Spreading the Word : Lancaster Evangelist Guiding Ex-Tagger Hopes to Reap Publicity Boon

An evangelist is trying to remold Chaka the infamous tagger into Chaka the Christian media star, which could be a publicity boon for the evangelist’s rigidly disciplined soul-saving camp in the Antelope Valley.

“He’s going to reach thousands of people,” predicted Joseph (JoJo) Sanchez, Chaka’s new spiritual mentor, who runs Youth Academy U.S.A., an isolated desert camp for unruly young men where taped sermons blare almost nonstop over outdoor loudspeakers and the “cadets” are subject to discipline combining aspects of the military and the monastic.

But more work is needed before Chaka, whose real name is Daniel Ramos, can carry out plans to make him a messenger of Christian values to taggers, drug users and gang members, Sanchez said last week.

Right now, “he’s being massaged and fine-tuned,” said Sanchez.

The claimed religious conversion of Chaka, a celebrity incircles where religion has little sway, could make him a big draw for disaffected youths to evangelistic crusades. Celebrity counts in the world of evangelism as well as in secular society.

Stardom for Chaka could give a higher profile to Sanchez and his 20-year-old Inner Cities Youth Ministries. It’s a role that Chaka has already begun to envision himself in. “I’m still using that name (Chaka) in order to plead a cause . . . for those who are lost out there,” Ramos, 22, said in an interview last week.

Chaka haltingly employs religious metaphors about escaping the dark prison cells of pride and drugs in talking about his new perspectives.

He said he had a supernatural vision shortly after meeting Sanchez in which it was revealed to him that he would use his artistic bent to paint on walls--formerly expressed by writing his name thousands of times on other people’s property all over the state--to create religious murals in poor, urban neighborhoods throughout the world.

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Sanchez said he has not baptized Chaka yet, apparently because Chaka is still so new to the religion.

“My job is to see that Chaka is rooted in faith,” said Sanchez.

Sanchez, a 42-year-old Pentecostal minister, once steered Wendell Tyler, who played for the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, into a Christian lifestyle. In 1981, the two men were attending the same church service in Southern California when Tyler went to the altar at the close of the service, saying he was willing to accept Jesus as his savior and cast aside his use of cocaine.

Sanchez volunteered to guide Tyler’s growth as a Christian, and Tyler has continued to assist Sanchez with special projects, appearing last month at a fund-raiser for the Youth Academy in Lancaster and recruiting Chaka for artwork on a proposed line of sportswear.

Sanchez, who moved his independent ministry from Riverside to the Antelope Valley in 1986, divides his time three ways: overseeing the desert camp, co-pastoring with wife Becky an 80-member congregation in Lancaster and making evangelistic forays into Southland urban areas.

Sanchez met Chaka by chance in November when the evangelist took his “church on wheels” van to the Aliso Gardens housing project in Los Angeles where the convicted tagger lived. He prayed with Chaka during a second encounter, and a month and a half later responded in person when Chaka called him at 4 a.m. to plead for help in turning around his life.

The result was that Chaka decided seven months ago to move into the desert camp on a 2.5-acre compound about seven miles northwest of downtown Lancaster. It houses more than two dozen young men--most of them assigned there by the courts for rehabilitation in a tightly regulated, nine-month training period.

John Nunez, a self-described former heroin addict who lived at the academy before becoming an administrator in the ministry office, said the men are taught some job skills before they leave. “(But) our main focus is working with the men’s minds and teaching work habits,” he said.

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The men, principally between ages 17 and 24, are called cadets and sign an agreement to abide by 54 rules that regulate their lives.

Military-like regulations for the cadets include no complaining or arguing with superiors, no tank tops or caps, no lying down except on days off, frequent inspections of living quarters, addressing others as “brother” or “sir,” and no weekend passes for the first three months.

The monastic elements include rising as early as 4:30 a.m. for prayers that begin at 5:20 a.m. After breakfast and cleanup chores, everyone assembles to watch a televised Bible study program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The workday ends at 3 p.m.

In the evenings, the men are either in Bible classes at the academy or taking part in services at Sanchez’s church in town, in addition to attending church Sunday morning.

Academy rules specifically prohibit “fellowshipping” or exchanging telephone numbers with women inside or outside the church.

Sanchez began the church three years ago, naming it Dream Center International, a name he said was inspired by a biblical verse which says that without visions, or dreams, humans perish.

The evangelist is at no loss for dreams.

“My goal is to start 10,000 churches and 10,000 academies,” he said. With more financial support, he said, the academy could expand to take in as many as 100 troubled young men. In turn, he said, they would provide the cadre for setting up more such churches and academies.

His lofty aim is in keeping with a controversial movement inside Pentecostal Christianity, called “word of faith” by supporters and the “name-it-and-claim-it” movement by critics.

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Sanchez has a close relationship with a nationally known exponent of the movement, televangelist Kenneth Copeland of Fort Worth, Tex., and another movement leader, the Rev. Jerry Savelle, also of Fort Worth.

The two men’s television programs are often shown at Sanchez’s Youth Academy. Two academy graduates recently went to Texas on scholarships for a 12-month Bible course at Savelle’s ministry headquarters, Sanchez said.

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Evangelical critics contend that Copeland and like-minded ministers espouse heretical views that believers become Godlike in spiritual authority.

“They tend to say that just as God in the Book of Genesis spoke and the world came into existence, we too, because we are becoming Godlike, create by our spoken word,” said Shane Rosenthal, a vice president for Christians United for Reformation, an evangelical group in Anaheim.

In their defense, Sanchez asserted that the movement is firmly rooted in the New Testament. “We believe that with the faith of Jesus Christ, which is in us, that we can do all things in Christ,” he said.

Sanchez also said he deplores the theological disputes. “This is a tragedy, that as a church we are acting like the Crips and the Bloods,” he said, referring to rival gangs in Los Angeles.

“The truth is that people are dying out there, kids are killing each other,” Sanchez said. “We need to get away from minute things. We can’t get involved in dogma when our neighbor is suicidal and people are crying out for help.”

In an interview, Chaka spoke of the power of the spoken word for good or bad, but primarily in the context of reaping what you sow.

“Words are so powerful,” he said. “All it takes is one word of God to change someone’s life who is in need. If you tell people good things, it’s better than a hug.”

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