If you want to read the text of the various lawsuits against Kip McKean's International Christian Church and former church International Churches of Christ, you may now do so here:
Thanks to the hardworking ladies that made accessing those documents a reality.
I tried to look those court documents up on my own through the official court website and the process was not intuitive at all. So very helpful that these are here for everyone to access readily. Also, if you know any more victims out there, contact info for the legal team is included. I know that there are a whole lot of people suffering lifelong wounds out there from the church's actions and it is only fair to take them to court. Plus every case makes it less likely that the church will allow it to happen again. Lots of names are named in those documents. Nobody wants their names coming up in there (either as victims, abusers, or as those helping the abusers.)
Definitely a lot of heart-wrenching details in those court filings.
The documents there name names and definitely portray Kip as a veritable piece of donkey dung. He literally reasons out loud that child rape victims should suffer in silence for the greater good of "the kingdom." However, as any person with two working neurons could tell you, silencing sex abuse victims works most for the greater good of "sexual abusers." As in many, many cases of church members who committed heinous acts of sexual abuse and rape against minors and other vulnerable people ("the least of these"), as anyone could have predicted, went on to abuse more and more victims. Some of these individuals are now convicted sex offender felons. But not thanks to Kip McKean or anyone under his direction! After abusing God only knows how many "Kingdom kids" they then went on to abuse kids outside of the group. And when they got caught, the adults did what any decent person would do - report the abusers to the police, who finally locked them up.
Interestingly, there is a name and a photo of someone in the Portland ICC, which was led by Kip himself, who apparently raped multiple minor girls and is not only still not in prison, but is of last notice still a "member in good standing" in the same church where he was abusing kids! The lawsuit alleges that Kip personally knew of the case of this sex abuser and stood by doing nothing.
If there is a hell, there is most assuredly a very, very hot section set aside just for Kip McKean.
Watching The Handmaid's Tale opened my eyes to what the US could become if the Christianist extremists took over. I remember thinking back on my ICOC experience and thinking, as bad as the ICOC/ICC were, at least they would never allow anything anywhere near as extreme was what was portrayed in the fictional Republic of Gilead. Right?
ReplyDeleteNow, after reading the lawsuit documents, I'm not so sure.
When I read about the sexual abuse happening to the girls who lived with "leaders" in the ICOC, it became clear to me that, yes, a Handmaid's Tale scenario could indeed happen! Maybe not in the current ICOC, but certainly in Kip's ICC!
Think about it: from as far back as I can remember in my cult experience, higher-level leaders have always had young women living with them as "assistants": you know, so they could heep house while the leadership couple was out there "evangelizing the world" (or perhaps more accurately, playing golf or hanging out at Starbucks.....because I have never actually witnessed an ICOC "evangelist" or region leader actually doing any real "evangelizing" out in public. But that's a topic for another day).
All it would take is for a fertility crisis to ensue and for Kip to say something like, "You leaders aren't having any kids because your wives are infertile! That's unacceptable! How are we going to spawn a new generation of disciples to evangelize the world in each generation if you have no kids?"
And then, "Here's what you need to do: you brothers need to bear children with the young assistants who live with you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Does that sound radical? It's in the Bible, brothers - Genesis 30:1-3 - amen??? Amen! Look guys, the world is going to flat out go to Hell unless we're reproducing the next generation of leaders for God's True Kingdom! So do what you need to do to have kids! Amen!?"
I know this is far-fetched and over-the top. But given Kip and the ICC's history when it comes to minimizing sexual abuse, it's not entirely out of the question.
These people need to be exposed before another girl or woman gets abused.
Good news! They have served Kip personally with these complaints, and now he has to answer for his actions!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but who is going to "pay?" Current innocent members? That seems like a crime too.
DeleteThanks for sharring this
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to write this
ReplyDelete