CNP's Robert Weiner & Maranatha

Robert T. Weiner- CNP Board of Governors, 1984,1988, member 1996, 1998; Apostolic Church leader and charismatic evangelical speaker for more than thirty years; Weiner Ministries International, "Our vision is to see a cell church planted on every university campus in the world."; was president, Maranatha Campus Ministries, Christian Youth International; Editor/publisher, The Forerunner ; of the shepherding groups; planted over 100 campus and youth-related fellowships and churches throughout the world , "preaching of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and His Dominion in the earth. Maranatha's vision was to plant a New Testament Church on every major university campus in the world."; Executive Board member of  International Charismatic Bible Ministries >http://www.oru.edu/icbm/index.html (ICBM), Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS) >http://www.aims.org/, North American Congresses On The Holy Spirit And World Evangelism [Catholic Charismatic], The Executive Committee for Mission America, and China Harvest and China Campus Outreach. He is a member of The Council for National Policy and Paul Weyrich's The International Policy Forum and is on Coalition for Revival's (COR's) Steering Committee. [http://www.reformation.net/cor/steeringcte.htm]  , member of Ed McAteer 's Religious Roundtable Council of 56.  > http://www.pir.org/gw/rrt.txt See: Religious Roundtable

Jay Grimstead's Coalition for Revival --COR Manifesto is the document which outlines COR's goals and objectives. The 135 Christian activists who signed the document in 1986 committed themselves to working for the realization of COR's goals "until the day we die." Those on the COR steering committee include other CNP members as well as recognized shepherding movement leaders such as Bob Mumford and Ern Baxter, as well as Jack Van Impe.

CNP's Gary North's 1986 book, 75 Bible Questions, was dedicated to "Bob and Rose Weiner the founders of Maranatha, the “hardest core” campus ministry of this generation." [go to GN and click on page 5]. Bob Weiner works closely with Rick Joyner, and both he and his wife Rose, contribute articles to Joyner's  Morning Star Publications/Journal. Examples of their collaboration include, from 1991:

VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1

Prepare for the Harvest Part I, by Rick Joyner and Bob Weiner

This is the first part of a series devoted to help the church prepare for the multitudes of new believers soon to be gathered.   

Bible Studies for a Firm Foundation, by Bob & Rose Weiner

The atonement: God’s provision for man’s sin 

Contributors to the Journal over the years have included Francis Frangipane, Dudley Hall, Reuven Doron, Aaron Katz, Paul Cain, Dennis Peacocke, Bob Mumford, Art Katz, Derek Prince, Wellington Boone, James Ryle and others. For Dennis Peacocke See: Shepherding

Weiner was a Speaker at the ecumenical Celebrate Jesus 2000 > www.resevents.com/Conference_Tapes/Jesus_2000/jesus_2000.HTM>   held in St. Louis, Missouri, June 22-25, 2000. Other ecumenical speakers included: Rev. Jack Hayford, Babsie Bleasdell/Rev. Steve Hill, Pat Robertson, Fr. Tom Forrest, Fr. Bob DeGrandis, Rev. Ted Haggard, Fr. Michael Scanlan, Rev. John Kilpatrick, Cindy Jacobs, Francis MacNutt, Rev. John & Carol Arnott, Rev. Vinson Synan and many more.              

Jay Rogers is current editor/writer of The Forerunner > http://forerunner.com/jaysbio.html. 

Robert Weiner is known as "... the Father of Maranatha Christian Churches and Campus Ministries.  Although they decentralized in 1989, from those roots and his vision, God has raised up many faithful world changing Churches and ministries and sent hundreds of laborers into the harvest....Bob's Ministry is marked by the release of Apostolic Faith, Signs and wonders.  His vision is to win One Billion souls before Jesus returns!" http://forerunner.com/maranatha.html

Although Maranatha reportedly disbanded, many of its churches and groups did not. "According to an article in the March issue of Charisma and Christian Life magazine, Maranatha leaders decided at a July 1989 board meeting that too much of a “spirit of control” had entered the ministry. The article also noted that four Maranatha elders suggested Weiner take a sabbatical during which time he would evaluate his “personal character.”

During the sabbatical, Weiner concluded that, “I have been struggling with anger, unkindness, contentiousness and a tendency to control,” the article quoted him as saying. 

In 1984, however, Weiner steadfastly denied that the ministry engaged in abuses of authority. According to the August 10, 1984 Christianity Today, Weiner was responding to the just-released conclusions of an ad hoc committee of cult watchers that charged Maranatha Christian Ministries with having “an authoritarian orientation with potential negative consequences for members.” Weiner accused the committee of having an anticharismatic bias

The Christianity Today article, and another article a year later in the Wall Street Journal, publicized allegations that Maranatha members were not allowed to date and were required to submit their lives to shepherds who made decisions for them. Marriages of staff members were subject to Maranatha’s entire board of elders. [Bob Weiner’s Plans Unclear a Year after Maranatha Disbands, CRI]

Information obtained from an individual, who was removed from Maranatha in March 2000, stated, "Apostle" Don Pfotenhauer is  the "apostle and spiritual covering" of Maranatha Christian Church, the campus church on the University of Minnesota whose pastor is Bruce Harpel. He started Maranatha at the U of M in 1982. He refused to repent when the whole Maranatha church structure was investigated between 1982-1984 and supposedly "disbanded" back in 1989.  Pfotenhauer's first church was called Way of the Cross." "In 1980, Don was released from full-time pastoral duties to devote himself to the growing number of churches and pastors that were seeking out his counsel.  That developed into the United Network of Christian Churches and Ministries to which he currently provides apostolic oversight, including churches in Eastern Europe." [Don >www.resevents.com/Wisdom_2001/Speakers/Pfotenhauer/pfotenhauer.html] 

While it has been suggested that the shepherding movement ceased when Marantha "disbanded" current facts reveal otherwise. 

Don Pfotenhauer became a member of the Fort Lauderdale Five's secretive General Council in 1977. Qualifications were, " There are two qualifications for entering into the Council: either being a head elder of a community or having an "apostolic ministry" (in the broad sense of "apostolic")..."[General Council Minutes, December 17-19, 1975, Ann Arbor, Mich.] 

The  ecumenical "Five" were none other than the ecumenical shepherding/discipling instigators Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, Don Basham, Ern Baxter, and Charles Simpson mentioned in the article Wheat & Tares. Other ecumenical members of their General Council who were selected included Dick Key, Tom Monroe, Ray Ostendorf, Steve Clark, Ralph Martin, John Poole, Larry Christenson, Kevin Ranaghan, Jim Cavnar, Dick Coleman, Paul DeCelles, Bruce Yocum, Cardinal Suenens and others. It should be noted that the shepherding movement was connected to the Catholic Church from the beginning. 

Ralph Martin, a member of the Ft. Lauderdale General Council since 1974 or prior,  is president of Renewal Ministries >http://www.renewalministries.net/index.html, a Catholic charismatic mission organization dedicated to evangelization and renewal. It was founded in 1980 by Ralph Martin, considered by many to be the most effective Catholic evangelist since Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. During the mid-1960s, Ralph served as a national leader of Cursillo, a Catholic renewal movement, and helped it grow to national prominence. In the 1970s, he emerged as one of the main leaders of worldwide Catholic renewal. He worked closely with Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens, of Belgium, to establish an international office for renewal in the Church. He is presently a leader of The Word of God, an ecumenical Christian community in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

From the 'General Council's Minutes", we see that Steve Clark and Ralph Winter were responsible for being liaisons from the General Council to their community coordinators for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee. Lutheran Charismatic Renewal Service Committee, which Morris Vaagenes headed in 1977, had Larry Christenson on the Coordinating Committee. Don Pfotenhauer and Rod Lensch were supposed to form leadership and authority which would lead to prophetic leadership for LCRS. [See: General Council Minutes as forwarded]

Don Pfotenhauer was speaker at an ecumenical event called Wisdom 2001, April 26-29. > http://www.resevents.com/Wisdom_2001/wisdom_2001.html   > The Conference ad reads, " Since about 1960, God has poured out His Spirit in a powerful and creative expression we call the Charismatic Movement.  God used many men and women to give birth to this move of His Spirit.  After 30 years, WISDOM 2001 gathered many of them together to draw forth from their experience the principal gems of wisdom they have learned to live by.  It is my conviction that this wisdom is so valuable that it needed to be collected in some form so that it can be passed on to 21st Century Christians....* Some of those invited but unable to attend included Ralph Martin, Dorothy & Kevin Ranaghan, Rev. Tommy Tyson, Rev. Kenneth Hagin, Rev. Kenneth Copeland, Nicky Cruz, Rev. Howard Ervin, Rev. Vinson Synan, Rev. Harald Bredeson, Sr. Nancy Kellar, Sr. Linda Koontz, Rev. Jack Hayford, Fr. Tom Forrest, Rev. Terry Fullam, Rev. Chuck Smith, Rev. Bob Mumford, Rev. Derek Prince, Rev. Michael Harper and others." Speakers included:

Rita Bennett (Episcopalian)

Fr. John Bertolucci (Catholic)

Rev. Brick Bradford (Presbyterian)

Rev. Merlin Carothers (Non-denominational)

Rev. Larry Christenson (Lutheran)

Steve Clark (Catholic)

Rev. Judson Cornwall (Non-denominational)

Fr. Bob DeGrandis (Catholic)

Bishop Joseph Garlington (Non-denominational, Covenant)

Fr. Chuck Irish (Episcopalian)

Bishop Sam Jacobs (Catholic)

Art Katz (Jewish non-denominational)

Francis MacNutt (Catholic)

Rev. Don Pfotenhauer (Non-denominational)

Betty Pulkingham (Episcopalian)

Rev. Del Rossin (Lutheran)

Fr. Mike Scanlan (Catholic)

Richard Shakarian (Full Gospel Businesmen’s Fellowship)

Rev. Charles Simpson (Non denominational, Covenant)

Rev. Ken Sumrall (Non-denominational, Baptist)

Fr. Rick Thomas (Catholic)

Judith Church Tydings (Catholic)

Rev. Morris Vaagenes (Lutheran)

Weiner is Executive Board member of  International Charismatic Bible Ministries (ICBM). See: Eject2 and From Shepherds in Disguise : "In 1986, the ever ecumenical Oral Roberts formed the International Charismatic Bible Ministries (ICBM) 13 ICBM advertises it's 1999's Conference audio and videotape which shows speakers/video workshops to have included “Bill Basansky & Rodney Howard-Browne” teaching, “Church Growth/Home Cell Ministries” and Oral Roberts & Benny Hinn working together. Their new conference is slated for June20-22, 2000. Their slogan has been “Love and Unity through Signs and Wonders.” 14 

 The ICBM conducts “leadership conferences,”15 and is a “coalition of charismatic leaders,” many of whom are dominionists.16 While noting that the names change occasionally Al Dager cites an Ad for Charismatic Bible Ministries, in Charisma, May 1987 showing that the original officers and trustees were: Oral Roberts* -Chairman; Ken Copeland* -Secretary; Jack Hayford* - Vice Chairman; Billy Joe Dougherty* - Treasurer; Paul Yonggi Cho—International Honorary Chairman; Executive Committee Members: Charles Green, Marilyn Hickey, Karl Strader [Bolding added]17

Sara Diamond wrote, " ...Maranatha members describe themselves as "God's Green Berets." They are the most aggressively evangelistic and politically rightwing of any campus crusader. Members are not permitted to date and must ask the shepherd's permission to marry.(2) Maranatha Campus Ministries embody a post-millennium theology about the Kingdom of God on earth. Its first goal is "to change the face of the world" by proclaiming Christian principles everywhere, and overthrowing humanism, atheism, and communism.(l) They think that in a Christian world, the Kingdom of God will be compatible with capitalism and the conservative ideology.(l,2,6)...In the booklet "Christian Dominion," Weiner says God chose English- speaking Teutonic people to come to America and "administer government among savages and senile people." They organized pro-contra demonstrations on 70 campuses before a crucial vote. They claim to have taken over the student government at the University of Hawaii.(2) They began to work in Costa Rica in July l988. David Fazio, Forerunner campus correspondent in Chapel Hill in l986 and Natl Chair of Students for America, led a group of students to "safe houses" in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to meet with contras and Commander Indalecio Rodriguez.(2,6)...Defectors say that the group often uses mind control techniques to guide personal lives. The group has been removed from several colleges by college authorities.(2)...Weiner is on the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy and the steering committees of the Coalition on Revival and the North American Congress on the Holy Spirit.(2,7)...Ten percent of The Leadership Institute's people are Maranatha. The Leadership Institute is headed by [CNP's] Morton Blackwell, a former Reagan liaison to religious groups. It also has many senators and representatives on the advisory board, and it is designed to train rightist political activists.(5) Students for America [founded by Ralph Reed >Ralph E. Reed, Jr.] is made up of one quarter Maranatha members...Weiner serves on many rightwing committees in the United States including the American Coalition for Traditional Values [Dr. Timothy LaHaye], Council for National Policy (Board of Governors), International Policy Forum, and the National Federation for Decency.(l,7) Maranatha Campus Ministries is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals. (l)...[ Maranatha >http://www.pir.org/gw/maranath.txt; Sara Diamond, "Shepherding," Covert Action Information Bulletin, #27, Spring l987]

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