[OBW]

Z,

You have mostly confessed that the real problems were not visible to the average participant.

And you are correct.

But when Paul made reference to any owing him their "very lives," was this because he was the one who brought them the gospel, or because he was some wonderful, special person that they just had to fawn all over? The problem with the former is that if someone else had been the ones bringing the gospel, then it would have been that person's place to say that. And it would not be wrong. It just wouldn't mean what we are thinking of when we read it (whether directed at Paul or someone else).

Paul wasn't making himself out to be some special person that they should never question. He was pointing out that if they were thanking anyone for their introduction to Christ, it was Paul.

When it comes to saying that anyone could, if asking the right questions, see certain problems in the LRC, you are correct. But did you even know there was a Daystar to ask about? Were you aware that when Ray Graver made statements about Lee being the MOTA, he was basing it upon a carefully orchestrated series of separate statements — often not even in the same meeting — in which there was a back-door statements about who would be the minister of the age. It would be the one with the ministry of the age. And what was the ministry of the age? In a significantly separated statement, Lee would make it clear that there is no useful ministry at the time other than his. Therefore if there is always a ministry of the age, then it must be his. And if the one who brings the ministry of the age is the minister of the age, then . . . . you figure it out.

If you didn't hear all of those statements close enough together to remember one when you heard the other, then it slipped right on by. But Ray's grandiose declaration, no matter what you think of him personally, was not dreamed up in a vacuum. He was just doing exactly what you suggested. Connecting the dots. And Lee expected each of us to eventually get on board with it and be obligated to him for everything that he could publish.

And despite those carefully separated statements, it was just such separated statements that made some of Lee's deposition testimony false in the Mindbenders/God Men lawsuits. He declared that he never said any kind of thing as grandiose as apostle or minister of the age or anything else like that concerning himself in those depositions. Yet he had made some of those independent statements already. Just not as voluminous at that point and not in as close a proximity to each other as to be as obvious to everyone.

While I still agree that applying the "cult" label is not particularly helpful, the things that bring people to arrive at those conclusions are very real. And even if you don't like that label, there is clearly a problem relative to several of those characteristics that collectively indicate there is a serious problem with the LRC. Don't like "cult"? Fine. But you agree that there are problems with the issues. Problems beyond the simple fact that groups have leaders. And we are a "personality cult' of Christ. The entire mantra of the LRC is that they are a new and better way. And they have twists on scripture that require external overlays so that the revised meaning can be derived from words that could never get there in any form. And they are busy pointing at the errors of all of the remainder of Christianity.

(Some will point to the fact that we are doing the same re: the LRC. but it is notable that we are not generally saying that of all other Christians, just those who take extreme positions related to all other Christians. Mainly the LRC as far as we are concerned.)