How Can This Forum Improve?

[Truth]

Thanks for inviting me to register. I am Current LC member, now registered as Truth.

I agree. All organizations should truthfully tell their history. However, you have to remember that the leaders' own view of their history is warped. So they think they are telling the truth when they are not. As an example, just look at the story of John Ingalls that perpetuates within the LC. If I hadn't know, I may have passed on the same story to others about how he was involved in a conspiracy. Now that we have the internet, we are all responsible for proper research before passing on falsehood.

[Cal]

Dear Truth,

Welcome!

I've seen these forums change over the years. Participants have grown and become more objective about their pasts. Four years ago you would have seen a lot of contention, sarcasm, arguments and outright accusation at the old BARM forum and even here. They updated the software at BARM and all the old posts went away. I don't know if those old posts were preserved anywhere. Some fretted about that, but honestly, some of those discussions were so contentious that it may have been a good thing that we started over here. There is more than enough content here now to make up for what was there.

We are learning as we are going. Some of us carried the pain of our LC past with us for years and only through these forums were able to deal with it. So a lot of festered pain was worked out in public. That's not the prettiest thing to see, but I think it was the only way for some.

We are seeing a new type of LCer on these forums. It used to be black and white: the angry, hurt ex-member versus the holier-than-thou, close-minded current member. Now we are starting to see current members who are more aware of the facts (thanks to the Internet maybe?), more open-minded, but still more or less happy in the LC.

To those I would say there is no reason their churches cannot go on successfully, but at the same time become friendlier members of the larger Christian community. It's the exclusive superiority complex of the LCs that needs to be dropped, and what is killing them. Now, I know initially LCers have a hard time seeing themselves as exclusive, because they've been taught to play these mental games about "standing for all believers." But the fact is if you say only your group deserves the description of "church," you are exclusive. Period.

But we are here to help people realize these things, and we are not above learning ourselves. We are all growing together, and whether we like it or not (and I think we all like it, at least in theory) the Lord still wants us to arrive at the unity of the faith.

Igzy