Former Champion for Christ , MorningStar, Victory Campus Min
Date: November 16, 2004 06:03PM
THE TRUTH ABOUT GREG BALL
This is about Greg Ball, former board member, traveling evangelist, and elder for Maranatha Campus Ministries; board member and pastor for Morning Star International; co-founder and president of Champions for Christ. Maranatha Campus Ministries was repeatedly accused of being a cult. It was difficult to get to the bottom of the problem with Maranatha because cult-like activity occurred behind closed doors and over the phone. This was deliberate. Another reason is that the worst offenders have not repented. And the victims probably never let on about all they knew. So the full story never came out. Of all Maranatha leaders, Greg Ball was the worst of the worst. I have had extensive, upclose dealings with Greg; both in being subjected to and recovering from his oppressive, debilitating tactics. I watched the demons dancing in his eyes. I am one of the few people who knows who the real Greg Ball is, and one of the few people who ever came close to confronting and exposing him. Many times I have become so awed at Greg - how he has perfected these tactics to the point of flawless, how smooth and fast and keen he is, how he is without conscience, how he is completely given over to what he is doing - that I have lost sight of the ugliness of what he is doing, and the severity of the results. He has a public image of being ultra cool, super likable, hyper together, ultra relevant. He was Maranatha’s most respected board member, and one of its most widely traveled and most influential ministers. But his public image and his private life are about as drastically different as they could be. He is one of the most obscene, demon infested people I have ever met. Phoney. Condescending. Patronizing. Jerk. Selfishly ambitious. Hate filled. Cynical. Judgmental. Childish. Unruly. Belligerent. Intimidating. Rabid. Rebellious. Insecure. Aloof. Vicious. Scathing. Hypocritical. Wicked. Depraved. He and several other particularly sick Maranatha elders frequently displayed outright animalistic behavior.This is difficult for many people to believe. He is a dynamic speaker. People ooh and aah over his sermons. Countless athletes have testified that they were radically altered, for the better and without regret, as a result of an encounter with Greg (or his longtime friend, close associate, and equally charismatic evangelist, Rice Broocks, the other co-founder of Champions for Christ). He has been so successful because of his intense efforts to control people and to escape discovery. This is so important. It is why former Maranatha leaders have gotten away with so much for so long, and at such expense to so many other people. It is also why it is so exceptionally difficult for people to recognize, resist, and recover from the effects of dealing with these people, and why it is so exceptionally difficult to successfully challenge them. The Maranatha lingo for this was 'witchcraft'. Funk. Vodoo. The cult watchers call it mind control. But that term is not adequate, since it does not convey the hideousness of its effects. Greg was instrumental in the Austin eldership locking itself into deception, protecting themselves and one another from scrutiny and criticism; granting immunity to themselves and projecting ill will onto others. He went to extraordinary lengths to keep people at bay, accompanied by a highly sophisticated system of explanations, delays, and recriminations. Much attention was given in the pulpit to the issue of people questioning the eldership in any way. With such rhetoric as "outsiders looking in," "spectators rather than participants," "if you think the elders need to know something, God is probably already speaking it to us," "wolves attack the stragglers of the herd," "Absalom spirit," and the favorite, "critical spirit," Greg was sending a not so subtle message. There was always one more level of integrity you had to achieve before you were considered qualified to approach him. There was always one more procedural objection. You always had something to prove. You were always under suspicion. If some one tells him something he doesn’t want to hear, it’s quite a sight to watch him unravel. He flinches his face and darts his eyes. He glares. He turns his head and purses his lips. He crawls out of his skin. He has an outburst. He rants and raves. He snits. He spits venom. He reviles. His wickedness is matched only by his sincerity. He is automatically righteous in his own eyes, not discredited by anything. He does not view his actions as a reflection on himself. Nauseatingly diligent with other people’s need for deliverance, pathetically oblivious to his own. No matter how appalling his own behavior, "really" he’s supposed to reproach you. He causually dismissed concerns about himself, offering the most embarassingly stupid reasons for doing so. Greg was supposed to have gotten delivered from his love of violence left over from his karate days. Either he didn’t get delivered or it made a disturbing comeback. And this explains why he does things with such incredible force and intensity: The Bible stories he told during his sermons were stories of violence, told demonstrably. Of a fat king having a sword plunged through his belly, of Israelites who had deserted to the Philistines ripping their armor off when Jonathan turned the tide. One of the elders went with him to see The Untouchables. When Sean Connery as Elliot Ness said, "I’m sworn to get Al Capone," Greg was about to jump out of his chair. In his sermons, he also quoted from violent movies. Outlaw Jose Wales: "I’ve got lead in my bullets and I’ve got lead in my words." Rambo: "I’m coming after you." Rocky 4: "We’re fighters. There’ll always be some one to fight." At a men’s conference, talking about David’s mighty men, he said, "Men, do you have faces like lions faces." No, but he did. Addressing the church on the subject of dominion, he whopped the pulpit and said, "Men that means to dominate!" Here is a man whose primary ministry consists of telling modern day gladiators that real manhood isn’t demolishing their opponent on the other side of the field, when he himself obviously associates manhood with fierceness and aggressiveness. In addition to the above, Greg’s tactics include, and excuse the lingo: confessing deformities, extracting confessions, having people get on their knees, telling them that they are listening to the devil, talking about them in the pulpit; there’s something wrong with you because you think there’s something wrong with him; compelling sounding arguments, ostensible explanations, textbook answers, and classic comebacks; hypocritical accountability (others have to maintain maximum emotional control, he can let it all hang out, etc); assuring you that once you are delivered, you will realize that he wasn’t doing anything wrong; telling you that you have a root of this and a curse of that. With these and a seemingly endless array of other tactics, Greg can do an enormous amount of harm in a very short time. Harm that one will pay a high price to undo. It is difficult to exaggerate Greg’s condition, and easy to underestimate his behavior. He has engaged in longstanding, deliberate misrepresentation of himself and others. I am talking hard core evil. I am talking about calculated wickedness. He should be viewed and treated as a cultist extrordinare, the ultimate challenge. Such is his intent and ability to deceive and defraud.