MARANATHA REVISITED


Maranatha Campus Ministries was a notorious cult, up there with the Moonies, Children of God, The Way, and more recently International Churches of Christ. They went off the radar for a while, but they're back and they're worse than ever.


CULT SCENARIO:
The whole scenario of seduction into the group, alienation from outsiders, lifestyle micromanagement, arranged marriages, abandonment of education and career, excessive donation of time and money, mind control, personality change, psychological damage, long and difficult recovery, attempted suicide, extensive counseling and/or institutionalization, calls from alarmed and desperate parents, attention from cult watchers, disturbing testimony by ex members, is repeating itself.

But this time it's much worse. At least Maranatha Campus Ministries didn't have sex scandals, financial scandals, and lawsuits.

Another factor not found near as bad in Maranatha Campus Ministries is leaders living lavishly while requiring lower level staffers - usually dropouts or recent graduates - to volunteer or draw a minimum salary, and live together dorm style.

Of course, like most cults, there was financial exploitation and double standard in Maranatha Campus Ministries. But when it regrouped as Morning Star and later Every Nation, the leadership salaries when into six digits and the lifestyles became obscene.

Another cult classic is ministers using members as defacto servants: The lowest members of the cult are nannies, cooks, maids, tailors, gardeners, chauffeurs, movers, repairmen, for the leaders.

Both versions of Maranatha, the original one started by Bob Weiner and the later version started by Rice Broocks, embrace Dominion Theology, otherwise known as Reconstructionism, also known as The Cultural Mandate. Maranatha's newspaper, The Forerunner, is a major Dominion Theology organ. According to this theology, Christians should fulfill the Great Commission by taking over every aspect of society, not strictly by the traditional method of evangelism.


FRONT GROUPS:
Rick Ross has an enormous amount of material on Maranatha. Unfortunately, all this material is not on the same page so it's not immediately obvious that these various front groups are different manifestations of the same cult.

Maranatha is the original version, Every Nation is the breakaway version, Champions for Christ is their sports ministry, Victory Clubs is their high school ministry, the Forerunner is their newspaper, Victory Leadership Institute is their ministry training school, etc.

Other front names have included Victory Campus Ministries, Campus Harvest, Campus Missions, etc. Darrell Green's Youth Life centers, AC Green's Athletes for Abstinence, Newsboys' InPop record label, the list grows and changes constantly.

At least two chapters have had a legal battle with campus administrators. A Boston University student was deprogrammed by Rick Ross, America's most prominent cult watcher. A former member of a North Carolina chapter was framed for sexual harassment when he ran for student president.

In New Zealand, after infiltrating the student government, they were thrown off campus for a decade. They tried to make a comeback by flying in 50 American missionaries to help one of their members get elected student president. They failed the second time in New Zealand, but they tried a third time a couple of years ago.

Student government elections are a major part of their strategy to gain influence on campus, as their own newspaper files show. Fraternities and sports teams are also favorite targets.

If a campus chapter gets thrown off campus or denied student organization status, they just relocate their meeting place, chose another name, claim they are affiliated with a different parent church, and return with a different group of students putting their names on the official paperwork.


contact:
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links:
[www.culteducation.com]
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[forum.culteducation.com]
[www.webspawner.com]
[www.webspawner.com]

ORIGINAL EXPOSE ON MARANATHAT CAMPUS MINISTRIES, CHAMPIONS FOR CHRIST, MORNING STAR, AND EVERY NATION

HAS ANYTHING CHANGED?




During the Curtis Enis controversy, Washington Redskins cornerback and Champions board member Darrell Green vehemently condemned the NFL investigation. NBA forward and Champions vice-president A.C. Green, its first pro member, fired off a letter to the editor of Sports Illustrated.

Both Greens are longtime friends of Greg Ball, who co-founded Champions, who converted A.C. Green while Green was in college, and who had recently converted Enis. Ball denied suspicions that Champions is a cult, as did former Bobcat hall-of-famer and traveling spokesman Dave Jamerson. Enis’s new agent, Greg Feste, said that although he was associated with Ball, he was not connected with Champions. Darrell Green finally called the NFL.

No one at Champions let on that they had been through this before. Champions for Christ was started under the auspices of Maranatha Campus Ministries, an organization accused of being a cult almost from its inception.

Ball and Champions co-founder Rice Broocks were board members and executive officers of Maranatha, and Maranatha evangelists from their college days. Brett Fuller, who discipled Darrell Green and oversees Green’s charitable foundation, was a Maranatha board member and co-pastor of one of its key churches.

Of all Maranatha leaders, Ball was the worst and most sophisticated offender when it came to cult-like tactics. Ball practiced the classics, including unconstructive criticism and having people get on their knees. Another cult classic is that Ball receives a $62,000 salary from Champions, plus a $48,000 housing allowance, and recently built a $312,000 suburban home; while staffers raise their own support and make $25,000 or $30,000 a year.

Ball, Broocks, and Fuller are board members of Morning Star International, a regrouping of several Maranatha board members, and now the parent organization of Champions. Morning Star was co-founded by Broocks and two other leading Maranatha board members, Los Angeles pastor Phil Bonasso and Philippine missionary Steve Murrell.

One of these Maranatha board members who regrouped is Ron Lewis, pastor of the Kings Park chapter, and founder of Campus Harvest. Lewis is a board member of Morning Star. Jim Lafoon, vice-president of Campus Harvest, is also on the Morning Star board. David Whitehead, national director of Campus Harvest, was a Maranatha board member. Leo Lawson, who is charge of training for Morning Star, was a board member of Maranatha, and co-pastor of one of its key churches. David Houston, a Morning Star pastor, was a Maranatha board member, and pastor of one of its key churches. Brad Butts, Champions staffer and long-time associate of Ball, was a Maranatha evangelist.

Broocks is a protégé of prominent faith teacher Kenneth Copeland and was Maranatha’s chief faith teacher. Bonasso was also one of Maranatha’s faith teachers, and discipled A.C. Green. Morning Star is part of the New Apostolic Restoration, led by Peter Wagner. (Wagner consoled Maranatha at one of their conventions after the article in Christianity Today, saying that the founders of Christianity Today were failures in the ministry)

Morning Star literature has been scrubbed clean of any reference to Maranatha. Bios do not include prominent positions in Maranatha. Activity is not described as Maranatha-sponsored, although clearly dated before Maranatha disbanded and before Morning Star was formed.

Maranatha literature and the Post-Maranatha web site indulge heavily in unrepentant and revisionist history. No mention of a run-in with a committee of cult-watchers, of deprogrammer kidnappings, of the carnage of destroyed lives. Nor of mass staff resignations and numerous conference speakers refusing to return. Only the vaguest reference to constant turbulence and dissent within the board, and that attributed to the devil.

Maranatha founder Bob Weiner’s mild recanting is not found; neither is there any mention of repeated personal confrontations with friends and associates over disturbing Maranatha practices; his berserk, retaliatory stunts against former members; or his thousand-and-one denials, ostensible explanations, contradicting versions, straight-faced lies, and vicious recriminations.

Certainly no mention of the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education, or two articles in Christianity Today and another in Charisma Magazine. Official reason for the breakup: "decentralization and diversification." Surely it was coincidence that Maranatha disbanded immediately after the Chronicle of Higher Education article.

Note: Bruce Harpel, one of Maranatha's staunchest defenders, director of the Minneapolis Maranatha, is in charge of the Post-Maranatha website.

Thanks to the Champions controversy, former Maranatha board members can add USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, ESPN, PBS, and, once again, Christianity Today and Charisma Magazine.

Not even the Wall Street Journal, which took Weiner to task for his political activity, delved into his close ties to well-known jihadists in the dominion theology camp, namely R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North.

Media House International, which publishes the Forerunner, contains much material by hardcore Reconstructionists; North dedicated one of his books to Maranatha; and Rushdoony is revered, even idolized.

A little known episode is that Weiner flew in to Guatemala to lay the foundation for dominion theology. Tyranny and genocide were not found on Weiner's lips, nor in the pages of the Forerunner. Speaking at a Maranatha convention, Copeland looked down at Rio Montt and prophesied that he would once again become president of Guatemala.

It also turned out that when Weiner met with Ronald Reagan, intrigue was the agenda: raising support for the Contras. Weiner also claims to have advised Boris Yeltsin on economics.

Weiner is on several committees, secular as well as religious, that are dominion theology oriented. The two most prominent are the Coalition on Revival and the Council for National Policy.

One of the main complaints from dissenters on the Maranatha board was that Weiner’s wife, Rose, was controlling the organization. Mrs. Weiner is considered a co-founder of Maranatha with her husband, and was considered the organization’s prophetess.

Mrs. Weiner and Maranatha board member Walter Walker created a stir by second-guessed a meeting between Maranatha leaders and a team of cult-watchers, circulating word that deception was at work during the meeting.

It was Mrs. Weiner who lead the organization into dominion theology. It was also Mrs. Weiner who founded Maranatha’s newspaper, the Forerunner. (The founding editor of the Forerunner, Lee Grady, became editor of Charisma Magazine) Her vision for the Forerunner, as a vehicle of dominion theology, was for it to be a battleground of ideas within a battleground of ideas: college campuses.

As a college student during the 60’s, she witnessed the impact of underground campus newspapers. The Forerunner was intended to do the same: change students, who would in turn change their society.

Whereas other campus organizations - Campus Crusade, Navigators, Intervarsity - exist to recruit and support members, the visions of Maranatha and Morning Star are expressly world revolutionary, with the campus identified as the key to their strategy. The title of Broock’s book, written for Maranatha, sums it up: "Change the Campus, Change the World."

The cult accusation dogged Weiner like it did not dog leaders of other youth-oriented ministries - YWAM, Agape Force, People of Destiny, Last Days, Calvary Chapel - all of whom were closely associated with Weiner and with each other. Nor have Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, and other such organizations experienced the kind of problems Champions has.

Evangelism is Back
by Rice Broocks
Charisma Magazine
January 20th, 2012



While American believers increasingly stress being missional, justice-minded and service-oriented, we’ve also neglected the basics of communicating the gospel message. But evangelist Rice Broocks believes we’re on the brink of a new movement that’s making the Great Commission more than just a suggestion.

While talking with students on the campus of East Carolina University last year, I had just finished a conversation with an athlete when a student named Frank approached me and introduced himself with a surprising confession. “I’m probably the biggest drug dealer on this campus,” he said bluntly. “But as I walked by you and saw you talking to that guy, something told me you could help me.”

I had spent the day with several leaders reaching out on campus and was surprised at how open and willing people were to have a gospel conversation. Frank had walked by several times and overheard some of the dialogue. He prayed and repented for his rebellion against God and put his trust in Christ. One year later he is serving in a campus group and planning to enter campus ministry when he graduates.

More and more, genuine conversions like this are taking place on university campuses in North America. Ron Lewis, who pastors congregations in North Carolina and New York and leads an international campus outreach ministry called Campus Harvest, told me: “It’s an unprecedented time of openness to share the gospel—unlike I’ve seen in the last 20 years.”

Lewis shared with me about the dramatic conversion of Joe—an atheist and a doctoral and medical student at a major university in the Northeast—who was merely sitting in class this year when a sense of the reality of God swept over him. He was invited by a friend to attend the New York church Lewis pastors, Morning Star New York, where he was saved and baptized.

“I believe my journey to faith is one that people from every background and belief system can expect in their own lives, once they scrutinize the gospel with an open mind,” Joe says of his experience with coming to Christ.

Testimonies like these are increasing today as Christian ministries seem to be awakening from a long season of evangelistic futility. The reason, Lewis believes, is simple: “The gospel is being presented in a clear, fresh way. When the gospel is preached, people have a chance to believe.”

This new movement could be described as the beginning of an “evangelistic spring” in North America. Signs of a fresh boldness in Christian witnessing are popping up everywhere. People from all walks of life are standing up for their faith in Christ …


… On the positive side of this, however, a major reason that the tide of evangelism is rising in North America is the dramatic emergence of a new wave of apologists/evangelists such as philosopher William Lane Craig, mathematics professor John Lennox, astronomer Hugh Ross, cultural commentator Larry Taunton and New Testament scholar Dan Wallace.

These “new evangelists” are challenging atheists on scientific and philosophical grounds and helping to remove the thick clouds of skepticism that have settled over the U.S. and Canada in the last 25 years. Most of these Christian intellectuals present the case for Christ as well as the evidence for the existence of God …


… Dale Evrist, pastor of New Song Christian Fellowship in Nashville, Tenn., points out: “By simply training our people to memorize and articulate the gospel, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of gospel presentations each week. It’s simple math: The more the gospel is presented, the more people get saved.”

We no longer can be content just to bring people to church where the pastor will preach the gospel. We must see the millions of believers in North America equipped and empowered to do it.


From my research at Fuller I also discovered that there’s a need for evangelists to function in local churches. Most of us wouldn’t think of having a church without a pastor, would we? But what about a church without an evangelist?

“Without the evangelist, there is no missional church,” says Eddie Gibbs, former head of the School of World Missions at Fuller.

Charles Spurgeon, the legendary 19th-century pastor from England, employed more than 100 evangelists in London who dedicated themselves to the city. Within 25 years (from 1867 to 1892), Spurgeon planted more than 200 churches in London, while pastoring a megachurch in the same city, by strategically partnering the evangelist and the pastor.

Similar results on a smaller scale are being seen as churches plant multiple congregations around their cities, rather than being content with operating at one location ...



Rice Broocks is co-founder of Every Nation, a network of more than 1,000 churches in 60-plus nations. He provides oversight for Bethel World Outreach in Nashville, Tenn., and has a doctorate in Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

[www.charismamag.com]


[ Rice Broocks has been indulging in this kind of "on the verge of something big" rhetoric for many years. Bob Weiner did the same thing. BTW: Ron Lewis was a major board member of Maranatha. Oh, and Lee Grady, editor of Charisma, was founding editor of Maranatha's newspaper, The Forerunner. ]

Sounds like they have a lot in common with MSIA and the Jon Roger clan of California, buyer beware !