Idealism

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Freedom

One of the new articles is titled Being Overcomers with a Vision, Not Idealists with a Dream. In that article, there is an excerpt from a message that Ron gave. He states: "Related to the church, there is a difference between a visionary and an idealist. An idealist has an ideal of what the church is supposed to be, and when they first come into the church life, they think they have found utopia. But gradually they discover that the church with all the saints is not a perfect place." This is a perfect example as to how the LCM works to misconstrue the legitimate and valid reasons that has led former members to leave.

First of all, whether we were raised in the LC or joined later on, I think most of us were told at some point how things were "supposed to be." This was the "vision" that we were supposedly following. The cause for concern came about when the environment didn't match the so-called vision. So in reality, what Ron is really doing here is blame-shifting. The simple fact is that the LC has failed its members. Anyone who has dared to point that out is attacked as being disillusioned, critical, too idealistic, etc.

After my last post on the Shepherding Words thread, I thought that I would start a separate thread on this topic, because I believe that idealism is a fundamental flaw within the LCM as a whole. As I mentioned, Ron tries to characterize former members as being idealists. So maybe some of us did expect too much from the LC. But why was that? Were there just too many people who came into the LC with too high expectations? Was that really the issue? Or were those expectations developed based on what we were told?

I for one, thought that there was a "vision" that I was following. What did that "vision" encompass? It was a lot of things, it would be hard to define that in exact terms. But much of it involved what the LCM believed itself to be. Here are some examples of what I mean:
1) They believe that there exists a cookie-cutter path to unity.
2) They believe that their notion of unity is a achievable here and now.
3) They believe that their movement is a pinnacle of everything that has come before them.
4) They believe that their movement has been unduly persecuted and is destined to emerge and become overwhelmingly successful.

I'm sure the list could go on. All of these things represent overly idealistic notions and ideas that existed within the LC. Of course, we weren't allowed to question those things. We weren't allowed to doubt that the LC would be successful in the way that they said. Anyone who did so was labeled as someone who did not "see" the vision.

The position that so many former members have found themselves in has been that of simply recognizing and feeling the need to point out discrepancies that became apparent, and the LC criticizes former members for doing this, saying that it's not perfect. Here is another way to look at the issue. If the LC claims that it is following a certain "vision", but never lives up to that "vision", that would indicate one of two things: 1) The "vision" was never achievable in the first place or 2) The movement has failed itself. It could be combination of both as well, but either way, it is time for them to stop blaming others.