[aron]

When we are young, we may be enthusiastic, and energetic, and pure of heart. (see e.g. "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God", with "Do not forbid these young ones to come to Me, for their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father")

But the older we get, the more data points we accumulate. We are not faster, smarter, better, or more noble. But we are more experienced. We see more, hopefully. The "exclusive groups" who teach that truth can only be found in their circles and everyone else is hopelessly corrupt, try to prevent the accumulation of data points. All you get is one data point. Only the "truths" of the group are allowed to make sense of the world.

So the acolytes in the group, even though getting older, retain a certain naivete which they find very hard to overcome. No data points are allowed into the picture to change the view. The truth, the vision, is fixed, and static. And one is easily caught by simplistic arguments like, "WL is the apostle of the age, and God's oracle", versus "WL was a swindler and a cheat." Or, "WL was God's chosen 'man of the hour', and now it's DYL and/or TC; the Blendeds are merely usurpers." Etc, etc... either way, the narrative thrust lacks a healthy perspective and objectivity, and seems unable to consider or absorb new information.

Paul said, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision"... I argue that "the heavenly vision" includes repeatedly getting knocked down off of your high horse as new data points emerge. Did God only speak once, evermore to be silent? No, God speaks, and the Word is living and operative, and as it operates the old world that you once loved dissolves. That's just the way it is. To me, that's intrinsic to the journey. How many times does the gospel narrative say, "And they were astonished beyond measure"? Is there some point in our journey here, where we're no longer supposed to learn, grow, and change?