[Hope]

As we all, desire to sort through our journey with Christ and our common experience in the lc, it is important to consider James Barber. Few brothers had such a defining influence on the lc. I spent much more time with him than I ever did with WL. In fact during the critical time period of 1973-1978, I spent much more time with Max Rapoport than I did with WL. When my next chapter comes out James and Max will be major characters and players. (Chapter three will cover 1972-1976. Then Chapter Four will cover 1977-1981. This is the defining period of time.)

Almost from the beginning, James was in a struggle for the hearts and minds of brothers and sisters outside of LA. Later Max also was in a struggle to be the most influential person in the LC network. They battled each other. I know because I was an object of their fight and heard from both of them about the other brother and what he was doing.

James was a very significant player is the down fall of Doug Krieger. He was working to bring down Max and Max to bring down James. Max won and James went to OK City where he would have little influence over WL or the work in Anaheim and a diminished role nationally. There will be plenty more to say on this line but I would like to address a very important observation Ohio has made and I quoted above.

James was the number one advocate for putting meetings and church functions above family. He despised saints who came on Sundays. He had invented a smear "SMOs" (Sunday Morning Only). I heard him use this countless times to slander some of the brethren in LA. He constantly admonished elders in private fellowship to limit the SMOs. Sometimes I heard him concede to a brother about caring for the SMOs with the statement, "well at least they are good for numbers."

No one was ever more critical of others both in the lc and in Christianity than James. This was a point Max successfully used against him as nearly everyone was consciously or unconsciously bothered by James' unending put downs. (I hear the same kind of mocking derision in the Barber sons. I must believe they learned it from their father.) Since James represented WL and always made sure all realized that he had come from WL, his behavior and speaking was the equivalent of WL's speaking and behavior. At the time, I was too naive. Until Max made it clear that James was not necessarily a spokes person for WL, it was hard to see how much was actually James. Of course, I do strongly believe that James was to a great extent a product of the shaping of WL.

Now, James truly loved Christ and desired to serve the Lord. He was a very gifted teacher of the Bible and somewhat of an evangelist. We all received spiritual help from James. Otherwise his negatives could not have taken hold.

His family is a big testimony of his negatives: for example; Church activities over caring for the family, the meetings and ministry take care of everything, do not have opinions, don't think, don't criticize the ministry, and the big one: WL is God's anointed, today's David, and thus God will bless whatever WL does etc.

Please tolerate me. I do not like to point out the flaws in others. I have too many flaws myself. The Lord has had mercy on me. There is hope for us all. I fear I may come accross as writing off real and dear brothers and sisters because of mistakes and sins of the past. But remember our Lord does not break a bruised reed.

In Christ Jesus there is hope for us all,

Hope, Don Rutledge