What about the Children?

[NeitherFirstnorLast]

Good evening all,

I recently came back to this site, after a hiatus of perhaps a year. What brought me back was a call from a brother in Christ who had a run-in with a Local Church member, and that brought me to recommending that this brother check out Local Church Discussions to find out more about what was behind that little Bibles for Canada Recovery Version that was thrust into his hands. Somehow, since dropping by here again, I find myself once more posting and thinking about my own time in the LC... and that's what's brought up this topic.

I mentioned in another thread that, from a brief survey of posters, I am of a more recent 'generation' of LSM than many here. I wasn't part of "The Recoverys" glory days I hear tell of in the 70's... and I think that maybe gives me a different perspective than those of you who enjoyed something that seemed... I don't know, 'radically real', back then? What I've seen, instead, is the fruit that grew up out what became real radicalism within LSM. And that brings me to the burden of this topic:

What about the Children?

I mentioned in another post that I had heard about LSM's "lost generation" - I'd heard about it when I was a member, from other members. A turmoil that caused a generation of LC kids to leave Lee's church. I heard those members talk about how it caused them to change direction - to invest more in their own children... and I saw that too. In my "locality", many LC kids were homeschooled. Their families only associated with other LC families - you know how the LC is; it's a whole way of life. In some ways, this can look like a beautiful picture of what parenting and shepherding is supposed to be... but is it?

What turmoil lost the generation? When did the "New Way" occur? Could the two be related? What was it really like back in the 'glory days', when there was no Recovery Version, when there were credits in the hymnals for the authors of the hymn, when administration was truly local, when the sharing was from the Bible, and not from footnotes and life studies and HWMRs?

We've debated in other posts the validity of calling the LC a cult. I don't mean to get back to that debate here, but I would say that something a cult does is mold your thinking. It changes a persons character - conforms it from it's natural individuality to a 'type'... and that's happened in the LC. People talk oddly. They use unnatural language to say plain things, and they use it because they hear it and they read it and they speak it to eachother continuously. It becomes really quite odd, especially as you distance yourself from it... but I digress.

My point is, a culture was created by Lee - a very unique culture that purposely set itself apart from Christianity and all other Christians. What I want to explore in this thread, is what has that done to the children raised in that culture?

We post a lot of "facts" about LSM - some do it to expose to others who may be lurking exactly what the real facts are. Some do it to examine the evidence for themselves... and some may simply yet bare a grudge or have a burden they cannot yet lay down. Myself, I write to expose to other potential LSM-converts exactly what the facts are.... but again, what about the children?

LSM children are raised in a culture that teaches them that they alone are a part of the Body of Christ (lurkers, you can say I cannot prove this by Lee's writing - but the spirit of what was written is surely there and this interpretation is taken by many within the movement). LSM children are taught that there is a specific way to pray (honestly, an LSM unique way). LSM children are taught to have disdain for those with Pastoral gifts (a disavowel of Ephesians 4:11). LSM children are taught to pray read the Bible rather than read it, to use their feelings rather than their mind to understand God, to trust in an interpreter for the Word rather than the Word of God itself, and to use language no other Christian on Earth would use (can anyone here tell me why folks in my locality would spontaneously shout out "Thank you Jesus you're small enough to eat"? 'Cause they sure couldn't.) What kind of a "christian" is LSM building these little people into being?

I've written here an intro for your thoughts, and I welcome them. I think this is especially important to consider, given that LSM's current membership (atleast in the localities I have visited) is largely second and third generation at this point.... very different from where many of us started, as once-outsiders looking in.

Ray