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Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
Oh, I'm sorry - I forgot everything on here has to be framed in nonstop Lee bashing!  Regarding everything you stated - yes - it may be that many others have preached this and Lee didn't practice it. Nonetheless, it doesn't diminish the enjoyment of the Lord (which you seemed to belittle here bro) I had while reading that book . . . does it? (I think not)
Seriously folks, this thread seems to border on Lee-aphobia or something, to the point that having a simple back & forth isn't easy. Can't we just have a discussion without instantly going from zero to 100 MPH extremes?
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Sorry for being away from the discussion — long holidays with effectively two dips into Christmas.
I must admit that my starting for this thread was partly to give some perspective to your experience of something "bubbling-up." And to demonstrate how potentially corrupt the source of your experience might have been. This doesn't make you corrupt. Rather it shows a little of the fog we all (well most of those on this forum) were under. One in which we came to have spiritual "highs" from things that might not be what we thought they were. Or were actually contrary to what the Bible teaches in some cases.
I've been out of the LRC ("Lord's Recovery Church" — not what they call it, but what it has effectively become) since August of 1987 after 14.5 years in it. (OK, that dates me, so I will be clear here — I go on Medicare next month.) For many years after 1987, I went along thinking that I had some "higher" teachings than those around me, but that other issues kept me from returning to the LRC. Then, over the course of a few months, I finally read the Godmen, and then the Thread of Gold. In the former, I saw some of the evidence of the cult-like characteristics. In the latter, I saw evidence of the abuses. And not just somewhere else, but right here in Texas.
And then I learned of a forum that discussed LRC issues (the predecessor forum in the Phillippines that covered all kinds of religious groups). That was about 2005. And bit-by-bit the remaining fog lifted. I began to see things more clearly. Eventually, unlike several others here who often talk about the positives of the LRC, I have concluded that there was really no legitimate positive to attribute to the LRC. Maybe to the people who were there, but not the LRC itself.
So when I hear/read some statement made about "bubbling-up," I have to question whether it is something truly of Christ or part of the environment of becoming excited — even sometimes euphoric — over anything that was said or read without any clear consideration of what it is that is exciting us.
Now I would agree that evidence of real oneness is something noteworthy. But when you discover that the oneness that is actually being addressed is only a closed oneness (oneness among a select few rather than the fullness of the body fo Christ) then I would have started to doubt the basis for my prior excitement.
And that is why I almost always start with skepticism about anything that continues to be remembered positively. Not because I want to pour cold water on everything, but because if you look closer, you might find that what it is you thought was positive was seriously infected with frogs an lice.
I am still a very strong believer. I admittedly do not toe every line of even the group that I meet with, but I have no real problem with them — or many/most others. But when the discussion gets into the theoretical side of things (Calvinism, eschatology, dispensationalism, etc.) I'm too often the one wondering how verse X is claimed to say something it just doesn't say. I was in a bible study last night where someone gave 5 or so verses that supported the basic Calvinist position on eternal security. But at least half of the verses don't say what they claim unless you start with the presumption that Calvinism is correct. Classic begging the question. You can't say something agrees with you because you have already asserted that its words mean differently because the premise is true. Like Lee's "God's economy" ruse to reinterpret so many things — or toss out whole sections of the Psalms, and most of James.
My journey to where I am now did not happen the day I left the LRC. It hadn't happened after 18 years. It may have happened by now (after 32 years) but I bet I still occasionally find errors in my thinking of some significance in the future.