Mike Warnke

Mike Warnke was born in 1946 to parents Alfred "Al" Warnke and Louise Warnke of Evansville, Indiana. When he was five years old, the Warnke family moved to Manchester, Tennessee, where his father opened a truck stop. In 1955, Warnke's mother was killed in a car accident. In 1958 his father died, leaving Warnke an orphan.

After the death of his father, Warnke was taken to live with two of his aunts in Sparta, and from there to Mike's half-sister and her husband in San Bernardino, California. In June 1965, he graduated from Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead. That September, Warnke enrolled at San Bernardino Valley College but withdrew after one semester, whereupon by his account, he began his tenure as a Satanist. On June 2, 1966, Warnke enlisted in the United States Navy. After graduating from boot camp on August 22, 1966, his assigned military occupational specialty was as a hospital corpsman.[1]

According to the account of his life in The Satan Seller, Warnke converted to Christianity during boot camp.[1] However, high-school acquaintance Charlotte Tweeten has stated she recalls Warnke proclaiming faith in Christ in the year prior to his navy enlistment in 1966.[1] He also wrote that he began dating fellow Rim of the World High School alumna, Sue Studer, during this time period. This has been disproven, however, and Warnke was actually engaged to Lois Eckenrod at this time.[1] In 1967, he completed naval corpsman training, returned to San Diego, and married Studer. Together, they had two children.[2]

In 1969, Warnke was deployed to Vietnam for a six-month tour of duty.[3] 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.[4] Warnke returned to the United States in 1970.[1]

While still serving in the navy, Warnke teamed up with San Diego evangelist Morris Cerullo and was touted for his "Satanist experience". Warnke and Cerullo toured the country participating in charismatic revival meetings. Cerullo wanted to write a book about youth occultism, and assigned the writing task to David Balsiger with help from Warnke. In early 1972, Warnke requested and received an early discharge from the navy as a conscientious objector so that he could work full-time in the ministry. Warnke then left Cerullo's ministry to start his own, forbidding Cerullo to use any of his material. It was at this time that Warnke and Balsiger went on to write the book that would make Warnke famous.[1]

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 Cornerstone's 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.'"[1]

Most critically, the investigation showed how Warnke could not have done the many things he claimed to have taken part in throughout the nine months he claimed to be a Satanist—including his claims to be a drug-addicted dealer or a Satanic high priest.[10] Before publishing, Cornerstone contacted Warnke for an interview, but he and the magazine could not agree to terms for such an interview.[2][11] Cornerstone revealed its story at the annual Christian Booksellers Association convention in June 1992.

Warnke sent a response to Cornerstone,[2] published in July, insisting he told the truth, stating:

I stand by my testimony of being delivered and set free by the power of Jesus Christ after being a Satanic high priest exactly as published in my book, The Satan Seller. ... some information was purposefully changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals and to prevent readers from using the book as a guide for occultism and Satanic purposes. But, as we stated in the front of the book, 'The events are absolutely as described.'

Despite these assertions, Warnke did not provide the name of a single Satanist but used invectives against ex-wife Carolyn.[2] In the ensuing months, he conceded parts of the allegations, telling Christianity Today that there had been only thirteen members of his coven, not 1,500 as originally claimed, and that of those thirteen, the whereabouts of five were unknown to him, while the other eight had since died.[12]

Public response was varied but was nevertheless overwhelmingly against Warnke.[11] 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."[11] One week later, Word Records dropped Warnke from its label. Finally, on September 30, 1992, fewer than 100 days after the investigation was made public, Warnke's ministry closed its doors.[13]

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.[14] Nonetheless, he continued to "stand by [his] testimony of former Satanic involvement",[15] stating in a 2000 interview with the Daily Oklahoman, "Exaggeration did creep into some of my stories, but my testimony is still my testimony."[14][16] As of 2006, a letter posted on Warnke's web site indicated the group had released him as having met their accountability requirements.[17]

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 (ISBN 0-7684-2124-1), an account of what he perceived as his unfair treatment by fellow Christians in the wake of the Cornerstone exposé.[17] By 2004, he was making occasional performing appearances at churches around the country, often referred to simply as "Christian comedian Mike Warnke",[18][19][20] and sometimes as a former Satanic priest[21][22][23] although some mentions in the news referred to the Cornerstone exposé.[17]

• 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
• Lauren Stratford – an American whose claims to have been brought up as a baby breeder in a Satanic cult were exposed as false
• 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

• Mike Hertenstein, Jon Trott: Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke (ISBN 0-940895-07-2), Cornerstone Press 1993. An expanded, book-length version of the Cornerstone exposé by the original journalists.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Mike Warnke.

• Mike Warnke and Celebrations of Hope, official website
• The Cornerstone series on Mike Warnke at the Wayback Machine (archived June 4, 2011) by Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott