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ICC Fallacies
International Churches of Christ (ICC) leadership ingrains members with fallacies that protect the organization from criticism or change. In this section we will examine some of these ICC fallacies, either in terms of their general truth or untruth, or by using syllogisms (formal logic constructions). The fallacies are grouped here into three categories: Fallacies of the Present, Fallacies of the Past, and Fallacies of Information Control.
So let’s get started, remembering that “Just because the cat gave birth in the oven, doesn’t make the kittens muffins!”
When the ICC is called to answer for abuses by its leaders or disciplers, the response often includes the phrase “God is in control.” The phrase implies that no matter what happens in the ICC, God is behind the Movement, so any current abuses are either justifiable, or not worthy of further examination:
“If a leader sins in a way that affects many, that is bad; but God is still in control, and all is not lost.”
Thomas A. Jones (Senior Editor), Letters to New Disciples, Woburn, MA: Discipleship Publications International (DPI), 1997, p. 64.
“God is in control,” as it's used by the ICC, is a fallacy. As Mary Alice Chrnalogar points out in her book Twisted Scriptures: A Path to Freedom from Abusive Churches, there is a big difference between saying “God is sovereign” and “God is in control:”
A sovereign king doesn’t control the individual decisions of all those in his realm. If God didn’t allow free will, then we could say that God is in control. Saying that God is in control denies the existence of free will…the next time a disciple hit me with “God is in control,” I asked, “Does that mean God is responsible for your sin? If God isn’t’ responsible for evil, then you can’t say God is in control, you are.” God in his sovereignty allows evil as a consequence of free will, so don’t say he is in control unless you honestly believe that you don’t have free will.(1)
In reality, ICC leaders and disciplers have the ability to make correct or incorrect choices, and to behave ethically or unethically. It is fallacious to brush off ICC abuses by saying, “God is in control.” If leaders make incorrect choices or act unethically, it is not God’s error. God may be sovereign, but ICC leaders are in control.
While it’s certainly true that people make mistakes, it’s a fallacy to imply that the fallibility of people is a justification for mistakes. Often, when an ICC leader or discipler errs in a way that hurts people, it is rationalized to be okay because leaders are only human, and people inevitably will make mistakes. The reasoning could be represented like this:
I. People make mistakes.
II. ICC leaders and disciplers are people.
III. Therefore the ICC can’t be blamed for the mistakes of its leaders and disciplers.
Or, as one ICC leader put it:
“The fact that leaders make mistakes does not justify a critical spirit towards leadership.”
Thomas A. Jones, Letters to New Disciples, p. 58.
The “people make mistakes” fallacy is flawed, because it assumes that the International Churches of Christ has no influence on its leaders’ potential to make mistakes. Yet in actuality, the ICC routinely puts “flawed” humans in positions of power (e.g. “discipling partners”) where they become more likely to make mistakes that hurt others.
The "people make mistakes" fallacy can create a blame-the-victim mentality when people are hurt by the ICC or it’s leaders:
“It does not make sense, yet I see it all the time. People leave God [leave the ICC] because someone offended them in some way…
“Many times I have seen someone suffer through food poisoning. It is awful. …But never have I seen someone giving up eating because of it! Obviously it is ridiculous to give up eating because of one bad dish.”
Mike Taliaferro (Geographic Sector Leader), The Killer Within: An African Look at Disease, Sin and Keeping Yourself Saved, Woburn, MA: DPI, 1997, p. 94.
To sharpen Taliaferro’s analogy, people aren’t likely to quit eating because of a bad meal, but most of us know someone who stopped eating a certain food or going to a certain restaurant. Would Taliaferro ask a food-poisoned person to keep ordering the same dish at the same restaurant, or would he acknowledge their right to consider alternatives? When someone experiences spiritual “food poisoning” in the ICC, is it their duty to keep coming back for more? Quite ludicrously, the ICC answer seems to be “yes.”
Many of the ICC’s “mistakes” are a direct result of ICC doctrine/instruction/practice, and can’t be attributed solely to the individuals who make them. These mistakes are engendered by the ICC system and are therefore the responsibility of the organization and its leaders. It is not the duty of members to endure these mistakes – it is the duty of the organization to rectify them and prevent them from happening again.
We’re a non-denominational church
The ICC’s claim of being “non-denominational” is a fallacy. Notice in the following quote that the San Francisco Church of Christ claims to be “non-denominational,” but in the next sentence declares its affiliation with the International Churches of Christ:
“The San Francisco Church of Christ is a non-denominational Christian congregation of over 2100 people from throughout the San Francisco bay area, from Fairfield to Monterey. We are affiliated with the International Churches of Christ, a worldwide family of churches.”
San Francisco Church of Christ webpage, 1999.
Ironically, affiliation alone makes the San Francisco church – and any other ICC church – denominational according to the dictionary definition a “denomination:”
a religious organization uniting in a single legal and administrative body a number of local congregations (2)
The ICC has its own idiosyncratic definitions of a “denomination,” such as “a group following one man rather than God”, or “a group of a non-scriptural name”. The ICC thus represents itself as “non-denominational” to a public that doesn’t even share the ICC’s definition of the term.
Even though ICC leaders have said that "denominationalism is a sin" (2a), the ICC ironically meets even its own definition of a denomination. The name "International Churches of Christ" cannot be found in the Bible, and is therefore non-scriptural. The ICC is a group following a set of teachings devised almost entirely by one man, founder Kip McKean. No matter how we slice it, the ICC is denominational.
In public documents, the ICC has even called itself a "denomination" -- a fact that would no doubt suprise members. In a legal case against administrators of the State University of New York at Purchase, a declaration filed by an ICC Campus Minister, plus another by the New York City Church of Christ's own attorney, called the group a "Christian evangelical denomination." (2b) Also, a 1998 tax document by DPI, the ICC's book publishing service -- signed by then-Editor-in-Chief and ICC elder Tom Jones -- called the Boston Church of Christ "a particular denomination of religion." (2c) These ICC documents illustrate that the "non-denominational" claim is a fallacy.
We’re an organism, not an organization
Like the non-denominational fallacy, this ICC fallacy denies against all logic that the ICC is what it is - an organization:
“The church. . . is not an organization, but an organism.” [emphasis Jacoby]
Douglas Jacoby (Kingdom Teacher), Shining Like Stars: The Evangelism Handbook for the New Millennium, mil. ed., Woburn, MA: DPI, 2000, p. 115.
The “we’re an organism” fallacy is apparently based on the idea that the ICC itself is the body of Christ.
The ICC may call itself an “organism”, but it certainly functions as an organization [Webster’s: “an administrative and functional structure”(3)]. The ICC has a human leader in unquestionable control of a hierarchical leadership structure, it has sub-entities like HOPE and Kingdom News Network which are fully incorporated. It even hires professional attorneys to file lawsuits against media critics. The ICC has all the characteristics of an organization.
Furthermore, whereas an organism grows by the division of cells, the ICC often seems to grow by the multiplication of falsehoods.
If the ICC is wrong, God will bring it to light
This fallacy declares that if there is a problem within the ICC, it will be exposed by God:
“...the minute I stop following Jesus, am I allowed to lead you? No. Will God take me out? Absolutely. Okay? That's how God has always worked. God's in control. He makes sure the leaders are fired up right behind him. ”
Cinnamon Conner (Geographic Sector Leader - Women), Denominations, Equipping Classes for Women, icoc.cc, New York, 1996.
The problem with this line of reasoning is, if God wanted to expose a problem in the ICC, how would he do it? Presumably, he would work through people, and all people can be categorized as either:
Therefore we should ask: how does the ICC typically deal with criticism from current members and non-members?
Current members who discover a problem are supposed to report it up the discipling chain. If the ICC decides not to change anything and members persists in their criticism, they will likely be labeled “divisive,” causing members to either retract their complaints or risk being “marked” or “disfellowshipped” by the ICC.
Non-ICC members who point out a problem are likely to be dismissed as “persecutors” of the church and their criticisms disregarded. Debate with non-members is prohibited.
If members can’t point out the church’s problems without being "divisive", and non-members can’t point out the problems without “persecuting” the church, then who’s left? If the ICC doesn’t make itself accountable to criticism from either members or non-members, then this leaves no human beings through whom God could expose problems in the ICC.
Thirty would-be disciples in Boston
ICC founder Kip McKean treasured no tale more than the night he assumed leadership of the Lexington, Massachusetts Church of Christ with its 30 members:
“You know, it seems incredible, but come this June 1st 1999, it’s going to be the 20th anniversary of the start of God’s modern-day movement. I mean, it seems incredible, I can still remember gathering in the Gempel’s living room that Friday night with the thirty would-be disciples. June 1st, 1979. Thirty would-be disciples, one church, one nation.”
Kip McKean (ICC founder), Singapore sermon, Real Audio file, February 24, 1999.
The ICC’s portrayal of this event is as much fallacy as history.
First of all, it is misleading to call the 30 people in the Gempel’s living room “would-be disciples,” implying that they were not “disciples” prior to June 1, but were “disciples” from June 1 forward. The accounts of the famous Gempel gathering do not mention a single baptism taking place that evening, and the ICC considers baptism to be the moment of conversion (the first Boston baptism – of new convert Anne Albert Gregorie – actually occurred two days later according to Kip McKean(4)). Despite a wave of rebaptisms in the mid-to-late 80’s, nine of the original 30 were never re-baptized, according to McKean in "Revolution through Restoration."(5) By McKean’s own understanding, at least nine of the “would-be” disciples were already “disciples” before he went to Boston.
Secondly, it is revisionist for the movement to say that it started in Boston in 1979. The same message McKean taught in Boston had already been proclaimed throughout the 1970’s in the Crossroads movement in Florida and around the country – by Kip McKean and many others. Hundreds upon hundreds of members with no lineage from the original Boston 30 would later be added via Boston “reconstructions” of mainline Churches of Christ during the late 80s. More than anything, Boston in 1979 signified a power shift within the Crossroads movement toward Kip McKean and his followers.
Just as it’s impossible to pick oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, it’s a fallacy of the past that the Movement began on June 1, 1979 with 30 “would-be disciples.” It’s revisionist, like a politician who claims, “I was born in a little log cabin, which I helped my father build.”
The ICC’s fallacy of the disgruntled few says that any complaints from former members are rare, isolated and not representative of what is happening in the movement as a whole:
“I would certainly be lying to say that everyone who’s ever been a part of that congregation [New York City] thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. But I’d also be lying to allow you to think that the one, or two, or three – or even if there were twenty or thirty stories of people who have left and have said, that there’s pressure, or people who have left and have said, yes, if you don’t do what they say then they ostracize you. I’d be lying to let you believe that that’s going on at the scale that many would have you believe. It’s unfair to take those few stories and say, ‘See. See, this is what happened at Crossroads, this is happening in Boston, this is happening in New York.’”
Steve Johnson (World Sector Leader), Discipling, Church Growth, and Unity, Freed-Hardeman 3rd Annual Preachers and Workers Forum, October 10, 1987.
In reality, there has been a loud chorus of complaints throughout the movement’s history, all singing a similar tune. Stories of pressure, control, abuse and ostracism have prevailed from the Crossroads church in the 70’s, through the early Boston days in the 80’s, through the ICC of the 90’s. At one mainline Church of Christ forum in the late 80’s, panelist Winford Claiborne challenged the idea that the complaints against the Boston movement weren’t representative of reality:
It makes us wonder, if they’re not doing any of this, how we’ve gotten the information they are. Why are these people – and they’re not a few, and they’re not immoral people, they’re not professional liars. Why are they saying that in some cases – now not in every case – that they’re being controlled, they’re being manipulated, and if they do not agree, that they are not considered to be good disciples or have the heart of a disciple. I really cannot explain why this would happen if they’re not doing it. I know Steve [Johnson] believes that he’s not, and [believes] people under his power are not. But somebody’s doing it, and we need to have it stopped.(6)
Claiborne also probed for a rational explanation for the mass of complaints against the Boston church:
We have dozens of letters, and we’ve received dozens of calls, from people who’ve said, “I have been in the movement, we were pressured to do this.” …I wonder if there is a conspiracy going on, between these or among these who have left the movement, and who have called and written. Are they lying? Is there a conspiracy? …He [Steve Johnson] mentioned those who had left the movement as being ‘disgruntled brethren,’ and I have no doubt some of them are. But does that prove they’re wrong? (Ibid.)
ICC leadership has used the fallacy of the disgruntled few to deny systematic problems in the organization. If the ICC were to acknowledge its persistent pattern of abuse and denial, it would also have to admit that it needs to change.
Where as the fallacy of the disgruntled few denies that any fundamental change is needed in the ICC, the “we’ve changed” fallacy says that any needed changes have already occurred:
“In the movement, we are changing. And if we’re wrong, we’re going to change. And if you want to fight our dust of fifteen years ago, go ahead and fight it. But we’re not even there anymore – we’ve changed.”
Nick Young (Geographic Sector Leader), Tulsa reconstruction sermon, audiotape, 1992.
When parents, former members, or critics ask about problems in the ICC, the reply is often “we’ve changed.” In such instances it’s useful to ask what specifically changed, when the change occurred, and who initiated the change.
The ICC has occasionally made incremental changes where fundamental change was needed. Doctrines have been adjusted where they could have been discarded entirely. Practices like commanding obedience to discipling partners have been exchanged for more palatable versions that produce the same results. “We don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water” is a familiar cry in the movement. Instead, the baby gets left in the same unhealthy water.
If one studies the trail of newspaper articles reporting the church’s abuses going back to the early days of Boston and before that even to the Crossroads Movement in the 1970’s, it becomes obvious that the Movement today is accused of the same abuses it always was. The ICC insists it has "changed", but continues to leave the same path of human wreckage behind it. Only the names have changed.
The ICC remains an organization in dire need of fundamental change, yet its very leadership structure is resistant to any change that doesn’t originate from the top, down. Largely unwilling to learn from its mistakes, the ICC instead seems condemned to repeat them.
Fallacies of information control
This ICC fallacy says that a member’s doubts about the organization come from Satan:
“You know, most of the time, life isn’t very complicated. It only gets complicated when you get a bad heart. That’s when you get confused, and you see, the author of confusion is Satan. If you’re in a confused state right now, then you know Satan’s got your heart.”
Kip McKean, Indianapolis message, audiotape, March 17, 1994.
Reducing this quote to a syllogism, we see where the logic breaks down:
The conclusion does not follow from Premise II: even if we call Satan the “author of confusion,” it does not make Satan the source of all confusion.
The ICC interprets doubts about its own doctrinal interpretations to be doubts from Satan:
“Satan can attack us with doubts--about baptism, about evangelism, about who's lost and who's saved, about discipling, etc.”
New York City Church of Christ, “The Secret Weapon Studies,” acesonline.org, February 4, 1999.
Doubting the ICC’s interpretations and practices is seen as a sign of a “bad heart.” But is all doubt evil? Certainly there are examples of healthy doubt: a person married to a secretive criminal begins to doubt their spouse’s motives, a person working for an unethical company starts to question the company’s actions, etc. Doubt can be a natural response that protects people from harm.
If the ICC or any other organization were destructive, doubt could be a source of (“God-given”) protection. It is fallacious to attribute all doubt to “Satan”.
Exit counseling = deprogramming
“Deprogramming” predates the ICC. Starting in the 1970s, widespread problems with cults led to the practice of removing members – often via kidnapping – and holding them until they were persuaded to leave the group.
Since the 70s, legal and ethical concerns caused a shift from deprogramming to exit counseling: non-coercive, information-based, voluntary interventions. “Exit counseling” is not a euphemism, but a new term for a new process that gave suspected cultists the choice of whether to participate in the intervention in the first place. Today, exit counseling is the norm, and deprogramming, the rare exception.
In spite of this shift, ICC leadership has stubbornly clung to a fallacy that exit counseling and deprogramming are the same thing:
“Now the interesting thing is, they want to change the name ‘deprogrammer’ because they’ve been getting challenged even by the world, for using too much force, and deceit, and so it’s a more noble title to be an ‘exit counselor.’ ‘And I’m just helping this person to exit.’ Yeah, exit into hell.”
Kip McKean, Follow-Up Study 4: The Mission, DPI Archive Cassette Series, Tape # 10079, recorded circa 1989.
ICC leaders may tell members that they are in danger of being “deprogrammed” by their parents – even teaching them to run from an exit counseling intervention. Stoking the fires of fear, the ICC once even dedicated an issue of its magazine, Upside Down, to articles about “deprogramming,” including the cover story “Who’s Brainwashing Who?,” a slanted review of Steve Hassan’s book Combatting Cult Mind Control called “Why Does He Do it?” accounts of ICC members staying in the organization in spite of “deprogrammings,” and an article called “The Failed Deprogramming of Jesus.”(7)
In one public example of the ICC’s deprogramming fallacy, the FOX Files national TV news magazine interviewed distraught parents whose ICC-member daughter who had run from an exit counseling intervention – without even stopping to take her shoes. The ICC’s Al Baird criticized the parents in a statement objecting to the report, saying, “they tried to destroy her faith with a deprogrammer.”(8) Later, one of the intervention team members responded to Baird’s mischaracterization of exit counseling as deprogramming:
I was in Montana with [minister and team leader] Kyle Degge for that intervention. I have met the parents and the whole family. What happen was the parents asked the daughter if she would be willing to speak to some former members. Kyle, I and another former member was waiting about a few miles away. We were waiting for an okay from the parents to come over. Kyle made it specifically clear to the family that there will be no coercion whatsoever. The family needed to get the full consent and agreement from the daughter and that she has total freedom and control over her environment. Meaning she can use the phone at anytime, leave the house at anytime, go anywhere at anytime as she pleases. That would be the agreement under which the intervention would take place.(9)
Responding to Baird’s accusation that the parents were trying to destroy their daughter’s faith, this exit counseling team member added:
Destroy her faith in what? Kyle [team leader Degge] certainly would not destroy her faith in God. A matter of fact…Kyle was instrumental in restoring my faith in God.(10)
ICC leadership’s fallacy that exit counseling = deprogramming has created needless alarmism, driving yet another wedge of mistrust between ICC members and their families.
For an article on the American Family Foundation website about the distinctions between deprogramming and exit counseling, click here.
The ICC promotes a fallacy that negative reports about the ICC from former members are nothing but “gossip”, “slander” or “hearsay.” It’s instructive, however, to look at what these words actually mean:
gossip: “rumor or report of an intimate nature”(11)
A rumor is a statement or report made without known authority for its truth. Yet many statements that former members make about the ICC are verifiable.
For example, let’s say a member leaves the church and later informed a current member that Kip McKean once lived in a residence worth $480,000. An ICC leader hears about this and tells the member, “Stay away from Bill. He’s just spreading rumors and gossip about us.” But actually, the leader would be wrong. The value of Kip McKean’s condominium was a matter of public record, acknowledged in a public statement by the ICC(12). Proof exists, even if the leader or the member choose not to seek out proof.
slander: “The utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another’s reputation”
Although “slander” is a favorite word that ICC leadership uses for criticism, an accusation must, by definition, be incorrect before it can be slanderous. An accusation of the ICC that isn’t false can’t be slander.
For example, let’s say an ICC critic named Jane is quoted in a newspaper article saying, “The ICC uses deception in recruitment, exhibits a high degree of control in the lives of it’s members, and even expects members to get permission on things like who they can date or marry.” The ICC brands Jane’s words as “slander.” Yet Jane did not misrepresent the ICC at all.
hearsay: “something heard from another”
ICC leadership often brushes off the reported experiences of ex-members as “hearsay.” Yet many of these disturbing reports about the ICC come from first-hand witnesses who are not passing on “something heard from another” but are relating their own experiences.
For example, let’s say a former member, Gloria, writes a story about her time in the ICC and has it posted to a Web site. In her story, Gloria recalls an incident in which her Bible Talk leader told her that if she couldn’t raise $700 for Special Contribution, it was because she lacked faith and needed to repent. An ICC member reads Gloria’s story and shows it to his Evangelist, but is told to disregard it as “hearsay” because the Bible Talk leader is not present to tell her side of the story. But the Evangelist is wrong: Gloria was present when the incident occurred, so it is first-hand testimony and not hearsay.
These hypothetical scenarios illustrate how the ICC leadership spreads the fallacy that former ICC members have nothing to contribute but gossip, slander, and hearsay.
In reality, former members can be the most reliable and eloquent source of information about life in the ICC. Rich archives of former member stories exist on the Web (e.g. reveal.org, exicoc.org, tolc.org) and elsewhere. Anyone who wants to fully understand the ICC must consider the crucial collective voice of its past members.
(1) Mary Alice Chrnalogar,“Twisted Scriptures: A Path to Freedom from Abusive Churches,” pp. 234-235.
(2) Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1981.
(2a) Cinnamon Conner (Geographic Sector Leader - Women), Denominations, Equipping Classes for Women, icoc.cc, New York, 1996.
(2b) Declaration of Andrea Lark and Declaration of Jonathan S. Abady, Andrea Lark and the New York City Church of Christ against William Lacy, et al, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, January 11, 1999.
(2c) Discipleship Publications International, Inc., Application for Recognition of Exemption - IRS Form I023 - Part II.1, November 15, 1998, p. 7.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Kip McKean, Book of Acts Overview: Chapters 1-8, DPI, Tape # 10073, recorded 1985.
(5) Kip McKean, “Revolution Through Restoration,” Upside Down, Issue 2, April 1992, Boston, p. 8.
(6) Winford Claiborne, Discipling, Church Growth, and Unity, Freed-Hardeman 3rd Annual Preachers and Workers Forum, October 10, 1987.
(7) Roger Lamb (Director of Media), Upside Down, January 1993, pp. 44-45.
(8) Al Baird (World Sector Leader), “Television Show Slanders the Church,” kingdomnewsnet.org, January 29, 1999.
(9) Calvin Kwan, “Response to Al Baird's Typical ICC Statement”, alt.religion.christianity.boston-church, January 29, 1999.
(10) Ibid.
(11) definition of rumor: “talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernable source" or “a statement or report current without known authority for its truth” [Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1981.]
(12) Al Baird, “Television Show Slanders the Church.”
Copyright © 2001 Dave Anderson. All rights reserved.
