[aron]

Splendid Church Life! ~ Hymn 1237

1 Splendid church life! His green garden! He has
brought us, praise the Lord,
To experience the Christ Who's growing here!
He is full of rich enjoyment to His saints in one
accord;
He is new and fresh, available and dear.

Chorus: I'm so happy in this lovely place,
In the garden growing in His grace!
There is no finer pleasure than to eat the
living tree
And to get the living water into me.

We told each other that Christ was "new and fresh" in the LCs. That is why the LCs were so attractive to so many young seeking people in the era of 1965 -1975. Christianity, i.e. everything not the LC, was presumed to be old and stale. Conversely, if it was not old and stale, but wasn't under the "ministry of the age" then it was wild and useless to God. Only the proper church life could please God by carrying out His will. So we could ignore centuries of Christian convention, and even the Bible itself if it wasn't "new and fresh" enough! Only "God's current speaking" mattered!

In the LCs Christ was "new and fresh, available and dear": turns out that Christ was so new and fresh that He no longer cared for the poor, the sick, and the hungry. "Don't waste your time", we were told. Instead, this "new and fresh" Christ was only interested in "good building material" for His Body.

And so forth. Turns out that "New and fresh" was really the same stale old package with a "new and fresh" sticker prominently emblazoned on it. It was just cheap marketing. Effective, in a way that would make PT Barnum proud, but false.