I'm just now seeing this thread. I actually listened to Barber's message over the weekend (linked from another thread) while I was reading some threads here.
One item that really got my attention was his personal testimony of his early life, starting at the 27 minute mark. His parents divorced when he was just 5, and he indiciated it was tough and painful. No doubt. This seems to me an important part of what caused him to latch onto WL as a father figure. He certainly wasn't the only one, but did so to a greater extreme than most according to Rutledge. It's important for us to remember the ages of the principles involved -- WL was born in 1905 whereas Barber sometime in the 1940s. Similar for WL's other future deputies and lackeys. (And Ingalls and Reetzke born in 1930s or so; I surmise that WL was older than most in LA in those early days. And he clearly "outranked" Samuel Chang, another important factor.)
Also interesting James' son mentions the Swiss bank accounts for Lee family. An important detail I'm just now learning. No surprise, of course, but good to know.
And here's a repost of an excerpt from
the thread I made yesterday (which also has other info about JB beyond this one post).
Quote:
Originally Posted by askseek
Don Rutledge on James Barber
As we all desire to sort through our journey with Christ and our common experience in the LC, it is important to consider James Barber. Few brothers had such a defining influence on the LC. I spent much more time with him than I ever did with WL. In fact during the critical time period of 1973–78, I spent much more time with Max Rapoport than I did with WL.
James was a very peculiar person, and his staunch advocacy of exalting leaders, aka deputy authority, caused a lot of abnormal development. The same can be said of other leaders, such as Ray Graver, Patsy Freeman, etc. Most of the extreme LC problems are associated with a few personalities. Particular personalities gaining dominance combined with the deputy authority thing caused too much hurt.
Almost from the beginning, James was in a struggle for the hearts and minds of brothers and sisters outside of L.A. Later Max also was in a struggle to be the most influential person in the LC network. They battled each other. I know because I was an object of their fight and heard from both of them about the other brother and what he was doing. James was a very significant player in the downfall of Doug Krieger in Berkeley. Then he was working to bring down Max and vice versa. Max won and James went to OK City where he would have little influence over WL or the work in Anaheim and a diminished role nationally.
James was the number one advocate for putting meetings and church functions above family. He despised saints who only came on Sundays. He had invented a smear "SMOs" (Sunday Morning Only). I heard him use this countless times to slander some of the brethren in L.A. He constantly admonished elders in private fellowship to limit the SMOs. Sometimes I heard him concede to a brother about caring for the SMOs with the statement, "well at least they are good for numbers."
No one was ever more critical of others both in the LC and in Christianity than James. This was a point Max successfully used against him as nearly everyone was consciously or unconsciously bothered by James' unending put downs. (I hear the same kind of mocking derision in the Barber sons. I must believe they learned it from their father.) Since James represented WL and always made sure all realized that he had come from WL, his behavior and speaking was the equivalent of WL's speaking and behavior. At the time, I was too naive. Until Max made it clear that James was not necessarily a spokesperson for WL, it was hard to see how much was actually James. Of course, I do strongly believe that James was to a great extent a product of the shaping of WL.
Now, James truly loved Christ and desired to serve the Lord. He was a very gifted teacher of the Bible and somewhat an evangelist. We all received spiritual help from James. Otherwise his negatives could not have taken hold.
His family is a big testimony of his negatives, which included church activities over caring for the family, the meetings and ministry take care of everything, don't have opinions, don't think, don't criticize the ministry, and the big one: WL is God's anointed, today's David, and thus God will bless whatever WL does.
James died of cancer in the late 1980s. He was in Irving living with Benson seeking to get help from alternative treatments. During this time no one had much contact with him. Before this I had pretty much dropped contact with him. He was becoming more and more odd. I attributed it to nothing in particular. Perhaps it was due to internal conflicts about the LC. He suffered greatly over the whole thought of the video messages. He complained to me that "we ministering brothers" may as well get a popcorn machine and sell it during the videos. It was obvious to me that he saw his role in the recovery was pretty much over and WL was going a different direction with different people. James could have certainly been disappointed. I never heard him criticize WL, but he was not happy at the end.
Jane Anderson on the Barber family
I was told about Lee's bad treatment of James directly from his wife Virginia, about 10 years after James died. I can't remember the details about how James ended up in OKC, but I remember that it was not a result of his burden, but Lee's directive. She said Lee was very abusive and that his treatment of James tore him up because he considered Lee a father figure. She and the boys hated to see him go to a training in Anaheim because of the state he would be in when he returned, after having been mishandled (she said "abused") by Lee while there. She said the family usually took the brunt of his upset.
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