[OBW]

While I never actually read the book The Problems Causing the Turmoils in the Church Life I do recall a series of messages given in Irving, I think at least in part by Benson. This was within a year or so of our leaving.

At the time I was struck by the fact that the words said there were citizens and soldiers, but outside of those messages, only the soldiers were truly acknowledged as existing. Every other message somehow made it all about being a soldier or being deficient. And the atmosphere was that if you were not a soldier you weren't just a citizen, you were a second-class citizen.

Of course the "soldiering" in Irving was mostly involvement in the message preparation and printing. Not entirely like Anaheim. But I could attest that there was a marked separation of people between LSM volunteers and others just like the difference between those regularly engaged in the New Way and those not so engaged in Anaheim. I have to assume that the only thing that caused Anaheim to blow up the way it did was the added problems of a similar usurping of people for the LSM (like in Irving) and the problems with Phillip Lee that were becoming somewhat openly known there. It's a wonder that more churches did not implode in the manner that Anaheim did.