[Trapped]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

Which is why many of us don't want to touch this thread with a ten foot pole.

Bottom line to me -- if the LC does not control what books you purchase and read who cares. They have the right to publish as many or as few authors as they wish. In this age with Amazon.com, the internet, audible, etc. how could an elder from a local church of a few hundred control what you read? So who cares? If they are otherwise minded from the NT the Lord will show them and adjust them. (now I guess I need to prepare to get whacked)

Hi ZNP,

I've spent some time reading through a lot of posts on this forum and have noticed you sometimes respond similarly ("who cares") in other threads.

I'll start by saying that I don't really disagree with you. I think in most cases, no the LC does not control what books most saints purchase or read, although I have heard cases of what could arguably be labelled the opposite.

On the other hand, there are indisputable cases of saints having their own books or personal blogs or anything that might be labelled "publication" in ANY way shut down by "brothers-in-power that be". This happens. It is a fact. It is wrong.

The Lord will adjust them, either now or at the end, but it doesn't also mean that we agree with or let slide things that are wrong in this age. Although there is a wide spectrum of oppression, LSM definitely dabbles in it, and the Lord was all about freeing those oppressed.

Are you a church kid (either born one or come into the LCs at a young age)? Or did your time there occur as an adult? I believe this makes a difference.

I know someone who touched the church as an adult, went to some meetings and listened to some training messages, and said "I don't agree with enough things they say, goodbye", and left. He came in as an adult, as a young person he was allowed to think critically and make decisions based on what he clearly saw, and knew from life experience that this WASN'T "the center of God's move on the earth" and he was therefore free to leave. So he did. A blip in his life.

This seemingly normal freedom of thought is a foreign thing for me and the type of normal psychological life that I was cheated of, envy very much, and am working hard to attain even as I have very few models around me to pattern after.

I recall one time as a kid I really liked a certain band. Very innocuous music, some unique and varied skills within the group, focused on the technical aspects and tight singing abilities, not sinful lyrics, etc. (Think, like, someone who plays a stringed instrument liking Yo Yo Ma's music). I got it in my head one day to see if I could get the band to play at a concert hall in my city. I got really pumped about the idea and was excited about something for the first time in a long time. I made the mistake of telling one of my parents my idea, thinking they'd share my excitement and support me. Wrong. What I received was a tight-lipped, "Trapped.....do you think the Lord would have you promote this band?"

I was crushed. I mean, crushed. I mean, internally obliterated. Searing shame. The excitement and light in my eyes that hadn't been there in so long anyway went out in a cold wind, and because the Lord was invoked I felt like I was such an evil and sinful person for just wanting to make a few phone calls to some venues to suggest this cool group. This greatly affected my view of God for years and years and years. Along with all the other subtle and overt messages in the church I received that God didn't like to see me smile, this cemented it.

As an adult, I relayed the story to a saint who did not grow up in the church, and their response was, "Pffff, I would have just said to my parents, 'whatever, I don't like your answer, I'm doing it'." I realized they didn't and couldn't understand why I was crushed as a kid. Seeing the situation as it clearly is and vocalizing your disagreement was not an option growing up in the church.

As an adult, I realize my parent's response wasn't a good one. They should have realized it was an innocuous thing, not sinful, not a "promotion" of an evil group, and supported their excited kid in the effort. Now I can see they made a mistake and can forgive them. But it literally took 15 years for me to be able to think critically about the situation.

Anyway that's a poor example to try to show that those who grow up in the church probably literally have their brains wired differently than those who don't, and it is a monumental effort to actually look at something for yourself and decide whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, accurate or inaccurate, from the Lord or not.

If you have the oracle of God, the one man releasing God's up-to-date speaking on the earth, this gem of a difficult to understand old wise Chinese man that for some reason only our little group sees as the minister of the age and the rest of the millions of Christians don't which must mean we are special and chosen and really in the center of the great wheel while everyone else in dark Christianity is flying off the spokes as we crush them.......telling you "truthfully that there is no light in other books", and you are a young impressionable kid who has grown up being conditioned in every way that you must believe the indisputable truth that is being spoken to you from God's lips through a Chinese accent to your ears......there is a problem. And it's a problem that requires that some people speak up.

No LSM doesn't overtly communist Russia control what people read, but they have a deep and far-reaching effect on those who can't think for themselves, and there is a system built up to prevent and discourage anyone in it from thinking for themselves. I received my first non-Nee/Lee Christian book from a dear believer in my early 30s and I was so "Trapped" in my conditioning that I couldn't even open it up and I shelved it on my bookcase immediately quite literally almost wondering if I would be bothered by idols that night as I slept because I dared to have a non-ministry Christian book in my possession. I didn't read it for a year. This was as a FULL BLOWN ADULT IN MY THIRTIES. This is not overt control, but it is deep-seated fear based conditioning.

Getting into the trumpet analogy with Drake and seeing the erroneous application from 1 Cor. 14:8 explains so much of the struggle in my life. For decades I have had my round head hammered into the square peg holes of Lee’s writings, rather than into the round peg holes of what the Bible says. No wonder I am bruised and bewildered.

I've been strong-armed my whole life into having to pretend what I am reading and hearing in the ministry matches up with what the Bible says and I see so clearly now that the source of the confusion is not me.

I'd love to say "who cares" like you but because I've lost so much from my youth and young adult years because of crooked speaking and claims like what is in the One Publication, I can't keep quiet anymore.

No one is disputing LSM's right to publish what they want or who they want or restrict themselves to what they want. No one here has any issue with that. The issue is with restricting the saints in the churches to only Nee and Lee. That's all. Having one small paragraph in between many others quietly saying (you are still a local church if you don't take this way) does not allow that the opposite speaking from the rest of the document be let off scott-free. I think you can agree that that restriction is not of the Lord (unless a saint actually feels led from the Lord in that way, then who am I to say, but it actually has to be the actual Lord's leading). LSM does not control the churches. They have no business restricting the saints or the churches to anything, or issuing a statement to that effect. They know the effect they have on people.

Trapped