RightCyberUp HOME search comment
About this Site
RightCyberUp is a recovery site providing information for the benefit of International Churches of Christ (ICC) former and current members, their loved ones and friends, and anyone else interested in destructive or high-demand groups.
The name RightCyberUp, as many readers will recognize, is a play on "UpCyberDown," the name of the International Churches of Christ's (ICC, ICOC) web portal.
"Upside down" is a catch-phrase of the ICC, having once been the name of the movement's printed magazine, and even a Broadway-style musical co-written by one of the movement's senior leaders. Here's an excerpt from the lyrics ofUpside Down, the musical:
Two thousand years and here we are, just a world of waste and screams
but just a ragged band of men can reawaken all those dreams.
There’s a way to take this planet and turn everything around –
Or, a better way to say it: Let’s turn the whole thing upside down!words by Steve Johnson (World Sector Leader), Upside Down, © New York City Church of Christ, Inc., 1994.
One day while watching a video of the ICC's "Jubilee 2000" celebration, I heard something in these lyrics that was askew, as I had so often found with the ICC’s teachings: something subtle. I knew that the ICC got the words "upside down" from the Bible’s book of Acts, but I also knew that they used the words incorrectly.
In the true context of Acts 17:6, an angry mob accused Paul and Silas’ followers of having “caused trouble all over the world” (New International Version) -- or in the King James Version, “turned the world upside down.” The words were an accusation, not a compliment. (Note that the same Greek verb from Acts 17:6 is also used unflatteringly in Acts 5:37 and Galatians 5:12). As one of the ICC’s most prominent teachers has even admitted, “the phrase ['upside down'] had a negative, not a positive, connotation” and really means “to upset” or “disturb, as in the sense of disturbing the peace.”(1) Biblically speaking, turning things "upside down" in this context is nothing to boast about.
Yet as I watched the Jubilee 2000 video, one ICC performer after another sang songs about this movement turning our present-day world upside down. In so doing – due to a mistake in understanding biblical context – the ICC ironically boasts it is “disturbing” and “upsetting” people. Considering the ICC’s history, this is not far from the truth.
This Web site asserts that the ICC itself is “upside down,” in three essential ways:
As former ICC leader Rick Bauer once wrote, the ICC can only truly be understood by considering all three perspectives – just as a three-dimensional problem needs three-dimensional solutions, not one-or-two-dimensional ones.
This site provides recovery information about the ICC for the benefit of those who have been involved in the organization -- or who know others who have been involved.
Much of the site's content is critical of the ICC. The intent is not to criticize the ICC's members -- most of whom are sincerely trying to do what they think is right -- but rather to give perspective on the ICC system. The site does not intend to be criticism for criticism's sake. Nor does the site assert that involvement in the ICC is 100% negative -- on the contrary, if the organization had no positives, few would ever join it.
RightCyberUp.org cites the ICC’s own leaders, from the ICC’s own published materials, and from ICC audio tapes I have personally transcribed. I have inserted any comments appearing in brackets; comments in parenthesis come from the original source. I have used ellipses (…) to shorten quotes, taking care not to alter meaning or remove context needed by the reader.
ICC leaders’ titles are provided with citations where possible, to give readers a sense of their leadership role. These titles were taken from an October 1999 ICC document,(2) except where superceded by a more recent source. To see a chart of the ICC's leadership structure, click here.
RightCyberUp.org provides Real Audio clips for certain ICC leadership quotes that appear on the site. The purpose of audio clips is to allow users to verify that these quotes were actually spoken as cited, and to provide users with audible cues such as tone of voice, etc. to help context and understanding.
For additional verification, users are encouraged to buy ICC tapes and materials. Bibliographic information is provided with each citation.
Users with a Real Player or current AOL Media Player should be able to hear streaming audio clips. To download and install Real Player for free, go to the Real.com site and follow the "free download" links until you find the "Basic" free player.
Former members who do not feel comfortable listening to the voices of ICC leaders are encouraged not to do so until comfortable: it is common for former members to have triggering experiences.
My journey toward creating RightCyberUp.org began as a college senior at the University of Minnesota in 1989, where I was invited to attend the campus ministry of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Church of Christ. There I went through the church’s recruitment studies and briefly considered joining.
In 1994 in New York City I again encountered the ICC, this time at a crossroads in my life. Suddenly, the ICC seemed to offer appealing answers to many of life’s problems, and I threw myself in, full-force. I again went through the First Principles studies. After weeks of study, one night I came within minutes of joining the organization. I went through the church’s “Counting the Cost” study in preparation for my approaching baptism into the group, and one by one, I agreed to the challenges and ICC policies set before me – except for one: I was asked to steer clear of negative material about the church distributed by parents or counter-cult organizations – and especially to avoid reading books written about the church. In spite of my desire to join the organization and to be “right with God,” I could not at that moment agree to trade away my future freedom of information for my immediate conversion.
Questions flooded my mind: Why did so much negative information exist about a group that seemed so harmless to me? Why were they only telling me about this now? Why would a group that says it was teaching “the truth” be worried about members verifying its claims against outside information? What does “the truth” have to fear, I thought?
For me, this “red flag” was the beginning of the end, and I never did join the International Churches of Christ.(3) After my close call – and a surprisingly difficult period of recovery from the experience, I began to read everything I could get my hands on about the ICC and groups like it. I became involved as a volunteer running a discussion and support group for former ICC members. I began a telephone hotline and took calls from around the world from people whose lives were impacted by the group – many with devastating consequences. I met with parents and current members, helping some to leave the group.
After my own experience with the ICC, I began sketching out some of my concerns – theological and ethical – about the ICC’s recruitment studies. This early writing solidified into a paper called The ICC Bible Studies: A Critical Analysis which was published online at reveal.org in 1997, and later translated into German and Spanish. I began to hear from scores of people around the world who found the paper helpful. Some encouraged me to write something on a larger scale to help more people. In many ways, this site is the fruit of their encouragement.
I hope all readers will consider the importance of the issues laid out in this site, keeping in mind the spirit in which it was written, and remembering that the truth has nothing to fear.
sincerely,
Dave
Anderson
P.S. Comments or questions can be submitted via the "comments" link on most pages.
Notes
(1) Douglas Jacoby (Kingdom Teacher), Shining Like Stars: The Evangelism Handbook for the New Millennium, mil. ed., Woburn, MA: DPI, 2000, p. 27.
(2) International Churches of Christ, ICC Churches By World Sector, File # ICC 08.03, October 4, 1999.
(3) I was, however, baptized, just not in the ICC. Largely because of fears ingrained in me by the New York City Church of Christ, I had begun to doubt the validity of my own childhood baptism, and I elected to become baptized in a mainline Church of Christ not affiliated with the ICC. Only later would I come to believe that this rebaptism was unnecessary, for theological reasons spelled out in a section on baptism and salvation.
Copyright © 2001,2004 Dave Anderson. All rights reserved.
