Quote:
Originally Posted by MacDuff
So what you're saying is that the outside doesn't matter, that it's the inside that matters? And you are emphasizing the individual person over whatever community might arise?
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I cannot answer for Peter, but here is how I would answer.
The outside does matter, but not at the same level as the inside. Not making a value judgment of one over the other. Just noting that they have their places. In some cases, outside is more important. In others, inside is.
But inside is never missing from the formula. The driver of all things Christian is the inside. It is the change from within. But not in the way that Lee often taught it. It is not by avoiding doing the outward right until the inward was aligned (gets enough "dispensing"). We still strive to do the outward right. Notice that after Paul goes through his discussion of the law of God and the law of sin and death, he comes to the law of the Spirit. That law fulfills the law of God. Not by magic. We still have to set our minds. We have to choose and walk. But, like James said it, if the outside isn't being righteous, you have every reason to question the inside.
When we speak about how assemblies operate, all we see is the outside. And there are a lot of different outsides to observe. But the only thing that really matters — the only thing that will drive "correct" outsides — is a correct inside. Righteousness is inside. Out of righteousness, whatever form of organization is taken, it will be acceptable. Out of unrighteousness, no matter what form of organization is taken, it will be a problem.
To an engineer, we are speaking of the wrong part of the equation. They don't care about what is happening. They want to know why it is happening. The problem with a church that has abuse is not the form of administration, or its connectedness (or lack thereof) to other churches. It is the unrighteousness of those who are abusing. Since there is something fundamentally flawed about a theological conclusion that some particular church has taken to declare itself to the "the" church and others "not it," it might be easy to declare that they could be prone to this kind of abuse. But the abuse will not arise because of bad theology. It will arise because there is unrighteousness in the system. And bad theology, especially of a ridiculous kind, may hint at unrighteousness simply in the fact that they came up with that theology. But it ain't necessarily so.
The root cause of openly shaming someone for something that is not actually a shame is not just bad theology. It is dogged determination to act unrighteously, usually for a reason that has personal benefit. More unrighteousness. And why is there unrighteousness? Lack of a real individual walk with Christ. In the LRC, it is replaced by an individual walk with the words of Lee which do, on occasion, seem to include some of the words of Christ.
But, in the end, it is what is inside the individual, and the individuals, that matters. It does not matter what you do ot don't like about an assembly. The only real questions is, what about the people? What is going on inside of them. Even in one of the older protestant denominations that does a whole of of repetitive ritual. That is irrelevant. What is happening inside.