[OBW]

First, I have a question. Who is David Canfield? My fuzzy memory brings to mind someone in Chicago who was for a while of uncertain allegiance during the Titus Chu debacle, but who eventually sided with the LSM. If that is wrong, Please let me know. But besides that, I have no knowledge of him and his history with the LC.

Assuming I am right about his recent history in relation to the TC quarantine, I note that this little article now puts him squarely in the sights of the LSM to be the next one purged. But if he is already quarantined, as UntoHim has indicated I still see a pattern that is not so difficult to understand.

UntoHim first noted that David’s paper is full of LC lingo and yet stands in opposition to the BBs and the LSM. While it may seem confusing to some, what I see at work here is our miss-categorization of the people who have current or past relationship with the LC in any way. In simplistic terms, all people who have been more than passing members of the LC are members of two of four groups. These groups are in pairs. The first is those who currently hold to overall LC teachings and practices v those who do not. The second pairing is those who are currently in the LC v those who are not. (When I say that my pairings are simplistic, I am ignoring whether adherents to the overall LC teachings and practices do or do not believe in the supremacy of “the apostle of the age” or even that Lee was infallible. While in a broader view this and other issues would need to be factored in, we are ignoring those for now.)

While someone may find exceptions, those who do not believe in the LC teachings and practices are also not currently members of the LC. And those who are in the LC do believe in the LC teachings and practices. This accounts for 2 of three possible groupings. The third grouping is those who believe in the teachings and practices of the LC but are not currently members of the LC.

It is in this latter group that the reality of the issues that I ignored in creating these two overlapping views of all who are or have been associated with the LC arises. For those who believe in the basic teachings of the LC, there are other teachings and practices that they find to be divergent either from Lee (if they consider him without fault) or from the scripture if they care only for truth and not for other sources.

I see this group at work when they are willing to stand in opposition to an edict from the LSM to quarantine someone for grounds they do not accept as from scripture. I see it when some take on the LSM and the DCP, as the Concerned Brothers have done. While there may be some attempts to actually reform the LC to be something less exclusive and even truly mainstream within Christianity, it mostly appears to be a desire to return to a better time when elders cared for congregations and any ministry was for the church rather than the church for any ministry.

I also see hints of it in some of us who have become well-attached in some Christian group when we long for no name, universal fellowship, popcorn testimonies, less formal worship environment, etc., or when we revert to LC dogma by calling denominations “Babylon.”

To me, the real issue is how it all came to be. Did this turn of events that has the LC divided into two primary camps happen strictly as the result of something the BBs did now that Lee is dead? Or is it that the problem was just less pronounced for some longer period of time and people simply tolerated it? David seems to think that any divergence from the right path is recent. Others think it may be further back. But either way, the desire is to return to a “more pure” form of practice. I could go on about my distrust of even the early days. I also could debate what teachings and practices from the LC should get more "play" in Christianity. But we can reserve those discussions for other threads.