The LCS Factor

[John]

Originally Posted by djohnson

I have learned that among those who grew up in the LCS many face social issues. Some that I am familiar with are: alcoholism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, divorce, paying for sex i.e. engaging in services of prostitutes, infidelity, porn addiction.
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My question is: what role, if any, do you think the LCS played in the development of these behaviors?

You ask what role the Local Church System played in causing those who grew up in the LCs to fall into sin, especially sexual sin.

I think that one reason is this: Witness Lee was a tyrant. He only cared about himself. This caused him to create a church system that was devoid of love. He had almost no care for a proper Christian family, and almost never spoke on the topic. His messages emphasized being zealous for imbibing the processed God for growth into a corporate god. His actions behind the scenes also show that he was caught up with the love of money.

With this dark background in place, what would we expect to find in his offspring. His sons exemplify the lust for power, sex, and money. This is the way the leader of the movement walked, and his sons reflected that. Now, on to his spiritual sons. What do we see in many of the leaders. I don’t need to recount the examples. Both forums are replete with some of the sins of some of the leaders.

What happens to children who are not loved? What happens when children realize that their father and mother love Witness Lee and the Local Church more than them? Those children do not grow up properly. They become angry and fall into destructive behaviors. I’m guessing that many are doing those things hoping to find love. (For children looking for love, many do fall into sexual sins.)

In my previous post, I responded to the mention of the James Barber situation in The Church in Oklahoma City. Here was a man who looked to Witness Lee as a father figure. He ignored needs of his wife and sons while he pursued his love of himself by trying to impress Lee. When Lee abused him in trainings, he returned home to abuse his family. Now, the sons have difficult lives because of the lack of care by their father.

I also mentioned about another former Local Church leader who mistreated his children. Even though they are all out of the Local Churches now, the system is not out of the father. The children still struggle because of his ongoing mistreatment. For him, all is well because he is pursuing God. He still dwells in Lee’s realm of unreality, floating around in the clouds of high visions and so forth. Meanwhile, his own family is suffering on the earth.

There is a reason why Paul issued some of those practical commands in his epistles. It was so we could know if our spirituality was real. For example:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Eph 6:4)

For many Local Church fathers, the verse in Ephesians, if we bothered to pay any attention to it at all, didn’t have the word nurture in it. It only had admonition. And, for still others, who basically ignored their children, it didn’t even have the word admonition.

It may be like the “preacher’s kid” phenomenon, where the son of the preacher was the most rebellious one in the church. Well, in the LC, it was as if every child was a preacher’s kid. Most of the adults were 100 percent committed to the program, and it was a 24/7 program.

When I was in The Local Church, children were just as expendable as adults. I don’t recall fathers taking time out to spend with their children. We were too busy in the Lord’s army. We gave everything and everyone for the cause.

It was a sad and loveless place, a very abnormal place for children.