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Today the International Churches of Christ (the group’s official name since 1993) claims more than 400 churches in 170 countries, more than 128,000 members and a total of 188,000 individuals who attend their services each Sunday. They pride themselves on the racial, social and economic diversity of their members that is missing from most traditional Christian churches. Especially striking is the BCC’s youthful following. Twenty-two percent of the members of its largest church, in Los Angeles, are college students...
McKean went on to work at various locations of the Church of Christ and was often criticized for what was seen as a narrow interpretation of the Bible. McKean writes, “A Christian should simply obey where the Bible speaks and only speak—have opinions—where the Bible is silent.” McKean also stressed the importance of the Old Testament, while traditional Churches of Christ focused on the New Testament. In 1977, McKean and fellow minister Roger Lamb were fired from the Memorial Drive Church of Christ in Houston (though not from...
Disappointed by the small numbers and weak commitments of church members, McKean decided to stop pouring new wine into old wineskins and instead start his own church. The perfect opportunity to build a church from scratch without actually leaving the Church of Christ organization presented itself in 1979, when McKean was asked to be the pulpit and campus minister of the ailing Lexington Church of Christ in Lexington, Mass. McKean quickly set about reforming the church—with considerable success. In the previous three years, the church had seen only two baptisms. In McKean’s first year...
Around 1986, the Church of Christ stopped considering the BCC part of its fellowship. In “Revolution Through Restoration,” McKean explains his perspective on the rift: “The major issues were: who is a Christian, independent autonomy of each congregation and rebaptism. I am convinced that jealousy over our growth, which exposed their lack of growth, was a major motivation of this separation.” It was also at this time that allegations of cult-like activities within the church began to surface...
That year, Dr. Flavil Yeakley, a minister with the mainline Church of Christ, conducted a psychological test called the MBTI (Meyers-Briggs) on members of the BCC, as well as on a control group of members from the mainline Church of Christ. The results indicated that to an extreme degree, BCC disciples saw their personalities “shift” from their normal orientation to become more like the charismatic McKean. Yeakley published his results, causing the BCC to label him an enemy of the church and to forbid its members from speaking with him or reading his work...