Quote:
Originally Posted by Gubei
You are speaking the same language with me now. It seems that you are the first brother who mentioned that - "You have developed concepts never spoken by LSM." To be honest with you, "unconditionally" is a bit hype because definitely the NT gave us a few cases in which we cannot accept other Christians - for example divisive ones.
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Brother
Gubei, these few scriptures about divisive ones have grown to monstrous proportions, including anyone deemed by LSM to "teach differently." Using the analogy of "contagious leprosy," all other attendants in close proximity suffer "guilt by association." Today's LC conflicts and resulting quarantines are plain unrecognizable to a reader of the N.T.
Hope, I believe, has rightly described the root problem in the LC's to be "the work." This concept pervades all LC thoughts, and since "the work" dictates the leadership and the direction of all LC's, the system cannot provide any self-correction. In this regard, the word "local" is a total farce. Show me one LC involved in "local" community good works. Thus, any good-hearted intentions at oneness, real local oneness, oneness on "the ground," are sabotaged by allegiances to "the work."
Until the matter of appointment of elders becomes congregational or local in nature, the LC's will always have leaders from afar wrestling for control. Many have said that the N.T. always has a plurality of elders and never has a single elder over many churches. It all sounds good, but GLA battles and lawsuits, without exception, were rooted in extra-local controls, whether ties to Cleveland or ties to Anaheim. "The work" appoints elders, relocates workers, and orchestrates all extra-local fellowships. No major decision is ever made just locally. As a result, all churches surrounding "the work" church become merely satellites to the "mother ship."