[Article 6] Manipulative Tactics, Deceitful Arguments and Abusive Methods

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[The Articles of Indignation: Article 6]

Other ICC Manipulative Tactics, Deceitful Arguments, and Abusive Methods

By Daniel Berg           June 25, 2015

            It is here that I address other manipulative techniques and deceitful arguments as well as other abusive behaviors that are made by ICC leaders that are related to some of the overall issues of all my articles in general rather than fitting into a specific category alone. I also include material which I could not fit into my other articles but which also have significant importance in exposing additional corruption in the ICC.

Here are the various subjects which this article addresses:

●Targeting the Parents of Younger Members

●What It Really Means to “Put The Kingdom First”

● The Gainesville ICC’s “Feeling Pressured” Article

● Abused Scriptures (and more psychological concepts)

● The ICC’s Negligent Study of Early Church History

Targeting the Parents of Younger Members

A growing percentage of the Church is comprised of young college students since they are the most susceptible to psychological persuasion. It is the ICC’s interest to find ways to get as much money out of this group as they can. The problem here is that college students tend to not have that much money on them, as is common with their stereotype. The ICC’s solution: go for the parents.

            The ICC will target the parents for either one of two cases: 1.) The college student is “short” on their special contribution or 2.) The college student doesn’t have the income to pay a weekly contribution.

During the special contributions, when a member’s effort to raise money for the amount imposed on them appears to be in doubt, it is a common practice for ICC leaders and disciplers to attempt to coerce the members into pleading to their families and friends for this money.  For those who asked their relatives and friends for money on of their own out of loyalty to what they believe is the “movement of God”, then amen, that decision is on them.  But from what I have observed; in the majority of cases where the members pleaded to their loved ones to lend them money for the purpose of the special contributions, it was because they were pressured to do so by a discipler or other leader.  Even for those members who now willingly ask their relatives every year to donate money; many of them were urged to do so by the leadership in the past and thus continue this practice.

Now why make a big deal out of this?  Well, it has to do with realizing what having a heart for giving to God is really about.  One of the best examples in the Bible for having a heart of sacrifice for God is the example set by King David who was described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).  The heart that King David had for sacrificing to God can be clearly seen in 1 Chronicles 21 when he was told by God to build an altar, the following passage is 1 Chronicles 21:18-24;

18Then the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.

20While Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves. 21Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.

22David said to him, “Let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price.”

23Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.”

24But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”  --Note: In other versions Araunah is also known as Ornan.

Now David could have accepted Araunah’s (Ornan’s) kind offer and then used the money he would have saved to build God an altar that was even more grand, however, David knew that having a heart for God was not about the physical or monetary amount that was offered, but the heart that was behind the sacrifice. King David wrote the following in Psalm 51:16-17; 16You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.  We also see the viewpoint of Jesus on offering to the Lord in Mark 12 when he observed a poor widow deposit a couple of copper coins into the temple treasury, which was all that she had.  Though the amount of money she gave was meager compared to the offerings of the others, Jesus held her in higher regard because of her heart to give.

                When I brought this matter to the leaders, of using members to collect money from their families, their response was; “it is a sacrifice in itself for the members to go and ask their families for money, so we see no harm in it.”  Is this really the heart that King David would have had?  David could have made the same excuse, after all he had to travel to Araunah’s property and then spend time building the altar.  If David were to go by the ICC’s philosophy, he could have said that the journey in itself was enough of a sacrifice and accepted Araunah’s offer to give him the property for free, but of course this was not the heart David had.  David was a man after God’s own heart, and he knew that if he was really going to have a heart of sacrifice toward God then it had to be his own sacrifice, not something that was given to him by someone else.  The ICC’s reasoning is merely an excuse, and it shows that they only care about getting the money they want any way they can. Little appreciation is given to the hearts of sacrifice that the members have, as has been shown again and again by their attitude toward those who do not come up with their full special contribution.  Disciples should not be treated as resources to be exploited, Proverbs 21:3 says: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” So if we want to do the right thing and have a heart of sacrifice that is pleasing to God then shouldn’t we follow King David’s example for this?  Yet the ICC’s actions show that their philosophy differs sharply from the Bible on this matter.

There were times when it looked like I would be short for my special contribution but even when I would tell my discipler that my parents did not believe in giving money to the ICC, my discipler would then say “well do you think you can get the money from them somehow?” This was disturbing to me. What did they mean by “somehow”? I had made it clear that my parents did not believe in donating to this organization and that they had told me so. So what other way was there?

They hound their members when they do not have the full amount for their special contributions, saying that they are not being “sacrificial”, and yet they try to coerce them into getting the rest of the money from their parents or other relatives which they call “plundering the Philistines” (in reference to 1 Samuel 17:53) as if this is a Biblical thing for them to do. These disciplers were sounding more like sharks from a debt collection agency than advisors; desperate to make sure that those whom they were “discipling” were meeting their quotas by any means necessary. This was no longer about “the heart to give”; it was just about the money.

Some parents actually do hear about all this; in their fear of being used they panic and disown their kids. Please parents, do not do this, you are only pushing your children farther into the arms of this organization. Then these kids even get lifted up as “martyr figures” as the ICC tries to argue that this is Satan attacking then, and this gets highly annoying as they exclaim “look how Satan is attacking us, this persecution only confirms that we are doing God’s work!” Right, so when bad things happen to people who criticize the ICC then it is “God punishing them for opposing His kingdom”, but when negative things happen to members and leaders of the ICC then it is Satan attacking them? These people sure know how to put on circus acts; so please parents, do not help these people put on a show by disowning your child.

This targeting of the parents is also used when extorting money from unemployed students for a weekly tithe (see my other article The ICC’s Extortion and Coercion for Money). Since many these students are receiving financial support from their parents while living away from home, these ICC leaders will demand a portion of the money which they are receiving. In 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 Paul writes:

Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do.  On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

The problem here is that this money that the ICC is trying to get from the students is not their income, it is money given to them for a specific purpose by their guardians. In my meeting with Anthony in which he tried to extort money from me (described in my extortion article) he also attempted to target the money that was given to me by my parents. I asked my parents for financial support every month, and since I want to be noble, I spend it specifically on living necessities and the things for which my parents intended for the money to go towards. My parents did not believe in supporting the ICC, so to ask them for living expenses and then giving a portion of this money to the ICC leaders just to please them would be dishonest and contrary to having a noble character. It was at this point that Anthony proclaimed that I needed to give them money or else I could no longer be a part of the church. If you have read my other articles, it is apparent why this is classified as extortion; here is the part of my article on the extortion of the ICC which proves this:

Now everyone knows the simple mathematical relation: if A=B, and B=C, then A=C. Now apply that relation to this situation: if members that are told that unless they continue to give money (even regardless of whether or not they are receiving income) then they cannot be a part of the Church, and if they are told that if they are not a part of the Church then they are going to Hell. Taking these factors into account, this is synonymous with them saying, “unless you continue to give us money, we will take your salvation from you; so you better do what we say or you’ll burn in Hell”.  This is blackmail, and yet so many of the members do not even realize how they have been manipulated.

            Now that we have established that this is indeed blackmail, let’s return to the definition of extortion that I laid down in my first article; extortion is when coercion along with threats, blackmail, or some other use of force is used to get money from someone. What the ICC is doing definitely meets the definition of extortion; however, this form of extortion is “legal” in the eyes of the U.S. government (but honestly, even the U.S. government is pretty twisted up) because the gun that the ICC leaders are holding to the heads of their victims here is spiritual, not physical. But this is extortion nonetheless.

To give you a spoiler here, Anthony’s attempt at extortion failed, however, there is something that I wished I had done during this meeting (don’t we all think of the best responses after an argument is over?). For those of you ICC members who are college students and are currently receiving money from your parents for food, living expenses, etc. The next time an ICC leader tells you that you need to give them a portion of the money you are receiving from your parents for your "tithe" and they say that unless you do this you cannot be a part of their church anymore, I have some advice for you; take out your phone, dial your mom or dad or guardian (whoever is making the money that you are being provided with) and hand the phone over to the church leader who wants to take this money from you.  Then you say; "It's my parents/guardians money so you need to ask them for it, just tell them the same thing that you told me".  See how that leader responds because if they tell the parents the same garbage that they tried to use to extort money from the kids, they would basically be telling the parents; "you need to give us a portion of the money that you are giving to support your son/daughter or else they cannot be part of our "church" anymore".  The parents are also likely aware that many of their son's/daughter's friends are in this "church".  These ICC leaders know that such a conversation will not end well for them, which is why they only go after the kids who look up to them as their "spiritual leaders" and are thus easier to manipulate. Of course most of the kids would be afraid to use this method I just suggested because they don’t want their parents to think badly about the church, and I speak from personal experience when I say that many of these kids attempt to hide the abuse they are exposed to from their parents.

What It Really Means to “Put The Kingdom First”

I make a reference to the ICC’s usage of this phrase in a few of my articles. “You need to put the Kingdom first” is another one of those buzz phrases that ICC leaders mindlessly throw around without any thought as to what this actually means. Whenever they coerce more money out of people who barely have anything, or whenever they tell someone that they can’t miss any of their meetings in order to take a required class on Wednesday nights (during their midweeks) or study for an important exam (and I already showed the fallacies in their doctrine for having enforced mandatory meetings on all members in my other article The ICC’s Psychological Control System), this phrase is always used.

It is dumbfounding that they do this because even in their “First Principles” studies they teach that “The Kingdom of God” is the church, and the church is made up of the people of God. The Kingdom of God is not a meeting and it is not just the paid staff. The Kingdom is the people of God; the entirety of the membership. So shouldn’t they be putting the member’s needs as a priority as well?

Yet whenever a member is financially struggling and expresses that they would be unable to meet the leadership’s mandate on how much they should raise their contribution or on how much money they want for a special contribution the leadership will quote Matthew 6:25-34 and will try to use this scripture to tell them that they need to give them the money they want despite their financial situation, telling them that God will bless them and take care of them if they do. This is hypocritical. Why doesn’t the ICC leadership trust that God will provide them with the finances they need rather than beating money out of their own congregation? If they really believe that their cause is just then shouldn’t they believe that God will provide them the funds they need without resorting to underhanded methods?

Now let’s pretend for a moment that the exorbitant amount money that the ICC collects is not being spent on $650,000 condos, fancy restaurants, spending nights at luxurious hotels, etc. (yes this is a direct reference to Kip McKean’s antics). The ICC’s actions of beating money out of their congregation for the sake of “evangelizing the world” is synonymous with trying to do this task under their own power rather than trusting in the power of God. Even in trials and tribulation, even if they are disciplined and sent to wander in the wilderness, God will provide for his people even if he has to rain down mana from the sky. Kip McKean and his inner circle are no longer satisfied with simple mana, they wanted more. The ICC is not putting the Kingdom first, what they are really doing is putting the desires of the leadership first and making the rest of the congregation (the real Kingdom) suffer. They have already fallen too far, by now I would wager that most of the ICC’s upper leadership knows that this organization can no longer be considered a movement of God (it’s Kip’s Kingdom now) and therefore they continue their abusive behavior to get the money that they want rather than having faith.

The Gainesville ICC’s “Feeling Pressured” Article

Throughout my articles I have written about how the congregations in the ICC have been pressured and abusively coerced for money and how this is a violation of 2 Corinthians 9:6-7. I would not be the first one to point out this contradiction of scripture to the ICC and therefore there was an article posted recently on the ICC’s Gainesville, Florida website (www.gainesvilleicc.info) that attempts to circumvent this Biblical principle with their own propaganda. This article was titled “Feeling Pressured” and here is the part of the article that introduces the propaganda in question:

There are many pressures we face as disciples of Jesus Christ. As the semester comes to a close at the University of Florida and Santa Fe college, students face the pressure of exceling in their final exams and passing their classes. Financial pressure can hit us if we have lost a job or have unexpected expenses. Our bodies age and we face the pressure of deteriorating health. These are normal pressures that everyone must face on earth whether righteous or wicked (Matthew 5:45). Yet as a disciple of Jesus there is even more added pressure as Paul wrote about above. We have the pressure of concern for our brothers and sisters who may be weak spiritually (2 Corinthians 11:28-29). There is also the burden to evangelize the world in this generation commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18-20). Right now there is also the added financial pressure of our 25x Special Missions Contribution on June 14th. This pressure is felt because if we do not hit our missions goal we may have to take some of our interns off staff.

His statement of the "pressure of our 25x Special Missions Contribution" and the reference to this 25x amount as a “goal” afterward sounds like the kind of pressure an athlete feels to meet a certain goal, or a kind of normal everyday pressure that can’t be avoided rather than one that is abusively imposed on them. He makes it sound like a good kind of pressure or a pressure that is neutral in nature for accomplishing a certain goal. Also for those of you who may have read the Seeking Advice for a Means of Control section of my article titled The ICC’s Control System, the ICC’s “advisors” try to present themselves as “coaches” to push the members to meeting these so-called “goals”. However it has already been established that these are not "goals" set by the members as I showed in my article The ICC’s Corrupt Policies for Money (Part 2), and that these increasing amounts of money are something that is imposed on and coerced out of the congregation.

They keep referring to this pressure put on the congregation as “the pressure of meeting your 25x Special Contribution goal”. But what if we replace the word "goal" with a word that is more applicable to what is actually happening here? I described how the ICC leaders use the word "called" in my previous article (The ICC’s Corrupt Policies for Money Part 1), and how this word is psychologically manipulative toward the members that it is used against. I would be very much tempted to replace the word "goal" with "demand", however, I already had explained that the leaders choice of the word "called" falls just short of demanding money from the congregation, which is meant to give them an alibi for any accusations of them "forcing" their members to do something. So therefore what is the definition of someone using psychological and other underhanded tactics to get what they want? The word for this is "coerce". So how about this: "the pressure of meeting your 25x Special contribution coercion". Or since these so-called “goals” are something imposed on the congregation by the upper leadership we could also put it this way; "the pressure of meeting the 25x contribution which you have been coerced into giving", or "the pressure of meeting the 25x contribution under the leaders coercion", or how about "the pressure of being coerced into giving your 25x contribution"? Do any of these statements sound like "good pressure" to you? I think not.

They also try to add some additional emotional manipulation by mentioning that they may have to lay off their interns. There are those in the upper leadership staff who get paid almost 10x as much as these struggling interns; they could hire a greater number of staff and therefore quickly evangelize more people if they would only further sacrifice and take some pay cuts. Cmon guys, it’s for saving the world right? No need for that white picket fence or $650,000 condo.

Nice try Gainesville ICC leadership.

Defining these 25x contributions as "goals” and then trying to convince the members that the pressure they are feeling is a "good kind of pressure" that comes from trying to meet a goal; this is a multilayered form of psychological manipulation.

Abused Scriptures (and more psychological concepts)

The ICC commonly uses the scriptures in Acts 2:44-46, Acts 4:32-37 and 2 Corinthians 8:1-7 while claiming that they are trying to “teach their members to be more sacrificial.” These scriptures are used for everything from coercing members to raise their contributions, to character assassinating people for not having a full special contribution and is also even used for extortion (see my article The ICC’s Extortion and Coercion for Money, this extortion has become one of Kip McKean’s policies); they aggressively use these scriptures for everything except benevolence (I have seen them pull these scriptures out a couple times during benevolence at a midweek service, but there is not nearly as much aggressiveness to their behavior as when it is used for other purposes). This should be significant evidence that these scriptures are being abused but for some people, however, they don’t want to doubt the intentions of their leaders and therefore want additional evidence besides the original intent for benevolence to prove these scriptures are being abused (for the case of extortion I mentioned, this abuse is immediately obvious, but not so immediately obvious for the other two cases).

I believe that Acts 2:44-46, Acts 4:32-37 and 2 Corinthians 8:1-7 are awesome scriptures that teach about the loving sacrifices of the first century Christians and they set an example for everyone to aspire to. The real problem that is of major concern here is what if these teachings were to fall into the hands of an abusive organization? I believe that I have shown throughout my articles that the ICC is indeed an abusive organization. They use these scriptures over and over at least four times a year during each contribution raise and each special contribution (2 contribution raises and 2 special contributions) claiming that they are just “trying to teach their members to be sacrificial”, and then they use them to coerce money out of the unemployed.

The leaders abuse these scriptures and then claim that they are "just holding the congregation accountable to the Bible." This is can be hard to argue with (besides the fact that these scriptures are supposed to be about benevolence) when the members are largely unaware of the true intentions of these leaders or these are leaders who they believe they can trust (and often the leaders themselves are being manipulated as well). These scriptures are good for teaching people about the sacrificial giving and benevolence of the early church, but in the hands of an abusive organization, these scriptures can be used for coercion, such as what the ICC is doing. I did mention that these scriptures should not be used to beat money out of their congregation, but making this argument would require someone to notice these scriptures being used countless times in such a way on the members before they could finally ascertain that this is in fact what they are doing, and by then the victim count would already have piled up, exactly as it has in the ICC.  So an abusive organization can misuse these scriptures for an extended period of time with no immediate repercussions (most of the time), except in a few rare cases where the abuse is immediately apparent (during extortion). These verses of the sacrificial acts of the first century disciples to give to the needy among themselves is now being used by the ICC leadership to relentlessly pump as much money out of their congregation as they can.

Even though I said that a corrupt organization such as the ICC can abuse these scriptures without any immediate repercussions, many people can still "sense" that these scriptures are being misused and leave the Church. If these people try to voice their indignation about this abuse, however, they are ridiculed because of their lack of evidence and they are labeled as being "bitter". If they speak out against the corruption of a leader the ICC cites 1 Timothy 5:19, which is the scripture about having two witnesses. This is also an example of what can happen when a good teaching falls into the wrong hands; it is a clever use of scripture since much of the abuse happens when isolating the members in staged meetings, and then when they try to speak out against the abuse being done to them the ICC leaders will quote this scripture then ridicule them and say "where are your witnesses?" When I say “staged” meetings I am referring to meetings such as when a leader has already established control over everyone at the meeting or everyone else at the meeting has already undergone pre-biasing (meaning they have already been biased into believing that the person being manipulated is simply “unspiritual”, which is common in this organization). In my extortion article I also mentioned how leaders will “ambush” members unexpectedly, which prevents them from making preparations for bringing their own unbiased witness.

The ICC also preaches to their members that they need to be 100% devoted to advancing “God’s movement”; that “The Kingdom” needs to be the number one priority in their lives. Now what is wrong with this? Nothing really; Jesus calls us to a standard of devotion (Luke 9:23-26) and he made it clear that his disciples should be devoting their lives to saving the lost, and back in 2008 I joined the church with an eagerness to do so. There is nothing wrong with a Godly church teaching its members to be devoted to the teachings of Jesus. The concerning problem here, once again, is that this teaching has fallen into the hands of the ICC.  In the hands of an abusive organization this teaching can cause major psychological damage including stealing their member’s sense of identity. This is why there have been people who needed to go to trauma centers and receive therapy after leaving the ICC. Their memories of being abused as well as realizing how much time and money has been stolen from them continues to have a hurtful impact on their lives afterward. The ICC has shown that it has no interest in obeying the Bible; they only look for ways to exploit it.

In the wrong hands, these teachings about the devotion of the first century Christians can be turned into destructive tools. People give their whole lives to this organization and are then asked to give more. As an example of what this does; have you ever seen someone play poker who continues to put in more money even though they have a weak hand? Not wanting to give up how much they have already put in they continue to play until they go all in. Kip even uses this analogy himself, encouraging his members to go “all in” on devoting their lives to his organization and to not have “back doors” out of the organization that could tempt them to leave. The member’s social lives, their families, even their jobs; their everything gets swallowed up by this organization until they are trapped for the sake of “staying faithful”. These people continue to give more to the organization even as evidence of severe corruption arises around them. Is this really “staying faithful” or is this an attempt at complete dominant control?

The ICC hammers all their propaganda into their members again and again as they are called to be 100% devoted to their organization, and this propaganda is presented to them as “convictions” that “strong” Christians have (such as the “central leadership” issue and believing that everyone’s contribution is a “pledge to God” which I have already exposed as unscriptural). If driven in deep enough these “convictions” can become something that they associate with their own identity; in their minds it becomes part of who they are. To question the nature of these “convictions” means to question themselves and the way they view themselves as a person since they have built their self-image and chosen to define themselves as a “sold-out disciple” because of these “convictions” that the ICC portrays as “strong” Christian beliefs. It is very hard for someone to accept the idea that they are not really who they thought they were, as acceptance of this idea can be both humiliating and painful. Then even worse is the realization of how much of your life was stolen from you, that the cause you thought you were fighting for was really something else.

It is no wonder that these people refuse to see the corruption that is right in front of them; we underestimate the power of our minds to filter out what we do not want to accept as reality. This explains why I was with the ICC for so long even after events that should have made me realize how corrupt this organization was. It also explains how the leadership was successfully able to obscure the congregations perception of past events during the contribution raises (see The ICC’s Corrupt Policies for Money Part 1). I would simply try to convince myself that the leaders were being “overzealous” and that the church, being young, was simply going through an “immaturity phase”; not wanting to see the corruption that was around me. To any ICC member currently reading this I must sound like the Devil to them right now; trying to get them to doubt their almighty leaders with words of evil, but this cannot be helped as the situation which I am describing is a very evil one indeed and will continue to get worse as the ICC continues to go in the direction in which Kip McKean is leading it.

The ICC’s Negligent Study of Early Church History

This last issue is more of a rant on my part, rather than a deceitful argument or abusive method for which this article was advertised. I thought I would include it in here anyway since I couldn’t fit it into my article about the ICC’s central leadership and it brings up some concerning issues about the mindset of these ICC members.

Although the ICC claims previously that they thought that the early Church was under a central leadership. It is interesting to note that they seemed confident of this even though their first principles pamphlets reflect an obvious neglect to cross-check all their information on church history since these pamphlets list Ulrich Zwingli (also known as Huldreich Zwingli) as a leader of the Anabaptist movement in the history section of their “Church study”. Whenever they would come to this part of the study they will always say that Zwingli was one of the leaders of the Anabaptist movement and then they will say that these Anabaptists were our brothers in Christ. So not only do they say that Zwingli an Anabaptist leader, but then they say that he was our brother in Christ? From 2009 to 2014, any time this study was taught as well as in the first principles classes, the ICC leaders would make this same assumption every time without fail.

The truth is, not only was Zwingli not an Anabaptist leader, but he was also one of the people that opposed the Anabaptists and decreed that they should be executed by drowning in 1526. Zwingli also taught that the sacrament of baptism was not necessary to have ones sins forgiven, so he was our historical enemy from a doctrinal sense as well. Yet the ICC wants to call this man a leader of our brothers in Christ? It also seems hypocritical for the ICC to affectionately call these Anabaptists their “brothers in Christ” when the Anabaptists were actually very scattered and had nothing resembling a central leadership system at all and then making claims that the ICOC churches had left God because they were autonomous (although the ICOC is certainly more organized than the scattered Anabaptists were).

The mistake here clearly came from the fact that one faction of the Anabaptists arose from Ulrich Zwingli’s circle of followers (and the followers in this particular Anabaptist faction did not believe in baptism for the forgiveness of sins), whoever put the history study together for the ICC then simply put Zwingli as the leader without any verification; indicating that the ICC’s research done while attempting to put this history section together was shallow and rushed. The ICC pamphlets with this error have been in circulation to all the ICC churches around the world since 2009, and even after I first brought up this error a few months after the pamphlet came out, and then again to three different region leaders, the mistake was still not fixed and continued to be taught in every first principles class for the next five years (and still ongoing).

 It seemed unbelievable to them that a mistake could exist in their first principles pamphlets given to them by the upper leadership, even if this mistake was not doctrinal, but a historical one. One of the region leaders that I mentioned this mistake to even expressed doubt of my correction of the ICC’s error, even though I had made it clear that I had researched the subject and he had no basis for his doubt, it would have taken only a quick scan of a history book to verify this and yet no one seemed capable of this task as it would mean contradicting what the leaders had previously told them.

Gustave Le Bon's first book on group psychology, “The Mind of Crowds”, shows that people under group psychological influence will blindly adhere to any ideas projected onto them and will reject any contradictions to these ideas if they should appear. It became apparent that many of the members of the ICC were exhibiting this same characteristic.

Of course everyone makes mistakes and a historical error seems trivial to some people who have other priorities on their minds but it was the unwillingness to accept that there was a mistake in the first place that was truly unsettling for this case. If these booklets were distributed to all the ICC churches around the world, then shouldn’t someone else have noticed? This mistake was also taught (and is still being taught) to their ICCM (International College of Christian Ministry) students which brings the validity of their college into question if they are not going to cross-check the information that they give their students (but this college is not even accredited anyway, and they still charge their members $6,000 yearly). Of course it should be the job of college students to cross-check information as well; the fact that this error was never corrected tells me that they did not do a good job of this.

If all these members of the ICC churches around the world are unwilling to catch such an obvious historical error (that was and still is being taught), then what about do you think about doctrinal errors? These church leaders have already proven that they do not cross-check what they choose to believe and seem unable to accept the possibility that there may be errors in the information that is given to them and therefore unable to accept correction (Proverbs 12:1). These are very troubling observations.