This is an accepted version of this page Michael Alfred Warnke (born November 19, 1946) is an American Christian evangelist and comedian who was exposed in 1992 for inventing stories of his past as a Satanist.

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.

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.

[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.

[1] While still serving in the navy, Warnke teamed up with San Diego evangelist Morris Cerullo and was touted for his "Satanist experience".

Further detailed is Warnke's participation in sexual orgies, alcoholism, and drug dealing; his rise in the ranks of Satanism to the level of "high priest"; presiding over Satanic rituals including magical spells, summoning demons, ritual sex including a kidnap and rape; the attempt on his life—a heroin overdose—that left him angry and disillusioned; his heroism in Vietnam; and how he found Jesus and came home as an evangelist.

In 1974, Warnke moved his family to attend Trinity Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a nine-month preparation for ministry.

It was here, while among other charismatic Christians and recent converts preparing for a life of ministry, that Warnke met Carolyn Alberty and the two began an extramarital affair.

[citation needed] Later that same year, despite interventions from pastors and other acclaimed ministers, Warnke left his wife for Alberty and filed for divorce.

[5] During a tour to Hazard, Kentucky, Warnke met Rose Hall, a thrice-divorced mother of three children, and began courting her while still married to his second wife.

His second marriage came to an end when, as Alberty stated in an interview,[1] "[Warnke] threw me into a wall and split my head open.

[1] Warnke and his label, Word Records, feuded over an album which he eventually produced and distributed on his own, A Christian's Perspective on Halloween (1979).

Word Records and Warnke reconciled by 1981,[citation needed] resulting in Coming Home (1981), and now including wife Rose, Higher Education (1982) and Growing Up (1983).

Under Word's Dayspring label, Warnke then released (solo) Stuff Happens (1985), Good News Tonight (1986), One In A Million (1988), Live ...

Six weeks after the divorce was finalized, Warnke married Rim of the World High School alumna Susan Patton.

[9] After Warnke's appearance on 20/20, he was frequently cited as an expert on the occult by Christian radio host Bob Larson and the Chick Publications stable of authors.

After the exposé showed Stratford's alleged child had never existed, Cornerstone journalists Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott investigated Warnke and his claims.

The investigation further uncovered that before joining the navy, Warnke had been involved with the college Christian ministry Campus Crusade for Christ.

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.

[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.

[citation needed] 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.