The
SUSQUEHANNA SENTINEL
June 1, 2003
In This Issue
[Editor's Note: The following article appeared in the Boston Globe (newspaper), May 17, 2003. It should be of interest to our readers who have kept up with the so-called "Boston Movement," "Discipling Movement" or "International Church of Christ." The "Boston philosophy" had its beginnings in the late 1960's in Gainesville, Florida, in the Crossroads Church of Christ. In 1979, the leader of the movement, "Kip" McKean moved to a suburb of Boston, Mass., and the movement became known unofficially as the "Boston Movement." In later years, the Crossroads church in Gainesville, Florida, "repented" of the division they had helped to spawn, and apparently returned to the philosophies and positions they held before coming under McKean's influence. Now, here's the article from the Boston Globe.]
Loss of leader, governing body hurts group formed in Boston
It was one of the fastest-growing and most controversial churches in
America, banned as a cult from dozens of college campuses while boasting
135,000 members worldwide. Its followers were known for spending their free
time recruiting new members and waiting on doorsteps at 4 in the morning,
hoping to persuade those who had ''fallen away'' to come back to the fold. But
now the central organization of the International Churches of Christ, a strict
religious body founded in Boston, is collapsing.
Thomas ''Kip'' McKean, its charismatic founder, has stepped down. Its world
governing body has dissolved and dozens of local church leaders have resigned
or been fired, in part because churches can no longer afford to pay their
salaries.
Behind the story of a teetering church empire is the tale of the autocratic
visionary who built it and his independent-minded daughter, now a Harvard
senior, whose decision to leave the church sparked turmoil in the already
troubled group.
''It caused her father to have to step aside and it caused the group to
reexamine itself,'' said Michelle Campbell, executive director of REVEAL, a
nonprofit organization that provides information and support to former members
of the church. ''It was sort of inevitable that Kip would fall. The standards
he set, no one could meet. Not his children, not even himself. The very thing
that he created came back and bit him.''
McKean, who was forced to resign his post because of his own rule that church
leaders must step down if their children leave the church, said in a telephone
interview that he participated in his own demise.
''I think I hurt people's feelings in some areas,'' said McKean, who still
belongs to the church. ''I do think there is some bitterness and some
hurt.''
Years ago, few could have imagined the church without McKean, a wiry,
gregarious self-described ''prophet'' whose followers filled the Boston Garden
-- or without his daughter, Olivia, a straight-A student, a promising junior
tennis player and beauty pageant contestant whose life successes filled the
pages of the church's many publications.
''They are like celebrities,'' said Jim Procanik, a former Bible talk leader,
of McKean's three children, Olivia, Sean, and Eric. ''It would be like the
president's kids. They had to be the best at everything.''
The son of a strict Navy admiral, McKean began preaching in the 1970s as a
chemistry major at Florida State University. At a time when other students were
partying, he led Bible studies in fraternity houses and gave inspiring
religious speeches to crowds. McKean went on to study at a Baptist seminary,
but grew disillusioned and dropped out after ministers criticized his strict
interpretation of the Bible.
In 1976 he married a fellow Florida University student and took a job as a
campus minister at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill., working
with one of a network of 15,000 autonomous Churches of Christ. Hundreds of
college students flocked to his congregation, but he quickly became
controversial. In 1979, months after a local newspaper explored accusations
that he used coercive tactics to pressure people to join and donate money to
the church, McKean moved to a church in Lexington.
There, McKean constructed a new kind of church based on a hierarchy some have
likened to an Amway sales pyramid and others have compared to the military.
Every church member has a superior called a ''discipler'' to hold him or her
accountable for sins. Known as the Boston Church of Christ or the ''Boston
Movement,'' the church attracted tens of thousands of members from all
backgrounds, who later moved on to form the Manhattan Church of Christ, the
Chicago Church of Christ, and hundreds of other churches, spreading to London,
Sydney, Moscow, Nairobi, and other cities. Wildly ambitious, McKean's goal was
a church in every sizable US city and in every country within a few decades.
But the system had a dark side: Those who failed to give 10 percent of their
income or who couldn't recruit enough new members were publicly humiliated,
according to former members. Those who questioned authority were shunned or
kicked out.
''Any major life decisions would have to be run through your discipler,'' said
Procanik, who led Bible studies at churches in Boston and Los Angeles before
quitting the church three years ago. ''Vacations, going home. . . . If you are
spending too much time with old friends, that would be frowned upon, unless you
are recruiting them. All your free time is accounted for. Dating has to be
pretty much approved. You can only date people in the group.''
Some say McKean grew more uncompromising over time. In the late 1980s, he
officially broke with the mainline Churches of Christ, preaching that his
church was the only true church. Thousands of his members were rebaptized and
all were told that outsiders, even other mainline Church of Christ members,
were destined for hell.
As dynamic as a rock star and as hard-driving as a drill sergeant, he required
meticulous record-keeping of baptisms, attendance records, and money tithed,
and he erupted into anger when the numbers failed to grow, according to former
and current leaders.
''It was not just like a church; it was like a corporation,'' said Rick Torres
, a former leader at the Manhattan Church of Christ. ''If your numbers were
going negative, they would come up with a reason that God is not with you.''
McKean could be generous, buying expensive clocks, artwork, and dinners for his
closest followers. He knew how to lavish praise from a pulpit. He knew how to
make you feel you were the only person in a room. But he also knew how to
humiliate you. Former leaders describe him as a man who would throw things and
yell if he lost a Ping-Pong game, a preacher who might ask you to repent if you
failed to work your way through a crowd to greet him.
Thousands left the church, going on to seek out support groups or contribute to
the half-dozen websites that post negative information about the group. Still,
others stayed, hoping for reform or unable to leave.
''A lot of the upper-level leaders who I was friends with had tons of doubts
about the group, and would even joke about it being a cult,'' said Procanik.
''They knew there were serious problems, but they felt trapped financially.
They had kids, and a house. . . . They had no other job skills. No other church
would hire them.''
In the early 1990s, McKean moved his family to Los Angeles to build the church
there and enrolled his three children in Brentwood School, which currently
costs $19,500 a year. There, they became academic achievers constantly
spotlighted on Kingdom Network News, the church's official media arm.
In church literature, the date of Olivia's baptism is listed as a milestone,
alongside the opening of the first church in Moscow and the first urban
ministry:
''First second-generation disciple born, raised, and baptized in the
Movement,'' it reads.
''I coached Eric's basketball team, and the Lord blessed us with the
championship,'' McKean wrote in the KNN newsletter. ''All three have made
straight A's this year and have been active in a tennis academy where they have
reached out to and baptized their coach.''
Teased as ''cult kids'' by the same peers they were forced to invite to church,
they spent their Friday nights -- known as teen nights at the church -- in
another spotlight. They received special treatment and were envied for their
lofty positions.
McKean let his children know that their successes were ammunition in his war
for the Lord.
''I'm convinced,'' McKean told followers in Washington, D.C., in 2000, ''that
when a teen falls away [from the church] . . . there are some sinful dynamics
in that family, and that family, that mom and dad, need to repent.''
But Olivia had just left for Harvard University, and she was already tasting
the freedom of life away from home. For a while, she attended the Boston Church
of Christ and even gave dynamic speeches to crowds of hundreds. Although the
church paid for her discipler, a young woman from Los Angeles, to move to
Cambridge with her to guide her spiritual growth, by January 2001, Olivia
stopped coming to church and told her friends she no longer wanted to be a
member.
''She finally just stood up and said, 'I'm sick of the whole thing; I'm
leaving,''' said one former church leader who knew her personally. Her father
''was pretty brokenhearted.''
Olivia McKean declined to comment for this article. But her father acknowledged
that mistakes he made as a leader and a father led to his departure in November
from the church's leadership.
''I am very, very sorry,'' he wrote in a resignation letter posted on the
church website. ''My most significant sin is arrogance -- thinking I am always
right. . . . I take full responsibility for how my sins have spiritually
weakened and embittered many in our churches. I also take full responsibility
for the spiritual condition of my family.''
In a recent interview, he said he and his daughter have overcome their
differences.
''She's doing awesome,'' he said. ''We're very well-connected. She has no bad
feelings toward the church. . . . We're cranking on as a family.''
McKean's resignation, pushed by some who had long resented his leadership
style, opened the floodgates of demands for reform, including a widely
circulated letter from one leader who charged the church with ''coercive
giving,'' violating individual liberties, and inflating its growth rates.
Dozens of leaders apologized for their sins, and the central body that governed
the church dissolved, leaving churches across the country to declare autonomy.
Financial problems due to reduced donations prompted massive firings, and
missions abroad are declaring that lack of funds might shut them down.
''We are going through a challenging time,'' said Gordon Ferguson, an elder in
the Boston Church of Christ. ''Some of the critiques we have received are
valid. We are trying to reexamine things we have done and not lose the good
things.''
Now the future of the International Churches of Christ is as uncertain as the
future of its founder, who is planning to release a new letter to the world
congregation in the coming weeks and who has been attending whirlwind meetings with
church officials and old friends.
Asked if he is staging a come-back, McKean said, ''We're praying that God will
lead us to a new ministry. You might say, 'What is that?' I don't know.''
--Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, 5/17/03
Clarence R. Johnson
Evangelist
Phone: (717) 361-6212
E-mail: clarencejohnson@comcast.net
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