Televangelists Who Were Anything But Holy

Everybody's known that one dude that can't stop himself from one-upping. You just got a dog? He just got a bald eagle. You've been to Europe? He's an archduke, and his armies march on Luxembourg this very night. To most people, it's exhausting. To fans of Mike Warnke, it's Sunday morning.

Warnke was sort of a big deal back in the day. Though he didn't focus on TV, he lived the good life as a minister and Christian comedian, traveling the world spreading his message that the devil is coming for you and you'd better be ready to fight him. How did he know? Because he totally used to be a satanist. No, not just a satanist. A satanic preacher. With a whole cult. Like, 1,500 people followed him. They made blood sacrifices. He absolutely claimed all of that.

Among his other supposed accomplishments: his doctorate in philosophy, his two bachelor's degrees, and the somewhere-between-two-and-five wounds he accumulated in Vietnam. Was any of it true? Negative, captain.

What makes Warnke's case all the more fascinating is that he was actually outed as a fraud by a Christian publication, Cornerstone Magazine, in an exposé in 1991. The resulting backlash was split. Some were angry at Warnke for his deception, others were upset at the magazine for calling out a man who was bringing the word of God to the people. It's so hard to focus your anger sometimes!

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB9kXFwbG1fqbKtsdWapaCdnJ7Atb%2BMsJ%2BoZaeav6Z5wKewraCZo7RurtStZKGnnK58