The holidays werenβt always happy for Doug Pacheco, but this year he feels blessed by a season of forgiveness.
For years, Pacheco says his family suffered because of his unquestioning devotion to the leaders of Faith Christian Church, which encouraged corporal punishment of infants, unquestioning obedience to church leaders and mandatory tithing even by families in financial distress.
He shared his story last spring as part of an Arizona Daily Star investigation into the Tucson-based ministry thatβs been recruiting members on the University of Arizona campus for more than 20 years.
Twenty-one former followers described the church as a cult that targets UA students and inflicts financial, spriritual and emotional abuse.
New parents were trained to start spanking babies soon after birth to rid them of βrebelliousβ spirits, the former members and staffers said. They often used cardboard dowels from wire clothes hangers to hit infants who wouldnβt sleep, then switched to other implements as children grew, they said.
Pacheco, who joined Faith Christianβs predecessor church and left in 1990, said he and his then-wife accepted the churchβs teachings. When the Starβs initial story ran in March, Pacheco β now remarried and living in Indiana β emailed links to the story to each of his children, now 33, 31 and 29.
βThey knew just by me sending that article that dad is facing up to something here,β Pacheco, 58, said in a recent phone interview. βI got to call each of my children and tell them I loved them and apologize to them.
βEach of them said, βWe love you, we forgive you, weβre with you.β Ever since that time, my relationships with all three of them has just improved.β
His eldest son, Isaac, was about 8 years old when the family left the church. He recalls harsh discipline, living on food-bank donations and dumpster-diving for canned goods, even as his parents kept giving to the church.
βI just remember my parents fighting and crying and not having enough money for anything, like gasoline for the car, and still giving that 10 percent,β said Isaac Pacheco, now the editor of a U.S. State Department publication in Washington, D.C.
After reading the article, Isaac called his father and they spoke for a long time.
βIt was kind of like the smell after a big rainfall. The air is clear again,β Doug Pacheco said of their conversation. βIt was exactly like that.
βI think what my son needed to hear me say was, βI recognize that that was not right.β Saying those words set him free like a bird out of his cage.β
Faith Christianβs head pastor Stephen M. Hall and executive pastor Ian A. Laks have refused for months to respond to allegations that members were harmed by the churchβs practices. Neither has replied since March to dozens of calls, emails and letters from Star reporters.
Hall often advised his underlings to lay low when facing criticism, said Jeff Phillips, a former associate pastor who left the church in 2007. Phillips now is an adjunct professor at American Christian University in Phoenix.
He recalls Hallβs advice for dealing with negative publicity like this: βIf someone throws mud at you, donβt try to wipe it off. Just wait for it to dry and it will fall off on its own.β
UA SCRUTINY
At the University of Arizona, officials say they are keeping closer tabs than in the past on three student clubs linked to Faith Christian, which has been recruiting on the UA campus for more than 20 years.
UA spokesman Chris Sigurdson said staff members from the dean of studentsβ office now drop in unannounced at club meetings, a practice that began at the start of fall semester. The staffers, whom Sigurdson wouldnβt identify, havenβt found any problems that would warrant disciplinary action, he said. The UA also made the clubsβ advisers take cult awareness training.
UA officials say they have authority over the student groups and must tread carefully because religious freedom is protected by law.
The UA will take complaints only from current students or their parents, but former followers say those who leave often are too traumatized to come forward until years later.
The University Religious Council, a campus entity separate from UA administration, isnβt bound by the same rules and has taken the most definitive action against the church. Council leaders did their own investigation and banished Faith Christian from the council because the churchβs leaders refused to answer questions about the allegations, council spokeswoman Michelle Blumenberg said.
βThe number, seriousness, and pattern of red flags raised compel URC members to no longer believe that Faith Christian Church and its affiliates operate at the highest level of integrity, transparency, safety for students, and respect for students, standards required for URC membership,β a statement from the religious council said.
To warn the new crop of freshmen that arrived this fall, the council announced its actions against the church in fliers that were included in UA orientation packages.
The council also added βreligious manipulationβ to its list of red flags for βreligious conduct gone awry.β Religious manipulation includes βstrategies that target vulnerable students, methods which seek to break down and then rebuild students, and instances of over-the-top niceness used as a form of entrapment,β the URC wrote.
The addition was specifically aimed at the Faith Christian recruiting tactic former members called βlove-bombingβ β showering new students with attention and affection to gain their trust.
βThe University Religious Council hopes that the situation which happened with Faith Christian Church will lead more students and parents to do their homework about faith groups with whom they would like to become involved,β Blumenberg said in an email.
Faith Christian doesnβt answer to any larger policymaking body, the way a Presbyterian church falls under a synod, or a Catholic parish, a diocese.
The little accountability that did exist evaporated in April when the national Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability began an investigation into complaints from former Faith Christian members about high-pressure demands for donations and other church practices.
Faith Christian responded by resigning from the financial accountability council. The resignation halted efforts to determine whether the church met councilβs standards for responsible stewardship, a council spokeswoman said.
The church remains a member of the National Evangelical Association, and touts that membership status on its website. The evangelical association has recommended pastoral practices but does not oversee member churches to ensure they are followed, the groupβs communications director said.
SMALLER CROWDS
About a dozen former Faith Christian members and supporters picketed the churchβs Sunday services at the start of fall term, typically the churchβs busiest season for bringing new UA freshmen into the fold.
In years past, a few hundred freshmen usually showed up. This year, βI was shocked by how few students we saw,β said former church member Rachel Mullis, 39, one of the picketers.
βIt seemed like attendance was way down from what it historically has been,β agreed picketer Phillips, 43, the former associate pastor.
Laks, Faith Christianβs second-in-command, called police, but officers who responded found the picketers werenβt causing trouble and allowed them to stay, public records show.
Faith Christian, which has never built its own worship facility, has been without a home for several months. For years, the church used rented space at Amphitheater High School for its Sunday services, but chose to leave shortly after the school district began its own investigation in April.
In recent months, the church has held its services at the Tucson Marriott University Park hotel just outside UAβs main gate. Last week, a few days after the Star tried again to reach church leaders, Faith Christianβs website was changed to remove any reference to the location of its Sunday services.
The negative publicity may be affecting the churchβs fundraising efforts.
Former church member Connie Cohn said sheβs been approached five times in recent months by current or prospective donors who said they were put off by news reports of Faith Christianβs methods and the churchβs refusal to address the allegations.
All five said they had decided against giving to the church, said Cohn, 52, a former lay leader who left Faith Christian in 1999 after 18 years.
Henry Puente, a member of Faith Christianβs financial board for several years, says when he left in 2005, Hallβs salary was around $150,000 a year and Laksβ about $100,000. The mean average wage for a clergy member in Tucson was just over $54,000 in 2013, U.S. Department of Labor statistics show.
The church also employs at least nine members of Hallβs family, according to a staff list on its website. They include Hallβs wife Teresa, the coupleβs five grown children and three sons-in-law. It isnβt clear how much the relatives are paid.
Faith Christianβs assets have swelled from $200,000 in the mid-1990s to more than $5 million this year, state and county records show. That includes a ranch as well as two cabins on Mount Lemmon that were rebuilt in 2013 at a cost of $1.38 million, the churchβs 2013 financial statement shows.
SATELLITES AFFECTED
Faith Christian has six satellite churches as far away as New Zealand, all of which recruit on college campuses.
In New Zealand, New Palmerston Victory Christian Church β launched a decade ago by staffers who trained at Faith Christian β recruits at Massey University. In March, Massey banned nine representatives of the New Zealand church from setting foot on campus. School officials there said theyβd been looking into complaints about the church prior to the Starβs investigation, but said the newspaperβs findings prompted additional scrutiny.
Massey officials became βsufficiently concerned about the actions and behaviour of certain members of the Victory Church,β spokesman James Gardiner said in a March email. βWhat has been alleged is that vulnerable young people have been offered friendship and support, but then made to feel dependent on the church and its members and isolated from other support networks, such as family and friends, with a consequent loss of self-esteem.β
In April, the Tampa Bay Times investigated Faith Christian-affiliate Cornerstone Christian Church, which recruits on the campus of the University of South Florida campus. That school received complaints from two former students about the churchβs overly controlling practices, but officials said there was little they could do without complaints from current students.
In August, the Florida school received another complaint from a former church member who claimed Bill Cooper, the churchβs senior pastor, had a yacht. The writer also described the churchβs controlling tactics.
βThey want to know all your business. All your misfortunes. All your weaknesses. All your sins. All your family problems. If you donβt open up to then, you will be accused of a rebellious spirit,β the complaint read. βOnce you decide to leave or if youβre kicked out, your contact with church members ceases. ... I couldnβt believe how fast my friends of three years forgot about me. People struggle for years after they leave.β
CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC
The mother of a UA junior from Los Angeles launched the Starβs investigation into Faith Christian when she emailed a reporter with concerns about her son. His behavior and personality had changed dramatically after two years with Faith Christian, Kathy Sullivan said. She feared losing touch with him entirely and was bewildered by the level of influence church leaders wielded over him.
βI felt like I was in a tug-of-war with strangers over my son,β she said in a recent interview. When she made the decision to contact the newspaper, βI felt like a mother bear protecting her cub.β
Sullivan is cautiously optimistic that her son, who graduated from UA this month, has read the Starβs reporting and could one day pull back from the church. In recent months, heβs been warmer and more like his old self, she said. But they never talk about Faith Christian and have not directly addressed Sullivanβs role in the media coverage.
Sullivan said she believes speaking out has protected others, if not her son.
βEven if it doesnβt succeed in getting him out, itβs had a positive impact and Iβm very happy for that,β she said.
The Starβs coverage also fueled conversations within the UAβs religious community about healthy church conduct, said Ben Garren, chaplain of the Episcopal Campus Ministry at the UA. The ministry is a member of the University Religious Council, a coalition of ministers and directors of religious and spiritual groups at the university.
Garren said he heard the same refrain from many students in the wake of the Starβs reporting: βI thought there was a problem, but I thought I was the only one who saw it.β
βOnce the information was out there, students started talking about it,β Garren said. βThen suddenly, theyβre all nodding their heads.β
Garren said he wishes the UA could do more to shield students from Faith Christianβs influence. But without hard evidence, he said, the school canβt ban church representatives from a public campus without risking violating the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
βIβm stressing to students the need to report when they have concerns to the dean of studentsβ office, so if there is something happening that is chronic and systematic, the dean can see that and act upon it,β he said. βWithout concrete evidence, they canβt do much.β