Maranatha first got into the national spotlight when the Wall Street Journal profiled it in 1985.  Rick Ross has the article hosted here.  It revealed some pretty shocking practices.  For instance, it was drummed out of a Canadian university after a student there was so torn about his past life that he maimed himself.  At another school, members were told that lying to others was acceptable if it was for their own good.  And at another, a student questioned a teaching that tampons were unsafe, and was told she had a rebellious spirit.

Maranatha broke up in 1989 due to growing heat from the press.  However, a good number of churches once affiliated with it still exist today--including one in Durham that suckered me into joining its campus outreach at Carolina during my freshman year.  That church, King's Park International Church, is one of the more prominent churches in Every Nation, a group of charismatic-oriented ministries built around several former Maranatha churches and ministries.  The links to Maranatha are so strong that at the very least it's a linear descendant of Maranatha, and it can be argued that it's a revived and repackaged Maranatha.  

I saw many of the same things that former Maranatha members reported--controlling practices, heavy demands on my time, the lot.  All I didn't see was a ban on dating.  I finally got out in January 1997 ... and the scars still run deep today.  It was only by accident that I found out about their Maranatha ties--and when I warned my former "brothers and sisters" about it, their response was, in so many words, "So what?"  Many of them are still active in Every Nation today.  In fact, they have a church here in Charlotte--and sometimes I wonder if that was intended to be my church, given how many of my friends were groomed to be leaders there.

That church doesn't mention its Maranatha past much, but per corporate records from the North Carolina Secretary of State's office, it was founded in 1985 as a Maranatha church--and still operates under its original bylaws (as amended) today.  Back in 2005, I was one of several people who alerted the Triangle press about this outfit.

So now Joyner has invited the leader of a recognized cult to his board.  Tells you a lot about his character--and that of the dominionist movement.