Stopping abuse in the body of Christ.
The second generation of LCers are the result of growing up in religious environment that was majorly out of whack with God and the Bible. It was a mixture of the things of God with the ways of the devil. In this environment many children were neglected, treated as objects of "authority" needing to be subdued, and were left with deep rooted false beliefs about the nature and character of God as a result. I'll say more about this later. Like glue that held the hold place together, the religious control exercised over families by the leadership hierarchy is a fundamental cause of these problems.
Before I say more in this vein in another post, let me say this is not about condemning a group, this is about educating ourselves. We need to be educated about what produces religiously abusive environments. Our situation is not the first, nor will it be the last. We need to learn something from all of this. Here are characteristics we need to be able to spot a mile away, even in seed form. They do not belong anywhere in the body of Christ.
Characteristics of an idolatrous system which the Bible calls mystery Babylon the Great:
1. A consecrated hierarchy of men in willing and absolute submission to those above them who actively and vigilantly silence, subdue, and conquer the common people in line with their prime religious directive. They accept no responsibility for the actions they take which are dictated by their superiors. They believe they will not give account for such actions because they are obeying others and acting on God’s behalf.
2. A body of leavened teachings by one man, who is considered to be the mouthpiece of God on the earth, which is systematically written in the hearts and minds of adherents day after day and never questioned.
3. Common people, held by fear, who are willingly submitted to leavened false teachings and false teachers and who believe they are submitting to God in doing so.
4. An absolute consecration to a God-given vision of the church that is uniquely theirs, one that makes them unique and special, superior to other Christians.
5. Teachings and practices that tolerate sexual sin among believers.
6. Taking financial advantage of God’s people for the financial gain of those at high levels of the hierarchy who handle monies without open public accountability.
I am sure that there are some who can truthfully claim that they did not absolutely follow Lee's teachings in heart and mind, but I don't believe there are hardly any who can claim that they were not in or under the LC leadership hierarchy (other than SC). Those who openly resisted were rejected overtly. If their resistance was passive, they survived longer. To continue to submit meant more and more compromise of conscience.
For an example of how this works on individuals in the system, just ask those elders who hid the sin of a Texas elder at the dictate of Lee and had to lie from that day forward to cover up this deed. Ten years down the road that decision and related lies resulted in the destruction of two LC families.
For an example of how this works on a mass scale and what happens when there is resistance to it, take a look at the wielding of unholy authority at Whistler and the subsequent demand for the masses to line up behind that public horse whipping and continue to beat that horse until it couldn’t move any more. As we post here today, who is still suffering from that? Families and brethren who were divided as a result.
When you any of see these characteristics at work, you can call it whatever you want, only flee it and purge your mind of any leaven that got sown into it while subject to its darkness. God calls it idolatry. The Spirit calls it Mystery Babylon the Great and cries out, “Come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins and of her plagues.”
Thankful Jane
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