Taken Captive: The 2019 International Church of Christ Report

As a former educator, journalist, and leader within the International Churches of Christ, Franklin examines the 2003 scandal that rocked their movement and peeled away nearly a third of their worldwide followers. The 2019 ICOC Report, aptly named Taken Captive, attempts to answer the question, “Has the ICOC truly changed since the crisis?” To answer that question Franklin employs methods such as targeted interviews with the group’s most influential leaders, personal visits, and research of post-2003 movement materials including sermons, movement study series and articles. The author takes a deep dive into apologetics and the incremental psychosocial manipulation that dominates the group. Undergirding this work is the defining doctrine of true biblical Christianity which is justification by faith alone in Christ alone. This report is the first of its kind and marks three years of painstaking investigation and research.

This second installment in a comprehensive 6-book series examining the sect makes use of current statements of belief and practice voiced by their own leaders and contrasts them with sound biblical teaching. A significant amount of content and teaching undergird the report with concise citations and quotations from a number of renowned theologians and evangelical teachers such as John Piper, John MacArthur, Bob L. Ross, Martin Luther, R. C. Sproul, C. H. Spurgeon and J. Vernon McGee.