Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
Is it systemic? Is it in every region? Some on this site would say yes, I ultimately don't know because I haven't been around everywhere. I just know that in Spokane the leadership was very innocuous and laid back and didn't seem to want to lord anything over anyone.
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Some of this is just naturally geographic. Spokane is remote, and the leaders are not regularly together with the western metropolitan club of elites. Access to the top became quite corrupting to some. That’s just our fallen nature disguised as spirituality. I learned that in high school. Some guys were “in,” some guys betrayed others to be “in.” I call them “risers,” always looking to improve their status using access. Basic politics here. I was never “in,” so I never even tried. This was never so visible as when storms blew thru the Recovery. Who were you with? Which side are you on?
Let me use our forebears the Exclusive Plymouth Brethren as an example. I really think my study of them helped reveal what some couldn’t perceive. Theirs was a history of storms, purges, and divisions. None of which was ever legitimate or actually scriptural. Actually just struggles for power. Picture a rotating spit of lamb for Greek gyros which I love, being constantly carved. That was their history.
Each “carving” removed those who put the Lord first, put the Bible first, put love first, or those who simply hesitated to “despise” the one(s) being ejected. E.g. decades after George Muller was expelled, new members who never even heard of GM, were forced to sign on to JND’s condemnations of him. Sounds a little like how Ingalls, or even Isitt, has been treated. As time went on almost 2 centuries now, those who have remained after numerous purges on that revolving spit have become more strange, mean-spirited, narrow-minded, legalistic than ever. They became more known for their unending list of unwritten rules, crazy interpretations of obscure texts in scripture, and weird esoteric knowledge, all which puffs up. They are so exclusive and elite, they are simply unapproachable.