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Originally Posted by kappagamma
Really intrigued to know if there are others here who have been through the FTT and found it to remove a veil rather than adding one?
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While I don't have hard evidence, I can just add to the mix anecdotally. Graduated FTT trainees have told me "you'd be surprised how many people leave the church after going to the training."
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
Being raised this way is very different and the beliefs instilled from youth are ingrained into who we are - it's not as easy as just leaving a movement. You literally are removing threads from the fabric of your identity. I am not sure, for that reason, that this forum is particularly the right place for me or not but it's better than nothing.
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This is very well said; you express yourself very well. I hope you stick around at least some and contribute. Many church kids need to hear from other church kids.
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
That being said I am very happy to have left this movement, even at some personal cost, and have some basic reasons:
1) Witness Lee died a long time ago. We were fed the line "standing on shoulders" year after year after year and I am highly skeptical that circa 1997 the "high peak" was reached and there is no growth/revelation left to attain. It has been 22 years. The world has changed, technology has changed, but God hasn't? I don't think so.
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Based on the FB post pointing to the assertion that Lee actually plagiarized footnotes and insights from other authors without citing them, I have come to the conclusion that one reason he is passed off as "standing on others' shoulders" is to discourage everyone from reading other people's stuff so they don't find out that Lee did not come up with as much as he says he did!
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
3) Performance. I've known - and been myself- one who knew what to say and how to say it and when to say it in meetings of the LC and felt nothing on the inside. No thanks. I don't want to belong to an organization that says they are outside of religion and culture but very clearly has one all of its own. We all know it does. We all know what we are supposed to do and say or not do and not say. Fake. I don't like acting and didn't want to do it anymore.
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Every church kid understands this painfully well. We are, out of necessity, pros at acting and faking it.
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
4) Suppression of identity. This ties to #3 some but I would say that I feel like a shell of the person I'm supposed to be because individuality was so suppressed. Is this sentiment shared by anyone else? I feel so damaged being raised in this environment.
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Again, please stick around. If you have more to say on this, please say it. This is a big thing for so many church kids, both brothers and sisters, that I have talked to. It is one of the things that makes leaving so difficult. The entire local church culture, vocabulary, culture, and way of life becomes your identity. Leaving it forces you to face the terrifying reality that you are.......blank otherwise. It is not God's intention for us as human beings to be blank and empty shells. Even just speaking of how you feel damaged, expressing it with words, can help both yourself and others.
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
5) Purity culture. Unhealthy level of separation between male/female. I'm not saying that a church has should embrace immorality but there are healthy ways to teach interaction between the sexes and unhealthy ones. LC doesn't do it right and the impact it has had within the LC and other evangelical groups is real and documented. Really good books out there to read on this subject.
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Can you mention some of the books? My level of separation was damagingly overemphasized and continues to affect me to this day. It helps to know and see what healthy ways are.
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Originally Posted by kappagamma
...I'm still happy to have left and hope that the current wave of malcontent helps solidify thought & action in others the way it has for me. Even if no one else leaves the LC because of it, if it provides some peace for those of us who have left then that is a good thing, too.
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Glad you have a greater level of peace and that you decided to share your story.
Trapped