Coltin Rohn, formerly Evangelist of the Columbus International Christian Church in Ohio, is the latest high profile ICC member to leave the movement. What happened soon after his resignation has caused shock and disbelief to many, including Rohn himself.

While it is not uncommon to hear stories about ICC members leaving the church, it catches your attention even more when that person is a high profile leader within the ICC.

Coltin Rohn has served in the ICC for over 12 years. Based on his LinkedIn profile, he had served as a Region Leader of the City of Angels ICC, Campus Minister of London ICC, Evangelist of Boston ICC, and most recently Evangelist of Columbus ICC.

Just two weeks ago, on 14th December 2022, Rohn handed his resignation letter to quit his Evangelist post at Columbus ICC. According to Rohn, this was due to a strong doctrinal disagreement between himself and the ICC, particularly in the area of financial contributions. Rohn believes that the ICC’s practice of setting fixed financial targets and coercing members to meet those targets is in direct violation of the Scripture’s teachings in 2 Corinthians 9:7.

However, to the surprise of himself, a week later on 22nd December, Rohn received a letter that “marks” him as someone who is causing division within the ICC (based on Romans 16:17-18). This simply means that church members now must steer clear of him, unless he repents and rejoins the ICC.

The following is a screenshot of Coltin Rohn’s post on Facebook explaining the whole situation:

Interestingly, Rohn’s resignation letter was also included in his Facebook post. Here it is below:

Threats from the ICC

To the disappointment of Rohn, soon after his resignation and “marking”, all the videos of his preaching on the Columbus ICC’s YouTube channel, over 150 of them, has since been removed. This includes Rohn’s last sermon which detailed his position on 2 Corinthians 9:7.

[Update 5th Jan 2023: it has later come to my attention that it is Rohn himself who removed his last sermon on the YouTube channel by his own volition before he resigned].

In a YouTube video posted after his resignation, Rohn lamented that the ICC wanted to “cancel him” by removing him from history as if he didn’t exist.

However, Rohn was able to attain a copy of his last sermon at Columbus ICC and uploaded it to his own website and social media. But when the ICC was made aware of this, their attorney wrote him a letter demanding its removal. If he doesn’t comply, he could face a fine of up to $150,000USD for infringement of copyright.

Under the weight of a potential lawsuit, Rohn soon gave in to their demands.

The letter threatening Rohn can be found on his website and it is also displayed below:

Conclusion

The recent resignation of Coltin Rohn gives us a helpful insight into the ICC from someone who was on the inside for a very long time. Sadly, the revelations of his story weren’t a surprise for many of us who have researched into the ICC’s history. We all know about the financial pressures put on church members by the ICC’s central leadership. And we also know that disagreement with official church doctrine means excommunication or disfellowshipping because ultimately, it is not the Bible’s teaching that matters but what the church teaches.

I appreciate Rohn’s story because of his honesty and his bravery to take a stand against church authorities based on his conviction in the Word of God. Now that he’s been unshackled from the ICC, it is my prayer that Rohn will continue to reassess his theology in light of Scripture. In my opinion, what would be best for him now is to have a lot of theological dialogue with Christians outside the ICC or even the mainline Churches of Christ.