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Originally Posted by Unregistered 1
This horrified me. I never knew the LC would be this low. After reading the subreddit about the LC and reading about the LC on many posts on this website, I just don't know what to say. This realization completely crushed my faith in the LC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered 2
This horrified me. I never knew the LC would be this low. After reading the subreddit about the LC and reading about the LC on many posts on this website, I just don't know what to say. This realization completely crushed my faith in the LC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered 3
it's so hard for me to accept this super tiny group of Christian have a special kind of light, from WL.. if WL is wrong (obviously he's not fully right), countless of innocenct souls are scammed. I'm ok suffer for the Lord but I sense many suffer for one man opinion, a system. LSM is the continuation of the Plymouth Brethren.
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A bit of advice: the more you dig on this group, the worse it looks. Financial improprieties, horrible behaviours, cover-ups, poor theology. Witness after witness has come forward, over decades, and tried to warn people, but LC leadership called them "storms" and "turmoils" and "rebellions". The LC successfully hid its history for years because they ran the only printing press in town and could control the (internal) conversation, but that lid seems to be coming off.
Ok, then what?
In my case, I tried other groups to "get the Christian fix" but it just wasn't working for me. Eventually I gave up. Little by little I came back to God, but on different terms.
1. Either God exists or not. That seems to be a personal call. I prefer a universe in which "God" exists simply because it doesn't seem quite so cold and empty. I dunno. But at it's core, it's up to the individual. Not Mom & Dad or Pastor Bob threatening our eternal soul.
2. Jesus Christ. Either he existed or not. If he didn't exist, what about the 12 disciples? Also fiction? What about Paul, who says he knew the apostles who were there before him? Paul also a fictional character? Paul's testimony also a complete fabrication? If you try to dismiss the NT story as a whole-cloth fabrication, the historical weight of evidence seems tough to dismiss. Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus? All fictional characters? I think something was there. It's just too much to appear out of thin air.
3. The core of the message (as I see it) is to love people. Especially those who don't have it in them to give you much love back. You know the ones. Messed-up people. Lots of them around. Not saying you have to be Francis of Assisi or Mother Theresa, but the idea is to be nice to people who at first blush might seem to deserve a whack in the head, or at least your dismissal and avoidance.
And that's about it. Simple, but not easy. Hard to love others all the time. Sometimes I feel grumpy, or whatever. Selfish. "Too bad for you - no love from me..." So it's a journey.
4. Then the "church" thing - the Roman Catholic Church tried it on Luther and the Anglican Church tried it on Wesley - "We have God in our box". Nope. Didn't work then and it doesn't work now. People who pull that crap just show how far from the mark they are. You submit to them & think you're following "Christ only Christ" and suddenly "Christ" morphs into "Drunken Noah"... where did that come from? No, I may go to "church" but I don't let "church" run the show. Only Jesus is the Boss. That's what they called him. Gk Kurios - meant "Lord" and "Master" and such.
"Ekklesia" means meeting, or gathering. Anyone can meet in his name. Nobody has a copyright on the Ekklesia. (except maybe the Holy Spirit and only God controls the HS).
Quote:
Originally Posted by FTTA graduate
Thank you, Andrea and Jo, for being stronger than I in fearlessly attaching your name to your letters.
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1 Cor 1:27b "...God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." A few "little sisters" stood up to the "Big Bad Brothers". Thanks be to God.