SPLIT THREAD - Control and Addiction in the Local Church

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by djohnson

I'll accept that leaders have more responsibility

Well that's good of you since after all it is a major biblical theme

...regardless of the exact number some of it is squarely on their shoulders.

Nobody is saying that people are not to blame for their actions (that's a biblical theme as well). Maybe part of the recovery process for ex members should be a cold, hard assessment of how it is they fell pray to this kind of control, maybe helping them and their loved ones to avoid such pitfalls in the future. I understand fully why ex members are kind of resistant to this kind of painful introspection...it ain't real fun, especially when you are going it alone. Of course this is part of the need and value of this forum here, and it is a big motivation to keep it going

...If this fairy tale is never accepted in the first place then leaders can be held accountable and protocols with checks and balances can be put in place that protects followers from abusive leadership.

Nice afterthought my friend, but that is a whole lot of water that has already passed under the bridge for a whole lot of people. In my view it is not going to do anybody much good to start estimating how many gazillion gallons of water have passed through, but rather just issue the wake-up call and maybe help some people get the heck off of the bridge.

In any event, it is more then obvious that there was/is a whole lot of control, abuse and addiction issues taking place in the Local Church of Witness Lee. One would have hoped that when Lee passed along things would have gotten a bit better in this regard....and, unfortunately, we now know that one would have been dead wrong about this. It just goes to show you that when the "personality" of a personality cult (sect if you like) dies, the cult (sect) does not necessarily pass away in turn. This also goes to show you that the Local Church is something much more then just a church or group of churches, it is a religion, or to be more technical, a religious system. This particular system is not only fueled by doctrinal error (a real biggie to be sure), it is fueled by all kinds of control, abuse and addiction, which are all aspects of the modern human condition I'm afraid.

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