Intro of an ex "Church Kid"

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by kappagamma

Really intrigued to know if there are others here who have been through the FTT and found it to remove a veil rather than adding one?

While I don't have hard evidence, I can just add to the mix anecdotally. Graduated FTT trainees have told me "you'd be surprised how many people leave the church after going to the training."

Originally Posted by kappagamma

Being raised this way is very different and the beliefs instilled from youth are ingrained into who we are - it's not as easy as just leaving a movement. You literally are removing threads from the fabric of your identity. I am not sure, for that reason, that this forum is particularly the right place for me or not but it's better than nothing.

This is very well said; you express yourself very well. I hope you stick around at least some and contribute. Many church kids need to hear from other church kids.

Originally Posted by kappagamma

That being said I am very happy to have left this movement, even at some personal cost, and have some basic reasons:
1) Witness Lee died a long time ago. We were fed the line "standing on shoulders" year after year after year and I am highly skeptical that circa 1997 the "high peak" was reached and there is no growth/revelation left to attain. It has been 22 years. The world has changed, technology has changed, but God hasn't? I don't think so.

Based on the FB post pointing to the assertion that Lee actually plagiarized footnotes and insights from other authors without citing them, I have come to the conclusion that one reason he is passed off as "standing on others' shoulders" is to discourage everyone from reading other people's stuff so they don't find out that Lee did not come up with as much as he says he did!

Originally Posted by kappagamma

3) Performance. I've known - and been myself- one who knew what to say and how to say it and when to say it in meetings of the LC and felt nothing on the inside. No thanks. I don't want to belong to an organization that says they are outside of religion and culture but very clearly has one all of its own. We all know it does. We all know what we are supposed to do and say or not do and not say. Fake. I don't like acting and didn't want to do it anymore.

Every church kid understands this painfully well. We are, out of necessity, pros at acting and faking it.

Originally Posted by kappagamma

4) Suppression of identity. This ties to #3 some but I would say that I feel like a shell of the person I'm supposed to be because individuality was so suppressed. Is this sentiment shared by anyone else? I feel so damaged being raised in this environment.

Again, please stick around. If you have more to say on this, please say it. This is a big thing for so many church kids, both brothers and sisters, that I have talked to. It is one of the things that makes leaving so difficult. The entire local church culture, vocabulary, culture, and way of life becomes your identity. Leaving it forces you to face the terrifying reality that you are.......blank otherwise. It is not God's intention for us as human beings to be blank and empty shells. Even just speaking of how you feel damaged, expressing it with words, can help both yourself and others.

Originally Posted by kappagamma

5) Purity culture. Unhealthy level of separation between male/female. I'm not saying that a church has should embrace immorality but there are healthy ways to teach interaction between the sexes and unhealthy ones. LC doesn't do it right and the impact it has had within the LC and other evangelical groups is real and documented. Really good books out there to read on this subject.

Can you mention some of the books? My level of separation was damagingly overemphasized and continues to affect me to this day. It helps to know and see what healthy ways are.

Originally Posted by kappagamma

...I'm still happy to have left and hope that the current wave of malcontent helps solidify thought & action in others the way it has for me. Even if no one else leaves the LC because of it, if it provides some peace for those of us who have left then that is a good thing, too.

Glad you have a greater level of peace and that you decided to share your story.

Trapped

[HERn]

Hi KG! Thanks for posting. More than one-half of my grandkids our essentially LC church kids, but they are in a locality with less strict rules. The boys wear fades w really curley top hair, roller blade, and wear normal teenage clothes. I just spent a week with them and they never mentioned WL the LC or the LR, they did mention their YP meeting. Even though they are in the WL sect called the LC they are normal. I know three kids of one of WL grandchild that have left the recovery and seem to be doing well socially and emotionally. They post on FB, but are much younger than me. I don't know where they are spiritually.

[HERn]

My point was to encourage you not to give up, there are brothers and sisters in Christ (non-LC) that will care for you and help you make the transition out of the LC meat grinder. I'm still recovering from the recovery. The extraction is painful, but it does subside. I returned to a church where the pastors where true sheperds caring for the flock, rather than promoting the selling of books.

[RambleOn]

I, for one, appreciate that you didn't have to have experienced horrible trauma or abuse in order to still be dissatisfied and leave. Much more relatable. It sounds like some people have gone through some terrible ordeals in various LCs, but that wasn't what caused me to leave, nor was it the ugly scandals and skeletons in closets from decades ago. Those are important historical episodes to be sure, but they weren't directly relevant to my experience as an LCer, and I didn't know about most of them until I was already emotionally disconnected enough to begin researching on my own anyway.

I think it's refreshing for church kids like me to hear about people who simply came to the realization that they'd outgrown this particular movement, and just left. It's not a given that you'd need to be damaged in order to find leaving attractive. Because in speaking with some people who still do meet, that seems to be their appraisal of anyone who stops meeting, and especially of those who have been publicly speaking out. The default is to jump into ad hominem attacks in order to explain the negative experience. "I've always thought he seemed a little off," or "yes she's always struck me as a wounded soul..." And while, yes, many of us have gone through some tough experiences in life (find a group for whom that wouldn't be true), the presumption that the healthy default is to stay is itself an insidious form of social pressure, because who wants to admit to being all the nasty things they've always heard about others who have left before?

I remember a few years ago, EM was speaking at an international conference, and he told this anecdote of a young couple who had decided to stop meeting with the LCs, and EM had asked them why, and they had told him, "because we aren't happy here." EM said his response was, "well how about what makes God happy?" Talk about presumptuous, first of all, but secondly, I found that to be very telling, that people are to be expected to disregard their personal happiness and peace of mind for the benefit of the collective, on the basis of a strained interpretation of the proper ground of meeting. Then the more you learn about the divisiveness, lawsuits, attacks, quarantines, excommunications etc, the more you shake your head at the self-serving hypocrisy. God is made happy when his saints meet on the local ground, because that way there is nothing to divide them, and what that looks like is they are going to sue each other for assets, close down churches, and send in their own people to those cities, because that's "oneness." Double-plus-good.

Anyway, that's a tangent, but the point is, I think it's okay to simply say, You know I grew up meeting with the LCs, and I love many of the people there, but bottom line is I just wasn't happy, so I won't be going anymore.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by RambleOn

I remember a few years ago, EM was speaking at an international conference, and he told this anecdote of a young couple who had decided to stop meeting with the LCs, and EM had asked them why, and they had told him, "because we aren't happy here." EM said his response was, "well how about what makes God happy?" Talk about presumptuous ...

Not a bad answer from EM. Apostle Paul said, "we are ambitious to be pleasing to Him." I would think all serious Christians would have this thought in mind.

What is presumptuous, however, is that the Recovery is pleasing to Him, or even worse, that only the Recovery is pleasing to Him. And that is EM's mindset, whether he says it of not.

[kappagamma]

Originally Posted by Trapped

Can you mention some of the books? My level of separation was damagingly overemphasized and continues to affect me to this day. It helps to know and see what healthy ways are.

Trapped

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein

link to the interview: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/64873...es-as-a-threat

This is the first one I read. I heard an interview with the author one day on the radio while I was driving to work and was left reeling. I had never heard the term "purity culture" before and was so grateful to hear that this was a thing and it explained so much of what I had struggled with even now married for almost a decade. While I had already stopped meeting physically several years ago this has played a large role in the inward shift away from the LC, and to be honest, probably any other evangelical group as well. I can't risk my children being subjected to the same thing. Therapy and learning what should have been learned a long time ago is the only thing I know of that has helped me so far to combat the reactions so many females raised this way have toward the opposite sex. Be it shame or the opposite I think both are indicative of this type of upbringing and result in religious trauma. There's some good info online if you search "purity culture."

[awareness]

Originally Posted by kappagamma

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein

link to the interview: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/64873...es-as-a-threat

Thanks for this link kappagamma. I found it both interesting and informative :

"Memoirist: Evangelical Purity Movement Sees Women's Bodies As A 'Threat'"

In their defense, they get that women's bodies are a threat from the Bible.

But I think it is way past and high time that we break free from the patriarchal ways of the long ago ancient days, ways, and cultures, of antiquity.

After all, those were the days when the kings were considered God's representative on earth -- Caesar Augustus was said to be god -- ... and well ... that is what Lee was suppose to be. So maybe there's a link between those claiming to be God, or His one and only rep. and spokesperson, and the oppression of women in general.

I hold little hope for those adhering strictly and literally to the Bible to break free of the old patriarchal ways. All my life I seen what the Bible does to women (they are all Eve's -- that are to blame for Jesus having to die on the cross). In fact, there have been times, in my recent past, when my jaw has literally dropped at witnessing it from the preacher toward a sister(s). It's down right freaky in my book ; it's way too fanatical for my taste. And they don't want to hear : "In Christ there's no male or female." I've tried it.

As I see it, the only way for a sister to get free, gain self respect, and a healthy view of herself, is to walk away from such groups. In general, cults are brutal towards girls and women. Flee them ASAP.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by awareness

"Memoirist: Evangelical Purity Movement Sees Women's Bodies As A 'Threat'"

In their defense, they get that women's bodies are a threat from the Bible.

***********************

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by awareness

In their defense, they get that women's bodies are a threat from the Bible.

Harold, only someone who gets his biblical theology from Google, Wikipedia and National Public Radio would ever utter such nonsense. The Bible teaches no such thing. The New Testament teaches no such thing. I definitely can see where our dear women/sisters who have been in the Local Church of Witness Lee would have such a concept or understanding. After all, the Local Church is deeply steeped in ancient Chinese/Asian culture, and this kind of understanding/concepts/tradition definitely comes out of the Asian culture. And yes, such a view of women and their socioreligous status/function has definitely influenced certain Christian traditions since the beginning...but the influences are not coming from the Scriptures, but from the sinful and selfish hearts and minds of ignorant people. Sometimes these sinful, selfish and ignorant people just happen to be Christian men.

I hold little hope for those adhering strictly and literally to the Bible to break free of the old patriarchal ways. All my life I seen what the Bible does to women (they are all Eve's -- that are to blame for Jesus having to die on the cross

Whether one adheres strictly and literally to the Bible is irrelevant to anything you are saying. THE BIBLE TEACHES NO SUCH THING. The Gospel never even faintly implies that women "are to blame for Jesus having to die on the cross". Where did you come up with such silly nonsense? Did your acting god Bart Ehrman put this into your little head? Maybe Witness Lee taught such a thing, but that would be just another good reason this forum exists.
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[Raptor]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Where did you come up with such silly nonsense? that: "women.....are to blame for Jesus having to die on the cross".
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it probably comes from using steroids to push the thought that Eve partook of the TKGE first, tricked Adam and therefore caused the fall, forcing Jesus to come and die to for us. But where was Adam when the serpent came knocking? ....watching the game? He should have taken the lead to eat the ToL first, given some to Eve, and then trampled on the head of the serpent when it peeked through the door....

Rom. 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

By the way UntoHim....you have a private message.....

[awareness]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Where did you come up with such silly nonsense? Did your acting god Bart Ehrman put this into your little head? Maybe Witness Lee taught such a thing, but that would be just another good reason this forum exists.
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I came up with it from long ago in the Southern Baptist church. And also, rather recently in the Church of Christ (Campbellites). I also heard it a year or so ago from a extended Southern Baptist family member. I have no clue if Ehrman ever addresses Eve in such away. Your pejorative dismissed, he's smarter than that. Plus, he's not an inerrantist. Not to say he hasn't textually critically examined women in the NT.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

I would say for this matter to be thoroughly determined would require its own thread. However, since LCD membership is mostly male, I doubt it'd get a balanced exposition.

[byHismercy]

Originally Posted by awareness

I would say for this matter to be thoroughly determined would require its own thread. However, since LCD membership is mostly male, I doubt it'd get a balanced exposition.

Harold, in the interest of a healthy balance, I can give my experience....I HAVE heard such a teaching, from the LC, but I didn't receive it. Or believe into it....because I never, ever got that from the Lord, nor the word. And the discouragement doesn't come from just the LC denomination.....and it is not only meant for women. Satan would have us all, brothers and sisters alike, discouraged in such a way. But satan can sit under Jesus the Lords feet, where he belongs. Be encouraged, Harold! God is faithful when we cannot be. Bless you!

byHismercy

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

I came up with it from long ago in the Southern Baptist church. And also, rather recently in the Church of Christ (Campbellites). I also heard it a year or so ago from a extended Southern Baptist family member...

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Interesting how those looking for ammo to control and suppress others will cite Paul and not Jesus. My own take is this: Jesus offered freedom. Freedom from sin, from fear, alienation. Even death itself stood down.

And freedom was offered to all. And especially, to those who were pushed down.

Now, Paul came along, and had to remind these newly-liberated folks to respect established social convention. Women still had to respect their husbands, children their parents, slaves their masters. "Do not turn your freedom in Christ into an opportunity for societal upheaval & chaos". Peter also touched this theme: "Although we have but one king, Jesus, we respect the earthly kings who are here for our protection"

But 2,000 years later, social conventions have changed. Slavery is abolished, and women have equality. Except in some fundamentalist sects.

But if you think Christians have grounds for a two-tiered faith, look at Jesus with Martha and Mary. They were engaged and actualized peers, in every sense of the word. (Again, understand the social conventions of those times).

The implications of Mary/Martha/Lazarus and their relations with Jesus, apart from intermediaries like the Twelve, are often ignored, even studiously so. Mary's inferred to be a shy, wilting lily, the prototypical back-row sister... "Oh, she just loved the Lord". No, try again. You missed that one by a country mile. Your word "just" was snuck in, even deliberately, and has no place in that sentence. It's veiled and suppressive cult-speak.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by awareness

I came up with it from long ago in the Southern Baptist church. And also, rather recently in the Church of Christ (Campbellites). I also heard it a year or so ago from a extended Southern Baptist family member.

Excellent! Thank you for making my point for me. These notions do NOT come from the Bible. They come from the desperately wicked and evil heart of sinful and ignorant men. When taken as a whole, the Bible actually shows us quite an opposite portrayal and view of men and women, and their relationship to each other, and to God. The simple fact is that Witness Lee, in his teachings and established practices, continued on with a long line of Christian teachers that have corrupted the beautiful and godly relationship between men and women. Unfortunately, Lee and his followers have been quite successful in cloaking Chinese/Asian culture for "the God ordained way".

I would say for this matter to be thoroughly determined would require its own thread. However, since LCD membership is mostly male, I doubt it'd get a balanced exposition.

Good point. But happily, most of our newest members are women/sisters...so hang on to your hats fellows...the balance of power is about to be shifted around this ole popcorn stand
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[Ohio]

Originally Posted by awareness

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I had a post similar to UntoHim's post, but I deleted it.


It's just getting old bro. Just getting old ...........................