...King's Park founder Ron Lewis said the church -- originally called Triangle Christian Fellowship -- grew out of his campus ministry at UNC-CH. Lewis, a UNC-CH graduate, says there is no formal relationship between Alpha Iota Omega and his church, and no effort to recruit students�
...In the 1980s, Lewis was affiliated with Maranatha Christian Church, a national organization that disbanded after complaints about cultlike practices.
Records of the N.C. Secretary of State's Office show that Lewis incorporated the Maranatha Christian Church of the Triangle in 1986. In 1990, the documents were amended, changing the name to Triangle Christian Fellowship. In 1997, the name was changed to King's Park International Church.
Lewis said he left Maranatha in the late 1980s because some of the church's practices "weren't the most healthy for Christians to live and grow by."
Campus ministries are mostly positive, Lewis said, though there are mind-controlling groups out there...
Note: The following link will take you to a archived version of the Kansas State Collegian.
A cult that was banned at K-State over 20 years ago has shown its face again on a different campus.
The group is commonly known as Maranatha, and it has re-emerged at the University of Minnesota. It is suing Minnesota because the university is not allowing it to become a student group...
...Maranatha was banned from K-State in 1983. The investigation at K-State was part of a two-year investigation from 1982-84 that was taking place at many universities across the nation, Macinstad said...
November 15, 1989 Some Colleges warn Students that Cult-like Methods are Being Used by Christian Fundamentalist Groups, Tanya Gazdik, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Joyce Cole first heard of the fundamentalist Maranatha Christian Fellowship at a weekend conference during her junior year at Western Michigan University. She was so inspired by Maranatha's leader, Robert Weiner that she decided to find out more about the group...
...Students who in earlier years might have joined such groups as the Hare Krishna's or the Unification Church are now joining fundamentalist Christian groups that use what many campus officials call cult-like techniques to attract and retain members�
...Representatives of Maranatha and other evangelical groups maintain that they are religious organizations, not cults. But some colleges and universities have started educational programs to warn students of what they perceive as the dangers of becoming involved in the groups...
...People who study such religious organizations say cults deceive people when they try to recruit them and then trap them psychologically, making it extremely difficult for someone to leave. The experts maintain that any group that relies on such practices should be classified as a cult-regardless of its ideology or religious beliefs.
A common misconception, says Michael D. Langone, is that cults are "weird," when in truth they try to appear as normal as possible on the surface...
...Founded by Mr. Weiner in 1972, Maranatha's name is...
...A committee that investigated Maranatha Campus Ministries from 1980 through 1983 got an intimate look at the inner workings of an aberrational Christian group that many believe uses heavy- handed tactics to manipulate its members. Maranatha is a campus ministry teaching basic Christian doctrine and using tactics similar to those of mind-control groups to recruit and subdue members. With the discovery of Maranatha, the issue no longer was black-and-white, cult-or-Christian...
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