"FaithwalkaZ"

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

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[Linda]

Excellent points, EAS.

Not to mention, the most disloyal one of all, JIM MCCOTTER!

Some men are loyal, some are not. Apparently, Jim is one of the disloyal, according to Whitney's definition.

[EverAStudent]

Linda, you know, I keep forgetting that rather glaring piece of hypocricy about McCotter.  He, and his national leaders, started the "promise to commit for life" doctrine in the 1980's.  They called "disloyal" and "adulterers" those who walked away from the association of GCI to pursue other ministries and jobs.  Then, McCotter simply decides to change careers (originally deciding to go into broadcasting, then into customized luxuary jet sales), leaves the association of GCI and IS NOT called "disloyal" or an "adulterer." 

Why?  HE is the one who initiated the "promise to commit for life" doctrine.  How can the one who started the practice and imposed it on thousands be the only one exempted from having to obey it??  Except as a tool to manipulate others, what is this "promise" really worth when GC's own leadership do not feel it is binding on them? 

[observer]

It seems that, historically, the rationalization of this pressure for commitment is very mutable, but ultimately does boil down to the implication that being in GCx is to be superior to being somewhere else.

Note that Mark Darling's promotion of lifelong GCx commitment is subtle: He DOESN'T say explicitly that they should all be GCx lifer's, but that is implied by his using his own choice as an example (and let's just see if he'll make good on it!) Therefore, when confronted with the obvious problem with this kind of self/GC promotion (which is bad enough when inflicted on adults, and despicable when directed to kids), it is easy to back off deflect criticism by suggesting that really this was just a plea to be committed to a local manifestation of the church universal which could happen to be a GCx church, but would be equally legitimate if it were some other "biblical" church.

The problem is that many (note I did not say all or even most) GCers have an extremely naive and narrow notion of what it means to be "biblical" that rules out the spiritual value of vast numbers of possible church affiliations (not to mention vocations, majors, interests, hobbies, etc.) and that conveniently puts themselves as superior for any number of slippery reasons.

What is most perverse about Darling's commitment rhetoric is that it creates its own justification for why GCx is the only legitimate object of this pledge by being, itself, what makes GCx have no alternative: In the subtle cultic psychology of GCx, it becomes uniquely worthy of lifelong commitment because of its uniqueness in asking you for it.

In the end, what happens is that GC becomes to church what Amway is to detergent: the uniqueness is not in the rather ordinary product--a non-denominational evangelical/fundamentalist sect--but in the kind of hype which promotes it and elicits loyalty to it. And that is where the cult element lies.