Durham pastor may have violated campaign finance law

Also mentioned at DKos

Most of you know that when I was at Carolina, I was suckered into joining a hypercharismatic church that was once part of Maranatha Campus Ministries, a notorious campus cult from the 1980s. This church, King's Park International Church in Durham, is now one of the leading churches in Every Nation, which by all indications is a lineal descendant, if not an outright revival, of Maranatha. KPIC's founding pastor, Ron Lewis, is also the pastor of Morning Star New York, a church plant in Manhattan.

Well, a few days ago, one of my fellow EN refuseniks came upon a financial disclosure statement for Sam Brownback's PAC, Restore America. It seems that a mere nine days after Sam Brownback travelled to Manhattan, Lewis and two of his Every Nation colleagues donated a total of $2,200 to this PAC. At the very least, you have a presidential candiate taking donations from a guy with DOCUMENTED ties to a recognized cult. At most, it's potentially a violation of campaign finance laws.

Maranatha caught all kinds of hell for its highly authoritarian structure--most notably a prohibition on dating. The group was actually kicked off of three campuses for numerous offenses. An ad-hoc group from the Christian Research Institute wrote a scathing report in which it said that "we would not recommend this organization to anyone" unless major changes were made. This group was actually called in by Maranatha to prove it wasn't a cult--when in truth it was little more than a pentecostalized version of the Moonies and Hare Krishnas.

Maranatha broke up in 1990, and four years later several former Maranatha ministries, churches and leaders combined with non-related groups to form Morning Star International, now known as Every Nation. Leaders with Maranatha ties exercise considerable influence on the organnization, even though former Maranatha churches only make up a small percentage of the network. Lewis himself has tripped himself up on numerous occasions regarding his Maranatha ties. He claims that the church he founded and still leads as senior minister in addition to MSNY, King's Park International Church in Durham, was founded in 1990, and that Maranatha's practices weren't "the most healthy." And yet, he has no objection to being listed on a Website of "former friends and members" of this outfit. I was suckered into joining this outfit in my freshman year, and I can attest from experience that Maranatha-style practices are tolerated, if not condoned or encouraged--even though Every Nation claims they are not condoned. More seriously, Every Nation has never issued an audited financial statement.

Given this history, you'd think this is one group a presidential candidate ought to steer clear of, right? Not by a longshot. On January 17, Lewis gave $1,000 to Restore America. One of MSNY's associate pastors, Adam Burt, gave an additional $1,000. And Tim Johnson, senior pastor of Every Nation's flagship church, Bethel World Outreach Center near Nashville, gave $200. So you've got a guy who could be a potential running mate (his presidential campaign is going nowhere fast) taking donations from a religious group with documented ties to a recognized cult and hasn't opened its books. For a guy who isn't running for reelection to the Senate, this isn't the best way I'd make sure my seat doesn't go Dem (Kansas hasn't elected a Dem to the Senate since 1933), or at least make sure the Repubs don't have to spend a lot of money there.

But that may not be Brownback's biggest problem. The timing of those donations--a mere nine days after he showed up and was anointed as the next president--raises the possibility that this was a fundraising trip. As we know, churches are forbidden from out-and-out politicking. The IRS is especially watchful of this in election cycles. My friend has already alerted the IRS about it. If the IRS finds anything illegal about this donation, the punishments range from a slap on the wrist and some negative publicity to the loss of Pastor Ron's nonprofit status. The latter would effectively shut the church down. But even without the legal ramifications, the political ramifications are bigger than big.