Quote:
Originally Posted by NeitherFirstnorLast
Brothers and sisters, it seems to me that for those of us who come here who are no longer members of LSM, there ought to be agreement that we made it out of that system for a reason. We may have different reasons for leaving (or being removed from fellowship, if that is the case), but regardless of what the particularities of those reasons are, we ought to be in agreement that we are in a better place now than we were then. If we don't feel that way, then surely we ought to follow our conscience and make whatever concessions we must in order to be 'restored to fellowship' with LSM.
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You take a very complicated issue and boil it down to a yes/no answer, and that is where some of us are taking exception.
1. What do you mean "no longer members of LSM"? I served in the LSM but never considered myself a "member of the LSM". That sounds like the Nazi party or something. I always considered myself a member of the Body of Christ. So is this a typo, did you mean LRC (or some other abbreviation) or did you mean LSM?
2. "a better place" is very troubling to me. We talk about how exclusive and elitist the LRC was, if that was a key component of their error, and I believe it was, why would I want to leave that "country club" and go to "a better place"? I feel condemned for even swallowing that "we are God's move on earth" spiel, why would I then want to take up a new "better place"?
I feel that I am under God's sovereignty. I feel I am where He wants me to be. I feel I am where I am today as a result of answered prayer and the Lord's leading. But I also feel that 30 years ago it was His sovereignty that I met with the LRC, it was His sovereignty that I served in the LSM, it was His sovereignty that I was a missionary in Taiwan, etc. I feel I have learned from my experiences, hallelujah! Amen. Because I have learned from them hopefully I won't repeat them! That is why I want to dissect the LRC history, so that I don't repeat the error again.
I do not have the slightest inclination to discard 30 years of experience in the Lord, 20 with the LRC. Nor do I intend to forget the experiences, answered prayers, or revelations that the Lord gave to me. The fact that WL was a charlatan does not shake my faith in the slightest, my faith wasn't based on WL.
But I am very interested in purging out the old leaven of the LSM teachings. I use the term leaven to indicate something that has spread and become totally pervasive, not necessarily something that is evil, malicious, or sinful. I equate leaven simply with something that becomes pervasive. That is one reason I find this forum very interesting and truly enjoy the words of MikeH, or OBW, or Awareness. Without their help I would not be able to examine these teachings. Sometimes I may play devil's advocate, but there was far too much rubber stamp acceptance of WL, which I think was another cause for the error.
On the other hand I could not tolerate this forum without the fellowship of Ohio or Igzy or others with a view that more closely aligns with my own. That said I don't want us to fall into camps or "parties".
But I find some of this discussion on WL to be somewhat absurd. Some of these brothers that seem so antagonistic towards him appear to have come into the LRC after he died, or at the very least at the very end of his life. [I was around from 78-85 which I would consider 8 of his strongest and most influential years, I was in Houston and Irving and attended the trainings (so I met WL on numerous occasions and did have some first hand experience of him) and I was in the FTTT when WL was there in Hall 1. Yet even so, I consider him to only be a small percent of my LRC experience, honestly, 10% is the most I could give him, and to be real it is probably more like 5%. To discard his teachings is no effort, I never had any use for the LSM books. I never used them. I treated the Life Studies as a springboard. Now I realize my approach was diametrically opposite others like EM that was a brother that also entered the LRC about the same year as myself also in Houston. So if WL was 5% of my LRC experience from 78 to 85 and after that he wasn't any of it, that would make his total impact closer to 2%.] Now if that is my case, how much of an impact could he really have on these brothers who are making such a big deal about him? (Of course I am not referring to Awareness who did have personal experience.)