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Date Posted: 16:03:11 10/12/04 Tue
Author: John
Subject: Marriage by faith
In reply to: Chris 's message, "Re: History of ICC reform efforts" on 14:25:29 10/12/04 Tue

>For better understanding, it should be added that "the
>kingdom" was a (pretty presumptuous) codeword for "the
>ICC ministry." Just as UBF, the ICC had also its
>euphemisms and loaded language. By the way, did the
>ICC also use the term or concept of "marriage by
>faith" or something similar?

The ICC had all kinds of coded language. The kingdom was the ICC fellowship of churches and also the only ones saved and going to Heaven. We were encouraged to have 'kingdom dreams' and 'kingdom goals' and to 'seek first the kingdom'.

"Bro" meant that I couldn't remember your name (guy). "Sis" meant that I couldn't remember your name (female). "Evangelist" meant dictator in charge of the church. Etc.

Marriages and dating were a strange thing in the ICC. You'll here a lot of current and former members talk about "the rules of dating". I'll separate the dating aspect into a different post. I understand that the UBF does not have dating at all, a spouse was chosen for you.

Marraiges were usually planned by the evangelist's wife. The goal of a wedding ceremony was for it to be an evangelistic event, just like everything else. As such, the entire church was invited, whether you liked it or not. You could not have a small ceremony, it had to be big and loud. On the positive side, you had all the free help you needed. There was no lack of servers or folsk to do errands.

Arranging marriages was done in churches, but the hows and whys depended on location. In India, marriages were arranged usually because the family would disown a person for becoming a Christian. Of course, that allowed for arranged marriages even if the family was Christian anyway. A friend of mine that went to college in America went back to India for a mission trip. She was in love with someone here in the States. However, after being there for some time, one of the churches in N. India wanted to plant a church in Nepal, but the man they wanted to lead it was not married. So, they asked her to marry him. She struggled with it for quite a while, but then decided to do it 'for the sake of the kingdom'.

In the US, evangelists would always try to match up the two most succesful baptizers as a couple. There are many stories where they both wanted to break up with each other, but were not allowed to. Ultimately, they were pushed into getting married by saying that "it was best for the kingdom".

>Many of us ex UBF members have read the Henry Kriete
>letter and agreed that in an amazing way, most of it
>applied to UBF as well. I think people simply knew it
>was true. Henry Kriete is not to blame for crying "the
>king has no clothes."

That's true, Henry spoke the truth, there's no denying it. All I wanted to do was show that this had been building for some time. Not only that, Henry really didn't say anything new - it was just that his particular letter couldn't be controlled because of the innocent (or not so innocent) mistake of a friend of his. Upon hearing that his letter intended only for leaders had leaked out to common consumption, he said that it was a good thing. He edited it to read "An open letter" on subsequent releases.

Recently, he has said that if he were to do it all again, he would have made the letter 10 times stronger.

Thanks again,
John

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Replies:

how did they justify this? -- Nick T., 16:19:24 10/12/04 Tue
- Arranged marriages pt 2 -- John, 17:16:38 10/12/04 Tue
- Re: how did they justify this? -- John, 17:22:36 10/12/04 Tue
  - Re: how did they justify this? -- Chris, 01:54:01 10/13/04 Wed