#4 From Chaos to Control: Entering the ICOC's "Kingdom"

Part Four of "How to Join a Cult Without Trying"

This is Part 4 of my series, How to Join a Cult Without Trying.

If you're new here, you can start with Part 1: Girl, Brainwashed.

I was just 13 when I stepped into the curated chaos of Manhattan’s private school world. To afford our one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, my mother worked three jobs, and she also taught German at my school in the mornings in exchange for my tuition. Having skipped eighth grade, I found myself not just the poorest girl in class, I was also the youngest by over a year.

These kids, the sons and daughters of hedge-fund owners, mafia bosses, manufacturers, and celebrities, had grown up with the dangerous combination of endless wealth and no supervision. They were handed hundred-dollar bills on the weekends, given access to open restaurant tabs, and carried their own credit cards, with no curfews or consequences to speak of.

They were a ruthless band of thrill-seekers.

I wanted desperately to belong.

Together we ran wild.

It was the ’90s, and buying dime bags from shady guys with beeper numbers, sneaking into downtown clubs and uptown bars uncarded, peeing on sidewalks, and passing out in the backs of cabs was just par for the course.

My mother, a romantic idealist, had raised me on the vague principles of old-world poets and philosophers. She offered me a morality in terms general enough to let me cultivate my own sense of right and wrong.

She had no idea her daughter was hanging out with bartenders after hours or dodging drug dealers in Union Square. No amount of Dickinson or Goethe could prepare me for the unruly territory I was forced to navigate now.

By age 15, when the International Churches of Christ reached me through an outside friend, I was desperate for a compass.

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I was now on the fourth study in their series. I’d already been taught that the Bible was the only map I needed and that the ICOC held the exclusive legend to that map. I had also learned that to be a disciple of Christ, I needed to check in multiple times a day with a discipling partner who monitored my behavior, time, and spiritual progress.

Now, the church was drawing the final segment of the circle that would close me off from my entire outside world.

The study began as a spiritual scavenger hunt. You were made to feel like a detective uncovering God’s hidden master plan. Their secret weapon was always the same: proof-texting with a curated string of scriptures, pieced together to support their bold claims.

Daniel 2:31–45

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay, which is destroyed by a divine rock.

→ This dream pointed to the arrival of the Kingdom during the Roman Empire.

Mark 9:1

“Some standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom come with power.”
→ The Kingdom was supposed to come during the apostles’ lifetime.

Acts 2:38–41

→ The “power” finally arrives on the day of Pentecost: tongues of fire, preaching, mass conversion of 3,000 people who devote themselves to one body.

This was it! The moment the Kingdom finally appeared. And the point in the study when you concluded that the Kingdom was really God’s church.

Colossians 1:13–18

“He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son.”
→ You’re either in the Kingdom (a.k.a. the ICOC), or in darkness. There is no middle ground.

In a theological sleight of hand, the ICOC merged the ideas of “Kingdom,” “church,” and “salvation.”

→ The Kingdom = The Church
→ The Church = The ICOC
→ Therefore, the ICOC = The Kingdom of God
→ If you leave it, you are leaving God Himself.

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

The final scripture in the study was an unmistakable command to put the church above all else, including family, outside friends, school, work, pleasure—everything.

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Soon, my unruly Friday nights were replaced by the teen ministry devotionals called “Solid Rock,” where I, one of the only white kids in the congregation, stood in a circle of teenagers who grew up mostly above 96th Street, in neighborhoods where my classmates wouldn’t dare to venture.

I was told to call these strangers my brothers and sisters. We were allowed to date only within the church, and the only reason to socialize outside of the ministry was to win converts.

Overnight, my lawless activities were replaced by an unquestioning obedience. My friends at school wanted nothing to do with this new me who didn't party anymore.

I wanted more than anything to belong, but the two choices before me only led to a dangerous alienation of myself.

What I needed was strong parenting, and the Church offered that in spades.

I still had three studies to go.

Now that the final line had been drawn that separated me from my old life, there was nothing to turn back to.

In Part Five of the series, “Sex, Lies, and Damnation,” I share about the confession process that turned me into an emotional hostage of the ICOC.