On May 13th, "Gospel Reggae band "Christafari" will be performing on the "Awaken Humanity" festival. This festival is presented as a benefit, a fundraiser for a wide variety of predominantly "Christian" projects all over the world.

Seems like a good cause, doesn't it?

That's exactly what the organization of the festival seemed to be thinking when they came up with this idea. The "Awaken Humanity" festival is organized by a group that has several names, and is closely connected to a "Pastor" called Erwin McManus.

Although the festival is presented as "Christian", there are several Satanic bands performing, too. A band called "Devil Dust", for example, whose MySpace page is filled with morbid and devilish graphics. According to one of the organizers in an e-mail to the CRC: "We have asked all to make it a family friendly show... Our hope is to interact with people from all different backgrounds."

We also uncovered just what is meant with "awakening humanity". On the Erwin Mc Manus website, we can read: 

"Erwin is the catalyst behind Awaken, a collaboration of dreamers committed to creating environments that expand imagination and unleash creativity. Convinced that the world is changed by dreamers and visionaries, Awaken serves the purpose of history by maximizing the divine potential in every human being."

Apprising Ministries has a very interesting exposé on their website concerning Erwin Mc Manus. You can find articles with titles like "ERWIN MCMANUS IS AGAINST THE APOSTLE PETER". It turns out that those who recognize the New Age mindset of his teachings ("the divine potential in every human being.") are right.

The CRC has thoroughly exposed the New Age mindset of Christafari, too. We therefore are not surprised to find out how the self-proclaimed "Founders of Gospel Reggae" feel a spiritual connection with false teachers like Erwin Mc Manus.

But that's not all we uncovered.

There are many questions surrounding the financial policy of the group around "Awaken" and Erwin McManus, too! 

The SOLID FOODS WEBLOG reveals that inquiries about the many claims by Awaken led to several people denying they have ever been given money by Awaken.

Yvonne Napoleon is a current member of Mosaic, L.A. When I asked if she knew that her 501(c) organization, Neo Underground Railroad, was included on the Awaken webpage she said she had not known this. She felt that "some type of discussion should have taken place between me and them before Neo Underground Railroad was added."

When I asked her if she knew what Awaken was, she replied, "I have no idea what Awaken is." When asked to respond to the Awaken webpage's line: "Gifts will be used to fund some of the following projects:" she said, "Neo Underground Railroad has never received anything from Awaken." She mentioned that in Christmas of 2005, she was given a personal donation of around $1500 from a couple at Mosaic. Earlier this year, 2007, she was told by Eric Bryant that he had "some money" for her charity but she is still waiting to receive it. Yvonne also told me that Mosaic church often sends volunteers to help with the Neo Underground Railroad, not an organization called Awaken.

Yvonne Napoleon was not pleased to see that her organization had been included on the Awaken webpage without her knowledge and in such a way as to be misleading about Awakens association with the Neo Underground Railroad.

Although we cannot say, that Christafari is a conscious participant in -what seems to be- a fraudulent and at least suspicious organization, we must conclude after reading the several articles on Awaken's financial policy that there is a chance money donated to the festival will not land where the organization claims it will.

We are aware, that this may not bother Christafari.

After all, it was exposed in the book "Mystery of Christafarianism", how the Christafari organization themselves have their creative ways of dealing with money too. Christafari will receive money through a registered non-profit organization (Sowers International) which is then used for a for-profit organization (Lion of Zion, inc).

We are also aware, that this alert goes out just a day or two before the festival takes place. The reason for that was, that Christafari announced this performance in their latest newsletter which was only sent out a couple of days ago. Our research took a few days, too.

Please inform others who might want to visit the festival, please inform Christafari too about the suspicions of fraud and the New Age character of the whole "Awaken" organization and philosophy. And when you're reading this after the festival (May 13, 2007), simply look at it as another piece of the puzzle that forms the "Gospel Reggae" Industry.

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