Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
My experience in the LC has left me with a big realization about the ground of locality. It has become a complete joke. Not that it wasn't so already, but besides the doctrinal aspects of the teaching, the contradictions regarding the practice of the teaching are just too obvious. Some members will regularly meet in a LC located in a city that they don’t live in. Members get offended and meet with a neighboring LC. Some LC’s meet “sub locally” (in districts). Basically, the whole notion and practice of the ground is nominal. They claim to adhere to locality, but in reality, they have thoroughly deviated from it. They will rationalize this deviation in all kinds of ways...
... WL stated that ‘standing’ is more important that ‘condition’. The implication of this is that as long as you have the proper 'standing', then everything goes. Members everywhere were taught to believe that because they were practicing locality, everything else would be fine and work itself out. This allowed WL to do questionable things, to allow questionable people to run his ministry office and none of this was supposed to be viewed a problem. This also meant that no one would dare speak up or leave, or else they risk losing the “proper standing” of being in the local church.
I believe that this is a trap for current members. My experience was that my LC was constantly declining in condition. I know other members who have felt that way too. In spite of this, no one speaks up. Why is this? Are they really that afraid of the confrontation that might follow, or they just couldn’t handle possibly being kicked out, thus being forced to meet somewhere not practicing WL’s ground of locality? I'm afraid that for many, the answer might be the latter. Some members are so thoroughly convinced that the only correct standing is that of locality, that they might be willing to tolerate an unreasonable amount of nonsense for the sake of locality.
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A couple of comments on the disconnect which follows placing the basis of the existence of your Christian fellowship upon a nebulous 'ground' that risks being continually redefined by leadership.
First is that the condition, so-called, of the non LC churches is incessantly harped upon. I left the LC, went back to Christianity, and couldn't stop the constant critical thoughts in my head: every Christian meeting, I found the doctrine deficient (no God's economy?@!), or the singing horrible, or the preacher ignorant, or the congregation lethargic, or whatever. I couldn't get past the condition, so-called, to see that God loves these people. It took me years to humble myself and realize that my doctrines didn't make me, or anyone, more special in God's eyes. Can you get through 3 LC meetings without someone bringing up the poor condition of fallen Christianity? I doubt it.
Yet when considering the deficiencies of the LC, suddenly we're told that God sees no wrong. Hypocrisy.
The second point, going toward what Freedom writes of above, is the image of LC churches "taking the ground", but the actuality was not in the city but in the suburbs. Nobody wanted to send their kids to inner-city schools, so "taking the cities of the earth" meant setting up shop in the more hospitable suburbs, and giving the "church in ..." some obscure name that nobody has heard of. The Church in Dun Loring? What's that? What that is, is that nobody wanted to go to Baltimore, or Washington DC. They just wanted to pretend to take the cities of the earth.