[Note: Please see my posts down below. It will help to read posts from bottom up from the first post to the present]
Nothing reveals O’Neill’s hypocrisy more than his so-called business “philosophy.” As said in my other post, O’Neill’s only mission in life was (and is) to make himself financially secure. The hypocrisy lies in the egregious distortion of scripture to fit his own selfish ambitions.
To justify his worldly ambition (to be financially secure), O’Neill does the classic trick. He arbitrarily connects randomly lifted Biblical verses to justify his personal businesses ambitions. Here is the blurb from his Website about Christian Corps International, the deceptive name he has provided for his business activities:
Christian Business International is an organ of Christian Corps International.
CCI is a federation of international businesses that are at Christ’s disposal.
Their primary purpose is His filling the earth and subduing it: this transposes the
power and purpose of work from man (Genesis 3:19) to God (Genesis 1:28)
and radically affects every area of business.
Wow! O’Neill speaks and God listens! Even if God does not, certainly his followers do. Experience, however, has taught me that the followers are actually not following their leader. The leader merely spells out the followers desires and expectations. Once the follower hears what he/she has been harboring in his/her own mind, it RINGS a bell. The leader’s words sound nothing but godly. The followers are following their own ambitions.
O’Neill, like all other religious and other ring leaders, is a master of “wording” what the followers want to hear.
Look at the above scriptural distortion. Obviously, Genesis 1:28 (the blessing of God) happens before Genesis 3:19 (the curse of God). What O’Neill is claiming here would make the holiest shudder. O’Neill is claiming that the curse of God is removed by simply opening a modern day business! What is this “power and purpose of work?” Man did not chose to be cursed. Even if that is correct that the curse of God was brought upon mankind by a willful act, even then WHAT MAKES O’NELL THINKS THAT HE HAS THE POWER TO REMOVE THIS CURSE?!!
Yet, O’Neill thinks by simply putting his business to “Christ’s disposal” he and his followers automatically enter into the biblical blessing!!
If this theological claim is not kooky enough for you, examine O’Neill’s worldly claims. “CCI is federation of International Businesses.” Really? The only businesses in this “international federation” are those owned by O’Neill!! I challenge O’Neill to show any other business affiliation in this “federation” in which he does not have personal ownership.
The question is who owns “Christian Business International or Christian Corps International?”
For years O’Neill operated CCI in Minneapolis. Who were the owners of CCI? This was bandied as a “non-profit organization.” However, the fact was O’Neill never shared ownership with anyone. Which is why when he fled Minneapolis, deserting his band of Campus Church elders, he took the CCI brand with him and was able to resurrect it in Raleigh, NC.
O’Neill, you do not have the ethical integrity to tell the world who owns CCI? If you did then there will be something about it on your website. But even WORLD INVISIBLE, which is supposedly a religious/spiritual site, has .COM (commerce) at the end of its domain name.
For O’Neill spirituality and religion always has been about COMMERCE. This is what exposes this man to what he is—a small business owner masquerading as a “Pastor.” A man who has never cared for anyone except himself. Which is why in my very first post I said, this man can call himself whatever he wants. But if has the slightest bit of conscience in him (which he does not) he will not designate himself as the Pastor.
O’Neill continues to exploit and molest young people spiritually. In this respect he is on the same level as those Catholic priests who have sexually molested children. The tragedy is that while many of these Catholic priests have been brought to justice, O’Neill will never be indicted let alone convicted of any crime.
Nevertheless, O’Neill is worse than these Catholic priests. Mr. O’Neill you will never stand trial for your innumerable crimes. However, the Internet has exposed you.
You also know the passive attitude of thousands of Christians. You know these Christians will leave you alone because they will leave things for God to judge. Not me. I know who you are Mr. And none of your business claims will give you that respectability that you have manged to acquire in your own little world where you are surrounded by your sick followers like Myron Kliever, Greg Lietschcu (sorry I could never spell his last name), Dan Schafer, and Colleen Donahue, Lucy Blomfield, Martha Nelson and the rest.
YOUR ARE A SNAKE OIL SALESMAN O’NEILL.
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Christian Business International Newsletter
Christian Business International is an organ of Christian Corps International.
CCI is a federation of international businesses that are at Christ’s disposal.
Their primary purpose is His filling the earth and subduing it: this transposes the
power and purpose of work from man (Genesis 3:19) to God (Genesis 1:28)
and radically affects every area of business.
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EXPOSING Rev. "PASTOR" ERNEST O'NEILL 
I am so glad that someone has taken the responsibility to expose this man. Exposure is the best way to bring this man to his senses. Although, I think that it is too little to late. At this age this guy is not going to fess up, is he?
It is amazing what people do in the guise of religion. Worse are those who say they are not only religious but chosen to look after God’s people.
I know how O’Neill betrayed hundreds in Minneapolis. Hardly a surprise, but this “man of God” never said sorry to no one. I am happy at your efforts to unmask this man.
I hope more people will come forward and do the same.
I was also betrayed by Christian Corps International. I left my job in South Africa to work for O’Neil in London Hertfordshire for a year without pay.
I, too, am grateful for this long-overdue exposure. I always wondered why he was the Pied Piper, and we were doing all the work. I always wondered why he always invited everyone else to the houses for lunch, but never showed up himself. I always wondered why he sequestered himself and was accountable to no one.
I saw the bills come in at Fish for floors that had been ripped apart, when businesses didn’t work out as he thought.
But, “sorry”? I trusted him more than my father back in the mid-seventies. I received low pay, uninspired counsel, and tried to “believe the best of him”.
I wonder how many people suffer from the effects of this man’s hunger for power?
Kathleen M.,
What would have happened to a floor that you saw “had been ripped apart when business didn’t work out as [Mr. O’Neill] thought?” And why do “bills come in to FISH” for that ripping of the floors? Is it a midnight rage-wreck thing or what? What cause and effect are going on in that process?
Anyway… the whole experience may be a good anecdote of the failings of some kinds of leadership. I have some interest in communal attempts as well as Christian big-ministry attempts, and puffed-up ego problems in general. Concerning Christian communes, I have written an article called “Christian Absolute Socialism – Commanded by God?” which references the Hutterite Society but applies to others. For that article, see it posted at my blog antsofgod.blogspot.com . Thanks for letting me advertise that.
Thanks, Kathleen for posting.
Peter
I should have said my blog with my article on communalism is at hypomarx2.blogspot.com . I run the other blog as well.
Peter
Pastor O’Neill did things as God “prompted” him. Fish Enterprises was a group of small businesses (run by O’Neill) in a building in Minneapolis in the 70’s that we restored, to be “Jesus in the World”, runnning normal businesses. There was a soda fountain, flower shop, 2 restaurants, book store, shoe store, hair salon, and even a small furniture store. We had limited space, and since it took a while for things to make a profit, O’Neill would feel that God was prompting him to move the book store to where to soda fountain was, and the brick floor needed to go. (No midnight rippings of bricks, though!)There was perpetual movement. Maybe he thought that we should keep busy, so we wouldn’t lust after one another, since about 90% of us were single) He was a visionary, a real charismatic leader, who could have asked us all to scrub the floors with a toothbrush and we would have done it, becsuse Jesus wanted us to do it.
I happened to work in the office, and saw the bills come in for construction. Luckily, there was a construction arm of our business, too…but it seemed like such waste. Every one of us was only making $500/month and were working probably 60-70 hours a week. We were expected to take a couple of classes at Christain Corps training school in the evenings. I got up at 5 and went to bed at midnight. Good thing I was only 23. At least I met my husband of 31 years there.
Thanks Kathleen. That is the point I have been making. O’Neill is a fake and was a bad business man. He made really, really bad decisions. But never did he once acknowledged his mistakes because running business is tied to this theology and world view. If you make the fake claim that God is guiding you to run a business, and the business fails because you did not know the basics, you cannot acknowledge your dumbness because then people will ask, “Wasn’t God guiding you?”
The fact is that there is no such thing as a “Christian Business.” Or for that matter a “Jewish Business” or a “Hindu Business.” Such a claim is RIDICULOUS.
Yet, O’Neill’s Business arm, the Christian Corp International (CCI), continues to live by that fallacious claim.
This folly devastated thousands of lives because O’Neill continued to claim that God guides every aspect of a believer which includes his work, career, and business.
More than that “Pastor” O’Neill convinced all CCI employees that God has a special blessing for all who are donating their “labor of love” to the CCI businesses. He knew this was an outright lie. Well, as it turned out, there was no special blessing of God manifest in CCI. Even after years of work that hundred of believers put into CCI activities it crashed because O’Neill did not know anything about how to run a business.
Again, the tragedy was not that the business failed and revealed O’Neill’s hypocrisy. The tragedy was the unchristian manner in which O’Neill reacted to this massive failure which involved hundreds of lives, other than his own. Instead, of acknowledging that he was wrong, and then coming up with a fair remedial plan for all who worked with the CCI, O’Neill quickly wound up the shop and absconded to North Carolina, taking away whatever little was left.
Without a moment of confession, O’Neill continues to make the same claims and continues to spew the same nonsense.
Kush,
Here I would like to respond to the gist of your post of Sunday, November 02, 2008, 4:01:08 PM.
If I may attempt to analyse the gist of what you are saying and the “bottom line”:
Although at times you make a few extremely negative statements, I will not take those literally. (I mean, statements like on the original post about “fake business claims” you said, “O’Neill’s only mission in life was (and is) to make himself financially secure” or, you said, on the most recent comment, “The fact is that there is no such thing as a “Christian Business.” “) I do not take those black-and-white statements literally. I like to think that you would admit that people are complex mixtures of motives. I like to think that you would admit that a business can be a mixture of Christian principles with profit-motive principles, or could be a mixture of principles derived from this or that philosophy/religion.
Yet, the gist of what you are saying, if I may presume to give you my “take” on it, might be that you would like to see a lot more HUMILITY. Specifically in the case of Ernest O’Neill, you would like to see him admit that: 1) his leadings from God were, at best, partial, 2) his Christianity was, at best, a mixture of things 3) his mode of motivation-of-workers by charismatic leadership lead some to put too much stock in him.
I said some off-topic things. The gist of them is that I think criticism can be good for everyone of us, including for Christian leaders. I think the whole Christian traditional system, including Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, has got a lot of mixture in it and needs to be refined and sifted.
Yet, by what standard are we going to judge results? Do we assume that Sam Walton follow the Christian God more closely than Ernest O’Neill … judging by the financial results? Or do we assume that Bill Gates is a morally better human being because his businesses accumulated capital? Well, those are rhetorical questions. So, we just want to step back and look objectively at stuff.
Thank you Peter. Your comments are thoughtful and very welcome.
Let me start off with the “extreme negative statements” that you said I make. You gave two good examples. 1. “O’Neills only mission in life was… to make himself financially secure.” Why is that extreme? His conduct is very clear. Why was he not satisfied to live on a Pastor’s salary augmented by the income of his dentist spouse? Second, now more than three decades in business, what unique Christian principle or insight has come out for the benefit of the rest of the world in particular the Christian world?
2. “There is no such thing as a Christian Business.” Yes. I am saying that exactly in the same context that a public management expert asked the politicians. He said, “there is really no Republican or Democrat way of paving the streets.” We can put all the labels we want. But they are meaningless because when it comes to actual tasks and running of a business there is no Christian, Jewish, or a Hindu way. Sure there are differing cultures and environments. But I know of no real business that does not teach to respect their fellow workers and treat their customers just as they will treat themselves (just two little examples).
In fact, once a business acquires some size and public stature in society it is bound by the laws of that society. Which is why employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin is illegal here and in most countries.
Which is why I stand by my assertion that O”Neill started out making these fake claims and continues to do that today.
Now let us look at your circular statement: “A business can be a mixture of Christian principles with profit-motive principles…” With all due respect that is a circular, heads I win, tails you lose, statement. Nature of human complexity is what is explored in millions of words written on Organization and organization development. Once again please tell me what would those “[unique] Christian principles” are?? Are you talking about behaviorial human characteristics which actually are universal and has nothing to do with one’s religion.
To me more important than humility is plain honesty. I do not think that O’Neill’s fake and exaggerated claim arise from a lack of humility. They arise from ignorance, and arrogance about who he is. O’Neill always has put himself in a class by himself and his enablers and followers are there to protect him in his corral.
Refinement. I do not know. The problem is that Christians (any kind) are not cut from a different bolt of cloth. Nor is there anything called a miraculous transformation by the “holy spirit.” That is the problem here. O’Neill and his followers continue to delude themselves that they have the “holy spirit.” Of course, anyone disputing or questioning that is a heathen and an unholy unbeliever who does not have the mindset to understand the spirit!!
Your last paragraph is the most incisive. If I understand it correctly, by what measure is one to judge the success of a “Christian business?” The answer is there is no measure because the assertion is a false one. It does not matter whether Sam Walton believed in God or not. The fact of the matter is he did some things right and grew. The same for Bill Gates. I have never heard that either of these men claim that their “faith in the supernatural” led to their enormous success.
Actually your last paragraph supports my assertion (which you found extreme) that there is no such thing as a Christian Business and O’Neill’s and his enablers claims are hollow and devoid of any commonsense.
Can somebody please list the things O’Neill did wrong? What exactly happened at Campus Church? I worked at CCI’s Naniboujou Lodge one summer and left the church immediately thereafter. I found the “sinless perfectionism” ideas oppressive and ultimately depressing. Except for the Rameys, almost everyone at the Lodge was depressed and, at times, downright bizarre! Most of them spent the entire summer reading children’s books; the whole thing became creepy! It was Christianity on whisper mode. Theologically, I had huge problems with the church and began to feel the organization was potentially cultic. But then I left Minnesota for 12 years and never heard exactly what went wrong beyond money whispers and rumors. I’ve wondered ever since. Can someone help me out here?
Thanks.
Kevin: You are a true veteran. The last time I heard, the Ramey’s were still running the Lodge. I guess, they somehow got possession of it because it was too far from Minneapolis. Like his London operation, O’Neill probably had no direct control or only partial control of this business. Which is why it survived after the break up of Campus Church. It will be interesting to get an update on the Lodge (gives me the creeps!)
What O’Neill did? He simply abandoned and scampered overnight. Did not even care to say anyone good bye. These were people who worked with him for years and sacrificed so much (I am not including myself in that group). In fact, because I knew at least a dozen or more who were dedicated to Campus Church, and Christian Corps, I felt very bad for them. They were my friends. I was shocked to hear O’Neill’s callous conduct. Because of my friends and the fact that I too was at one time involved I do take this tragedy personally. I saw first hand the plight of hundreds of former Christian Corps and Campus Church workers. While many staggered and quickly found some thing else to do, many others were devastated. They did not know what to do, where to go, which church to join? O’Neill, in the meanwhile, secretly contacted some of the die-hards like Colleen Donahue (who used to be his personnel manager) and others who were willing to keep their mouths shut and kept believing in him. These enablers never asked any questions and did not hold O’Neill responsible for the devastation he had left behind in Minneapolis. For O’Neill and his wife, this was a time to start a new venture while everyone else be damned.
What went wrong? O’Neill ran the place like a dictator. He was accountable to none. While paying others minimum wages he helped himself to a generous pay and allowances for foreign trips and frequent vacations. O’Neill knew, long before others (except Ron who was the accountant) that Christian Corps was not making it. Yet, not even once did he share financial information with those who worked there. Not even once he warned anyone to be careful and look for other opportunities because he knew if he told the truth his whole drama would come to an end and his credibility would be badly hurt. Why? Because all these years he convinced everyone that he was in close touch with God and God was guiding all his business moves. Of course, those were untruthful claims. No one receives such micro guidance from God.
Therefore, when the businesses in Minneapolis crashed he scampered and ran overnight because he stood exposed. All those claims of his holiness and his special status with God simply crashed. The smoke and mirrors drama came to a tragic end.
O’Neill’s callousness is evidenced in the fact that he just dumped everyone in Minneapolis, particularly his circle of “elders” and ran away with whatever was left. I do not know every detail. However, I am hoping that people will come forward and throw some light on this immense tragedy created by “Pastor” O’Neill.
Thanks for your response. This sadly echoes what I heard from others.
As to the Ramey’s and Naniboujou, let me add just one thing more. If anyone could ever make me consider the possibility/viability of “sinless perfection” theologies in this lifetime, it would be Tim and Nancy Ramey. They were always the nicest, gentlest and most gracious people you could ever imagine, especially Tim. While no shrinking violet, I cannot honestly say I ever saw Tim Ramey do anything dishonorable or sinful the entire summer I worked there. And that is truly saying something when you consider the challenging business he was managing and the completely incompetent breakfast and lunch chef they made the mistake of hiring! I’m sure I was the worst cook they ever hired! While I was saddened to hear of Tim’s terrible paralyzing accident years ago, I am thrilled they eventually gained control of the Lodge – they were truly wonderful people. I still have fantasies about Nancy’s fresh-baked bread!
While Eugene O’Neill may have been a disappointment to many, there was some lovely Christianity regularly on display in and around Campus Church. Perhaps it would be wise to remember that…
Blessings!
Kevin: You have hit the nail on the head. Ernest (not Eugene!!) O’Neill has never shown any care for people like the Rameys. This indeed is the tragedy here. Campus Church was full of young (now old) and upright people like the Rameys who, come what may, dedicated their lives to God.
You could not find a better bunch of people elsewhere.
Yet, what did O’Neill care? Nothing. For O’Neill people like the Rameys were no more valuable than the mulch he spreads in his garden (or should I say the manure).
Then, this callous, loveless, uncaring “Pastor” turns around, resurrects himself in North Carolina, and starts preaching “holiness” and “victory over sin.” And people are once again impressed!!
It does not matter if O’Neill has no love in his heart for his former colleagues who were so close to him. It does not matter if this man shows not a sign of care in his heart. But as long as he can preach “holiness” and his false promises of a “clean heart” this hard-hart brute is impressive to those who know nothing about his background.
I am so happy Kevin, that you were one of those few who figured O’Neill out so early and did not become his fool.
Yes, I do remember people like the Rameys. Yes, my heart still fills out with love and joy for those who at one time were my friends in Campus Church.
Which is why I will continue to expose O’Neill and the ruthlessness that he harbors in his self. A person who does not have a heart claims “a clean heart!”
He obviously continues to fool quite a few even today. Not you and me.
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obviously like your website but you have to test the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I to find it very troublesome to inform the truth on the other hand I will certainly come again again.
I don’t know the complete details of the misconduct, but my understanding is that the lavish house O’Niel purchased by Lake Minnetonka was financed with a loan from Fish Enterprises. The council of elders were not consulted when the loan was written and were not aware of its existence. When people on the council of elders discovered the existence of the loan, they challenged O’Neil and alleged it was improper.
When you purchase a house with a mortgage, a lot of due diligence takes place including checking on the purchase price, condition of property, setting an appropriate interest rate and repayment schedule. None of these safeguards took place and therefore the elders were correct to call him on it. Instead of being accountable to those who tried to talk to him privately about the issue, O’Niel closed up shop and eventually left town.
To be clear, Campus church could not have continued in its path following the discovery of the loan- the loss of trust meant that a change would have to take place. But the crime that took place was the secret bank loan, and once that had happened, his leadership position in the church was impaired.
Just following the posts…..
https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/christian-corps-international,581757973/