- Deceives potential recruits about the history and purposes of their group;

- Uses incremental disclosure in order to "ease" people into a humanistic and legalistic system of spiritual bondage;

- Uses peer pressure and the "gang" mentality to manipulate people into becoming members;

- Lies to potential converts by telling them that the ICoC is "just a non-denominational church" whose members are "just trying to follow the Bible";

- Tells its converts that they are following Christ, when in reality the "god" they typically convert people to is actually a "god" of the church's own making;

- Refuses to state publicly its actual membership numbers and financial information (on both a broad and local level) in a truthful and straightforward way;

I have a MAJOR problem with that.

I acknowledge that all these perspectives are simply a matter of opinion. Yet, from my perspective, numerous ICoC practices are based on, ironically, mere opinions and interpretations concerning "what the Bible says." Each person who picks up a Bible should have the freedom to interpret the Scriptures for him/herself, and should have the freedom to hear about many different perspectives, without repercussions. This is a basic freedom that the ICoC systematically denies its members -- except the ones at the top, of course.

The practices of this questionable "church," the ICoC, show that they consistently fail to understand that if a person chooses to follow Jesus Christ, that person needs no other mediator except Jesus Christ. Members of the ICoC place themselves and their religious organization in that "mediator" position which, to a Christian, should belong to Jesus Christ alone. In some ways, the so-called "non-denominational" ICoC is even more structured than Catholicism. And yet, structure isn't wrong -- unless structure becomes your "god." In my opinion, the "structure" is the real "god" in the ICoC.

All ideas, even if they come from the Bible, are colored by our own human perceptions. NO ONE is exempt from this tendency to "interpret" -- those in the ICoC are as prone to "interpret" Scripture as anyone else out there who reads the Bible. That's how *ALL* New Religious Movements (NRM's) get started -- someone has a different interpretation of the Bible or other spiritual work, and gathers a group of followers who will agree with that particular interpretation.

By equating leaving the ICoC with "leaving God," (as ICoC members are systematically taught to do) this religious group turns their "church" into "God" -- and from a Christian viewpoint, that is nothing less than IDOLATRY. Also, the group's consistent and arrogant policy of refusal to accept in a spirit of love and fellowship ALL those who claim to follow Jesus (they believe that no one but their own membership is "saved") is only one indicator of the extent to which the ICoC's idolatry has progressed. The ICoC played a large part into making me into a narrow and judgmental caricature of a "Christian," and yet I also accept that it was my weak character allowed me to let them gain an unhealthy grasp on my life and choices. I am the one who allowed them to use my imperfections against me and take advantage of me financially, emotionally, and spiritually. But when I took a stand against that, I became someone who "rejected God," and who was undoubtedly on her way to Hell, in the opinion of the typical ICoC member. But is it really that simple, that cut-and dried, that black-and-white?

The typical rank-and-file ICoC member is very sincere in his/her beliefs and on the surface, appears to have no motive other than following God in the ways that they have been (errantly) taught. But as I so often heard taught in the ICoC, "sincere" does not equal "right." There are those in the ICoC today who want to love God and please God, but struggle with the amount of control that they allow to be exercised over them in the name of spirituality -- they are made to believe that such struggles are just "Satan making you doubt," or that struggles are a result of the person's "pride" and/or "independence," which are without exception, sinful and always their fault. Moving up into the leadership levels, I begin to find more self-serving and calculated/calculating motives.

I have changed -- A LOT -- since 1989, when I was first recruited into this group. Somewhere along the line, I developed a backbone. I had some deep reservations about the Boston Movement (which is what the ICoC was called when I first joined) even early on, and I couldn't place my complete faith in what they were doing -- and the more I saw, the more I came to believe that their system and practice of "Christianity" is fundamentally flawed. The ICoC wears a veneer of "Christianity" and hides behind the concept of "winning the world for Christ," but really, the ICoC is all about power and money. Not God's power, mind you -- the power of "One Over One."

Brian Jones of Boston, MA (whose story appears elsewhere in The Dance-Away Zone!) summarizes his encounter with the ICoC so very succinctly:

"The experience [with the ICoC] was similar to having a relationship with an insecure woman. Just being with her isn't enough. After three dates, you have to marry her and spend all your time with her. The [ICoC] was the spiritual equivalent of that."

For me, Brian's words ring with truth. Reflecting on my 5+ years of firsthand experience with the ICoC, I find that being an ICoC member has a number of characteristics common to dysfunctional relationships. If anyone inside the ICoC views the sect's problems as the result of a fundamentally flawed system, they tend not to verbalize those concerns. As members, we saw people get ridden out of town on a rail for daring to question the system to which we lived in abject submission. How painfully and embarrassingly obvious it is that the ICoC's doctrines regarding "the Kingdom" and "authority," have become the group's golden calf. And how deliciously ironic that someone like Kip McKean, whose own apparent pride and rebelliousness did not permit him to stay and work out his problems within the looser structure of the traditional Churches of Christ would turn "divisiveness" into a mortal sin in the sect he founded. Kip McKean knows firsthand how easy it is to divide a church.

If you still read the Bible, I suggest you check out I Samuel 8, in the Old Testament. It's a very relevant chapter in regard to the ICoC. The passage sets forth the consequences of people getting together and deciding they want a king. In a nutshell, my vibe on this chapter is that people who put their trust in human leaders or are not just asking for trouble, but they are ultimately "rejecting God" as their King. And yet that is *exactly* what people in the ICoC ask each potential recruit to do before they will admit that person into the group. It happens during what people in the ICoC call "Counting the Cost." And "Counting the Cost" the ICoC way is only one example of a totally twisted doctrine.

For a time after I left the ICoC, I was angry at myself and God and had a LOT of unanswered questions and struggles about who God actually is, and in regard to the value of organized religion. It's one of the scars I was left with due to my involvement with the ICoC. I don't say this to evoke pity or sympathy and I don't feel sad, nervous, or have other negative emotions about it -- it's just a fact. It's important because it's something that a number of former ICoC members live with on a daily basis -- and believe me, I have talked to *a lot* of them.

But now, I feel... free! And you can bet your last dollar that the concept of "freedom" is NOT PROFITABLE for a sect such as the ICoC.

I would like to make clear that I do not view myself as a "victim." I was definitely a "victim" while I allowed people in the ICoC to dictate my thinking for me, but choosing to leave in spite of all the Cassandra-like pronouncements of doom I'd always heard from ICoC members about "rejecting God" takes me clearly out of the "victim" category. The concept of "free will" gets a lot of lip-service in the ICoC, but when it comes right down to it, you can't leave the ICoC without someone telling you you've rejected God and are going to Hell. In the ICoC, Jesus Christ doesn't save you -- BUT becoming and remaining a member of the ICoC does.

Recently, ICoC members have begun to say when questioned publicly that people don't have to be members of the ICoC in order to be saved; however, the underlying attitude about such folks is that "there are people out there seeking God who just haven't found us [the ICoC] yet." This kind of doublemindedness is roundly condemned in the book of James, and yet there are those members of the ICoC who must still try to find some twisted way to justify in their minds the existence of this pathetic and abusive religious organization.

Writing my story out and putting it out on the web has been a real emotional catharsis for me, and for that reason, I like to recommend that others who are "Alumni" of the ICoC do the same. I felt like once I told my story, I could just "leave it here," in a sense. I was able to release so much bitterness and negativity by simply speaking what I believe is the truth about the International Churches of Christ. When I found my "voice" again, and found the power to speak out against this abusive system, I gained a certain freedom and I was able to move past all this crap, emotionally speaking. I now know that no one in the ICoC, or anywhere else, will be the ones to determine my eternal fate -- that's between me and A Higher Power.

I am reminded of a fable:

There was a man who kept a guest house on the road to a large Greek city, a man who had a reputation for offering fine, free hospitality, was generous with you to a fault, just the perfect host in every way. A fine supper, a bath, anything you'd want. And no money ever changed hands. But some folks discovered that a terrible price had to be paid for that wonderful hospitality:

You had to fit the bed.

If you were too tall or too wide to fit the bed, the host would chop you off to fit it.

Those who fit the bed continued on their way from this gentleman's house the next day and spread the word about the extraordinary hospitality they'd found at this particular man's house on the road to that big Greek city. The man's reputation grew larger than life for the plain and simple reason that dead men don't talk.

So it is, I find, with the ICoC. Some people "fit the bed" -- these are the folks who sing the praises of the ICoC. But those who don't fit the bed get chopped off. (Of course, this fits right in with the ICoC's "vine and branches" misinterpretation of John 15). I believe that the great majority of those who've left the ICoC never speak publicly about their experiences there, because frankly, it can be quite painful to be "chopped off." Those who try to leave or have actually left this questionable "church" fear and expect censure, humiliation, reprisals, and harassment, all courtesy of the ICoC. Those who leave often just want to forget the experience ever happened, because the memories can be so painful.

But the truth is this: there is no "sin" in not "fitting the ICoC's bed." For ICoC members to say that not "fitting their bed" is a sin -- in other words, to LIE to people -- is wrong. To coin a phrase for you ICoC'ers: