How the International Church of Christ (ICOC) Preys on Hispanic Communities

with Tania Díaz

“I know I was looking for a purpose. I know I was full of ideals. I know I was feeling like I wanted to make a difference in this world.”

That hunger for meaning is precisely what cults prey upon, and is a core theme in today’s story. I was honored to speak with Tania Diaz, an outspoken advocate and ex-member of the International Churches of Christ (ICOC), on this Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum episode. Her story shows how someone with a big heart and high ideals can be unduly influenced to act against their best interests.

Deceptive Recruitment

In 1984, the International Churches of Christ (ICOC) sent missionaries from Boston to Mexico City, seeking to expand what was then known as the Boston Movement. Some of the most important targets were college students, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City was the most prestigious one. Tania was an undergraduate in International Relations. She was drawn in by the enthusiastic community, intensive love bombing, and deceptive claims that the event was unaffiliated with any specific church.

“I was invited to a Christian conference where they were going to talk about values and living a good life, but it was never named as a church. I didn’t know I was going to attend a church.”

This was familiar to me and reminded me of my own experience of being deceptively recruited and lied to by recruiters of the Moonies. They had told me they were students at my college, when in fact, they were there on false pretenses, exclusively recruiting students on campus. Tania’s experience was similar.

Within two weeks of attending eight “basic principles” studies, Tania was baptized, declared “saved,” and taught that the ICOC alone represented the true body of Christ. Doctrine mandated strict imitation, meaning members adopted new uniform dress, speech patterns, and hairstyles. This new behavior reflected a supposed unity of heart and mind, citing Paul’s command to “imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.”

Rising Through the Ranks

Over the next two decades, she would rise through the church’s ranks, only escaping nearly thirty years later to become an anti-cult activist, self-compassion advocate, and host of a podcast dedicated to survivors of religious abuse, Voces: Espacio Sagrado para Sobrevivientes de Abuso Religioso (In English, Voices: A Sacred Space for Survivors of Religious Abuse)

By the late 1980s, the ICOC’s expansion into Mexico carried with it the white, evangelical, corporate, and quasi-military culture instituted by founder Kip McKean. Statistics and growth metrics dominated every aspect of church life, as by then, the ICOC was known as one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. Attendance, donations, and contributions were rigorously tracked. Any resistance or pushback brought accusations of greed or spiritual weakness.

Tania told me she was soon recruited into leadership training, overseeing larger student groups and effectively serving as full-time staff without a formal contract, benefits, or adequate compensation. She was expected to work hours without pay, was labor trafficked, and lived in harsh conditions with scarce food, all while continuing her university studies.

In 1990, she was discipled (supervised) by an ICOC missionary and decided to pursue missionary work in Cuban communities, abandoning her career aspirations in International Relations to focus on “saving souls.”

“I already believed [that studying] International Relations was worthless. I was not going to save anyone,” Tania recalled.

For nearly four years in La Habana, she and five fellow missionaries lived in harsh conditions, convinced that their efforts would prevent millions of Cubans from eternal damnation. Local churches warned of the ICOC as the “Mexican cult,” yet Tania remembers that she felt persecuted rather than worried by these locals.

Tania was fully enmeshed in the ICOC’s evangelizing efforts in Cuba at that stage in her life. Though she was fully committed to her missionary work, she eventually anticipated a return to Mexico to finish her degree. She boldly asked her leaders for permission to complete her mandatory social service at the Mexican Embassy in Havana. To her surprise, they agreed.

Giving Up on her Dreams for the Group

She stepped into what many would call a dream job for an international relations student, working side by side with diplomats. But the moment was short-lived. ICOC leaders in Mexico City intervened, reminding her that her purpose in Cuba was to evangelize, not to pursue a diplomatic career. Within days, she was ordered to resign. So she did.

“Another minister from the embassy called me to his office and said… ‘I want you to tell me you have something better, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This is your career in international affairs.” Tania recalled.

Tania said she smiled politely and told him she did, vaguely hinting at another important opportunity. At this point, her mind had been refocused by the ICOC on her responsibility to save the souls around her. To her, this was more important than diplomacy.

By then, she was used to giving up various parts of her life for the group, as they routinely asked her to skip classes, abandon personal passions, and let nothing ever take precedence over evangelistic work.

After this period, in 2003, a crisis arose when an internal letter authored by a senior evangelist was leaked to the internet. In it, leadership was called to abandon its legalistic and cultic practices. Though the ICOC publicly repented, with multiple leaders being pushed out and prominent figures leaving the church, Tania characterized the reforms as “cosmetic.” The core dynamics of control were still intact. Tania contemplated leaving the ICOC but chose to stay after speaking to the movement’s main leader in Mexico.

“...He played the card of, you know, you don’t leave your family when they get things wrong. We need you. We need people like you,” Tania said. So she stayed, manipulated by the claims that leaving the group was akin to abandoning her family in a time of great need.

Over the next 20 years, Tania and her then-partner alternated between full-time missionary roles and ministry positions, subject to the ICOC’s budget. In 2011, Tania and her husband were dismissed by a supervising leader for supposed disloyalty, an event Tania later recalled as a turning point. This freed her to homeschool her child and raise him in a manner she felt was right, without the pressures from the ICOC, which had continually harassed her to use corporal punishment, taught and God’s will.

By 2012, Tania and her husband were hired to lead the Spanish-speaking ministry in Boston. They hoped the ICOC’s “mother church” might differ from its Mexican branches. Unfortunately, although founder Kip McKean had since been removed, Tania found that the Boston congregation retained the same indoctrination methods. There remained a strict focus on growth, obedience, and a belief that they were the only true Christians on Earth. She observed that the migrant members, many of them undocumented and traumatized by displacement, were particularly vulnerable to the promises of the community.

Starting the Journey to Freedom

Eventually, after deciding to start therapy, Tania began the therapeutic process with a therapist trained in religious abuse and religious trauma. Those years gave her a safe space to deconstruct her experiences and obtain tools and language. Tania realized that she could not heal in a place that had caused her and others so much pain. Though she attempted to lead her 140-strong members in the Spanish ministry in a way that allowed space for authenticity and freedom, she found it impossible to exist within the coercive system.

Tania learned of multiple instances in which leaders had discouraged reporting sexual abuse to authorities. Two mothers confided that their daughters had been assaulted decades earlier, only to be counseled to forgive and protect the church. Unfamiliar with the existence and protection of mandated-reporting laws, which would have been the responsibility of the clergy, Tania nevertheless provided emotional support and began to research victims’ rights. These were the first stirrings of her advocacy.

The publication of a Rolling Stone exposé detailing lawsuits against the ICOC for failure to report internal abuses became a catalyst. An internal email from Boston’s lead evangelist downplayed the article as a distraction from the devil. Still, for Tania, it underscored how the organization prioritized its reputation over the trauma of survivors. She alerted senior leadership to the parallels between the California cases and Boston accounts, only to be met with indifference.

“I know this would sound very ignorant of me, but being a mandated reporter, that was something I didn’t even know [existed]. In 12 years… we never received training [in her pastoral role]. I never knew I was a mandated reporter. I discovered that when I heard about the lawsuits in California…” Tania said.

In the months that followed, four additional survivors approached Tania, including a man who reported sexual harassment by his pastor. Recognizing that systemic change would not occur from within, she and her husband continued lobbying for respectful treatment of victims until they were publicly defamed, ostracized, and dismissed from staff roles.

The ICOC network circulated emails to Spanish-speaking ministries across the Americas, exposing Tania and her husband unfairly to coordinated slander.

Undeterred and boldly, Tania refused a severance agreement that would have silenced her.

She channeled her experience into co-producing Voces: Espacio Sagrado para Sobrevivientes de Abuso Religioso, a podcast offering a space for survivors to share and heal. She boldly and narratively continues to share her journey from indoctrination through deconstruction and decolonization to full deconversion and self-determined spirituality.

Today, Tania is a proud mother, decolonial advocate, self-compassion teacher, and anti-cult activist whose work amplifies marginalized voices. Her story is a testament to the transformative power of speaking truth to power.

Note: the ICOC is now using the name “Alpha Omega” as a front group.

Resources and Further Reading

Tania’s Podcast: Voces: Espacio Sagrado para Sobrevivientes de Abuso Religioso

@tantitasecta Tania’s Instagram page with information about coercive groups

Authoritarian Bible Cults Actively Recruiting at College and Online: Interview With Former BCC Member Chris Lee

Former ICOC Leader Michele Roland and Attorney Bobby Samini Discuss their Lawsuits on Behalf of Former Members of this Bible Cult

Unveiling the La Luz del Mundo Cult: Sochil Martin’s Story of Resilience, Whistleblowing, and Activism

Combating Human Trafficking—A Conversation with Paul Chang

The Rolling Stone article mentioned in the interview

Another Rolling Stone article, This Church Promised to Save Their Souls. Defectors Say it was a ‘Cult.’