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The ICC’s
Psychological Control System (Part 1)
By Daniel Berg June 25, 2015
For when they speak great swelling words
of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the
ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise
them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is
overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. –Deceptions of
False Teachers, 2 Peter 2:18-19
Introduction: A System of Abuse Twice
Used
Many
people refer to Kip McKean’s psychological system of control as “mind control”,
but seem unable to explain how this is actually done. The term “mind control”
sounds so sci-fi that it seems ridiculous to some people that something like
this could be realistically implemented by a church, and yet we see examples of
this throughout history such as Steward Traill’s Church of Bible Understanding
(don’t all such organizations claim that they are just “following the Bible”?)
which was founded in 1971.
My
articles have outlined the different ways that the ICC would psychologically
manipulate people and I often use the group psychological theories of
recognized nineteenth-century thinkers such as Gustave Le Bon and Sigmund Freud to show how this is being done. The key behind manipulating a person or a group
of people is to keep them from realizing that they are actually being
manipulated, therefore the manipulation needs to be disguised as something
else. It is interesting to note that when people bring up the subject of
psychological theory to discuss how the members are being manipulated they are
criticized for bringing up “worldly concepts” against their “holy
organization”; as if they are somehow exempt from such psychological phenomena.
Once again this plays right into the theories of group psychology, that the
people who get pulled into this mentality think that their organization is
above the rules. Many of these manipulative policies appear seemingly innocent
at first, but they serve as components in a larger system and come together to
form a system that serves a specific purpose; very much like an engineer will
put together various components to create a specific device. The system that
the ICC has built serves to maximize the money that they take from their
congregation as well as establishing significant control over them and this was
the same type of system that Kip built during the ICOC as can be seen in the
letters from the ICOC leaders in 2003 where they apologize for this abuse and
coercion done during Kip’s leadership.
Many have concluded the reason for all
of this sin, disorder and bitterness was “the system” –
World Sector Leaders, discipleship
partners, Bible Talks, megachurches, the “Study Series,” etc.
(Some have even gone so far as to call
it the “evil” system.) A system is simply applying Biblical
principles to create methods. Some
churches in the name of “freedom in Christ” have abandoned
all methodologies such as Bible Talks,
discipleship partners, etc. We must have a system that
uses Biblical principles in order to
evangelize the world.
–Kip McKean, “From Babylon onto Zion”, July 13, 2003.
It
is interesting to note here that Kip criticizes the ICOC on the basis that some
of their Churches had done away with discipleship partners and bible talks, and
yet once again he avoids the issue of abusive money policies as being part of
the system and instead obscurely alludes to “sin, disorder, and bitterness”
instead of addressing the main concerns that people had with his organization.
His avoidance of the issue of obtaining money from members through coercive
tactics continues throughout the rest of the letter as I show in my other
article; How Kip McKean’s Old Movement
Fell which addresses this part of Kip’s history. It has become very clear
from my previous articles that this system has not been based on “Biblical
principles” on which Kip attempts to make his argument and this article will
serve to enforce that as I describe his current psychological system of
control.
