Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke

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Summary: Christians Hate One-Another
Review: ÊÊ As is so typically "Christian", we are an army that kills it's own wounded rather than raising them up and restoring them to health. This book is another perfect example of just such hypocrisy. No wonder the world finds all who claim a faith in Jesus Christ to be fools. How can we ever give Jesus to the lonely and dying world while we're destroying our own, mercilessly? Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, and, with this hate-filled book, Mike Warnke, have all become victims of Evangelical Christendom in the United States. May our precious Lord have mercy upon His so-called servants for their hatred of one another. "Christians" around the world carry out this kind of hatred everyday. How can we possibly ever expect Jesus to return given this kind of inter-family strife and animosity?!

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Summary: Anti-Christian Rubbish!
Review: Having grown up in the "Warnke Era", I was fascinated by this book. However, having recently met Mr. Warnke in person and having a one-on-one discussion with him, I feel this book is just another anti-religion progapanda work of the liberal "left". The media hates people of any religious inclination and will stop at nothing to destroy them, come-what-may. Americans are daily brainwashed by the Hollywood media and their cavalcade of over-zeaolous left-wing promoters. Give me a break!! Most Americans do not agree with the Hollywood way of life, yet our politicians (most especially those who are Democrats) bow down to the "god" of Hollywood and try to cram their beliefs down the throats of all Americans. Take a valium!! This worthless drivel is below anyone beyond a 2nd grade education and certainly beyond those of us who actually graduate from college. Mike Warnke was waylaid by the liberal left. He is a man of integrity and this "expose" is nothing more than communist/nazi propaganda!

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Summary: Please read this book!
Review: Hertenstein & Trott have done an invaluable service in the cause of truth. I urge those who have ever heard of Mike Warnke to read this book at least as many times as you read Warnke's "The Satan Seller", or as many times as you have listened to his albums or tapes. There is no way Warnke could refute the evidence in "Selling Satan." He has not responded to specific charges raised in this book to date (October 2000). Warnke is still on the church circuit, selling his books and tapes, though only a few dozen people show up now to hear him. The good people at Cornerstone magazine (JPUSA) are to be highly commended for this in-depth look at a con artist who once billed himself as the country's "#1 Christian comedian." Mike Warnke is currently married to wife #4. He continues to claim that his testimony of being a satanist priest is true. He denies fraudulently taking money for the care of the victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse. I heard him in person this year defending his ministry. If you want the truth about this charlatan, please read--or reread, "Selling Satan." You won't be disappointed. Plus, it is a good historical perspective on the Jesus movement of the late 1960's & '70's.

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Summary: Read this if you care about the truth
Review: I was in Bible college when the Cornerstone expose of Warnke came out. I had seen Mike in concert several times prior to this, and always considered him a great man of God. Like so many others, I just assumed his story was true, because - well, because everybody said it was. Fortunately, the authors had the good sense to launch a long overdue investigation into his claims. Selling Satan is a masterpiece of investigative journalism. The writers are to be commended for their tenacity, investigative skills and commitment to truth.

As for Warnke, a quick visit to his web site will reveal that he hasn't changed, still claiming to have been a Satanist high priest. The five pastors he "submitted" to were extremely easy on him, never challenging him to either prove or denounce what he has written. If you don't believe me, email Warnke himself and ask for copies of the documents regarding their "investigation." The whole thing was a joke. This con artist has managed to avoid doing honest work thanks to fools and cronies, but he has forever disgraced himself and caused terrible hurt to those who used to admire him. Pathetic.

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Summary: Read this if you care about the truth
Review: I was in Bible college when the Cornerstone expose of Warnke came out. I had seen Mike in concert several times prior to this, and always considered him a great man of God. Like so many others, I just assumed his story was true, because - well, because everybody said it was. Fortunately, the authors had the good sense to launch a long overdue investigation into his claims. Selling Satan is a masterpiece of investigative journalism. The writers are to be commended for their tenacity, investigative skills and commitment to truth.

As for Warnke, a quick visit to his web site will reveal that he hasn't changed, still claiming to have been a Satanist high priest. The five pastors he "submitted" to were extremely easy on him, never challenging him to either prove or denounce what he has written. If you don't believe me, email Warnke himself and ask for copies of the documents regarding their "investigation." The whole thing was a joke. This con artist has managed to avoid doing honest work thanks to fools and cronies, but he has forever disgraced himself and caused terrible hurt to those who used to admire him. Pathetic.

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Summary: Will the Real Mike Warnke Please Stand Up?
Review: I was involved in the Contemporary Christian Music industry when the Warnke scandal broke and, frankly, it wasn't a shock to many people in the industry.

I had lobbied the production company I was working with numerous times to hire him for the music festival we did every year, only to be told that there were "integrity issues" involving Warnke.

I was stunned to see that the Cornerstone Magazine article and the accompanying book confirmed what I had hoped were only ugly rumors.

This book is well researched and heavily footnoted and, sadly, irrefutable by Warnke.

I'd like to take a moment to point out to those who defend him that he is still passing himself off as a former Satanic "high priest", a Marine who saw heavy combat in Viet Nam, a drug dealer, a child abuse survivor and a PhD.

Each of these claims has been disproven, yet, he still persists in them.

When it's pointed out that these things have all been shown to be lies, rather than demonstrate that they are true, he plays the dewey eyed victim. One almosts expects to hear the phrase, "vast, right wing conspiracy".

I strongly believe that we should rally around fallen brothers and sisters in Christ to restore them but nowhere in the Bible do we see restoration without repentance.

Warnke clearly is not repetant, as a trip to his own website reveals that he is unwilling to put behind him the sin from which he is supposedly repenting.

Warnke has failed every single Biblical criteria for fitness for the ministry. Were he a rank and file church member, rather than a Christian celebrity, he would have been disfellowshipped long ago for refusing to give up his sin (assuming, of course, that there were still churches around that practiced Biblical discipline).

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Summary: Never challenge Christians?
Review: Jesus himself challenged church leaders who were misguided and he and Paul and other apostles also warned that there would be "false prophets" -- people who use the name of the Lord for personal gain or who are controlled by opposing forces.

Just because a person says he is a good Christian does not mean we should believe him/her. Warncke has been debunked by CHRISTIAN authors and a CHRISTIAN publishing house (not "Commies" or the "Liberal Left" as stated by that mindless Rush Limbaugh drone who commented earlier. Limbaugh = another great example of this kind of person: someone who rails agains criminal liberal druggie hippies all the while popping pills and laughing all the way to the bank).

The authors here are trying to warn people that Warncke is a fraud, a crook. Yes, we should forgive people for lying -- IF THEY CONFESS, but he is still telling stories and trying to make money off it. If you think it's "un-Christian" to look at the facts or judge anyone then why don't we just dismantle all police departments and our whole criminal justice system? Mindless fools! You must think for yourself and look at facts, people! God gave you brains and YOU will be punished for not using them.

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Summary: You Can't Handle The Truth.....
Review: Mike Warnke had it all. He made multiplied millions of dollars selling his testimony, his tapes, and selling out concerts all across the USA and overseas.

But a funny thing happened in 1992. Two Christian journalists who had long suspected Warnke to be a "mount of misinformation" as well as an immoral fraud decided to investigate his life story. They not only uncovered the fact that Warnke had received multiplied millions of dollars to support his lavish lifestyle, complete with horses, ranch, four-story parsonage, and vehicles, but the fact he had been married FOUR times and the Christian churches where he spoke knew nothing about it.

Further investigation of his life revealed a very bizarre portrait: Warnke was exposed not as an ex-Satanic High Priest who sacrificed fingers to the devil (do you ever wonder where all those multiplied millions of people who are supposedly Satanists live that have only nine fingers?) but as a charlatan and closet Catholic who hid his love of rituals from his mostly sympathetic to the charismatic movement audiences.

Two Christians endeavored to tell the truth about Mike Warnke, and this book is that truth. It gives a shocking story about Warnke and is - ironically - a better-detailed biography of Warnke that he managed to write himself!!!

Warnke is exposed as a fraud in nearly every way imaginable. His Vietnam experiences are overblown, his global conspiracy mindset is shredded, and Warnke is shown to lack character as well as tell tall tales about nearly anything. For example, Warnke claimed to have met Charles Manson in a desert at the same time Manson was serving a prison sentence and Warnke was in the Navy. Warnke also claimed to have attended a conference in 1966 where he met the highly diabolical Anton LaVey. As a treat to the readers, the two Christian journalists (Trott and Hertenstein) actually had dinner with LaVey to ask him about this meeting!! The meeting, of course, NEVER happened.

This book is mostly about things that never happened except in the mind of a born storyteller and con man who forgot the very message he was selling to the masses: Jesus takes us just as we are, but He doesn't let us stay that way.

Many kudos to Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein.

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Summary: Good expose on a fraud
Review: Mike Warnke started his "Christian" fame claiming to have been an ex-Satanist and became a "Christian comic". Sadly, he lied for decades before someone actually checked out his claims. Warnke lied about so many things and made claims that were not true, and the facts about his life show how gullibe the Christian people are. He was the first so-called "satanic survivor" and because of liars like him and a few others I could name, the satanic panic hysteria messed up a number of lives. A real eye opener of one Christian fraud among many. The fact that he fooled so many believers for so long does not speak well for the intelligence and serious inquiry of those that fall for these lies, distortions and deceptions about other beliefs and views. Sadly Warnke is not the only self-proclaimed "expert" who lied from the get-go. His lies about his Vietnam experience alone should be contemptibe.