[Cal]

"The Recovery's" One Publication policy is invalid from a Christian standpoint.

It is wrong to restrict the flow of information among the people of God, except in those situations where certain restrictions are mutually agreed upon, and these can only be in the context of organizations which are not the Body of Christ as a whole.

For example, if I join a church or ministry, which are organizations, I should agree to submit to its rules. If there are any rules I feel I cannot or will not obey, then I shouldn't join. It would indeed be rebellion for me to remain in the organization and defy its rules. Any Christian who joins an LC local church is obligated to respect its rules, but only while being a member. If the Christian decides to leave that church, he is not obligated to obey its rules anymore. The same would be true for a Christian who went to work for Living Stream Ministry.

The LC's error is that it has equated its organizations with the broad spiritual entity of the Body of Christ or the Church. They say, we are the Church, we are the Body of Christ, so whether you are member or not you are under the authority of our leaders. But of course it is unreasonable for any group to equate itself in such a way. Yes, each local church and ministry has certain aspects of the nature of the Church and the Body. But they are not the same thing. They are also organizations. You can join them or leave them. And leaving them is not necessarily division or rebellion.

This is true of "the Recovery," the movement which defines the LC phenomenon as a whole. It is also a Christian organization, and as such, can manifest certain aspects of the Body of Christ, like any other Christian organization can. But it is not the equivalent of the Body of Christ. You truly cannot leave the Body or the Church, but you can leave a ministry or a local church or other Christian group.

No subset of the Church can equate itself to the Church to the extent of saying that leaving it is equivalent to leaving the Church. Each subset or group, that is each organization, whether it be a church, ministry, small group or something else, is part of the Church and "borrows," so to speak, the realities of the Church. But none of them can claim to own those realities to the extent where they can say that leaving that organization is the equivalent of leaving the Church or leaving God.

The LC, "the Recovery," wants to believe so much that it owns the realities of the Church that it claims that to leave them is to leave those things. But this clearly cannot be the case. The realities of the Church and the Body are manifested all over the world, in churches, ministries and groups of all kinds. Further, history has shown than this us-only attitude of "the Recovery" has led to all its problems. Ironically, what it calls "rebellions" in its midst have actually been the legitimate exercise of liberty by Christians who received that liberty from Christ himself. The problems there were actually caused by an invalid assertion of authority. They were caused by "the Recovery's confused, equivocating and ultimately deadly equating of themselves with the Church to the exclusion of all others.

If "the Recovery" wants to admit it is an organization, then it has the right to restrict membership and require compliance to publication restrictions. If it does not make that admission, and continues to claim to be purely the unique move of God, then it is wrong to make such restrictions.

In the time being, LC members should feel no obligation to respect the One Publication policy, and should feel free to publish and distribute information as much and as far as they see fit. Any objection by anyone claiming to speak on behalf of "the Recovery" can be considered baseless. "The Recovery" has no standing before the Lord as a purely spiritual entity. And since it hasn't admitted to being just an organization, is really a non-entity.