Individualism

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Many members were forced to choose between the account of Lee and that of Ingalls, based on reputation alone. Some followed Lee siding only with the majority. Personally, i never made any decision at the time since Titus Chu kept the information from us.

When i finally read Ingalls account in 2005, and compared the facts with Lee's record in Fermentation of the Present Rebellion, Lee suffered an incredible loss of respect due to the way he treated John, violated righteousness, and protected his profligate son Phillip, all the while sacrificing God's people, who dared to be faithful to their conscience Lee's actions could only be summarized by the KJV phrase "filthy lucre."

Individualism has been so heavily compromised in the LC, that it makes it hard for members to identify what the real issues are. Over the course of my life, again and again, I've seen people in the LC struggling. All too often, the specific problems that people are confronted with are not the problems that get addressed. An example of what I'm talking about is with something like Christmas. Lee lashed out against anything and everything related to it. But when I expressed my concern about LC attitudes regarding Christmas, I was met with a response "yeah some brothers are a bit too legalistic about it". Never was there an admission that Lee spoke to strongly or that his words were too closely followed. My point is that the real issues that I have been confronted with were always quickly skewed or wrongly attributed as different issues. I spent the majority of my time in an LC group environment, so never was there the opportunity for any kind of self-reflection or critical thought.

When I ventured out to the internet, I was met with different writings such as John Ingalls' account along with Nigel's and Steve's writings. Most of these writings discussed situations I knew nothing about. The only situation I was familiar with was the GLA quarantine, and that was only because they had called a meeting of all the Southern California LC's to issue the quarantine.

Anyways, what I discovered through the various writings that I read was that although the situations didn't have anything to do with me personally, they addressed problems that I had never really considered before. For example, exclusive use of LSM publications in the local churches. I had been doing that my whole life, but I had never considered if that was something reasonable or not. When I started getting clued into these abnormalities, I finally started to realize why I felt so bothered about the LC.

When I read John Ingall's account, it actually enlightened me to why I had certain experiences in my childhood. I grew up in the midst of the 80's situation, and there was family drama, even LC situations that happened as a result of that which I never understood. All the sudden it started to make sense why the LC has turned out to be what it is. I didn't read anything wanting to determine whose side to believe, I just wanted answers. I found the answers the LC/LSM couldn't provide. In my experience, finding answers has involved setting out on a path that is separated from the group environment of the LC, it has necessitated a good amount of individualism on my part. It made me realize why individualism is frowned upon so much in the LC.