Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner
Igzy,
It's not about being distinctive and different. I suppose once upon a time it was, to some degree. I plead guilty of all charges. I bought into the whole local church thing as an idealist supreme. With that mindset I accepted all kinds of rationalizations and strange logic.
But along with the crazy came something I can't let go of. I'm guessing you can't either, based on the fact you're still here, how many years hence, sorting out your feelings about the whole LC experience.
I note you're tagline says you were crazy enough to join the LC and sane enough to leave. I was crazy enough to join and I'm crazier to stay. But it strangely comforts me to be able to say that.
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You have a point. I'm an idealist and a perfectionist, too. Though I like to think of myself as a "practical" idealist and perfectionist. I do participate here to continue to try to understand what it was all about. But also to try to help those who are still confused about it. And as I go on, less and less about the LCM gets validated, and more gets explained away.
This doesn't mean my experience of God gets diminished, it grows. I come away with what is essential and generic, much of which the LCM gave special names to and tried to claim was unique to them, but which is everywhere if you look for it and don't expect it to be wearing plain clothes and chanting "O Lord Jesus."
This is why I asked you to reconsider the naming thing, not because I think you should change your policy, but rather to consider if the reason you have it is an essential value, or truly serves one. Like I said, if oneness is your goal, why be different? I understand being holy. I just don't have any Biblical reason to believe that not taking a name makes you more holy. It's an LCM extrapolation that eventually led to division, not only between them and others, but even between themselves. It's a shovel that couldn't dig a hole.
The LCM put in a us deep appreciation for some very valid things: oneness, union with God, indwelling Spirit, holiness, judgment seat. It was in the outworking of those things that the LCM fell flat. And it is the outworking tools and techniques that we tend to cling to, rather than the essential principles they were supposed to support. I've found if you try to get back to the essentials, you reconcile those truths you talked about with the Christians who never heard of the LCM. You realize your differences were less essential than you thought, and so potentially divisive.
When I see people still struggling with the tools the LCM gave them I try to point them back to the essentials. The point after all is not to use a shovel, the point is to dig a hole, if you catch my meaning.