Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
It isn't black and white. That's the whole issue. There was some good and some bad. I think you have the kind of mind that wants to categorize it as one or the other. Others are less comfortable doing that. Ohio is one. He feels like you are leaning on him a bit and he responded to you. Just take his feedback at face value, process it and see what the Lord says to you about it.
To me what makes the LCM such a difficult thing to deal with is precisely because it seemed to have such good things, alongside the bad things. Why the dichotomy? Didn't the Lord say a tree was either good or bad?
|
I'll not burden the post with a complete quote. We know what is there and responding to this part alone is sufficient.
I read both your post and Ohio's that follows before this. I will start by saying that I do believe that we need to seriously consider our experiences in the LCM. I cannot say that they are all bad, or that any particular one is. But the environment was so charged with teachings where something is dismissed for something else (because of God's economy or some other overlay), where we were constantly reminded of our special position due to our (divisive) stand of oneness "on the proper ground," and were focused to strongly on finding types of Christ (and the church) that were designed to point us away from now and instead to the age to come — to a period when we would be "overcomers" (unlike so many other poor mooing Christians) — and so on. How, in the midst of all of that can we assert that the "positive" experiences are clearly positive?
I will concede that some may truly be. But if they are not described independent of the problem that is the LCM, such as in conjunction with a statement like "the rich ministry of WL" or "WL was a gifted minister of the Word," then I have a problem with it. It has nothing to do with emotions.
You say that it isn't black and white. And I would agree. But once there are certain signs, Paul said to shut them down, not to cherry-pick.
Do you really think that anyone could get away with teaching entirely bad theology — then or now — and have a following? So none of them were entirely bad. But the presence of certain things was Pauls' sign to turn off the spigot. Not just take care of what you accept from their ministry.
In short, a teacher with a collection of good and bad was rejected as bad.
Period. End of story.
That was Paul's rule. Not mine.
Don't try to sort out the chicken from the bones. Or separate the wheat from the leaven.
Reject them altogether without reference to what they taught that might have been good.
Open the dumpster and drop it all in.
There are many more teachers that are not rejected. Whatever the rejected teacher taught that was good will come back from the good teachers. And if it does not come back, maybe we should take a closer look to see if it really was so good.
Every time we suggest that Lee was a gifted minster of the Word, we deny the reasons to reject him altogether.