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Click to enlargepadExcerpts from November 13, 1990







Excerpts from November 13, 1990 Special Report on the Los Angeles Church of Christ, KCBS-TV Channel 2 News, Los Angeles
PREVIEW 1
CHANNEL 2 NEWS BREE WALKER: A special report-Is it a church or a cult? A group has been banned in Boston, but now has come to California recruiting on college campuses.
PREVIEW 2
CHANNEL 2 NEWS BREE WALKER: Your college age child might be learning a lesson about brainwashing first hand. [This is] a special report on a church some folks call a cult. Its gained a foot hold in California, and it's making strides.
PART 1
CHANNEL 2 NEWS BREE WALKER: A new warning is going out to college students around Southern California tonight. University officials say a controversial church is aggressively recruiting students on several campuses here.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS JIM LAMPLEY: Tonight, Channel Two's Sylvia Lopez talks with former members who joined the church because they thought it could change their lives; instead, they say it wound up almost destroying them.
FORMER MEMBER MARY JANSEN: It cut me off from all my friends, all my family, and everything in my life was geared toward the church.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: UCLA history major, Mary Jansen was befriended by a group of students on campus last fall. They call themselves members of the Los Angeles Church of Christ, but this group has nothing to do with the main stream Church of Christ. At a lonely time in her life, Mary thought the church members were the friendliest people she ever met. Within a month, Mary was baptized in an apartment swimming pool near school.
FORMER MEMBER MARY JANSEN: Every minute was taken up. I was always tired.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: She rarely saw her family or studied, and finally was put on academic probation. When she quit in February, Mary said members hounded her.
FORMER MEMBER MARY JANSEN: When I was going to class one day, three of them were waiting for me in front of my class. And they literally had me up against the wall, and they surrounded me, saying, "Mary, you know the truth, come back."
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: Mary's story is all too common. The church she joined is known nationally as the Boston Church of Christ, or the Discipling Movement. Its high pressure recruiting practices are so controversial that in the last three years several major universities have taken the unprecedented step of banning members from holding meetings or recruiting on campus. The schools include: Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Boston University, Northeastern, Vanderbilt and Marquette.

Now students and college officials say the Discipling Movement is actively recruiting students on several southland campuses including Cal. State L. A., USC and UCLA.
UCLA EPISCOPAL CHAPLAIN GILES ASBURY: I'm very worried.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: UCLA Chaplain Giles Asbury says discipling has arrived in Westwood.
UCLA EPISCOPAL CHAPLAIN GILES ASBURY: They're very aggressive, and they're much more of concern to me at this point than some of the other groups that have been identified as being coercive groups, or ...cults, or whatever.
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PART 2
Excerpts from November 14, 1990 Special Report on the Los Angeles Church of Christ, KCBS-TV Channel 2 News, Los Angeles

CHANNEL 2 NEWS BREE WALKER: For years, university officials across the country have been warning students about a fundamentalist religious group called the Boston Church of Christ or Discipling Movement.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS JIM LAMPLEY: Tonight, in a special report our Sylvia Lopez tells us the discipling movement has come to Southern California where it is growing quickly.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: Sunday morning, several hundred new converts from Riverside to Westwood flock to the Wiltern Theatre to attend services of the Los Angeles Church of Christ. UCLA Sophomore Robert Lee is an active member.
CHURCH MEMBER ROBERT LEE: I have gotten so many things in terms of, I guess, in terms of relationships, in terms of friends I really care for.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: Robert says joining the church is the most fulfilling thing he has ever done. For him and others like him the church fills a void, counters loneliness and provides guidance. But ex-members tell an entirely different story of a life motivated by fear, deprived of sleep [and] devoted to the church to the point that it controlled everything.
...

CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: All the ex-members we talked to had the same experience during their time in the church. They were deprived of sleep, often getting only four hours a night. They were isolated from their families and friends; they were told they would be doomed unless baptized in the church. Experts say this is a classic portrait of mind control.
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CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: Not only are members expected to confess their sins to their disciplers, they must clear all activities with them and even imitate them in ever aspect.
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CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: How does the church respond to such criticism? L. A. Church leaders refused to be interviewed for our story, but they tell members if people are condemning them, that proves they're doing something right. What follows was taped during a sermon given by church leader Kip McKean in 1988.

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KIP McKEAN
1988 SERMON

    "You're going to be called brain washed. You're going to be called a cult...we've been written up in about 40 different publications in the last six months-praise God! Amen! We're having some opposition!"
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CHANNEL 2 NEWS SYLVIA LOPEZ: In spite of warnings from leaders like Kip McKean about the outside world, the Discipling Movement is losing members by the hundreds, in major American cities, where it has been established for years, even though the church claims a worldwide membership of some 25,000. As for Los Angeles, the discipling movement is just beginning to take hold. Jim. Bree.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS JIM LAMPLEY: Fascinating.
CHANNEL 2 NEWS BREE WALKER: Bizarre.