University Daily Kansan / Monday, March 4. 1991
9
Group's intense methods confusing
Experience with group leaves student questioning all religion
By Rick C. Honish
Kansan staff writer
When Cynthia Wimmer went to her first Campus Connection Bible study last semester, she had no idea it would be the beginning of a two-week journey that would leave her undefended and mistrustful of all relations.
Living off-campus her freshman
Wimmer, Wimmer, 19, decided that a
good way to meet people would be
to find a Christian student group.
She arrived at the University of Kansas with a strong religious upbringing. She had attended a Lutheran church and a Presbyterian church, where her mother was a chair director. In high school she was active in a student youth group called Young Life.
After attending several other group meetings where she did not feel comfortable, she was invited to attend a Bible study. It was September 13.
- The first meeting was a good experience. Everyone there was friendly.
The topic that evening was Satan: Who he is, why he can control us and why we are scared of him.
That night Wimmer called her mother in Tulsa, Okla, and told her how happy she was to have found a dog that she liked and who liked her.
What church are they with, her mother asked.
"Church of Christ," she said.
"Oh, good." her mother said.
"Oh, good," her mother said.
"In the next five days, Wimmer meet with a particular member of the group daily except during the weekend, which she spent at home in Tulsa.
When Wimmer's friend stopped by, she usually brought someone else. The first time it was Terrin Pabst, then a religious adviser for Campus Connection. The three women discussed discipleship. Pabst said that Wimmer had a special gift from God to help people and that she should use the gift to bring more people to God and the church.
■ The next Wednesday, Wimmer went to Kansas City for a church service. She and about 20 other recruits were taken to another room where Terrin Pabst's husband, Damon, a Campus Connection leader, taught a Bible study that
focused on God's plan for church members. She was not allowed into the actual service because she had not been baptized.
The next day, Wimmer, her friend and another member of Campus Connection discussed baptism. Wimmer learned that the group did not believe other church's baptisms were recognized by God and that "true baptism was to be basilic" this church. Further, anyone in the church could baptize a new member.
■ Friday night, Wimmer saw what a bantism was.
She went with members of Campus Connection to Clinton Lake about 11 p.m. They walked through the woods to the lake. Three men walked into the lake, and one held a flashlight over the other two while some words were spoken. The other was dunked under the surface as the groom cheered and sang.
- The next afternoon Wimmer's friend came by and asked whether she would like to join the church. Wimmer was not sure.
She was told that if a person had not "dispelled" another soul to Christ in the church, then they were not true Christians. Using this definition, "not true Christians" included Wimmer's mother.
The next day, after attending her first Sunday service, Wimmer went to a Bible study with his friend and Terrin Pabst.
In a two-on-one discussion, they told Wimmer that she needed to distinguish between Christians and non-Christians in her life and to let go of those who were not Christians. She said Christians were "keeping her from God."
Everything Wimmer was being told was reinforced with Bible verses. She began to doubt her judgments, but she continued to believe in the Bible, maybe they were right.
She called her mother that night and told her about the baptism and the church service. Her mother was taken aback.
"This doesn't sound like the right
"ch of Christ." she said.
Church of Christ," she said.
■ Two weeks after her first Bible study, Wimmer went to another service and was again taken to a room separate from the congregation.
After the lesson she went upstairs and stood by the door to the main hall.
The congregation was being
3. Participants are expected to adhere to group norms.
2. Participants in Campus Connection are expected to withdraw
2. Participants in Campus Connection are expected to withdraw from any significant 'non Campus Connection Christian' relation
4. Participants are to have daily contact with "discplays."
KURA'S Findings Against Campus Connection
1. Expectations are not clearly stated up front.
6. Participants are expected to recruit other students.
7. Participants are expected to contend their skin to people they have for a period of time, and when used against the skin they may inadvertently injure their current behavior.
8. Participants are expected to adhere to discipler's advice.
9. Participants are faced with life-affecting decisions over a one-to-four week period.
10. Participants are expected to adhere to group norms.
11. Participants receive an abundance of love initially. It is removed at any point of disagreement with discipulers.
12. The group demands conformity in exchange for love and acceptance.
13. Participants receive verbal assaults from disciplers, followed by reaffirmation of love for the student
14. Group leaders intimidate participants,
16. False reasons were given for contact.
instructed in the art of discipling.
They were talking about which verses to use, how to approach people and how to use examples and stories.
■ That night, Wimmer and her friend discussed sin. Wimmer was asked to recount every sin she had committed in her life.
- On Friday, Wimmer and Terrin Pabst sat on the hill facing Memorial Stadium
Pabst told her that the lesson that day would be rough and then began to talk about the crucifixion.
17. Discipler set up a leader's visit.
The next day Wimmer met with her friend, Terran Pabst and the wife of the leader of the Kansas City team to discuss the discussion of Wimmer's sins.
She was asked whether she had ever masturbated, whether she was homosexual or whether she had ever committed bestiality. Angered by the nature of their questions, Wimmer asked whether they were kidding and whether being prudent and that to be forgiven by God, she had to talk about it.
And they told her how much they loved her.
She vividly described Christ's death and began acting out the roles
of the crucifiers and Christ himself.
With each imaginary pound of the nail, Pabst said, "This is for you, Cynthia. This is for your sexual immorality; this is for your pride."
■ Wimmer went home the next day and told her mother and her family's preacher, who told her to think about some of the things that had happened.
Did Jesus turn his back on his disciples, he asked. Would God want you to turn your back on those you did? Or would he want you to try to help them?
She returned to Lawrence and told her friend and Paubst that she wanted out of the group. Paubst started crying. She told Wimmer that she loved him.
"I doubt that," Wimmer replied.
"How can you say you love me and tell me I am going to hell in the same breath?"
Editor's note: Damon Pabst confirmed that Cynthia Wimmer was involved with and recruited by Campus Connection. He said that some mistakes were made in her recruitment but that the procedures and lessons of the group were justified by the Bible.
Discipling is key to church's movement
Kansan staff writer
Recruiting system uses hierarchy to bring members under control of top Evangelis.
By Rick C. Honish
The Kansas City Church of Christ is part of the Crossroads/Boston Church of Christ movement that includes the Kansas City Church of Christ in Gainesville, Fla.
McKean was fired in April 1977.
A young evangelist named Kip McKean emerged from that church and went to Charleston, Ill., where he became a pastor for the Heritage Chapel. Membership in his church increased 900 percent in three years, so the church grew, so did controversy surrounding his methods of recruitment.
A letter of dismissal from McKean's sponsor, the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, said, "Brother McKean has brought unbiblical practices, peculiar language and subtle, deceitful doctrines to
Charleston from the Crossroads Church."
McKean moved to Lexington, Mass., where he took charge of the Lexington Church of Christ. The name was soon changed to the Boston Church of Christ. McKean's recruiting success repeated itself in Boston. There were 750 baptisms in his first three years.
By February 1988, a congregation of more than 3,300 was attending services in the Boston Garden, home of the Celtics basketball team. There were affiliated churches in London, Paris and New York, as well as in Africa, Germany and Jamaica, among other countries.
The Crossroads Church of Christ disassociated itself with the Boston movement in 1986. Crossroads elders were called to resist and strongly totalitarian authority structure was developing and McKean was assuming the role of the Apostle Paul.
The system's nature is hierarchical. The newest members are discipled by more experienced members, and more experienced members are then discipled by top church members until the process reaches McKean, the absolute leader.
McKean's movement centers on a recruitment, or "disciping," system that calls for submission by new members to their "discipiers."
"The Evangelist will determine how far a congregation will go in encrypting by how consistently he implements the faith, in encouragement obedience and by
In a church bulletin released in August 1987, McKean described his role:
impartially carrying the instructions of God even when it is not the popular thing to do. . . The Evangelist must know where the church is in the eyes of God, where it is headed and what it will take to get where God wants it to be.
Mekan said that the Bible commanded men to have disciplining relationships and that "discipling is the only way you can be won to Christ in our generation."
The movement teaches members that baptism within the church is required for salvation and that other religious organizations are essential to this work. Only path to heaven is through the Boston Church of Christ movement.
Editor's note: Information for this article was gathered from magazine and newspaper articles.
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