[John]

It seems that it’s my turn for a little thread history. I am working from memory here, so I hope I don’t bust any facts. Here’s the way I see what went down. At any rate, the facts are in this thread for any to read and come to their own conclusions.

This thread was started by djohnson asking why so many children who grew up in the Local Church have severe social problems. Several of us speculated on what happened. I stated my opinion that the place was abusive and lacked real Christian love.

Then Hope and OBW felt to warn us about painting all the Local Churches with such a broad brush. They explained to us that their church was pretty good in the children department.

I noticed and was bothered by the way that Hope attacked djohnson for creating this thread. Also, while he criticized us for using a broad brush, I think that they were using one too, just with a different color of paint.

Hope continued to speak about Dallas being an exception with regard to the children. Several posted about parents and children having good experiences together. Eventually, it seemed like most of the walls were going white. I felt like he wanted to put us on a guilt-trip for using those broad brushes with black paint. In my opinion, problems with Local Church children were being whitewashed.

So, I found the quote from Witness Lee inspiring the elders to basically think poorly of mothers who love their children too much. Then, I found the example of church discipline of a teenager, which happened to occur in The Church in Dallas. So, I painted with those quotes.

I was disappointed by Hope’s reaction. I was praying that he would let it rest for a day or so, but it didn’t happen. He said something to the effect that this was like something from Mars, etc. Thankful Jane responded to most, if not all, of Hope’s excuses and, eventually, his accusations. Later, he stated that he never said that the abuse didn’t happen. This is true; however, he sure did make it sound as if he had very, very serious doubts about its occurance.

And he tried to put doubt into all of our minds as well, jumping on the table in the room. I didn’t realize that we were going to have to paint the furniture too! But, Thankful Jane did more fact-checking and even painted the table for him.

At one point, Hope explained something about how the machinery of The Church in Dallas worked and how it could have happened. (Even though it seemed less than an optimal response to me, it was an admission on his part that it could have happened.)

In one post, he went into an everyone-is-against-me mode just because of his brush and the color of his paint. He even tried to gain the moral high ground of righteous indignation and demand an apology from Thankful Jane, even trying to use the author’s oft-quoted verses against her. As of the last I looked, he still has not responded to her regarding her request for details of any offense. (In my opinion, I think that it is he who should apologize to her.)

Now, I see OBW trying to paint people’s reaction to Hope’s behavior as a lynching. I don’t think that I need to explain to OBW the fallacy in argument he is trying to foist on us. There have been plenty of “lynchings” in elders’ rooms. What happened to Hope doesn’t even come close. How you now expect to paint Hope here as the victim when we’re talking about a teenage girl’s abuse is fantastic to me! I even see you blaming me for not using the BlessD example of abuse properly. I think that if you read from the beginning of the thread, as I have explained it, you may see how it fits. If not, that’s okay. Let me just give any other readers a brief hint of the color of off-white we’re supposed to accept in this room:

You can’t use that example because it has Dallas in it. That’s not fair because the sister was from Houston and her parents were from Oklahoma City; and, even if our doctrine says that when you’re in Dallas, you’re a member of The Church in Dallas, in order for this to be admitted into evidence, she would have to be a card-carrying member of The Church in Dallas; and, just because elders were there from 4 different churches, Hope himself wasn’t there, so this is one example of abuse that shouldn’t have been brought out. Or, something like that. I’m sure there’s a lot more twists and turns we could take through LC doctrine to insulate ourselves from its damaging effects if you’re willing to get into the car with him.

This one example does show us several things: There was abuse of children in the Local Churches; the disciplinary action of abuse took place in the church house in Dallas; there were elders there from Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Oklahoma City; and the leading elder from Dallas does not remember any kind of meeting like this bit admits its possibility. Hope has come up with a possible scenario; I could conjecture as well. I’ll leave that up to the readers.

I see this whole thing getting started because a couple of people wanted to paint Local Churches in various shades of gray and at least one as mostly white. They put forward their church as an example of basic success with children. When they were given an example of abuse, they tried to shift the blame to others. Now, they have put forward their perspective, and so have some of us. Let the readers decide if they like either of our versions or if they like a different one altogether.

Meanwhile, while one is busy deflecting and another is arguing the proper rules of evidentiary procedure, another person, Process, posted about being abused while being in The Church in Dallas. In fact, Process even had to post twice to get recognized by anyone. Process, I am also sorry for the pain that you experienced in your family. You are very courageous to post under these circumstances. (Please note: I am not trying to lay this sin on the doorstep of The Church in Dallas or on Hope. I believe that Process does not want his/her situation examined.)

Dallas may have been better than the other churches in Texas and Oklahoma in this area. I’ll even give them that. However, I do know that there was abuse of children in Dallas. And what I don’t agree with is the attempt to whitewash it with a broad brush, and I don’t agree with trying to shift the blame to others to protect some kind of an image.

P.S. I don’t have anything against OBW or Hope. I myself am a victim of abuse and want to stop its spread. I spent many years in the Local Churches, where I was also mistreated by elders. I have also been out for many years. I have seen too much.