[aron]

Originally Posted by JJ

I love where ZNPaaneah and Ohio are going with this thread.

The church is where Paul's exhortation in Galations 6:1 applies, that is:

"Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted."

Interesting question: when you have a sect that does everything "by the letter" and "by the book" but doesn't seem to exhibit much charity or gentleness, to judge by the broken and bleeding ex-members exiting its doors, then how can this be the church? How can "one church one city" cover that failure to love?

"Stupid is as stupid does" -so is love. Love isn't a word, it's an action, or rather a series of actions, actions which continue even in the face of non-encouraging results. Love suffers long. Love endures. Love never fails.

What we got was instead was, "training" and "perfecting". We got public shaming, and "know your place". That was how the "church was built up" - not in love. I recall a former leader who got called to the carpet, literally, in front of Lee, and forced to confess, "I am ashamed to admit" that things in his localities were not as "vital" as Lee proposed (that former leader is now ex-communicated because he wouldn't "lose face" to the current "blendeds").

I recall a current LC leader who stopped by, and took one of our faithful brothers to task before the whole conference, publicly querying him on his relations with his wife (unknown to the Maximum Brother, the man had just been left by this wife). The whole group shuddered, but we took it. "Know your place". No grace, no covering. Unless of course you are Top Dog, then you get covered, a la "Drunken Noah". But no one else.

Here is an article on Jewish culture, of not publicly shaming people:

Arnold Jacob Wolf (Sh'ma 4/77, September 20, 1974)
Many important commandments have been abandoned by almost all Jews, including those who consider themselves observant. One of these laws, I believe, is the prohibition against shaming another in public. The rabbis say: "Whoever shames his fellow-person in public has no share in the world to come. He is one of those who will go down to Gehinnom and never come up again." On the other hand, it is clearly written in the Holiness chapter (Leviticus 19): "You must sharply reprove your neighbor and not bear sin because of him." There was and is a clear responsibility to take a stand against sin, but as Rashi interprets the verse, never by shaming the sinner, or else one would, indeed, carry away sin because of him. If one is obliged to reprove, even a child or a slave, but also one's husband or wife, reproof must not be made by shame.

"Shaming" is vividly described in the Hebrew phrase as "whitening the face." Under accusation in public, one's blood leaves one's cheeks. One almost, as it were, dies of embarrassment, indicating that the sin of shaming is like murder. Murder, in fact, can find atonement, if the murderer is truly sorry. But I may shame my neighbor without even knowing what I have done, in which case I will never repent for my sin. We are commanded rather to let ourselves be destroyed than to embarrass any other person in public.

Tamar, who had the goods on her father-in-law after he visited her sexually, never named him as the offender, but only indicated what pledge he left with her, so that he could identify himself without being made ashamed. Joseph cleared the room before he disclosed himself to his brothers so that they might not be put to shame in the presence of the Egyptian court. For many generations, Jews have taken pains not to embarrass even a guilty person, much less one simply inferior in station or in power.

We are commanded not to give offense by words, by deeds, by epithets, even by hints. We are not to insult the stupid who would not even know they were being put down, nor our intimates, with whom we sometimes tend to think anything goes. Freud, in his wonderful joke book, tells of two men who behaved toward each other with scrupulous courtesy until each realized the other was a Jew, at which time they both put their feet on the furniture and dropped cigar ashes on the floor.

Shaming in the Jewish tradition
We are not allowed to recall someone's past offenses, blemished ancestry or personal weaknesses. If someone owes us money, we must not go near him in public, lest our very presence put him to shame. If we are well dressed and affluent, we should avoid poor neighborhoods and needy people. If we are collecting for a cause, we must be certain in advance that anyone we approach is able to contribute. When we recite the verse from the blessings after meals, "I have grown old without ever seeing a good person in need or his children begging bread," we should lower our voices, in case there is a beggar at our table. The Maharam said: "One who shames those who sleep in the dust has also committed a grave sin." We are not allowed to embarrass even the dead.

There is a precise etiquette for Jewish study. A teacher must not ask a student questions he probably cannot answer, nor the student ask questions outside his teacher's field of competence. Neither should they be queried in the presence of critical colleagues, nor when they have something else on their minds nor when they first enter the school-room. Blessings over study are said together, in case someone doesn't know the text by heart. So too, the ritual of first fruits ordained in the Torah, is always prompted, even if one is fully competent to say "my father was a wandering Aramean......," because the next person might not be able to recite the formula without help.

We should not watch someone eat or drink or do anything incompetently. We should not ask our host for what we don't see, because he may be unable to provide it. Virgins go out to find husbands (on Yom Kippur, according to the Mishnah) in borrowed garments, so as not to shame any poor young woman. Invidiousness is itself shame, so all our dead are buried alike according to tradition, and thus no Jew need be ashamed. Rabba said: "one is allowed to shame himself, even though it is against Jewish law to do oneself harm." But one must never "whiten the face" of any other woman or man.

Yes I know this is culture and "not Christ", and yes I know culture in Judaism isn't superior to oriental or western culture. But Christ never denied His Jewish culture, and its attempt to obey the scripture on God's command. Jesus never denied the message of God's revelation, but rather as the incarnate Word obeyed continually, and expressed this fully. This is our faith, not in ourselves but in Him.

And Jesus said, "Don't stumble the little ones" -- what was the public intimidating and shaming of the smaller and weaker 'local church' saints to 'know their place' but a stumbling? Of course it was. It was merely well-refined human methodology for the acquisition and maintenance of temporal human power, which power must fade at last and give way to Christ.

The LC was built on "whitening the face" of the members. This should be rejected as not the church. This is not the assembly of the Firstborn, no matter how it presumes to be "by the book".