Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
As I have become aware of the Texas dynamics in the early days of the LC, it has helped me to better understand why the LC turned out the way that it did. Something that James mentioned is how so many of the Texas brothers knew each other at Wayland Baptist College. Apparently a large group of students came into the LC from this college. I think that this is an important detail in the formation of LC in the U.S.
It’s not every day that you convince a large group of students to drop their Southern Baptists affiliation and pick up something completely different. For whatever reasons James and Benson had the ability to make this happen, they could get the students reading Nee, and they could have their hand in Major Ian Thomas visiting the campus.
I think that James might have downplayed the amount of influence that he actually had at that campus, but it is not hard to put the pieces together. ...
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James was the Director of the Baptist Student Union at Wayland BC...an employee of some division of the Southern Baptist Convention. Wayland was a small college (still is). A "large number of students" should be viewed in this perspective. I don't have a head count but 10-12 seems to be a fairly accurate ballpark figure.
I would be hesitant to give James and Benson the credit/blame for "making this happen" or any such "plot" as you seem to suggest...at least at this time in their lives. These were seeking students who desired to follow the Lord. They were all friends and very near the same age 18-21, James being a little older. James and Benson were not manipulating anyone at Wayland...all of this was new to them as well. In these early days I believe they were about the same as you and I might have been. We all took a wrong turn at some point.
I had family ties with some of them. When I was in high school, six or so of them piled in a car and showed up at my home, 60 miles from Plainview, to meet up for some kind of thing college students do. They were just normal college students who attended a Baptist College because of a desire to follow the Lord. Benson was a Baylor student. I don't know that he ever attended Wayland...I don't think he did.
Eventually we all got deceived.
Nell