The Thread — 1. INTRODUCTION

Dear Mary,

I’m encouraged you are doing research – learning and gathering information is a critical part of understanding what on earth happened! Cal’s videos are great, John Myer’s book is great, and Diane Langberg is also excellent. I haven’t listened to her much yet (will check out FOCL) but what I have heard from her clearly has noticeable depth of quality. I have her book “Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores” on my list of books to get when I am able. I have come across some other highly recommended suggestions on another ex-member site, so I’ll pass them along to you: Healing Spiritual Abuse by Ken Blue, and The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnsen and Jeff VanVonderen. They are both fantastic books about spiritual abuse (which includes authority abuse) and have shed light on so many things in the LR that confused me for so long but thought was my fault.

It sounds like you did the right thing with the steps you took related to the bullying sister. Just to clarify – I’m not saying elders can’t or shouldn’t be involved in a situation like that (they could easily be another witness if you wanted to….no prohibition against it) – I just included that note because in the LR their teaching literally changes “tell it to the church” to “tell it to the elders as representatives of the church”, which is not what the Bible says, and I wanted to make sure that if the elders had tried to wield improper authority in the situation, you had the Biblical footing to see that they were overstepping their role/bounds, based on what Matthew 18 says. Of course as I said, there’s no prohibition to including them, but the elders repeatedly discard Biblical protocol and take the authority that belongs to the church away from church so they can have it instead.

I’m humbled by your ability to forgive, have compassion, and even pray for the release of the sister who hurt you. It is true that hurt people hurt people, and people in abusive churches who have been abused themselves can perpetuate the abuse. I hope that you still focus on your own healing and “turning your ship upright” at the same time as you work through understanding what on earth happened, and understanding that you are not the crazy one!

Many people are praying for the “release of the captives” from the LR! The lawsuit-happy leaders make it difficult. *wry smile*

Regarding forgiving the elders and the abusive system, I’m not sure I see much precedent in scripture that requires us to forgive willfully abusive leaders. As I said, they were who Jesus publicly condemned, they were who He called “snakes, brood of vipers, blind men, whitewashed tombs with dead men’s bones inside”, etc. He even challenged them, “How will you escape being condemned to hell?”! Paul told the Corinthians not to put up with the false apostles who were abusing them. Believers are told to discern false teachers, false apostles, and be on guard for wolves who creep in. The more I look into it, the more I see that repentance should be present for us to be required to forgive someone. God doesn’t forgive willful unrepentance, and we aren’t told to either. Frankly, when I felt released from the requirement to forgive an unrepented-for offense was when it made it easier for me to come to a place where I could face forgiving. There is much more I could say on this, but if what I’ve said so far makes you say, “wait, but what about xyz?” I’m happy to respond. One former elder I spoke to a few years ago told me, “We aren’t told we must forgive immediately, so give yourself a break. Forgive when you can forgive.” Don’t beat yourself up for having trouble simply being fine immediately with everything that has happened. Bullying is abuse, and humans aren’t made to withstand abuse – that’s why it’s called abuse. Having the weight and the burden to forgive on my shoulders even while I was still hurting removed gave me the chance to breathe and recover. (not sure how to write that last sentence better, but I think you’ll get it). There simply is no place in scripture where we are told we have to forgive no matter what. With abusive leaders, or anyone, it is true that we are not to take vengeance, we can pray for those who persecute us, but if they continue on in their sin and refuse to hear, as far as I can tell, we are not on the hook to forgive because the necessary pre-steps of repentance aren’t present. We can take our hurt and pain to God, we can make sure we are not swimming in bitterness past what is normal given the situation, we can be WILLING to forgive if the other party shows genuine repentance, but if they don’t repent, I’ve yet to see scripture that says we have to forgive. We can let go of the offense and grieve the situation of the other party, but the weight and burden of reconciliation isn’t on your shoulders if they don’t repent. Scripture just tells us “if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” As far as it depends on you. There is another portion of scripture that tells us there will be people who are unholy, slanderers, abusive, etc…. and tells us “from these turn away”, or “have nothing to do with such people”. When it comes to unrepented abuse, believers are to protect themselves. Be at rest.

This is getting long so I’ll do a follow up comment on your fruit question.

Hi Mary,

Sorry, my weekend and the beginning of the week got away from me, and sorry my last post was a little repetitive towards the end there…I couldn’t edit it to make it less wordy after I posted it!

Matthew 23 is particularly relevant to the local church co-workers and elders, I totally agree. One of the translations renders the verse something like “…you travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you do, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are.” Does that sound like the local church campus work to you or what!? They expend all their effort, pouring themselves out, “traveling over land and sea” to gain freshmen college students, and when they do……those college students become parrots of Witness Lee’s abusive, elitist, and condemnatory ministry……children of hell…..instead. Wow!!

So about your question. I’ll say first of all that I don’t have all the answers, and I hope that no matter what I say you’ll hold it up to the truth as much as you are able to make sure it’s in line with the Word. And this is a public comment section, so others can certainly correct me if I’m wrong, and I hope they would. But a few things came to mind as I read your question, so I’ll present them and see what you think.

Let’s use Galatians 5:22-23 as we talk about what fruits are:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Okay, so it’s pretty obvious what the fruit of the Spirit is.

1. In Galatians 2, Peter errs pretty badly in separating himself from the Gentile believers, and Paul publicly rebukes him to his face. Peter was saved and yet made a bad mistake. Do his actions of not associating himself with Gentile believers sound like the fruits of truth, light, kindness, or goodness? Not at all. But when shown his error he heard Paul (rather than refusing to hear), and later on in scripture he commends Paul’s writings to the believers, including the very book in which his own error was recorded for all to read! So are we going to mess up and not have the fruit of the Spirit spontaneously all the time after we are saved? Well, that was Peter’s case, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was ours too.

2. If we are expected spontaneously have the fruits of the Spirit when we are saved, then the steps in Matthew 18 of what to do with sins between believers are pointless. If everyone spontaneously had love, joy, forbearance, kindness, gentleness, etc, then there would be no need for steps detailing how to handle someone sinning against you in the church…..because, what sins are left if we all have all the fruits of the Spirit spontaneously after salvation? I’ve tripped over Witness Lee’s “spontaneously we will have/do/be XYZ” type proclamations to the point where I’m wary of most “spontaneous” expectations he gives us. It’s too much like a magic wand that ultimately leads us to disappointment. We spend our lives being conformed to His image.

The verses speak of fruit remaining. So if someone gets saved, and yet over time we still see them hating, angry, contentious, impatient, unkind, evil, lacking faith, acting harshly or without self-control…..well, the fruits aren’t there. If someone gets saved and at first they seem to have the fruits, but then they fall back into their former behavior…..then that is fruit not remaining. If someone gets saved, and they are loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and having self-control…….but fail sometimes and some days struggle and yet genuinely apologize when they fail and strive for peace and love, well, that’s normal. I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never thought about the effects of depression on the fruits of the Spirit, but I can see right away that an overspiritualization of it wouldn’t help anyone. I googled “fruit of the spirit and depression” and, first of all, you are not alone. Secondly, here are links to a couple articles that have the message and tone I agree with. I’d be curious myself to hear what a mature Christian counselor would have to say about the topic.

https://craigbenno1.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/depression-and-the-fruit-of-the-spirit-2/

https://fruitfultoday.com/depressed-christians-guide-to-joy/

Dear Mary,

I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s stroke; please, take as much time as you need to respond.

On one hand, it is true that some people who join groups like the Lord’s Recovery do so because of their own pre-existing desires to be special, better than others, part of an elite uniquely chosen group. For any of those shortcomings, where we harbored a desire to be elevated above others, yes, I agree we would need to repent. And our God is rich in mercy when we are honest with Him in acknowledging our sins and failures.

On the other hand, (and this is also related to your paragraph about feeling down on yourself, tricked, duped, violated, naïve, gullible), the Lord’s Recovery has a system of recruitment and a system of ministry that – and I’m not exaggerating here – uses deceptive recruiting practices and known mind control techniques. And I strongly suspect that some of the top leading brothers (some of whom probably monitor this very site) are fully aware of it.

In other words, Mary, it’s a common misconception that only gullible dummies get duped into groups like this (and the Lord’s Recovery can arguably be called a cult or a cultic group), but it’s not true. The truth is even cult experts readily agree that all kinds of accomplished, or intelligent, or high-achieving, or influential people can get tricked, and it has nothing to do with their intelligence or gullibility at all. One of those experts is Steve Hassan, and in his book “Combatting Cult Mind Control”, he writes, “…there are many different ways people can be ensnared into a relationship or group that uses mind control. Many cults deliberately seek out people who are intelligent, talented, and successful. As a result, its members are often powerfully persuasive and seductive to newcomers. Indeed, the sheer number of sincere, committed members whom a newcomer meets is probably far more convincing than any doctrine or structure…Members are taught to suppress any negative feelings they have about the group, and to always show a continually smiling, happy face.” He also says, “The average person doesn’t understand mind control; doesn’t know how cults operate, doesn’t know what questions to ask and what behaviors to watch out for, and doesn’t believe they could ever be sucked in. That’s why so many ordinary people are prime candidates for cult recruiters.”

I’ll keep quoting a little more: “Like it or not, everyone is vulnerable to mind control. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone needs affection and attention. Everyone is looking for something better in life: more wisdom, more knowledge, more money, more status, more meaning, better relationships, or better health. These basic human qualities and needs are exactly what cult recruiters prey upon. It is important to remember that, for the most part, people don’t join cults. Cults recruit people.….Surveys of present and former cult members indicate that the majority of people recruited into destructive cults were approached at a vulnerable time of stress in their lives. The stress is often due to some kind of major transition: moving to a new town, starting a new job, breaking off a relationship, experiencing financial instability, or losing a loved one. People in such situations tend to have defense mechanisms that are overloaded or weakened. If they don’t know how to spot and avoid destructive cults, they are easy prey.”

First of all, can you see the LR reflected in those quotes? They go after the “intelligent, talented, and successful” – the college students. But those college students are also in a particular time in their life – vulnerable, lonely, in a new situation, looking for belonging. So the LR pounces. And we all have periods of vulnerability or fragility in our lives at many other times besides our freshman year of college. And the LR capitalizes on that. But the blame isn’t on the people who were lied to….the blame is on the people who did the lying!! I mean, seriously, no one teaches us about cults or deception or covert manipulation tactics….so how would the average person know what red flags to look for?

Secondly, the Lord’s Recovery’s biggest tool is fear. Fear of “touching death”, fear of leaving, fear of not being an overcomer, fear of being “negative”, fear of being “too much in our mind”, fear of questioning, fear of challenging, fear of speaking up about sin, fear of disagreeing, fear of reading anything in line with the Bible but contrary to the ministry, fear of not being absolute for “the ministry”, fear of being an individual made in the image of God and using our own unique and needed gifts, fear of natural relationships, fear of having friends, fear of being an active participant in the life God gave you because it isn’t “spiritual” or “Christ”. But fear, Mary, is a tool of the devil. And fear also tends to have a very loud voice. That’s why it’s effective, and that’s why cults and cult-like groups use it. And when fallen man weaves “unhealthy fear” and “God” together, it’s a crushing thing that many people often can’t get out from under. But the only One we ARE to fear (God…in a healthy way recognizing His power and might and goodness and majesty) has a perfect love that casts out all fear. And there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and Jesus died to save us from the fear of death and the fear of condemnation, as well as from oppression (and all those fears are oppressions, believe me). So if Christ died to set us free, and the Lord’s Recovery weighs you down with all those fears…….they are a group shining forth the anti-gospel. They as a group, their teachings, and their practices undo the very things Jesus laid His life down for. It’s serious.

So, yes, if you feel before the Lord that you need to confess any elitist attitudes, He knows already and is just waiting for you to bring it to Him in honesty and repentance. But also recognize that you stepped into a highly sophisticated fear-based web of deception using Christian sounding words and thoughts that the majority of humans on the earth are fully unequipped to see through. Give yourself a break. Their deceiving you is not a value judgment on you, but is a sin judgment on the leaders and ministry in the Lord’s Recovery.

Max