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Author Topic: Legalism  (Read 17825 times)
puff of purple smoke
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« on: March 19, 2007, 07:21:48 pm »

I have been posting here for some time as "puff of purple smoke," but now that I am a moderator I will expand upon my story a bit, and touch on a topic that bothered me for some time while in GC*.

I left a GCAC/GCM church in 2005 after several years of involvement. Before that I was involved in two great non-denominational Christian churches. I should note the reason I left my previous churches was not the dreaded "church hopping" syndrome, but rather it was because I moved to a new city for work/school reasons. Anyway, I had been a Christian for many years prior to joining. The small groups and near-daily happenings of the GCM church (which at the time I believed also was "non-denominational," for that is how they described themselves in the phone book and on their website, but that's a whole other post..) immediately got me hooked. The church I had been baptized in originally had "cell groups," but they were highly 'optional,' and while members were frequently encouraged to go, it was obvious that not everyone was assumed to be in one as was the case with GC. I had a deep need for friendship at that particular point in my life, and before long the small group had become my "friend group," and my main source of friendship. It was good, for a time, as it provided the friendship I desperately needed at that point in my life.

In time, however, I noticed that there was.. something different.. about the way my new friend group thought and acted, as compared to my previous Christian experiences. I slowly began to feel the pressure to go to every meeting and event, and be a part of every service held. My free time and my life outside of GCM was very swiftly vanishing. There was a bible study on Wednesday, The Rock held a church service on Friday, on Saturday there was an outreach event, and on Sunday was the GCAC church service. There were also special events where the whole small group would go to a teaching when a visiting GC pastor happened to be in town. It was assumed that you would go to all of them. (Leaders and "core" members certainly did.) None of these teachings were related to each other, either. It was like I was "church hopping" within one church, because every few days I'd listen to another teaching by a new pastor on a completely different subject than the last one. I began to find it overwhelming. I need time to absorb things, contemplate on them, and then put them into practice.

So, feeling confident that the Lord did not need me to listen to a teaching three or more times a week, I started cutting one of them (the Friday teaching) out of my schedule, focusing instead on the other two. In response, I began to feel a strange guilt, brought on by the way others would talk to me when asking in a concerned voice, "Why weren't you at (Friday Service)?" I would explain it to them as best I could, that the Sunday service was more concentrated on where I was at in life, that so many teachings was overwhelming, and that I felt like there were too many meetings in the week for me to be able to attend them all and still maintain my life. Despite this, I constantly felt pressure from leaders and others in the group. They didn't seem to understand why anyone would want more free time, or how they could possibly make better use of it than a GC church service. As one small group leader explained, "I like having all of my free time occupied by church events, because it makes life and planning my week so much easier for me."

One day, I skipped the Friday service with a couple of friends so that we could see my new apartment and celebrate with a "house warming" get together. Despite knowing I made it to the Sunday service and mid-week Bible study every week, and that all of us were very committed to the small group meetings, my small group leader decided to call and lay what I can only describe as a "guilt trip" upon those of us there. I know these examples are kind of vague, but if you've been a member of GC you probably understand what I'm talking about. People who weren't going to as many meetings were considered "not as close to God" as the ones who did. It wasn't about what you got out of it, it was about you going. I would often find myself going to more meetings than I wanted to anyway, simply because that was just "what you did" on that day. I even started to feel good about myself when I did go to every meeting (even if I got nothing out of it), and bad about myself when I didn't. The "culture" was beginning to grip me in a very subtle way.

Prior to GC, I was baptised in a church with a heavy emphasis on grace, a love relationship with God, and the pastor had often warned of "legalism" and "works-based thinking" in his sermons. But, because I had never really experienced a works-based mentality in a church group before, I didn't pay it much attention to these sub-points at the time. I just couldn't relate. Slowly, though, the longer I was at GC, the more the pressure to "go to everything" became pressure to justify my Christianity. How could I really say I was "on fire for God" if I wasn't willing to go to Meeting A, B, C, D, and X? Why would someone who called himself a Christian not "crucify their flesh" and go to a 6 AM prayer meeting every morning? Going to meetings became the "works" that I believe many felt "justified" their faith. Not getting anything out of it, not doing what those teachings taught -- but simply the act of going. I saw it in others around me.

Another troubling aspect of the group that I began to notice was how new members were treated. It seemed like our group went through the same cycle over and over again. New Person would join, and suddenly the leaders would be obsessed with that person and want to hang out with them many times a week. In some cases that New Person would decide to stick around and join the group. As time went on, I saw how the excitement over new people diminished after another New Person arrived, or upon the discovery that the New Person wasn't "leadership material." That is, wasn't changing their life and becoming a "core" GC'er fast enough. If the previous New Person would one day stop coming to events, often nobody on the group ever seemed to attempt to find out why! I would ask around the group, "Hey, whatever happened to (Person)?" and the response was pretty much "beats me." It seemed like a person was only valued as long as they were active in the group. In so many cases I was the only person who even tried to contact someone after they left (and it wasn't hard, we had their phone number on the small group contact list). This happened many times, and each time it boggled my mind.

The more I stuck around the more I realized people were being treated as projects, and that this treatment was being justified by the term "discipleship." I later brought the issues up with my small group leader. His response was, and this is a paraphrase, "Why would I invest so much time into relationships where someone isn't wholeheartedly following God?" It is not too surprising to me that Bill  Young made this comment in a recent sermon, "I evaluate all my relationships. I evaluate my wife’s relationships. I often have to sit down and- and we get a list of her friends, I say, ‘well.. these are your priorities. You don’t have enough time to meet with all these women but, here’s your priorities.'" I could definitely see a sort of "scratch our backs we'll scratch yours" mentality present in my group, a prioritizing of people based upon what they gave back to the movement. There was no overt sinister motivation to hurt people, as it was justified as part of the discipleship strategy to reach the world, but people were being hurt nonetheless. The "love" that Christ preached as the most important commandment seemed to be missing from the way this strategy was being lived out.

The pastor at my original church had often warned of "legalism," but I didn't understand what the danger was at the time, having never experienced it. Many years later though, there I was, smack dab in the middle of a system of legalism that defined even who your friends were and who you were to love. I was beginning to adapt a "GC mentality" about leadership, too.

I started to believe that what my leader said was God's will, as others in the group convinced me of this, as did sermons on leadership. I began to de-emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit within me, its ability to communicate to me, and my personal relationship with God (something that had been so emphasized in my first church), and in its place was a series of men whom I was to obey and follow. I listened to a sermon Brent Knox gave a few months ago, and he pretty much summarizing this belief. The idea that we are to submit to our "spiritual leaders" even when they are wrong. Even so far as to give control of our life to them (not God, but them). Here are some quotes from it:

"You know, you're not responsible for leading. You won't- You won't be the person standing before God and giving an account for the church. It's I and the other pastors, we're the ones that are on the hot seat. But not you. You can rest. And since pastor's are on the hotseat, and'll stand some day and give an account before God, God I believe is also gonna give extra grace, extra wisdom to do what we need to do. . . . And so even to give the controls over to God, that's hard, but the real kicker here is God is saying, 'give the controls over to people that I work through, and these people are fallible, these people make mistakes, these people are weak at times. Yea-outta work through it anyway,' that's what God says." - Brent Knox, When No One's Looking - Part 9

Amazing how such a simple belief can be abused. I don't remember ever even hearing a sermon taught at my GC church on the Holy Spirit, or the Priesthood of the Believer. But sermons on submission and leadership were quite plentiful. This, along with the legalistic culture, had quite an effect on me over time.

The resulting guilt I frequently felt is hard to describe. It would keep me returning to GC, cycling between highs and lows. This legalistic thinking tortured me. I never felt good enough for God. There were always more meetings I could have attended, or more ways I could be involved in the church that I wasn't. I never felt joy anymore, like I used to feel at past churches where sermons focused on God's love for me, and doing things for God out of love. With works-based thinking, there were only brief periods of happiness when I "overcame my flesh" and went to a meeting I didn't want to go to. Many of my close friends, most who are still in the movement, went through these kinds of cycles as well. I watched in horror as an attitude of legalism drained people of their joy. Even marriage seemed to be set up this way in GC. You were to prove yourself "good enough" for a long enough period of time, and then a leader would "approve" you for marriage. As if your good works had earned you your spouse!

In Larry Pile's 2006 statement (available on gcmwarning.com) he says the following about legalism he experienced within GC during the 70's. I think it is apt:

Another major problem was what amounted to an implied concept of “sanctification by works.” By this I mean that many of the group leaders (called “elders” back then, reflecting the Plymouth Brethren background of several early leaders, including McCotter) seemed to assume that unless individuals were spending at least a half hour to an hour in a daily “Quiet Time,” were sharing the gospel with people wherever they went, including in the college dormitories, were attending virtually every meeting and Bible study of the group, etc., etc., then they weren’t really submitting to the will of God and thus were not progressing to Christ-likeness. There was also a great deal of pressure applied by the elders (and many of the deacons, too) on everyone to get involved in all the evangelistic outreaches of the fellowships, to the point that a great many younger believers suffered spiritual burnout.

The situation that ultimately prevailed throughout the movement was essentially that of a system of spiritual hothouses – artificial environments in which to force spiritual growth under unnaturally climate-controlled conditions. Much as tomatoes are forced to ripen or carnations are made to bloom in January in physical hothouses, so young believers were forced into outward conformity to the movement’s image of a “true disciple.” But, also as the hothouse tomato lacks much of the sweetness of the vine-ripened variety, so the “hothouse disciple” lacks much of the inner maturity of the believer who is allowed to grow according to the Holy Spirit’s schedule and methods.

Like the church error statement, I read this after I left GC, and realized it described my experience with the modern day movement just as well as the past movement. Strange how that keeps happening.
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AgathaL'Orange
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« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2007, 07:23:13 pm »

I could really relate to this post, Puff. I experienced many of the same problems with being expected to attend church activities constantly and to DO DO DO. There is an extremely invasive nature to the way GCM disciples people. To this day, I make myself remain somewhat separate from my current church. I am involved, but only to a point. No one seems to mind, in fact, in my current church there is so much freedom to simply be who you are. No one judges you whether you go or not and the church service would still go on, even if no one was there. They do the service for God, not to achieve some sort of goal or objective involving other people. The goals and objectives for people to change are left up to God… as it should be.

Anyway, great post. And whoever is responsible for the new administrative changes… I say… Good Job!
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nateswinton
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« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2007, 07:34:21 pm »

Puff,

I’m glad to finally hear your story laid out in longer form. I feel like I know you alot better. Thanks for sharing.

I’m sure this will delight some folks around here to read me writing this, but it sounds like you were in a pretty dysfunctional group. If anyone is curious why I say “dysfunctional” rather than “abusive”, they can hit up a dictionary. I’m a stickler for semantics.

I’ll also be honest and say that I see hints of that type of behavior you described in my church in Ames (though by definition, dysfunction is “deviating from the norm”).

I think it’s the product of people really badly wanting to see the world reached for Christ, but trying to do it by human means.

Puff, I think you were around when I started using the phrase, “I can’t excuse it, but I can explain it”. I believe deeply that it’s wrong to treat people like that. I believe that church goes from being a relationship to a scam when it takes that direction. I won’t defend people treating you or others like that at all. It’s wrong, and I believe it’s not the natural design for relationship and community.

I’m very sorry that our brothers and sisters in Christ treated you and others like that.

I’ll even admit that I’m living a life of repentance, because I fell into that trap at one point of my life not so long ago. I’ve only been in GC a handful of years.

I hope that you can forgive me for once being like those that hurt you and others around you. I am changing, and I believe they and everyone else can too. You can see a glimpse of my dreams for the future of GC in that last sentence.

I can also say that in my neck of the woods (The Rock in Ames), while there are hints of things like that happening, they’re with the young leaders that aren’t tempered or wise yet. It’s the mistakes of the young and zealous here, not the gifted, experienced disciplers and teachers. We’re not reproducing soldiers, we’re building relationships. We’re taught by our pastors to love, and we’re held accountable by our peers to do it unconditionally.

Thanks so much for your post, Puff. I’m glad to see you’re one of the new Admins. You were a good pick. (Good job A, B, G & G)
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tjlyttle
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« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2007, 07:34:36 pm »

So I went to the faithwalkers conference this year. This year they gave out a booklet entitled “The Core” and it has GCM’s core beliefs along with recommended “practices” to help achieve these core beliefs. Here is an excerpt that encouraged me, and hopefully it will encourage everyone here as well:

“A concern has been raised concerning legalism. There can be a tendency to focus on the practices than the grace of God, and to take good practices and disciplines and turn them into legalistic requirements. Our prayer to God and our exhortation to the churches is that this tendency be resisted. Instead, please view this description of practices as practical examples of how the grace and the truth of God is generally applied in churches in our association.”

-excerpt from page 8 of “The Core”.
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Genevieve
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« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2007, 07:34:52 pm »

Interesting. What are the practices?
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AgathaL'Orange
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« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2007, 07:35:02 pm »

“It’s the mistakes of the young and zealous here, not the gifted, experienced disciplers and teachers. ”

When the young and zealous are put in positions of leadership before they’re ready, this is the fault of the experienced. I find this again and again in GCM churhes, the young and inexperienced are again given much responsibility and this is how the errors keep reproducing themselves. Anyway, that’s my take on it.
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nateswinton
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« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2007, 07:35:14 pm »

Agatha,

I agree with you there. Unfortunately, “the experienced” are not always able to discern the true maturity of a new potential leader before putting them into the position to potentially become power-hungry or foolish.

I feel that a good measure of the “experienced” leader’s discernment comes into play when they carefully observe the young ones, and take care to admonish, rebuke, encourage and correct where necessary, and even discipline where necessary.

Can we stop people from making mistakes? Of course not. Can we take measures to prevent repeated mistakes, and to protect against potential ones? Of course.

Hopefully this blog continues to serve it’s purpose and help leaders in GC* become more experienced and wise in discerning what practices are right and wrong, and taking the right steps quickly to make sure we’re all behaving properly in leadership.
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tjlyttle
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« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2007, 07:35:33 pm »

I know this comment is probably going to get me torn to pieces on here, but oh well, here goes.

I would prefer a church with legalistic tendencies. Why? Because a person who is legalistic is at least trying to do something. It would be possible for that person to change their heart and realign their thinking. A church with apathy (like the one I grew up in) is truly dead. Trying to change things in an apathetic church is nearly impossible. It’s like an ant trying to move an elephant, its just not going to happen. Yes, GCM has legalistic tendencies. GCM has hurt people. GCM has misled people. None of these things should be excused. Just as none of the things on this blog should be overlooked, neither should GCM’s attempts to operate on a foundation of grace as opposed to works. If I was a parent and I had a toddler who was learning how to crawl I wouldn’t yell at it for not being able to run up and down the stairs. Let’s appreciate GCM’s attempts to improve and encourage them to continue improving.
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G_Prince
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« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2007, 07:35:45 pm »

TJ,

You just said in comment 3 that you were encouraged by GC’s anti-legalistic statement at faithwalkers, yet now you say you prefer a legalistic chuch. Which is it?
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AgathaL'Orange
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« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2007, 07:36:17 pm »

Who determines when a church or a person is apathetic? I don’t think it’s all that easy to tell.

Some people look very involved but it may go only so deep. Many people know how to “walk the walk” and don’t really mean it. I’ve faked it myself before. I guarantee you I could go into any GCM church and fake my way into leadership of some sort within a couple of months.

My point is “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” You can’t judge people by do’s and don’ts. It doesn’t work that way.

There is more to Christianity than the set of behaviors that some like to call “fruit.” Fruit can be faked— even we don’t mean to.

Here’s a great example. I could walk into a GC small group and say (I am completely making this up) “I just had a really great time with the Lord. I was driving down the road and I was struck with the beauty of His creation. I just felt the tears come to my eyes and I had to pull over. I just began to sing songs to the Lord praising Him and thanking Him for all He’s done for me.”

And then I could go on to tell about great discussions I had with people about God this week or whatever. My point is not that people are lying. Certainly I don’t think that people are doing that… but I do think that spiritual acts can be done because we know people want to see them. We can easily pull the wool over our leaders eyes and even our own eyes.

That is why I think that this whole idea of being able to tell if someone is apathetic, legalistic, or truly led by the spirit is bogus. That is God’s job to decide that, not ours. We should be responsible for our own behavior, maybe our kids, and possibly our spouses… beyond that, I think we get too involved in the Holy Spirit’s work.

The Core book disturbs me for that reason. Fruit is a result of an inner change. We should not be striving for the fruit… it’s the inner change.

You see? The fruit starts on the inside, not a list of fruit we should be displaying.
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Adam Hirschhorn
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« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2007, 07:36:56 pm »

“Trying to change things in an apathetic church is nearly impossible.”



I almost feel sorry for what you’ve been through, except this time it’s serious. Holy mountains of mustard seeds, batman, I’m sure I don’t have enough faith to change GC. Does that stop me from ranting like a hungry chickadee? Heck no. Maybe someday I’ll get to feel like the rooster who woke up the sun.



That non-apathy is why you’re tired of a burnout schedule. It’s the non-apathy that compels people to cut people loose from their schedules, that certain meeting, or their own place to live. It’s the non-apathy that cares so much as to compel overnight prayers away from your family, the “right” life path, or that much needed exorcism (!)



And I think I resent any implication that we can now delegate GC to the toddler role when there are thousands of twenty-somethings representing themselves as people’s “spiritual fathers”. I also disagree that caring is something sufficient without expression and action



….
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« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2007, 07:37:23 pm »

i definitely need to clarify. What I meant by that comment is that I would rather be in a church that has legalistic tendencies than apathetic tendencies. I hate legalism. I hate apathy. My point was that there is more hope that a legalistic person can accept grace than an apathetic person can, umm not be apathetic.

As far as judging people being apathetic or not, I’m not. I’ve had two church experiences. One was the E-free church I grew up in, the other is the ames GCM church. The E-free church was very content to live in a rich suburb, and have sunday meetings and potlucks. Missions was always just a great idea. Then I came to GCM and missions was and is a really serious thing. I’m not judging individuals necessarily, but the churches as a whole. One felt very lifeless to me, the other had life, but demanded a lot from me.

So let me restate: I hate legalism. Ask Nate, I do anything I can to avoid it. But if I had to choose a church environment, I would choose one that leans towards legalism because I think there is more hope that change can happen.
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« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2007, 07:37:39 pm »

There was definitely legalism in the GC church I attended.



It’s funny, what finally opened my eyes to how much legalism permeated the church I went to was interacting with the pastor’s young (At the time I believe he was below age of 10) son. At such a young age, he was already incredibly skilled at legalistic thinking and creating loopholes in rules so he could do what he wanted. And you know where he learned that behavior from…..



But at any rate, I think the topic of putting young, inexperienced people into leadership positions could be worth a new thread. I don’t think there’s been one on that topic, though I miss things….. But that was definitely true in my situation. I was asked to take a leadership position that I was definitely not mature enough to take. Unfortunately, I was also not mature enough to realize I was not mature enough… I tend to think that this trend of putting new, immature Christians into leadership positions was because the pastor wasn’t very spiritually mature. He’d put the most “on fire” folks (often new Christians, cause young believers usually have a lot of excitement and zeal) in leadership positions while ignoring older, more mature folks cause they weren’t “showing as much fruit” or something like that.



But that’s not surprising, now that I consider what I’ve read on this site. It seems like overall, GC was designed for large and fast expansion with little thought for longevity in the early decades of the movement. Investment in the “less exciting” but mature folks doesn’t give the quick payoff, but would have paid off for the movement in the long haul. Seems like that attitude is changing, but slowly.
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« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2007, 08:05:30 pm »

Once I finish reading this book, I’ll post more about it in the Reading Recommendations section, but I’ve been reading “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” (the book Liz recommended awhile back). The first few chapters have a lot to say about legalism, and they’re giving me a lot to think about as to how much the legalistic mindset at my past GCM church has affected me and my husband. Puff, you’re onto something with your post. It struck me today that your post corresponds nicely with the section I was reading.
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maranatha
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« Reply #14 on: May 13, 2008, 05:54:40 am »

Was reading the below quote and it seemed related to the topic of legalism.

 It's written by Matt Schmucker, (ex-gcmer, or so I've heard)

"Americans have a nasty addiction to success. Still worse, success seems only to be defined as growth, i.e. getting bigger and having more. In our addiction we want to measure our growth with better attendance, more programs and products. We see this in business, schools and churches.

It is the wise man who knows when to say enough is enough. Growth is not always good. Growth can distract and deplete. "

http://blog.9marks.org/2008/05/mere-and-mirror.html
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MidnightRider
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« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2008, 08:41:56 am »

Quote from: "maranatha"
...
It is the wise man who knows when to say enough is enough. Growth is not always good. Growth can distract and deplete. "

I am not sure of the connection between legalism and growth, but as an antidote to the growth-is-always-great idea, I recommend the old essay "Isaiah's Job" by Albert Jay Nock.
Quote from: "Nock"
One evening last autumn, I sat long hours with a European acquaintance while he expounded a political-economic doctrine which seemed sound as a nut and in which I could find no defect. At the end, he said with great earnestness: "I have a mission to the masses. I feel that I am called to get the ear of the people. I shall devote the rest of my life to spreading my doctrine far and wide among the population. What do you think?"

An embarrassing question in any case, and doubly so under the circumstances, because my acquaintance is a very learned man, one of the three or four really first-class minds that Europe produced in his generation; and naturally I, as one of the unlearned, was inclined to regard his lightest word with reverence amounting to awe. Still, I reflected, even the greatest mind can not possibly know everything, and I was pretty sure he had not had my opportunities for observing the masses of mankind, and that therefore I probably knew them better than he did. So I mustered courage to say that he had no such mission and would do well to get the idea out of his head at once; he would find that the masses would not care two pins for his doctrine, and still less for himself, since in such circumstances the popular favourite is generally some Barabbas. I even went so far as to say (he is a Jew) that his idea seemed to show that he was not very well up on his own native literature. He smiled at my jest, and asked what I meant by it; and I referred him to the story of the prophet Isaiah.

The whole essay is at http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/nock3b.html
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pvitartas
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« Reply #16 on: April 07, 2018, 05:28:46 am »

Regarding attending all meetings - I experienced similar pressure.  I recall the theme of the "sluggard" attached to subtle or direct pressure to attend all meetings.  "Redeeming the time" was also a popular phrase.  "Work, for night comes when no man can work" was also pretty popular.  Let's not forget "do your work heartily as unto the Lord and not to men."  As I recall, all were tied in to being totally committed to Christ - which overtly meant attending everything...being sold out for the Lord.

"Knitting in" was also a phrase used with a clear implication that to be truly knit in, one attended everything.

I grew disenchanted with attending many services because of the vain repetition - whether it was Sunday or otherwise.  I believe near or literal repetition played a large part in cult indoctrination.  There was the repetitive drumbeat of sermons focusing directly and indirectly on reaching the world for Christ, and the singing of the same songs over and over again until it seemed that the chorus became not unlike a Buddhist Chant.  I started reading "The Word" as the Bible was often called during singing and even preaching marathons.  Brothers practically shoved song sheets to me containing words to songs I had memorized long ago. I recall being stared at while reading an interesting OT scripture while the sermon was yet again taken from the Book of Acts.  I was told that not singing, along with having a song sheet in front of your face, was a bad example to new believers...
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