Can you dismiss WL's ministry because of his sins?

[OBW]

Igzy,

I think that the angle that has been missing in the discussion is that this is not simply about whether it is correct to lay claim to the title MOTA, or to allow others to designate you as such without strong condemnation for it.

It also is not simply about some longstanding minister of good standing who has a moral lapse and then becomes a spiritual liability from that time forward.

It is a pattern of moral lapses going back longer than most of us have been alive on which there is no evidence of actual apology or repentance prior to his death over a decade ago. That person lost any claim to position in at least the 50s. Maybe before. So there is little reason to start from a framework in which he is presumed to be a "good teacher" (not trying to invoke the imagery of the man who called Jesus "good teacher"). He starts from a place where we should not have been listening. If someone felt compelled to listen to him and then study it really carefully then pass on what they concluded was valid and valuable, that would be fine.

But that never happened. Lee was the source of truth for the LRC faithful. We needed to get out of our minds to accept his teachings and we happily followed. And virtually all other theologians rejected his teachings. Only an exorcist and a ministry in need of funds has fallen in line, at least in what they will speak of.

I have realized that I was directly duped for 14 years. Then for many more years than that I remained in Lee's fog, thinking that there were all these great teachings simply mired in a system that didn't live up to its own standards. I am learning differently. Few items, alone and in themselves, are truly "bad." But the "Collected Works" lead somewhere that a Christian with their mind in gear would not agree to go.

It is the constant interspersing of garbage with the truth. Sectarian ideas phrased in the rhetoric of oneness. An air of humility in a man who would reject anyone else's teachings, and spit on a book by another. I don't really like all of what certain contemporary writers produce. But I do not spit on any of it. And I don't refer to them as demonic or Satanic.

And while I may not have spent as many years allegedly given to the study of the Word as Lee did, I do recall that his former calling may have been as an accountant. Assuming that is true, he should have kept his day job. I honestly think that my pathetic understanding of scripture is at least founded on the scripture. I'm beginning to see more and more that Lee was not bound by scripture, but only by what he could define as a principle through which scripture could be reworded.