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

[John]

Originally Posted by Terry

John, first what a pleasure it is to read your post. I will say my first reaction when I read your post was, WHAT! A need to know basis? Why?
If there was a definitive reason Jane needed discipline, that should have been told to the church.
When it's a need to know basis, one week a sister or couple could be very warm and receptive to Jane. The next week these ones become as a certain Levite or a certain priest crossing the road to avoid Jane. I want to know while Jane was being disciplined, WHO in the Church in Houston leadership ministered Christ to Jane with oil and wine [see Luke 10]?
As this is now 33 years later, some may say this is old news. This happened a long time ago. Local church elders may diminish the events as ancient history. On the contrary, this was an offense. An offense that does not have time constraints. As long as the parties are still alive, there are opportunities to repent. If not, leave it to the Judgment Seat. God will be the Judge. One way or another, there is resolution.

Terry,

For me, the phrase to highlight in your post is “should have been.” By reading the Bible, I think that most of us know what should have been done in the Local Church with various people in their different situations. Instead, the sheep were mistreated. If you have read Jane’s book, letters, and posts, you would, hopefully, realize that we have done our part in trying to address the issue from those years, but to no avail.

You asked “WHO” in the leadership ministered to Jane afterwards. I’m not sure if this was rhetorical or not, so the answer is: “None of them.” However, Jesus did minister to us. It was just really difficult to hear Him after being run over by the leaders and Jane being told that she was so far off base that she was basically following the devil.

I simply wrote to show that things are not always as they seem and maybe to show just a little bit about the inner workings of the system. Jane was actually very easy for the elders to control. She was compliant and obeyed them. If she had wanted to do the kinds of things she was accused of, she could have had quite an impact and caused them a lot of trouble. She had much influence with many, especially the young sisters. She was directed not to speak with anyone about the situation, and she didn’t.

We were left alone, only able to speak to God. Other than the day after, we didn’t even speak to each other about what occurred in the so-called “fellowship room” in 1977. It was too painful, and there was a huge conflict in each of us. That experience lasted for over two years in Houston and was the most miserable time of my life. When we went to Oklahoma City, the discipline followed us. There, she was not allowed to speak to a certain person or to be in a baby-sitting situation with her because that person had been involved with Jane. (To attend the meetings, we ended up paying for a sitter.) She accepted that discipline as well.

Some have come out on the forum to write that it was just not their experience. I understand when people like ZNPaaneah state that it wasn’t their experience in the church in some place and time. The people who say it wasn’t their experience, in fact, didn’t experience some horrible discipline and probably didn’t pay any attention to little things that might have given them a clue as to what was going on in the inner circle. I did the same for many years.

Most of us, I imagine, wanted to think the best of everyone and give them the benefit of the doubt, because this was the church, “God’s best.” I mean, after all, aren’t we brothers and sisters in the Lord? Isn’t that what first brought us into the Local Church? Etc.

If you didn’t experience the corruption or know someone that did, does this mean that the church in your place wasn’t influenced by leaders who had become corrupted within a corrupted system? At least as far as The Church in Houston was concerned, I know a little bit about how things were done, having arrived there with the initial migration. I would maintain that ZNPaaneah did experience the corruption, at least to some degree, but was unaware of it. It was as if he were in a body diseased with cancer: Whatever part of the body he was, wasn’t heavily impacted by the disease, but I can tell you for sure that some of us were very much impacted.

Anyway, Terry, thanks for your reply. I just used your post as a jumping off point to elaborate a little bit. I hope that I didn’t get too carried away and that you find my perspective helpful. (ZNPaaneah, I see that you have responded to the content of my earlier post while I was working on this one. I hope to be able to address your thoughts soon.)