For Star subscribers: University of Arizona officials say they prioritize complaints from current students. But a current student and a recent dropout both say their complaints were unanswered or misdirected.
For decades, Wildcat families have been warning the University of Arizona that its students were being targeted by a campus church that seemed like a cult.
In a March 10 email, UA spokeswoman Pam Scott said the university has no jurisdiction over Faith Christian Church, only its on-campus clubs. She said the office has not received any recent complaints about the church’s three affiliated clubs. Dean of Students Washington White did not respond to the Star’s query about how many complaints her office has received about the church itself.
While the UA has no authority over outside groups like Faith Christian Church, it can restrict the activities of student groups on campus if they’re not following the school’s code of conduct. Scott said the dean’s office recently expressed concern to Faith Christian leaders about the church’s “level of engagement in pursuing students.” A pastor responded that “any behaviors of concern would be addressed and corrected,” Scott said in the March 10 email.
Four calls in JanuaryRobideau, 17, dropped all her classes at the UA in January and returned to New York, in part due to her experience with Faith Christian and the lack of response from the dean of students’ office, she told the Star. When Robideau called the dean’s office back she was redirected again, this time to the campus police department, she said.
Before long, she said, church members were pressuring her to start making money so she could donate 10% of her income — gross income, not net, they emphasized — to the church. Robideau said she started to distance herself after finding the Star’s 2015 news coverage of alumni complaints about the church.
Snapp, then a freshman, said he felt “unsafe” living at the UA’s newly-opened Honors Village — the priciest student housing available on campus — because Faith Christian ministers were using it as a recruiting hub. A council member responded immediately and contacted the dean’s office on his behalf, he said. From then on, the dean of students’ office was responsive, he told the Star.'Please ban them'Washington White did not respond to the Star’s questions about Snapp’s experience.
In response to the Star’s query, UA spokeswoman Scott said the office would look into the complaints. A 300-seat auditorium on campus rents for $190 an hour to outside organizations, according to the UA student union's event planning department. At that rate, Faith Christian would have to pay more than $30,000 a year to rent the type of space its student clubs book for free for four hours nearly every Saturday night.
Emails Tucker provided to the Star show he took orders as president from associate pastors Tyler Wachenfeld and Geoff Scara and church administrator Keith Jenkins. Each of them sent instructions to his Gmail address, not his UA email address.No women leadersTucker and other former members said the church’s picks for club presidents are always men in alignment with its teachings that single women are not fit for leadership roles.
Saturday night prayer meetings on campus were strictly church events, Cheromiah said. In the 14 years she attended, “I never once saw a student member lead the meeting,” she said. 'Concerning' behaviorTucker also didn’t get a response when he sent his complaint about the student clubs to the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, or ASUA, in January 2022. Student clubs must be recognized by ASUA to operate on campus.
Former Faith Christian campus ministers Jeff and Lisa Phillips worked on the UA campus for the Tucson church, then founded — “planted” in church parlance — two Faith Christian satellite churches on campuses in Florida and New Zealand between 1995 and 2008. The meeting had been called by leaders of other UA campus ministries to confront Hall over student complaints about Faith Christian’s aggressive recruiting methods, Lisa Phillips said. The list of examples, from which council members read aloud, was “a couple pages long,” she said, though she couldn’t remember specifics.
The posters, displayed in all UA dorms, single-out Faith Christian and its affiliated student clubs with the warning: “Membership revoked for integrity issues.”
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