[Cal]

RE: Ohio and OBW discussion.

Saying you got some good out of something is not the same as recommending it to others. I probably have gotten some good from Taco Bell, but I wouldn't go around recommending it because there are better restaurants.

Most of us got some good from the LCM, some of which may have been difficult to get elsewhere. The basic healthy teachings of the Brethren and the inner life teachers are only recently finding their way into the mainstream, forty years after we heard them.

What I still take with me from the LCM that is precious is that God is in me as the Spirit close and available with all his Triune riches for me to enjoy. I'm not saying you couldn't get something similar somewhere else now, but you'd probably have to wait or dig for it. I also got a great appreciation of the generality of the Church and the equal status of the members. The idea of generality is now in the mainstream, but only with the advent of the community church movement, which is only about 20 or so years old.

Now, both these things eventually got distorted in the LCM, almost beyond recognition. But that didn't stop God from impressing me with the essential TRUTH of these matters and of others, which has remained after the dross of unnecessary LCM enhancements was burned away.

Like I said, saying you got good out of something is not the same as recommending it. Anyway, the LCM I got good out of doesn't exist anymore, so I couldn't recommend it if I wanted to.