Originally Posted by aron
I'd reply that we're all purveyors of mixture. So strictly speaking that could apply to us all, and at least partly to the Christ which we preach. Christ is of course pure, but the Christ I present to the world isn't always perfect. The safety valve here is in the flock - where one goes astray someone else can speak a restraining or adjusting or cautionary word and vice versa. In the WL-LC-LSM variant, no restraining word is possible, so it can get pretty convoluted, and pretty contaminated.
At first the hermeneutic package seemed well-constructed: some verses from Paul's epistles, combined with the gospel message, seeming to form a coherent message; then that message, whether "God's economy" or whatever label, was overlaid upon scripture. But look critically and we see that verses taken out of context, shoehorned into saying things the NT author never intended; many, many verses are ignored, and even dismissed as "fallen" and "natural", and if you bring it up any of this you're rejected outright. Because, they say, "the oracle has spoken". So the LSM oeuvre is pretty thoroughly contaminated at this point, all the references to Christ this and Christ that notwithstanding.
In the NT, like the OT, the characters were held to be imperfect. Yet for all of that, God was pleased to reveal himself to us. Peter made many mistakes. John and James also. The disciples were often confused, ignorant, frightened, and consistently misinterpreted what was happening. Somehow we got duped by WL & Co into thinking that Paul avoided any error, and then church leadership from thenceforth was, what's the word .. ex cathedra? Unable to err. WL certainly fell into this mold. So he could dismiss the scriptures as unprofitable, and create a Christ which substantially moved away from the traditional understanding, and we had to say, "hurrah". The creation of a novel Christ, formed without any feedback from the ekklesia, should make us all wary. It is hard to imagine WL giving some of those messages in front of thousands of otherwise intelligent people, and none of them could point out the glaring errors of thought parading in front of them. In that sense, yes indeed there is a deceiving spirit at work. No doubt in my mind.
But again, we're all at best only partly sighted here on this earthly coil. So if I tried to keep away from those in deception and error I'd be locked in a box, with my own errors, and none to correct me.
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