Don't forget Annadale, Norfolk and Chicago and St. Louis, as well as Ottawa and perhaps other Canadian groups. As you know, many of these groups are merely a family or two still meeting. Riverside is basically one family and a single brother, hardly a church by anyone's standard, but George preaches there...other groups are continuing with a "new" format, which means a few less meetings and they are generally nicer to eachother. Some of the Assemblies that have disbanded, like St. Louis, still have a meeting going on, but it is not the old Assembly, but some people who just can't give it up. Others, like Santa Barbara, are trying as hard as they can to be something new and vital, and are willing to explore past errors to some degree, but are totally unwilling to entertain the idea that decades of deception and a blind committment to George's pattern leave them unfit to lead a church.
Nevertheless, there is a huge difference between Santa Barbara and San Francisco...at least I hope there is.
I really want to encourage everyone to read this:
http://www.reveal.org/library/stories/people/kdegge.html
Here is a quote from part of it:
I refer you to ten charges I have made against the leadership of the ICoC for years, first compiled for use in counseling settings in 1994 (3):
I make the following charges against the principle participants in the formal leadership heirarchy of the International Church of Christ Movement. I want to stress that several of these are realities of which many of the “rank and file” members of the Movement would have no conscious awareness, though their participation in this system, no matter how unwitting, serves to support. However, I do charge the formal leaders with the responsibility for the “intentionality” and perpetuation of these offenses.
I charge the top leaders of the ICC Movement with:
Mishandling and distorting (“twisting”) the Scriptures and their meanings, with great consistency and persistence, to reinforce their biased doctrines.
Systematically and deliberately misrepresenting themselves and many of their ends (i.e., goals and purposes) to both grassroots members and outsiders.
Offering what’s called “unconditional love” for a price (i.e., thorough compliance of the would-be “convert”), amounting, in net effect, to spiritual “prostitution.”
As a result of the practice of marketing this conditional “love,” painting and promoting a practical picture of God as a “Cosmic Pimp.” (This is strong language, but they have done all they have done, including much abusive behavior, with the bold assertion that God has sent them out to do it. How would you express that in an “unvarnished” way?)
Distorting many facts of their history to dishonestly inflate and embellish their all-important image (another name for this is revisionism, and most tyrants and scoundrels in history have practiced it).
Damaging, or even destroying, the relationships of family, marriage, and friendship with shocking regularity.
Maliciously attacking the character and reputation of any “critics” who dare to take persistent stands even to question them, not to mention oppose them.
Maliciously denying the legitimacy and reality of other devoted Christians and churches.
Generally exploiting and manipulating people in these ways on a consistent, worldwide basis. (In other words, they may not all be the same in degree, but they are in kind.) And finally,
Refusing almost all repeated, sincere attempts, for many years, to establish reasonable dialogue re. “mistakes” that have supposedly been made (and continue to be made) by ICC leaders.
I fully realize such charges are very blunt, shocking, and, undoubtedly, offensive to many. For the therapeutic purposes I have employed them, they are intended to be all three, but they are, above all, the truth, and to almost any honest member of the ICoC, they are self-evident. Through the years, I have stressed to those with whom I’ve counseled that if these charges are trumped up or exaggerated, I am the most evil man they’ve ever met; that to dare make such harsh charges against something that is, indeed, God’s “one true modern-day movement” would have to originate from the very bowels of hell. But, I’ve further said that if even some of them are obviously and undeniably true, then there can be no way people of good faith and character can further ignore, diffuse, dilute, or equivocate such grave sins.
I submit, now, that Henry Kriete’s letter, as well as many other “letters of apology” currently being penned by leaders of the International Church of Christ, totally vindicate and affirm the legitimacy of my ten charges. That these things are systemic and endemic cannot be ignored any longer, and we stand at a crossroads (no pun intended) of choosing what to do, now, to make things better (or worse). From this point forward, we are either part of the problem, or part of the solution.
I think the parallels are striking, the main difference being that the ICOC was about 10000 times as large as the Geftakysassembly.
Brent
