[kumbaya]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I never heard a sister got pregnant. What a shame. The Catholic Church only admitted sins when the spotlight was too bright to deny. LSM has never reached that point. Put them on "60 Minutes," and then they will repent.

Philip Lee was excommunicated by the elders in Anaheim. So W. Lee portrayed these elders as part of a vast global conspiracy to destroy his ministry. They were libeled and slandered. (Read John Ingalls' account Speaking the Truth in Love.) Meetings were held, books were written, and Ingalls and other godly men were all expelled or left voluntarily. After all the smoke settled, W. Lee had his new lackey elders restore Philip to good standing. What a sham!

Some questioned how Philip could even be excommunicated since he was probably unsaved and never even met with the church. But then how could WL place him in charge of a Christian publishing house, when his real role was to bring all the elders and co-workers around the world under subjection to him. (Read the horror stories of what Philip did to the German saints when John So refused to bow down to him.) Philip was a known predator like Harvey Swinestein with a trail of victims. There is no more reason to extend the "benefit of the doubt" to any LSM leader. They are all complicit.

This is all heartbreaking to me. I think, because my parents followed and believed this movement so strongly. It's not that it's just wrong, it's the lies and deceit that made people separate from extended family members and sacrifice so much! I know the stress my dad was under and his life and choices were his own. I just wish I could talk to him now about what he saw/knew and I can't help but wonder about the level of stress he had going on- knowing some of this. I know he loved Jesus, and meant well. I just can't imagine how hard it would be to serve or be an elder, see this abuse, and just go on. That has to be a burden mentally. I'm realizing too that we all have so much in common, but there are different pro's and con's of coming into the LC as an adult, and growing up in it. The level of indoctrination is something I feel I need professional counseling to come out of, and I'm looking into that for next year. On the other hand, I'm grateful that I have the majority of my adulthood to find myself and grow my relationship with God outside the LC. I'm really thankful for that.

I've read John Ingalls account and didn't put two and two together that the disconnect between the church in Anaheim and WL was because of Philip Lee, or mainly because of him. I'm remembering now his account talking about making a decision about a "brother being excommunicated" where the elders didn't agree. I didn't realize that he was talking about Phillip Lee! That makes me have more respect for him knowing that now. He never even mentioned the offenses, I read about it elsewhere. I didn't sense any spirit of attacking, just love and honesty. I also didn't realize that after they left and confronted WL about his son, PL was still involved. That's just shocking that they would keep him there. I read on here that some suspect PL was blackmailing WL. I just can't imagine why WL would keep his son on after being confronted about this issue and knowing what had occurred. Obviously it's just speculation but it would make sense that he was either being blackmailed or that things at LSM weren't in a position to just hand over to another member. Given WL's control over LSM, it seems like WL could still support his son without him continuing to run the business. It makes me wonder how corrupt the situation was at LSM that no one else came in at that time - knowing PL's actions. Still, I don't know and don't want to accuse. I do think though that these are things that should have been explained a LONG time ago. But instead, yes- they attacked the ones confronting PL and sent others to different localities in "less powerful" places. How interesting to be punished and attacked for standing up to abuse in the church. At what point is this not "recovering" anything- just an opportunity for evil to come in and reside? I just wish I could tell this to my family and they would listen. It sounds so crazy, that I will look crazy to them. I wish 60 minutes or some production company WOULD made a documentary over it. I think it would be really helpful to a lot of people. Sometimes I wish I would have gone into investigative journalism- I wish someone who was one would cover this. There are so many people it would help!

I just talked to someone this morning that I grew up with that told me why they left. Her husband's family has many generations in the LC and they all left because of manipulative practices, too much control from Anaheim (has anyone heard that they're appointing deacons and deaconesses now?) and actual physical abuse from a brother to someone who stopped tithing due to not being comfortable with how money was spent. He stopped tithing and just wanted to take a few months to pray about it. I was told he was asked to sign a contract to pay for as long as he earned money and ended up being punched repeatedly in the stomach when he refused.

Please understand, I hesitate even writing that because it's a "rumor", it's a 3rd person account at this point and the person I heard it from was asked not to say names. I don't know names and I don't know if it's true but why would a lie this big spread if there wasn't something suspicious going on. I've always heard, "where there's smoke, there's fire." Someone needs to be looking into these accusations and bring them to light. If stories like this are being spread then I believe a HUGE SPOTLIGHT of accountability to the elders and their practices needs to be put in place. However wrong things were in the 80's, they are shifting still into majorly controlling abuses of power. Since when did the blending brothers in Anaheim pick out the elders and now deacons and deaconesses? It's seems like they're just giving people little power trips and making them feel important and "part of something." It's just so manipulative. So now, being a deacon or deaconess appointed by the "blending brothers" in Anaheim - I'm assuming they "answer" to the brothers now. I would imagine that limits the Lord leading them in how to handle situations. It just seems like the level of control is getting more intense. I've personally felt it when told to "worry about myself and to let the brothers worry about these things." I'm just at a point where I feel like it's been something that's always gone on but is getting worse. It's very strategized now with Christians on campus and recruiting. I've personally heard the term "inoculate" to describe how to talk to students about WL to desensitize them about what they might read on the internet. I'm sorry, but I don't believe Jesus would tell me to do that. The Holy Spirit exists so there is no need to inoculate. What they're doing is coercive persuasion. It's not right. When issues come up and might look bad to new members, there's a lot at stake with losing them and others, so offenses are just swept under the rug. They're afraid of losing people so they aren't holding people accountable for their abuse. I'm going to try to find out more about this "brother" that was punching the other one over tithing. I'm hoping he was held accountable! I just know I've seen other situations where there are no apologies made and things are just swept under the rug in efforts to not "damage people." If you do know of a bad situation, more pressure is put on you to be quiet, AKA "know your function in the body", and if that doesn't work- its "doctrine over person" mentality so just cut off the relationship or worse, attack and quarantine them if they speak out against the LC! I've spoken with a child of an elder (who many of you probably know and have been mentioned on this site) that told me they heard about people being hushed in the Philip Lee scandal and "paid off" for their silence. I just wish everyone could come forward and share their stories. I know many do but I feel there's an indoctrinated fear to stand up against the leadership. I can't help but to think that if more people did, that they wouldn't be able to get away with it.

I know this is a CRAZY concept, but why can't the local churches just STOP buying materials from LSM and stop letting the blended brothers (LSM) control them? There's no reason why they couldn't function as an independent Bible based non-denominational church. I really don't see that as division. I see it as healthy! I heard of a situation in a church where the members were voting on various issues and discussing them as a group. I can't believe I've never thought about how normal and healthy that could be and also that I've never seen in it the LC. I wish more people in the LC could see this and deprogram without fear that their identity would be take away or that they would suffer in their relationship with the Lord or fellowship with other Christians. I personally know that I would come back and meet with them and I think that a lot of others would too! Cut out LSM, cut out the bookstore, cut out the FTT (AKA thought reform practice school where you read the Bible too) and just read the Bible. Focus on what the BIBLE says, the main issues of the faith, and let the Holy Spirit lead you to other Christian books on your own. I believe those are the basic ideas of a healthy church. I don't believe anything needs to be recovered. If you're saved, you're a member of the body of Christ and we all have our own paces and journey, and experiences with the Lord. It's not produced from a school like the FTT that uses thought reform methods to make Christian clones that all think the same. I wonder if there's a thread about the FTT graduations, now that is something I believe we could all laugh at, with Jesus. I'm sorry- it's beyond ridiculous. Anyways, I just want to find somewhere they let the Lord guide the growth and fellowship and have some strategies in place for accountability and limiting power/control. I believe its possible with believers in the LC to change because I know most are followers of Jesus and I believe anything is possible with Jesus! They have just been completely taken over with the LSM mindset. With Jesus, anything is possible, With LSM, nothing is possible except their agenda! When I say LSM, I'm using blending brothers and LSM interchangeably bc I believe their goal is one with LSM- just my opinion. I've asked this before and hoping someone can confirm- Is it Benson Philips who is over LSM and also one of the blending brothers? I know several of them, but not sure how many there are. Are they elders too in a locality? Hoping to clear that up if anyone knows....

Back to my point of speaking out against the bad practices. There's more I want to say but I don't want people to recognize the situation and cause problems for people I care about that are in the LC. That's their story to share, not mine. I do wish more people would speak up though! I'll just say that there are older saints who have been around since the 70's that love the Lord, my parents included, and many of my friends parents - and a lot of them just feel stuck. I know of some that don't like what they're seeing but their mindset is, "Where else can we go?" They don't realize that this has become something so bad, they still think the church needs to be recovered and they are the ones doing it.

I believe they know and love the Lord and on some level, we can talk about spiritual things. But it's automatically strained because we both know that we don't agree on these issues so we can't really go past surface level conversation. Then the elephant in the room of us not agreeing makes me feel like they spiritualize everything and that just gets annoying as well. That's the "doctrine over person" technique kicking in, it limits fellowship. You can have a relationship with them but they want to "enlighten" me on God's economy AKA "drink the cool- aid" (sorry, that's mean but you get the point), so our relationship is just stuck in this limbo where I feel like its superficial. That's my biggest issue right now that I'm trying to navigate. We're both trying to "enlighten" each other but the difference is, I've felt the way the have felt before. I see their perspective and know they aren't hearing me so I don't push. I know they see me as "lost and poisoned" and it hurts. It's not a great feeling. I feel like what I'm experiencing is real though and no matter who is right, I can see their mindset is so narrowed that they can't separate their relationship with Jesus from the LC. That in and of itself shows me that they're not in a good mindset. I wish there was a documentary or something like the one recently made on Scientology that would put all the pieces together!

The pieces are all coming together for me slowly and I have more books on my reading list than I'm able to read this year! Ohio, besides the ones you listed, I also want to read the Ferm. of P.R. - maybe just to get a good laugh. Does anyone know if this is one of the ministry books available for free online?

If anyone is interested, there's a documentary on Scientology on A&E that I highly recommend. I think it's worth mentioning because it helped me put things into perspective with the church and my childhood. On the downside, the similarities of many practices are the same- they just vary in degree. It's all mainstream well-known cult/thought reform group tactics. I thought it was interesting how their "sea org" compared to the FTT! But on the bright side- it made me realize how much worse things could be. I at least have to be thankful that even though my family took it to the extreme, not everyone in the local church did and also, the degrees of the unhealthy practices I feel are at "level orange" in the LC as opposed to some cults.... In other words, as bad as it was, there WERE some good things and it could've be worse. We all could have been in a Scientology cult! Yikes! At least we know Jesus even if some of the tactics are the same! If the similarities of practices (not doctrine) between scientology and the Lord's recovery don't make you realize the LC is unhealthy- I don't think you can be convinced. Like I said, its just the practices being used with the Christian experience. But, they didn't offer me anything with my relationship with the Lord that I couldn't have received somewhere else or on my own. The "good" there is found elsewhere, in my opinion. I would definitely recommend that documentary to anyone in or that has been in the LC, just to get some perspective and pick out the similarities. It can be healing if that's what you're needing

God bless you guys today- have a great day!!