Stanton COC In The News
Stanton prefers to fly under the radar of public awareness, avoiding the media, advertising, building signage, even church websites. But there have been a few occasions where the sect was covered by news media. I’ll index those here. If you find others, please leave them in the comments.
- Changing the Call : To the Frustration of Family and Friends, Stanford’s Leon Vickers Trades a Possible NFL Career for Role With a Controversial Church
OCT. 8, 1994 — Leon Vickers couldn’t have been a better high school football player. As a linebacker at Garden Grove Rancho Alamitos in 1992, he was all-league, all-county, all-state and All-American.Last fall, Vickers took his honors and his rock-solid, six-foot, 210-pound frame to Stanford, where he started one game at outside linebacker as a freshman; by spring practice, he had moved himself into a full-time starting position at safety. Read More
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Leaving School to Join Sect: Stanford safety’s mother alleges mind control
OCT. 18, 1994 — When the Stanford football coaches evaluated their defense before this season, they felt especially good about their starting strong safety, 19-year-old Leon Vickers.He had played sparingly in 1993 as a freshman, but proved he was a hard hitter. His teammates considered him one of the most vicious tacklers on the squad.But Vickers hasn’t played a single game for Stanford this season. He left school to continue his involvement in a religious sect, and his mother, Nancy Vickers, claims that Leon is a victim of mind control. Read More
- Looking Back
PRESCOTT, Ariz. OCT. 20, 1998 — It has been more than four years since Leon Vickers shocked his family and friends by walking away from a free Stanford education and a possible NFL career for a life devoted to serving God. Vickers, now 23 and living in this quiet mountain town 100 miles northwest of Phoenix, fills his days with work as an apprentice electrician and his nights with church-related activities for the Church of Christ, a strong fundamentalist sect. Read More - Potential for a Rerun : David Vickers Could Surpass Brother, Who Gave Up Football for Church
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. SEP. 15, 1995 — As Nancy Vickers waited for her youngest son, David, to begin his first full football season on Rancho Alamitos’ varsity, she couldn’t help but think of her oldest son, Leon. She tried selling programs before the opener against Troy, but the scene was too familiar, the emotions too intense.
Five years ago, Nancy Vickers watched Leon begin his varsity career under circumstances strikingly similar to those of last Thursday night. Leon, like David, made the varsity as a sophomore and played linebacker and fullback. Leon went on to become a high school All-American at Rancho Alamitos and earn a scholarship to Stanford. But after one season at Stanford, he gave up his football career and a scholarship so he could devote more time to his church, the Church of Christ. Read More
Some have noticed that I put a new list of links in the sidebar for news stories about Stanton. I also added this page to index all links to news articles and conversation about the news. If you find more, please leave a link in the comments!
Thanks to some help, I added another followup article on Leon’s brother David. The LA Times article mentions the Stanton Church of Christ.
Potential for a Rerun: David Vickers Could Surpass Brother, Who Gave Up Football for Church
This one in particular really got me. I’m dealing with the same thing… Older children disconnecting and breaking bonds with my younger ones. I hope the Vickers family outside the group doesn’t mind these being here as learning tools for the rest of us who got out or are thinking of leaving. I sometimes refer to Stanton as Dream Stealers. They literally will take someone’s dream, something they worked for and wanted for so long, and convince them they can’t have that and Christ too. Almost 25 years later, and the sect is still doing its damage. I did find… Read more »
Yes. Jesus didn’t teach that wealth is evil. He said the love of it is evil, because it becomes an idol. The irony here is that by setting up “loyalty tests” for LV, and forcing him to choose “the church” over his football career, they were the ones making the church into an idol. I find so many practices of Stanton to be idolatry—the elevating of rules and doctrines they made up to a status where one can’t criticize or violate them.
I agree Kevin. They even teach that the group is more important than our children. I still remember when my husband and I declined to move to Albany, GA to be the “token white people’ there. We declined because we did not have custody of my husband’s daughter, and did not want to leave her. Albany was 6.5 hours away from Lakeland, Fl. We took the scriptures seriously that teach you are to raise your children but the group accused us of having “an inordinate affection” for her. So the marriage/remarriage issue isn’t the only time the group advocates dividing… Read more »
I remember LV struggling between the call of the world, and the call of the Word. He was conflicted, and dealing with the pull of any things, coming from many different directions. I do recall he seemed to like one of KS’s adopted daughters, and she was the reason he accepted and attended a non-member class. He acted like a big, goofy kid sometimes, because he was, but who tried his best to aspire to maturity. I wonder if he stayed around.
It always fascinates me when people behave like JESUS didn’t finish the work on the cross. The Bible is clear. We are saved by grace through faith and not by works. It’s heartbreaking when people miss this simple truth. I often wonder if there is not a sin here when the work of the cross is undermined by people who think their salvation comes from memorizing the Bible.
John 5:39 NASB
[39] You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;
You really need to finish those verses in Eph 2. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. What religion has done, today, is bypassed a lot that is required from us from God. What Jesus did for us on the cross was to reconcile us back to God and the forgiveness of sin and we are still required to live in accordance to the scriptures. This is what the scriptures are for us – 2 Timothy 3:15-17 15 And that from a… Read more »
I agree. I am a lifelong student of the Bible. It’s the most important book in existence. But the reason it is so, is because of who it tells us about, not the rules it communicates to us. One thing I’ve come to appreciate in my years studying Scripture is God’s big picture for mankind—what I call the progressive moral education of humanity. He related to mankind in his infancy with moral instruction that was fitting to a young humanity. It was simple, concrete, and given directly to individual heads of families, for the most part. As mankind matured, God… Read more »
I agree Kevin. I was always fascinated that God called David “A man after my own heart”, yet David was a man who sinned-and sometimes quite publicly! David had a good and deep understanding of God, and I patterned myself (not always successfully) after David. He loved God, deeply.
Kevin, I have often told people, who says all the bible does is teach about wars, etc., is that it teaches us how to be. It has taught me how to be a better person, friend, spouse, and father. Romans 13:8, 9 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying,… Read more »
I agree, and I don’t think any of us are saying anything different than that. In fact, the verses you quote say it well, that Israel’s problem was that they sought to attain righteousness merely by the works of the law—by rote obedience. That is the fatal mistake of legalism; thinking that righteousness is obtained merely by what we do without first addressing the heart. This is what Jesus so often excoriated the Pharisees for—serving him with their lips and even their actions, “but their hearts were far from him.” And this is why Paul penned the Love Chapter in… Read more »
The narrative here is that your salvation is the finished work of the cross. After receiving Christ good works follow.
Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV
[8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. …
Just Eph 2:8, 9 does not define nor complete our salvation. The correct understanding of these verses is that there are no works that we have don to bring Jesus to the cross and his sacrifice. This does not mean that our Christianity is supposed to be barren of works. The works that are in Eph 2:8, 9 are completely different from the work that V10 says that we are ordained to walk in and what James says our faith is dead without. To many religions teach that Eph countermands the life we are to walk before God on this… Read more »
Lynn, I appreciate your perspective here on the blog. I can see a lot of awesome growth over the few years that we’ve conversed here. I would just say that putting certain forms of obedience in this box, and other forms of obedience in that box, gets a bit legalistic and messy in real life. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point, but because I used to also be very defensive about “grace vs. works,” I don’t think so. Anytime someone brought up grace or faith, I would assume they were advocating for an extreme “antinomian” position of zero obedience, only faith… Read more »
Thanks Kevin. I must be “gun shy”, then. I have heard and read that term so many times from people who believe Eph 2:8, 9 are the crux of our Christianity and leaving out the fact we need changes. The works that James speaks of is not of the giving to needy, it is our obedience to the Gospel. I believe that both faith/grace and works have their places in our salvation and I think that James is trying to say that in that you can’t have one without the other. What makes talking this topic so hard is that… Read more »
Well if I may further define. When we receive Christ and HIS forgiveness it is a free gift. Marriage is a great reflection of our relationship with GOD. When we are saved by grace. We walk in fellowship with JESUS. His interests become our interests vice versa. So as a follower of Christ I commit to growing into HIS image and learn to walk in step with HIM. I understand what Chuck is saying by saved by grace. He is not advocating that we just get to live like there is no GOD. In a covenantal relationship we learn to… Read more »