helped him start a church in Jacksonville, Ball put Tony Boselli and Bryan Schwartz into full time ministry with Brunell's denomination and moved both of them to Austin. This means they both have the inside story on Ball and Feste's departure and the disappearance of $17,000,000(?) during the Wranglers venture. The cat has their tongue too. Hmm.
Oh and Brett Fuller, chaplain of the Washington Redskins (wonder how he got that position) and chairman of Green's foundation, he's a major board member of the parent denomination, Every Nation, and the current president of Champions for Christ. He was also a major board member of Maranatha, which reinvented itself as Morning Star and then changed its name to Every Nation when former members outed it on the FactNet.org and RickRoss.com message boards. Fuller's resume includes major leadership positions in 3 cults. This didn't stop someone from recommending him for a seat on Bush's advisory committee on historically black colleges. Doesn't anybody in the White House know how to use Google?
Brunell and Green have lent their names to Fuller's call for a slave memorial on the capital mall. Fuller got considerable support on Capital Hill, including Trent Lott. Fuller is privy to everything that happened to Feste and Ball, so he's got a lot of explaining to do too.
Rice Broocks is cofounder of Champions for Christ and cofounder of Every Nation, and was a major Maranatha board member. Broocks has a lot of explaining to do too: embezzlement, money laundering, and coverup in the Champions-Wranglers scandal have reached Jim Bakker proportions. (You have a hard time with the words embezzlement, money laundering, and coverup? I don't have a degree in accounting and I don't have a degree in law, but that's what it looks like to me.) Deprogammings, shocking testimony from ex members, bad press, attention from cult watchers, resignations, firings, churches pulling out of the denomination. Does any of this remind Broocks of Maranatha? At least Maranatha didn't have lawsuits and sex scandals.
Broocks is also a board member and major stockholder of InPop, the record label launched by popular Christian rock band Newsboys. Brunell and Boselli are also board members of IPop and Brunell infused the label from his extremely high salary. Newsboys promotes the Purple Book, a Bible study written by Broocks. The label's president and the band's lead singer are members of Bethel, the denomination's flagship church in Nashville. The Newsboys website has been purged of ties to Broocks. They are like so many other famous people Broocks, Ball, and Feste have wooed: they don't realize they are in bed with the devil until the negative publicity starts.
Brunell and Green have yet to learn their lesson. Hard to imagine no one has told Brunell about the Maranatha roots of his denomination and sports ministry. Green was in Maranatha was it was investigated by Christianity Today, when it made the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education, when a committee of cult watchers issued a report about it. While Green was in Maranatha, it was accused left and right in the national and local media of being a cult. Like Broocks, Ball, and Fuller, he's been through all this before. He's a hard core old timer, so he might not learn his lesson any time soon.
HOBNOBBING WITH THE PRESIDENT:
Green is not only an old timer, he's an insider. A lot of people in Washington wish they could hobnob with President Bush the way he has. Green was the first topic in one of Bush's speeches, presumably with Green in the audience. "The most compassionate thing Darrell Green has done is to retire. Particularly if you're a Dallas Cowboys fan." Green was pictured sitting in front of the First Couple on the White House lawn. Green is Chairman of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. Green's White House connection got him a speaking engagement at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington DC. At his retirement, Green was given a football signed by Bush. Green and Bush were pictured together when the President presented Challenger Little League players with a baseball autographed by Green. Green was one of only 137 people invited to Bush's first White House dinner.
Green's youth center has received visits from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Education Secretary Rod Paige. Thompson used his visit to announce the Compassion Capital Fund. Green is pictured on the White House website sitting next to Secretary Paige. Secretary Paige also attended a luncheon honoring Green. The Education Department's website says, "Darrell Green and Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women to rally the Education team at the Department of Education's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Green attended a State of the Union Address as a guest of Senator Frist. Green was invited to a congressional Republican retreat. Green was one of the speakers at a Republican Party planning committee meeting. When Senator Rick Santorum held a press conference to oppose a gay marriage bill, he enlisted Green. Green was the lead witness when Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton held hearings on young black men. Virginia Governor Gilmore donated 20 computers and called on Green to expand his youth centers into Virginia. Meanwhile Green's name has been thrown around by Republicans for the Virginia state senate race.
According to Broocks, in his book, "Every Nation in Our Generation," even Nelson Mandela asked Green to start youth centers in South Africa. Presidents, senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, governors. Is this guy popular or what?
Well, he's not popular with everybody. Youth Today did a lengthy investigation into Green's center and the Washington Post printed an editorial by the author of the report. They discovered that Green's center received $3,000,000 of Bush's faith based initiatives money, although it serves only 38 children. Green's center is in a poor part of Washington, DC; an area where social services have been cut, including an after school program that served 3000 children. In 2007, Green received a $50,000 Freddie Mac grant. Wonder how many youth centers there are in Washington, DC?
HEROES AND HYPOCRITES:
www.ProLife.com and www.SexLoveAndChoices.com quote Green's views on sex. AC Green is basketball's Iron Man. He's also the vice president of Champions and a long time disciple of Ball. When AC Green launched Athletes for Abstinence, he recruited Darrell Green for a video entitled, "It's Not Worth It." When Joycelyn Elders, Clinton's Surgeon General, testified before a congressional committee about teenage pregnancy, guess who else testified? That's right, Darrell Green representing Athletes for Abstinence. When 10,000 teenagers turned out for a Project Reality rally in Chicago, guess what Green considered. That's right, hosting a Project Reality rally in Washington, DC.
A California pro life organization posted Tony Fetchel's testimony on their website. Who is Tony Fetchel? Well, he was an assistant pastor with Green's denomination - until he was caught in bed with the pastor's daughter. An assistant pastor preaching abstinence at a pro life conference while having a longstanding affair with the pastor's daughter!
The pastor was Phil Bonasso, cofounder of Green's denomination. Bonasso was also the denomination's financial officer. Bonasso has a lot of explaining to do, too. Namely what he did with so much money before he was run out of Los Angeles. Guess who AC Green's pastor was while AC Green played for the Lakers. That's right, Bonasso.
Another leader of Green's denomination, Paul Daniel, had two affairs, one before he merged his denomination with Green's and one after. Did Broocks cover up the first affair to ensure a successful merger? Former members who have been investigating and monitoring the denomination think so.
There are probably more Ted Haggard types in Green's denomination. Darrell Green and AC Green probably practice what they preach. But they need to preach it to the religious hypocrites they're associated with, not to horny teenagers they've never met.
Sure, Darrell Green, AC Green, and Mark Brunell are role models. The type of role models conservative politicians and high school principles want to be on stage with and be pictured with. But what type of role models are Greg Ball, Greg Feste, Rice Broocks, Phil Bonasso, Brett Fuller, Tony Fetchel, and Paul Daniel? And how much damage do these athletes do when they hail corrupt ministers as role models?
Most wealthy people hire cooks, maids, nannies, tailors, chauffers, gardeners, repairmen, movers. People like Rice Broocks, Greg Ball, and Phil Bonasso have an army of laymen who consider service to a them as proxy service to God. Ministers using church members as defacto servants. Sound like a cult?
They pay themselves huge salaries and live in mansions while low level staffers volunteer or raise their own support, receive salaries of less than $30,000, and live together dorm style. They draw multiple salaries as board members of several organizations. They take up offerings in the name of building projects and missions, but the buildings never get built and the financial support never reaches the mission field. They take over churches, fire the pastor and his staff, and raid the treasury. These guys belong in a prison, not in a mansion.
"God told me to take up an offering to buy my wife a Mercedes." Seriously Phil Bonasso, did you really say this.
CONCLUSION:
During the first Champions for Christ scandal, a lot of people said, "There are major problems with these guys Feste and Ball, as well as this whole sports-religion-money thing." Ball and Feste dismissed all this with, "It's not about money. It's about saving souls. It's about mentoring athletes into real men."
Don Beck, a sports psychology columnist for the Dallas Morning News, was among the critics. Several other columnists chimed in. So did countless fans at countless coffeshops.
Well, the critics have been overwhelmingly vindicated. But the famous athletes, we're still waiting to hear from them.