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After Leaving the ICC
"In the name of God, WHY?!?"Immediately after I left the ICC, I went through a lot of confusion and depression. I couldn't understand how someone could claim to have be someone who tried to immitate Christ's love could have tried to destroy my faith by trying to "prove" I was not a Christian. The memories of how I was choking back the tears, asking the evangelist why he was trying to convince me I wasn't a Christian when he had already put me through that study and convinced me the first time, was still fresh in my mind. As was his reply, which was something to the effect that it was necessary for my salvation. I had always considered myself a strong Christian before I started studying with the ICC. Now, I wasn't sure what I was. The thought that God was just an idea priests made up to exploit everyone else even crossed my mind once or twice, as did the idea that Jesus had been nothing more than a first century cult leader. The only thing I knew for sure was that the ICC, as an organization at least, was evil. I had only been involved with the ICC for just under two months, and they had still left me thoroughly confused. During this time, I spent a lot of time on the Internet, looking up what critics had to say about the ICC. At first, I searched to find out if other people had concluded that the ICC was a cult. It took me less than ten minutes to find other people on the Net who had drawn the same conclusion. I continued to read these stories to find out what I might have seen if I'd stayed. It appalled me to find out just what some people said the ICC had done to them in the name of God. Although I was certainly tempted to do so, I didn't use this confusion as an excuse to plunge headlong into a life of sin. I didn't go partying, drinking, do drugs, sleep around, or otherwise seek out a life of sin, like many ICC members seem to expect "fallaways" to do. I didn't even use tobacco, something I never believed was a sin. While I was asking a lot of questions on the surface, I guess the ICC still couldn't dislodge the sense of right and wrong God gave me. The SearchAfter a few weeks of feeling extremely confused, I decided to make an effort to find another church. The first church I attended was a Presbyterian church which I'd attended once or twice before, but had concluded they were too liberal for my tastes at the time. I thought that perhaps they would be less strict, and so bring back less of the painfl memories I associated with the ICC. Yes, I'll admit I was looking for a church where I felt comfortable. But if you find a church that teaches solidly Biblical doctorine and puts the Word of God into practice, what's so sinful about finding a church which doesn't keep you in a perpetual feeling that something is wrong? If you believe, as I do, that there are many churches out there which are on the sure foundation of the rock of God, is there anything wrong with finding out which of these churches is most suitable for you? After attending that particular Presbyterian church for two or three weeks, however, I concluded their church was too much about politics and not enough about God. The pastor's sermons could have very well passed for politicians' speeches except for the occasional plea to God. I decided this was definitely not the church for me. The next church I went to was a Baptist congregation. The first time I attended, I don't recall much of anything except a skit entitled "The Defense Attorney" about how Jesus's sacrifice saved us from the punnishment from our sins. The emphasis was more on forgiveness, though, than Jesus's suffering or the consequences of not repenting. It didn't come across as anything like a scare tactic. The next Sunday was a bit more bothersome. The preacher preached a sermon on the book of Jonah. I thought the guy's interpretations were mainly non sequitors, and the central point of his message seemed to be about obedience and evangelism. Needless to say, that wasn't the kind of sermon I was looking for. They told me their regular pastor was sick, and he preached a lot better than the member who was filling in that day. I certainly hoped so. I didn't get a chance at the time to find out whether their regular pastor was any better, because summer vacation began shortly after that visit, and I went home to stay with my family. On the trip back, we encountered a surprising number of hazards. Once, I briefly dozed off once while it was my turn to drive, and barely managed to avoid veering into the oncoming lane. About an hour later, we drove into a pouring rainstorm that kept up for hours. Many truck drivers even pulled over, but my father just slowed down. Several times, obstacles such as a stalled car and a fallen tree blocked the interstate, with little warning in the rain and darkness. I took the fact that we made it back from Cleveland to Atlanta without so much as a scratch in the van's paint as a sign that God was still watching over me, even after what I'd been through. Being able to return to the church in which I had grown up proved very helpful in regaining my faith. I was able to return to a church where I had felt peace, instead of the feeling that something was terribly wrong like I felt in the weeks before I left the ICC. The people there displayed a friendship and happiness that felt much more genuine than what I felt from the members of the ICC. There wasn't any forced laughing at stale jokes, like what I saw when the members of the college ministry of the Greater Cleveland Church of Christ tried to talk about something other than religion and had to resort to telling jokes like the one beginning with, "Three strings walk in to a bar..." Most importantly, attending the church in which I grew up helped me to separate my feelings about the ICC with my feelings about Christianity. It helped me stop feeling nervous when I walked in to a church. The pastor of my church was a very knowledgable man, and used logic and appeals to reason to show the congregation the way of God, rather than manipulation and the fear of Hell. The ICC can condition you to feel nervous while walking into a church or reading the Bible just as surely as Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate when he rang a bell. But the flip side of conditioning is that if you are repeatedly exposed to the circumstances that draw the conditioned response from you, but without the reasons that brought out the response in the first place, the effects of the conditioning will fade, and often fade faster than they would on their own. It was also at this time that I found a mailing list of former members. The list has helped me recover by giving me a chance to compare notes and discuss my feelinds with people who have been through the same experiences I have. It has also helped me contact people who were actively opposed to the ICC's teachings and deeds. The Well of Darkness and the Tree of PoisonI believe it was at this time that I thought about using poetry to express how I felt about my experiences with the ICC. However, what I saw myself writing, and the way I felt while I wrote it, became frightening. It was like I was not so much writing the words, as drawing them up from a well of darkness in my soul, intensifying them, and burning them into the paper with a pen of blazing anger. I didn't know whether my writing was merely expressing emotions I had hidden from myself, or intensifying those emotions to almost toxic levels. I actually felt like I was out of control as I wrote, and that something feral inside of me had taken over my hands. Realizing what the ICC was, and what I could have become if I had joined it, opened a window into the human that I had never immagined could be so frightening. Writing the poems, it seemed, had opened a window through which I saw an equally terrible vision, and I decided it was best if I dealt with the view from one window at a time. Only one complete poem survives from these attempts. I recently read it at a poets' meeting, to recieve stunned silence which was finally broken by a girl who asked me, "Wow... who do you hate?" Here is that poem, "Poison Sumac," in its entirity. The title is, as you might have guessed, to make a point about the ICC's constant encouraging members to "bear fruit" while saying little about what kind of fruit that is. You said you were my friend When I went back to college in the fall, I returned to Cleveland with a renewed conviction in Christ, but still in search of a church. I went back to the Baptist church, whose pastor had by now recovered. The thing that I remembered most from that service, unfortunately, was a remark toward the end of the sermon about how we should never forget to strive to bring in more visitors. It was way too much like the ICC's remark about "The purpose of a disciple is to make disciples," for me. Furthermore, this church also practiced their own form of discipling, although it was less formal and only on a voluntary basis. Furthermore, they seemed unaware of the origins of discipling, and equally unaware of its power to hurt. This church reminded me too much of the ICC. The next church I attended was an Assemblies of God congregation. They made no mention of speaking in tongues, but they were really into the "Fired Up" style of worship. The atmosphere in the Sunday morning worship service was almost as excited as a mosh pit, with people jumping up and down wildly, waving their hands in the air, and the like. I'm almost surprised I never saw anyone trying to crowd surf, or the pastor attempt a stage dive. I thought the services were quite an emotional roller coaster ride. Also, they met in a rented school gym. The rented building and wildy excited worship services were too reminiscient of the ICC for me, so I decided to leave even though I didn't have much of any problems with their theology. On the other had, I'd highly recommend their church, NewSong on the Heights, to any former members in Cleveland who miss the kind of excitement found in the ICC's services. Finally, I wound up attending a Methodist church. Perhaps the thing that attracted me to this church most was the Sunday school classes. The people there seek the Bible sincerily, but can agree to disagree on certain issues, such as the nature of demons or even the implications behind the rich young ruler who asked Jesus what he had to do to inheirit eternal life. I can honestly say now that I believe my faith in God is stronger now than it ever was in the ICC. I no longer read the Bible because I have someone rebuking me for not doing it, or come to church because I am afraid I will be in sin if I don't. Instead, I seek God simply becuase I have a hunger in my soul to know God and to draw closer to Him, and that is a more powerful motivation now than the approach the ICC used. The ICC likes to talk about "mountaintop" experiences, but I am striving to build a faith that will sustain me even in the valley of the shadow of death.
One of the members in the ICC once asked me, "If you had the cure for cancer, would you keep it to yourself?" I beleive it was the Bible Talk leader, but I have found certain analogies to be repeated by many members in the ICC, and it's possible that all the people I mentioned in my story of my involvement tried to use this arguement to convince me that I needed to "repent of my sins of omission" and "repent of my shyness." Ironically, now I have concluded that the ICC's legalism and abuse are a kind of spiritual cancer. The cure, I believe, is to expose the ways the ICC has distorted the Bible and make people aware of what abuse the ICC has inflicted upon people in the name of God. The first thing I did to take a stand against the ICC was to type up an account of my involvement and send it to REVEAL, as well as to a few journalists who I had heard were searching for information about the ICC. I later put up this website, which described my experiences with the ICC. It occurred to me when I went back to campus that perhaps it would help if I wrote leaflets warning other students about the ICC. The text of those leaflets is availible here. I learned that several people read my leaflets and were convinced not to join the church. At one point, the Greater Cleveland Church of Christ advertised a meeting on campus, and I showed up outside the room, handing fliers to anyone who would take one. Two recruits decided to leave that night. It's ironic that I have been more bold in sharing what I believe about the ICC after leaving than I ever was in their church. Recently, I decided that I ought to see if I could use my efforts in writing and Bible knowledge to help people who have already left, to show them that there is indeed life in Christ beyond the ICC. This has lead to writing a section of my website on recovering from the ICC, where I have attempted to use both Scripture and psychology to help people live closer to God and overcome the emotional problems left over from the ICC. If you are reading this because you are contemplating leaving the ICC but don't know where you can go from there, or if you have already left the ICC and are unsure if your relationship with God will ever be the same again, I have these words of advice for you. Your relationship with God will never be quite the way it was before you joined the ICC, or while you were in the ICC. But it can be a stronger, closer relationship, based on your love for Jesus and his love for you, without any evangelist or discipler standing between you and God. To leave the ICC can be to discover what it truly means to be set free in Christ. With love in Christ, Matthew Cramer |
