Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiana
However you slice it, there is no escaping this fact -- some brothers have left us and started another, separate group. Some on our side are against your side. Some on your side are against our side. This is division. There is no other word for it. No matter how many good, solid, correct and utterly righteous reasons there may have been for it, some have formed a division. Above EVERY other sin, division is the worst! This you already know to be true. And we both have allowed our leaders to commit division. We cannot stand with them in this matter.
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This paragraph, within the context of a larger letter, expresses well the bondage WL placed us in. He identified so-called "division" as the worst sin of all. What a prison of fear to hold all the members of the LC! And I should add this is exactly the same indictment leveled by Rome against all the Reformers.
There is no way that we can honor the man of God, Martin Luther, for his mighty work of faith, and then condemn John Ingalls for the same actions. Both brothers acted for conscience' sake, in obedience to the word of God, against the perceived evils of their day. They left an aberrant and deteriorating system, and subsequently met with other like-minded believers. Both were condemned with starting a division.
The greatest division is to create a system which separates God from His people. To leave that system, with the goal of returning to the Lord and His word, cannot be condemned as a "division," any more than the Reformation could be. Why cannot those who leave the Recovery meet with other believers? WHY does LSM condemn them for simply following their conscience? Why does LSM demand that these ones live forever in isolation? Why does LSM continually distort the real reasons these ones have left?
These are the real questions we should be addressing.