Michael Alfred Warnke (born November 19, 1946) is an American Christian evangelist and comedian. In the 1970s and 1980s he presented himself in media appearances as a former Satanist and authority on Satanism. In 1992, the Christian magazine Cornerstone exposed his Satanist past as purely fictional.

According to the account of his life in The Satan Seller, Warnke converted to Christianity during boot camp.

In 1969, Warnke was deployed to Vietnam for a six-month tour of duty. Having been wounded in battle during those six months, he was awarded the Purple Heart. Warnke's own written accounts differ on the number of times he sustained injuries during his time in Vietnam. In The Satan Seller, Warnke says he was wounded twice, while in his second book, Hitchhiking on Hope Street, he states he was wounded five times. Despite these wounds received during his tour of duty as a hospital corpsman, second class, Warnke's various accounts have him spending much time detained, allegedly killing a man in battle, and surviving being shot several times, including once by an arrow. Warnke says it was the latter wound for which he was awarded the Purple Heart. Warnke returned to the United States in 1970. During a tour to Hazard, Kentucky, Warnke met Rose Hall, a thrice-divorced mother of three children, and began courting her while still married to his second wife. His second marriage came to an end when, as Alberty stated in an interview, Warnke also made a VHS home video, Do You Hear Me? (1989).

During the 1980s, Warnke's ministry prospered as he and his new wife toured and performed together, raising millions of dollars for their ministry. Contributions to the ministry were over $1 million in 1985, and over $2 million each year from 1987 through 1990. The Warnkes separated in 1989 and later divorced in 1991. Six weeks after the divorce was finalized, Warnke married Rim of the World High School alumna Susan Patton. After Warnke's appearance on 20/20, he was frequently cited as an expert on the occult by Christian radio host Bob Larson and the Chick Publications stable of authors.

Investigation and debunking

In 1991, Cornerstone magazine launched an investigation into Warnke's life and testimony. The previous year, the magazine had debunked Lauren Stratford's story that had been recounted in her book Satan's Underground. Stratford claimed her deep involvement in Satanism led her to partake in a ritual in which her own child was sacrificed. After the exposé showed Stratford's alleged child had never existed, Cornerstone journalists Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott investigated Warnke and his claims.

The Cornerstone investigation spanned from interviews with over 100 of Warnke's personal friends and acquaintances to his ministry's tax receipts. It revealed a number of inaccuracies and evidence of fraud and deceit in Warnke's accounts. During the course of Cornerstones investigation, pictures of Warnke taken during the time he was alleged to be a Satanist priest were discovered. Rather than showing an emaciated drug-addict sporting long fingernails and waist-length hair, the pictures showed Warnke as a typical "square" of the mid-1960s. The investigation also revealed Warnke's claims that he and Charles Manson had attended a Satanic ritual to be false; Manson was in federal prison at the time, having no known ties to Satanic churches.

The investigation further uncovered that before joining the navy, Warnke had been involved with the college Christian ministry Campus Crusade for Christ. The investigation also revealed the unflattering circumstances surrounding Warnke's multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces. Regarding one Christian intervention attempt, the Cornerstone article states, "[Don] Riling, Mike Johnson, Wes Yoder, and Mike and Carolyn were there. 'You’d have never guessed that this was a meeting of Christians,' says Riling. 'Mike and Carolyn were swearing the whole time, and they must have gone through a whole pack of cigarettes.'" Before publishing, Cornerstone contacted Warnke for an interview, but he and the magazine could not agree to terms for such an interview.

Public response was varied but was nevertheless overwhelmingly against Warnke. Initially, Word Records stated that they would stand by their artist. However, further investigations by local Kentucky reporters at the Lexington Herald-Leader revealed that Warnke's ministry had engaged in financial misdeeds and that, "Mike, his ex-wife Rose, and her brother Neale [Hall] received a total of $809,680 in salary at a time when the ministry newsletter claimed donations were down and more funds were needed."

In the spring of 1993, Warnke submitted to the authority of an assembly of ministers "acting as elders", acknowledging his "ungodliness", his "multiple divorces", his "failure as husband, father, and friend", and of "embellishment and exaggeration ... in an attempt ... to entertain", and offering to pay back taxes to the federal government. The group recommended specific changes to the ministry, including a salary cap and accountability reports. Nonetheless, he continued to "stand by [his] testimony of former Satanic involvement", stating in a 2000 interview with the Daily Oklahoman, "Exaggeration did creep into some of my stories, but my testimony is still my testimony." As of 2006, a letter posted on Warnke's web site indicated the group had released him as having met their accountability requirements.

In 1997, Warnke suffered a heart attack. In 2000, he began attempting a comeback, limited to small churches in Kentucky. In 2002, he published Friendly Fire: A Recovery Guide for Believers Battered by Religion (), an account of what he perceived as his unfair treatment by fellow Christians in the wake of the Cornerstone exposé. and sometimes as a former Satanic priest although some mentions in the news referred to the Cornerstone exposé.

See also

  • Tony Anthony – A British evangelist whose claims were exposed as false
  • Ergun Caner – Former college President who made similar claims that he was an Islamic terrorist that have been disputed
  • John Todd – An American who claimed to have been a Satanic high priest before his conversion to Christianity
  • Michelle Remembers – A discredited memoir detailing Satanic ritual abuse by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient and later wife, Michelle Smith

References

Further reading

  • Mike Hertenstein, Jon Trott: Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke (), Cornerstone Press 1993. An expanded, book-length version of the Cornerstone exposé by the original journalists.
  • Mike Warnke and Celebrations of Hope, official website
  • by Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott