My Favorite Bastard

Every so often I get curious about what Kip McKean is up to these days.  It doesn’t happen often, I think the last time was over a year ago.  Today, I saw this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_McKean

There’s a flaw in the Wikipedia philosophy.  Mostly it works, but on edge fringe cases like this, it simply can’t.  If you can make it to the bottom without vomiting or suffocating from incredulous laughter, note how the tone changes.  At the beginning the writer(s) makes an honest effort to sound legitimate, as though everything reported is mere fact.  In a sense they are, in the same way North Korea reports facts on their state sponsored news agency.  Towards the bottom all pretense is lost.   Note the use of exclamation marks and the use of the words “we” and “our”.  It’s not too hard to figure out the perspective of the writer.  How many other Wikipedia articles use “we”, especially in an article about an individual?  I was tempted to “correct” the article, but I suspect that’s already happened a couple of times.  It’s surprising to see the “critical” links at the bottom haven’t been removed.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this article has been “cleansed”.

For an alternative view of Kip McKean, try out these sites.

• http://www.rightcyberup.org/
• http://www.reveal.org/
• http://www.cultwatch.com/icc.html

He has an official website, but I don’t recommend you waste your time.  http://www.kipmckean.org/  It’s boring as dirt.

A bit more interesting reading is http://www.kipmckean.com/.  How pissed off do you think he was when he saw that domain was taken?

This man started a cult, this cult grew to frightening proportions, and damaged countless people.  Eventually the ICOC (his cult) more or less kicked him out for not living up to his own standards (nobody can live up to those standards, incidentally) and went to Portland Oregon to start again.  The ICOC more or less collapsed under it’s own weight without the charismatic cult leader to hold it together.  He’s still out there and he’s still ruining lives.  He’s since moved back to Los Angeles and more or less rebuilt his “movement”.  Apparently the current name is the Los Angeles International Christian Church (Ironically, I.C.C instead of I.C.O.C., the International Churches of Christ.  Creativity does not appear to be one of his sins). 

Why do I tell you this?  Simply this.  If you’ve read this post then you’re most likely not a member of the church (they don’t allow members to browse the Internet unsupervised, this post would be considered “spiritual porn”), but you might know someone who is.  They might approach you.  If you’re even mildly on the fence about the existence of God they’ve got an in with you. 

Mostly, though, I hope that I’ve completely wasted your time.