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CHAMPIONS FOR CHRIST MARANATHA MORNING STAR
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?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 protég?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 hard core 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.
Rick Ross
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