Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
As we have seen already on this forum, every person with a complaint becomes a victim, and every small thing is evidence of the LC being a cult.
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Every complaint is not evidence of victimhood. But the culmination of complaints and tendencies points to a problem. Whether you want to categorize that problem as being a "cult," the word is simply shorthand for a group that shares many characteristics with the LCM, including:
- Personality Driven / Leader or Founder is Best Source of Truth
- Authoritarian Leadership
- Lack of Leadership Accountability
- Special Knowledge / Unique Revelation
- Special Status / Elitism / Exclusivism
- Isolationism / Suspicion of Non-members / Socialization Largely Limited to Group
- Polarization / Persecution Complex / Siege Mentality / Us-vs-Them Mentality
- End-Justifies-Means Mentality / Leaders and Group are Always Right
- Group Think / Independent Thinking Discouraged / Fear of Disagreement
- Fear of Being Dis-fellowshipped / Shunning
- Appearance / Dress Standards
- Opaque and/or Shady Finances
- Group Consumes Members' Free Time
- Leaving Group Considered Evil
These tendencies are not characteristic of the typical community church. But they are disturbingly characteristic of the LCM. This is not propaganda or bias, it is observable fact.
There is no doubt these characteristics describe the LCM. So you either have to say there is a big problem with the group, or the only other alternative is that God designed his best version of his people to look very much like a cult/abusive religious group.
So the question becomes, given that people are justifiably extremely wary of such groups, why would he do that?
My opinion is, he wouldn't. Therefore as far as I'm concerned the LCM cannot be what it claims to be.