CNN wondering if the Church of Christ is a "cult"....

Yes, very sad indeed.

 

I guess maybe CNN is confusing the mainline Church of Christ with the International Church of Christ.

 

I really don't think the media knows or understands Christianity and religion in general. During a speech at Harvard Divinity School during the 1990s, ABC News Anchorman Peter Jennings observed, "I have only recently come to understand how complicated and inadequate, and occassionally horrifying, media coverage of religion has been...I would venture to say that in the overwhelming majority of newsrooms in America there is an appalling ignorance of religion and faith."

Amen, Peter!

Those comments from CNN are just another example.

 

Perhaps she got it confused with the Church of Christ, Science.

 

For info on the Int'l Church of Christ, which was until recently (and in some cases still is) a very aggressive cult, recruiting mainly on college campuses (I have heard horror stories from the people and relatives themselves), see:

http://www.watchman.org/profile/bostnpro.htm

The ICC (or ICoC) was founded by Kip McKean, who recently resigned.
http://www.watchman.org/cults/mckeanresigns.htm

The ICC is now in flux.

 

I think CNN is a cult

 

We should wait until FOX reports on it before we make a final judgment on the issue.

 

Anytime you desecrate the doctrine of Christ....that makes it a cult. The church of Christ said you can't get saved unless you are baptized by water.....that makes it a cult.

 

Ive always thought that the weaker minded members of our civilization go sit in chairs with large amounts of makeup applied to their faces and talk to unseen people.

CNN has let their employees' egos run off with them. I highly doubt anyone at that agency googled anything. That commentary is pure adlib on the on air personality's part. If anyone of them actually set foot in church, perhaps they would offer condolences to the children of the slain minister instead of trying to dissect the personality of someone obviously so disturbed, they felt they had to kill their husband.

 

The mainline Church of Christ is not a cult anymore than a mainline Baptist Church or a mainline Methodist Church, etc., is a cult.

 

There are 2 Churches of Christ -- the mainline one, which I think is the one in this news story - and the Int'l Churches of Christ founded by Kip McKean, which is a whole other story. Just read the links I posted and then you will be educated on it.

It's a good thing to know about because the ICC is very aggressive in recruiting on college campuses. Some private colleges have been able to ban them but it's pretty impossible to ban them on state college campuses. They start of befriending someone - usually a freshman away from home for the first time -- and then invite them to a bible study. They have groups on campus with names like "Upside Down Club" but they change the names often. They then give the person a "discipler" to whom the student confesses sin. They use scripture for everything. As time goes by, the student trusts these people more and more and starts attending services and giving money. If the student wants out, sometimes they threaten to use the info on the sins against them. Pretty soon, they have invested so much of themselves that they don't want to think they are in a cult or wrong kind of church.

These methods have been used in the past - since the ICC is in flux, it may not be happening in quite as many places as before but it's still out there. The ICC, along with some other campus cults, were so prevalent on MD college campuses that in 1998, the governor of MD appointed a task force to look into it. I went to several of the hearings. The people who attended were either relatives of students recruited into cults, cult watchers, or members of various cults such as the Moonies, Scientology, the Family, and the ICC. Several academic types testified in favor of the cults.