As I was wandering around the internet, I happened upon an anonymous post by someone asking about a particular church. I’m not going to say which one, because of what I did with the rest of this post. What follows is one response to the question, “What do you know about this church?”. I have removed references to the church’s name and subsituted ‘this church’. I also removed references to specific individuals and changed grammar appropriately. In my ongoing quest for answers and analogies, I thought this letter from a former member of this specific church said a lot.
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Dear Wondering,

This church is essentially a bunch of under-informed people who are being commanded around by a very corrupt leadership. These corrupt leaders love money, they love power, they love to be praised. They have very high ideas about themselves, and very low and gutterly ideas about all others.

Within the group at this church, you may come across a number of sincere and decent people. These people have no influence on the agenda or direction of the church overall. These sincere and decent people are constantly manipulated by the very corrupt leadership untill almost all of them leave. These sincere and decent people give all they have to this church, and do all they can to recruit others. They do this in ignorance.

If you are a sincere and decent person, then you are bound to suffer alot at this church. If you are very corrupt and proud, you can become a leader at this church.

Please find a healthy place to learn and practice your Christain faith. I recommend a Bible college has adult continuing education. Their teaching is usually very sound, and the cost is very low. There are also many good internet sites, one is at www.bereanbiblesociety.org.

This church is a cult because the group is set up to give glory honor and praise to a group of very sinful people. At this church, (name withheld) is held up as being the closest thing to God himself. In real life, he is an extremely corrupt man. There are many definitions of what is a personality cult. Some define a personality cult as nothing more than a mini dictatorship. Thus, this church can be classified as a personality cult. The main leader even revered such personality cult leaders as Ho Chi Minh, , Lenin, Stalin, Napoleon. I also remember when he spoke up in favor of Sadam way back in the day. I heard he also spoke up in support of the Taliban. I think he was well aware that this church was his personality cult.

Also, I believe that this church is a personality cult in the sense that being of one race is held up as being next to godliness. In reality, being in one race is no better or worse than being of any other race or ethnicity. Some personality cults are harmless. This church, in my opinion, is very dangerous and destructive. You would be best served by not having anything to do with this church.
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Interesting, no? I can tell you that it is not about the ICoC, but it could’ve been. You know what core teachings the ICoC and this church share in common? Discipling. They shared other things in common, too, and to be fair have some striking differences. Food for thought.