[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

I know what you mean. We all attempted to tow the line of LC legalism with such things, because we thought it was being genuinely spiritual. I never even saw anyone have just one glass of wine or a beer (except one Aussie bro I knew, who was completely unreligious). After experiencing freedom from these kind of legal notions over the past 20 years, with no one putting their expectations on me, I see how legalistic and enslaving it all was! For instance, now if some of us bros go out for a little fellowship and someone orders a beer (almost always just one, BTW), no one thinks anything about it. If someone sees a really good movie (sometimes a Christian movie, sometimes not), we often hear about it from them. Because we all know we have the real freedom in Christ to do so. (but also, not all things are "profitable" to share)

However, let me add, that sometimes brothers now also talk about how they personally are being carried away with too much "entertainment," and on occasion ask for prayer about that. Great - we have the freedom to be open and candid with each other about such things! To me, this is a healthy Christian environment. This reminds me a little of what CS Lewis talked about -the relationship he had with other bros in their little group, which they fondly called the "Inklings" (because many of them were writers, who included such folks as JR Tolkien). They'd have a beer together, smoke a cigar and fellowship about their Christian life, the world, etc.

If only I saw the freedom in Christ then according to what I see now . . .

Especially because I grew up in the LC, I really didn't know any better when it came to a lot of the legalism. I though that such things were necessary for spirituality. And I think that even when I did question things, I still took the LC seriously. It never made any sense to me that if people really believed the LC to be what it claims to be, they why would there be so many members that were not really all that serious about it. What became apparent later on was that many people were just along for the ride. They already knew better than to go along with some of the extremes, but they also knew better than to vocalize that.