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Originally Posted by Unregistered 2
I am quite uneasy with the whole "majoring on righteousness will result in oneness" theory because so many divisions within the body are justified with a self serving pseudo righteousness.
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Most divisions in the body that stand willfully apart from the rest are not about righteousness, but about doctrine. And the doctrine of the LRC is pseudo oneness. A kind of cookie-cutter oneness married to an open meeting style that looks enticing, but allows believers to ignore righteousness by diminishing its importance in favor of something called "the spirit."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered 2
Now if you were in the LRC you know that brothers and sisters who no longer meet with the LRC are equated with backsliders. They go back to sin, they dry up, etc.
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That is a presumption of unparalleled ignorance and arrogance. To declare that everyone who is not of your sect to be a "sinner" and "dried up" cannot be consistent with any kind of claim of oneness.
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Originally Posted by Unregistered 2
However the real question is not about sin, or holiness, or righteousness. The real question, according to John 15, is "fruitfulness". Since leaving the LRC have you become more fruitful? If so the husbandman cut off the LRC so that you could be more fruitful. Since leaving the LRC has the LRC become more fruitful now that you are gone?
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It would appear that the LRC is not particularly fruitful. Neither before nor after my departure.
The real question is whether you have the liberty to assess people and organizations based on how they appear (to you) to be before and after certain events. Does the condition of the LRC before or after me, or John Ingalls, or anyone else necessarily compare to the thrust of Jesus' speaking on the vine and the branches? The fact that you can presume to see a parallel does not make it so.
And the "real question" is not just any one thing. It is a further presumption to assume that the discussion of the vine and the branches, the pruning, the abiding, etc., is the only really important thing in scripture. In fact, taking some of Lee's own formula for importance, it would seem that this one is not preeminent. It is really only mentioned this once.
But righteousness, obedience, and holiness are mentioned over and over, even in the NT. And in the middle of Lee's "Kingdom Constitution" Jesus declares that anyone who teaches contrary to the righteousness found in the law (and the enhancements that Jesus gives) is the least in the kingdom. Based on that, it would seem that rather than learning from an apostle, an oracle, or an "acting god," the LRC has been following the teachings of one who is condemned (not in eternal terms) for teaching against the holiness and righteousness of God.
Just as Jane pointed out, oneness and unity are mentioned very few times. The one place that is most pointed on it was not a teaching or a command, but a prayer that it would come to be. And when Paul talked about it, his speaking was of something that would arise from growth, not something that would be the source of growth. It would arise from the focus on the faith. "Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith." Not the unity of the ministry, the unity of the ground, or the unity of the doctrine. We will likely continue to have honest disagreement over doctrines. And have debates about what is the best understanding. And the point of those is to spur one another on to a better understanding. But the LRC will be stuck arguing about unity with their dirt, with their so-called apostle-appointed elders, with their administration, and with the ministry of Lee as being "the ministry of the age."