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[OBW]

Originally Posted by aron

Were 'christianity', if I may use the word loosely, doing a good job at discussing God's salvation in Jesus Christ, then there wouldn't be so many of us christians lured into traps like Lee's "recovery church" in the first place.

I understand what you are saying. But at some level I am not sure that there is not a propensity for certain people to be more easily attracted to certain kinds of things, and others to other kinds of things. And sometimes, it is the fact that it is "different" that is the attraction. For the "seeking" Christian, anything that is not where I am might be attractive. And the more different from what I have seen before the greater the attraction.

Acknowledging that there are those whose sojourn in the LRC was by birth, or because they were with their spouse/family, most of us were looking for something more meaningful than what we were getting at the time in our various places. And, like I mentioned earlier, if you managed to come in contact with the LRC, there was an appeal due to the community. So if you didn't hear anything too radical too quickly, you got desensitized to the extremes in stages — like the frog in the kettle.

And while I do not simply say that the appealing things were wrong (they certainly were not for the most part), our propensity now is too often to use our experience with the LRC as a benchmark for anything Christian. After much consideration of the erroneous teachings, and the ways that even the culture allowed things to go awry, I am quite done with the LRC experience benchmark.

The feelings do not change the facts (a line from a supplement song). The song's follow-on was always "Jesus is Lord of all." And that is true. But the feelings also do not make things right. The camaraderie of the community does not overcome the poisonous teachings against our Christian brothers and sisters.

And if you can find the camaraderie and "feeling" in a wholesome environment, that is great. But that is not the goal of Christian fellowship. Or of the church. It is the propagation of the gospel and the building up of the believers. And the building up of the believers is not just church stuff. Or "spiritual" stuff. It is the change in lives in the "marketplace" — the mall, neighborhood, parks, at work, etc. And the change in lives is not exuberance. Or a lot of "calling on the Lord" — although that can happen. It surely is not in learning better and better teachings while using a more and more bizarre lexicon.

On the whole, a fairly sizable group of good Christians have been tricked into giving their lives to propagate a ministry. To defend separation from other Christians — and the denigration of those Christians.

One of our former participants here is still enamored with what he learned from "The Experience of Life." But if it does not change anything but our religious experience, I don't think it is the "life that is really life." That life changes everything, not just spiritual stuff. It doesn't just affect our worship and meetings. It affects our interaction with everyone. Even the heathen.

And if the fruit that James talks of is not found, it is not true faith or belief. And despite Lee's claims otherwise, I believe that reading Paul actually comes to the same conclusion — just in a different way.