Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Sure, I'd be glad to explain....Now it is very common for sisters to fellowship with one another. This cuts the elders out of the loop and prevents problems from being funneled through the elders to WL. This has to be stamped out if you can do damage control. So, prior to the MR excommunication you had the "sisters rebelliion". This was not necessarily based on anything more than the fact that MR's wife must be cut off from fellowshipping with other sisters, as well as anyone else that might be aware of unrighteousness in Anaheim. This does not mean that RG and BP were aware of what was going on, they could easily just be "good foot soldiers fighting the spiritual battle". But as a result more erroneous teachings are brought in about sisters, etc. out of an attempt to get away with the con, or prevent PL from being exposed, etc.
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Okay, ZNP. I've read your response several times and though it is very interesting, it doesn't answer my specific questions.
Your explanation seems to have moved away from what Terry asked ("What is the issue with encouraging ones to talk about their problems?") and even away from your response to Terry's question ("I think the problem with sisters opening up about their problems is obvious..."). You then switched horses from sisters talking about their own problems to sisters talking about their problems with PL. (I also asked for your source of information about sisters having problems with PL that they might talk about.)
At this point, I think the simplest thing for me to do is just respond to what you wrote about sisters (at least what I think I understood you to be saying
). Just so we're clear, I am now riding along side your horse, and this response does not concern Terry's question (about sisters talking about their own problems.)
First of all, I don't agree with your portrait of sisters in general as being in some kind of situation outside of the loop of control of the elders. You said, "it is very common for sisters to fellowship with one another. This cuts the elders out of the loop and prevents problems from being funneled through the elders to WL...." For one thing, this implies that brothers don't ever fellowship with one another without the elders being in the loop, something which clearly isn't so. For another, your premise is just too broad for me and I don't find it to be true.
From your out-of-the-loop premise about sisters, you move to the conclusion that sisters like Sandee R. had to be dealt with because they were outside the loop and couldn't be stopped any other wayfrom causing damage. To the contrary, the fact is that Sandee was very much in the loop in Anaheim and that not only was she (and two other sisters) in fellowship (in the loop) with the local elders on a weekly basis for several years prior to Lee's action against them, she was also directly in fellowship with Lee himself on a regular basis. She was very close to W. Lee and even called him Witness. (This is something I never heard anyone else ever do.)
I learned these facts in January 2006 in a personal conversation with her. She and the sisters with her were flabbergasted by all that happened. She said that every thing that they did with the sisters in Anaheim over a period of three years prior to 1977-78, was done in fellowship with and under the direction of the elders and Lee. These sisters were very supportive of Lee and his ministry and would have done whatever he told them to do. (This made what ultimately happened to them incredibily horrible.)
As sisters in Texas being out-of-the-loop, Don Looper told another sister (he and she were in Austin at the time) that I got in trouble because the things I had said had come to the ears of the elders. I always found this statement to be very interesting because it implied I was talking behind their back. The fact is that the things I had said were said directly into the ears of the elders in Houston by me and my husband and another couple and another sister (TOG, 161). We were in the loop, funneling directly to their ears what we had to say. It was clear to me by what the Austin sister was told, that Don Looper had received his inaccurate information from another source (no doubt Benson and/or Ray).
(As some evidence of my last statement: Don Rutledge wrote me in an email a few years ago about a conversation between Don Looper and Benson that took place on an airplane the week before the 1977 Memorial Day weekend. Don R. was purposefully excluded from this conversation, but he overheard enough to know that it was something about sisters. I might be able to quote what Don R. wrote if I can find it, and if anyone is interested. In other words, Benson was talking to Don Looper about sisters in a very serious and private way just a few days before the sisters were squashed in Houston by Benson and Austin by Don Looper.)
So that I don't digress further, I'll stop. My point is that sisters were "in the loop" and that the reason they were squashed was something other than what you have proposed.
Thankful Jane