God in Life and Nature... Oh Really?

[Bradley]

I don't know if you guys have the same experience as me but even though I'm so much happier out of the LC and have no intention of ever returning, I sometimes get these irrational fears that somehow I'm spiritually completely screwed now, having gotten off the 'ark' that they were building. Like I've shot myself in the foot and now I'm destined for outer darkness - or is it just cult indoctrination, trying to shake off scare tactics that worked so well to keep me in the group for so long?

So I stop to consider. If they really were what they said they were, if they were today's ark etc, then there should be some testimony. A lampstand is supposed to have light on it. If they really are becoming God in life and nature, then they should, on average, be better people than others who are not God in life and nature.

But I don't see that. I see a lot of people refraining from doing fun things (that they consider 'worldly') but anyone can do that, thats just self-discipline. I see people who are really zealous and passionate about their faith and thats nice, but I know passionate Muslims, doesn't mean anything.

God is love. If they were becoming God they would be becoming love, like hardcore agape love. They'd be super-loving people. All I can see though is some spiritually arrogant religious people

When I left my ex wife because she was abusive, I have never been so badly treated by so many people at once for such unreasonable reasons and with such unreasonable demands. I was told by many different people that it doesn't matter if she is abusive, or that there was no sex in our marriage, or that she made me absolutely miserable. I can't get divorced, period. I should either return to my ex or stay separated and single. I should never have a relationship with another woman, i.e. I should be lonely and celibate for the rest of my life.

Fortunately I was surrounded by loving and supportive people during this time, friends and family (who were not 'God in life and nature') without whom I could never have healed so well. I never received anything but kindness and support from anyone who wasn't in the LC. That's what caused me to realise that the LC loved me no more than my ex did, and treated me about the same - so I left them too, like another abusive spouse. Whenever I wonder whether I made the right decision or not I just remember this.

A few months ago I had what Pink Floyd calls a 'momentary lapse of reason' and freaked out, thinking I made a mistake in leaving the local church - so I contacted a well-known coworker and asked him for help. He couldn't care less about my situation. He just brushed me off and told me to repent and return to my ex. He goes from country to country holding conferences and trainings, but when a person he's known for almost a decade comes to him asking him desperately for help with his Christian life, he shrugs him off like the priest and the levite did to the dying man in Luke 10, he didn't have five minutes to think of some advice.

If the 'saints' in the 'recovery' were becoming God in life and nature, by definition they would be more loving than 'worldly' people. Or at the very least, equal to? But not less than. Oh but thats just the laymen, what about the high authority big brothers who run the show? Nope just as bad. One leading brother told me that if a brother beat his wife, she shouldn't leave him but she should just pray for him to repent.

Of course, God is not just love, he's righteousness. Maybe it'd be okay for everybody to come down on me like a tonne of bricks if I was the bad guy and I was doing a terrible thing, like they're expressing God in His righteousness. But its not like I cheated on my ex because she was flat-chested, that wasn't what happened. She threatened to kill me and I left her because I feared for my safety. Not the same ballpark. But nobody seems to be giving her a hard time for that, they're all on her side like she's some kind of victim.

It seems to me that if they're becoming God in life and nature, they're becoming the Old Testament God who flooded the world, burned Sodom to the ground, sent plagues to slaughter the Egyptians and fiery serpents to bite His people.