“Can the Local Church Leadership Say, ‘We Were Wrong’?” (An Open Letter)

[ACuriousFellow]

Originally Posted by TLFisher

Thirteen years later and the answer still appears to be no. Until pride among the Local Church leadership is replaced with humility, I don't expect anything to change because the have no ministry of reconciliation. No matter how many years go by, I don't expect Local Church leadership to be repentant. I hope I am wrong, but this is how I feel.

Until they become willing to have open and frank discussion with current and former members in a very public way, there is really no chance. And I don't mean just some worthless articles on a few websites and some public statements by leaders at conferences. I mean ALL the congregations sitting down and really taking a hard look at everything that's happened over the years. Take a look at John Ingalls' testimony and the testimonies of others. John Myers, Jane Anderson, Andrea McArdle, Jo Casteel. HERE. Instead of all this "death" and "poison" nonsense, they can look at the testimonies of their brothers and sisters in Christ and really take the scriptures and use them to examine the so-called "Ministry."

When the narrative is controlled, people like Jo Casteel and John Ingalls will only ever be "rebels" who were "used by Satan" to "attack" the church rather than concerned brothers and sisters who are trying to open people's eyes and really make The Lord's Recovery a better place by dealing with their issues properly.

And of course the voices of outsiders like the ones that wrote the Open Letter, God bless them, will likely hold even less weight than the voices of current or former members. If you are current and speaking in such a way, you are contentious. If you are a former member speaking in such a way, you are leprous. If you are an outsider speaking in such a way, you are deformed and degraded.

It's that nonsense right there: that nonsense of shutting down critical thought needs to stop, and on a widespread scale. Most people can smell that SOMETHING is wrong, but don't want to take the time to really sit down and analyze it to identify what the problem is and to prepare REAL solutions for dealing with it rather than just "get out of your mind and eat Christ."

Until saints are willing to sit down and really take a hard look at what they're doing on a large scale, anyone who speaks up will just be another Ingalls or another Casteel. Poisoned, leprous, death-bringing rebels who should be ignored not because they're wrong but because "death."

Rightly was it written that "because of the increase of wickedness, the hearts of most will grow cold."