[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by kappagamma

I grew up in what I believed at the time to be a fairly strict LC household but as I've come to hear of other experiences it was not as strict as I once thought. I was required to attend every Sunday, as well summer school of truths, conferences, and even semi-annuals when I was older. I lived in a sisters house a few years in college and attended FTT-Anaheim for two years. I would say that I was marginally in the CL until the FTT. It was there that most of the issues that I had came to the forefront and I, from that point, couldn't ignore it anymore and made my eventual (but quiet) exit. To me it was just another religion and, having been taught my whole life religion was bad... well, there you have it. 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?

Thanks kappagamma. I'm also intrigued about what those "church kids" have experienced growing up in the Local Church. I think there a many others out there just like you - those who have been taught that religion (even the Christian religion) is supposedly the greatest of all evils. Yet the local churches under Witness Lee/Living Stream Ministry have become one of the most religious and dogmatic organizations one could imagine

I also wanted to bring this very enlightening list the kappagamma posted in the OP.

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.

2) Women's roles in LC (and beyond). I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I am not a second class citizen. The suppression of women is not my thing and I'm not going to be complacent about it. I can't belong to an organization that silences and suppresses and demeans half (or more) of it's population.

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.

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.

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. (emphasis added)

Each one of these points have been discussed to one degree or another here on the forum, but I have never scene such a succinct and clear list of what many Local Churchers, especially young people, experience in the LC movement.
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