Questions and Concerns for Current and Former LC Members

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Nell

What about the "church kids"? What about those who were raised in the LC and find themselves tortured by what was foisted upon them by others beyond their control? Honestly, I don't know. Some of us made a choice to believe a lie and some of us were taught from childhood to believe a lie.

I don't know that the solution would be different for church kids than it would be for those of us who came to the LC as adults. I don't think it would be a mistake to confess and repent for being deceived as a child. The woman gave a simple answer which is likely the best possible answer.

Like the woman, I also was deceived by the serpent. I repented for my sin. I often pray even now, "Lord, please don't let me be deceived." I don't hold Lee and the LC responsible for what I did. This doesn't let them off the hook. Lee, et al, are in God's hands now...not mine.

Originally Posted by Curious

Dear Nell,

I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying here. ......

Even if we were brainwashed as children, we are still sinners by nature, owning that means willingness to have a repentant heart. The alternative is fueling our sense of being a victim which does not lead us to trust Jesus.

As a church kid myself, I am not sure I agree here. Adam was told explicitly what not to do, and Eve, although not told directly according to the record in Genesis, had full knowledge of what was not allowed, even going so far as to add prohibition on top of prohibition ("not even to touch it"). They both knew what was right and what was wrong. Given that backdrop, Eve was still deceived and Adam still chose to disobey.

Church kids, however, are taught skewed "rights and wrongs". They don't have the external grounding of truth to which they can compare what they are in. The lies are taught to them as the truth. The lies are even represented as coming from God. Church kids are deceived, yes, but not willfully any way you cut it. Many of them spend their childhood years trying to understand why what is spoken doesn't match up with their surroundings, oftentimes while not even realizing that that's what's going on (in other words, they just know "something's off", but they don't know that there is this mis-match), and have a traumatized mind because of it.

It's spiritual abuse, and in some senses it's also mental abuse because the hypocrisy and double-speak ends up creating an environment where they are being told one thing while living another and yet no one will acknowledge it's happening.

To find out you've been deceived in this way for your whole life is a penetrating shock to the system, the shock waves of which reverberate for a long, long time. If church kids need to repent for being spiritually abused, I just can't get on board with that.

(I know you're not saying church kids must/need/have to repent, rather you seem to be saying, essentially "there's no harm in repenting", but as a church kid whose guilt-meter is also screwed up by being made to feel bad for doing normal human things (having friends, hobbies, smiling, laughing, enjoying music, etc), I'm also very sensitive to the implication that I should repent for something I in no way need to repent for.)