ASU reportedly disciplines church for hazing, stalking students
Jul 18, 2017, 2:12 PM
(Facebook Photo)
(Facebook Photo)
PHOENIX — A Tucson-founded church has reportedly been disciplined by Arizona State University for hazing and stalking students.
The Arizona Daily Star reported Sunday that Hope Church will face sanctions — including a loss of free rent on the school’s Tempe campus and access to tuition discounts for church leaders — for at least four years.
“I think its good the university recognized that there was wrongdoing that happened,” former church member Stephen Wicker told the State Press.
“I’m glad that ASU took it seriously, I’m glad that they took some action and I hope that its enough that (Hope Church) realizes some of their errors and can maybe make some changes.”
However, a church official told the newspaper that his organization was still in good standing at ASU.
“Hope Church is in good standing with ASU,” Corey Vale, chairman of the church’s board of directors, said in an email Thursday. “ASU has encouraged us to continue our involvement on campus.”
ASU denied that claim in a follow-up statement.
“We disagree with the characterization of some Hope leaders that the relationship between the university and the church has not substantively changed,” it said.
Any person or group that engages in misconduct “is not considered to be in good standing with the university.”
The school had been investigating Hope Church for months prior to reportedly leveling discipline.
The investigation began after 14 people submitted a more than 120-page complaint to ASU about the church last July. Misconduct proceedings began in November.
The complaint alleges the church is a “bona fide cult” that uses student groups to solicit new members. It also said that once students shared contact information with the church, they were bombarded with text messages that were “harassing and intimidating.”
According to an earlier report from the Arizona Daily Star, the complaint also contained allegations that church members solicited new members in dormitories — which is not permitted per ASU rules — on multiple occasions and that some church members were forced into unveiling their sexual histories.
An ASU senior who attended Hope from 2014 to 2016 said she came to regret telling a campus minister she’d been sexually assaulted during freshman year. The minister and three other staffers later pressured her for details of her “relational sins,” including the sexual assault, the student wrote in the recent complaint to ASU.
“I was forced to relive the experience in a space I was highly uncomfortable in with people I did not want to be talking to,” she wrote. The exchange took place in a hotel room during a church trip, she wrote.
Hope advisory board member Gary Kinnaman — a former megachurch pastor who runs a religious consulting firm — said he and others had worked with the church to create a more welcoming atmosphere.
“Has Hope been controlling? Yes. Extremely controlling? Perhaps in some cases,” Kinnaman told the Star, adding that church leaders made recommended changes.
Hope was originally founded in Tucson as a satellite of the Faith Christian Church, which has also been the subject of cult accusations and was later censured.
The Tempe church is led by one of the Tucson founders, though the branches had a falling out nearly 10 years ago and have not been in contact since.
