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In a message dated 5/23/2000 12:58:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jtenright@hotmail.com writes:

<<
 This was an inquiry from Owen concerning the effects of the Grace
 Meeting, and especially the 1John meeting concerning sin that
 followed. These are great questions and I hope to say how these
 things went with me, and what they are like for me now.
 
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
   Dear Jim
        Did you really believe that you are not born again if you
 sin???  How did you handle that?  Do you still think that way?  If
 not, how long did it take you after you left to shed the "new
 doctrine"?  Did you preach it to others?  Did you argue with ex-
 members about it?  If so, did it seem strange to you, and how did you
 quell your doubts?  What were your thought processes and defenses,
 hopes and fears?
         My goal is to find a way to break through the current
 member's defenses.  (If you want I'll send you a  ~transcript of a
 conversation I had with Paul S last Sept.)  I just can't imagine
 rolling over for that "new doctrine".
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 My Response:
 
   What DID I believe? When did I believe it? It seems like that
 should be easy enough to answer, but my thought have undergone
 considerable metamorphosis over the years since I first heard
 the "new doctrine." But as was the case with many of the larger
 issues, Stewart had spent alot of energy on the build up: For the
 Grace Meeting, the brothers had been told for weeks that on such and
 such a date, Jesus was going to set the brothers free. Those weeks
 leading up to that meeting were filled with emotion and anticipation,
 and longing, and joy. SET FREE! No specifics were given, but there
 was a palpable sense that whatever was coming was enormous. For
 myself, my thoughts were on reopening the centers, brothers free to
 lead the church, brothers free to marry, brothers free from the
 spiritual constraints that weighed us down. There was such promise in
 the air. When the meeting opened and it began to be clear that we
 were not free because for 25 years we were taught an erroneous
 gospel, absent of Grace, I quietly praised God. Now things would be
 set aright and the church would truly reform. I bought the Grace
 Meeting hook, line, and sinker. I was more thankful than I had ever
 been. I heard the voices of dissent, among them John Doherty, and
 thought- how sad that they will miss this opportunity to start over
 as a church, and as Christians, just as Stewart had to. I do remember
 thinking it inappropriate that Stewart, in the brothers meeting
 session that followed, dictated the terms of our forgiveness of him.
 There were louder voices of dissent at that meeting, and for the
 first time, a brother actually asked what he meant, when in previous
 weeks he said that he had sinned against Gayle. I had heard murmured
 rumors about some of the sisters in Princeton, and the way Noel
 always looked at him, but I put this out of mind as the testimony of
 scorned woman. Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. I was elated
 with ringing of freedom, and the chance to start over as a church.
      For the next several weeks- every week  it seemed, there was
 another bombshell revelation about the error in the teaching that
 produced the fearful, timid, shamed brothers and sisters that we
 were. Then came the big one: the 1John Bible Study. There was alot in
 that study, but at the end it was not the depth of it that impressed
 me, but the simplicity: Christians don't sin. Christians can't sin.
 If you sin, you must not be a Christian. There is no such thing
 as "getting saved" only "being saved" or "saved." I had not been born
 anew 13 years before in the living room of the Johnson City
 fellowship. I struggled like the others to make sense of this
 concept. But after a few weeks, it seemed like the whole Bible spoke
 from this view. I started seeing it everywhere. With all this
 correction, there should have been ample cause for celebration, but I
 was still awaiting the promised freedom, and instead what I received
 was chilling evidence, that despite my "feelings" for Christ,
 regardless of my love and devotion, I DID sin. I was suddenly
 unsaved. Instead of freedom, I began to struggle with the weight of
 my future in Hell, and my powerlessness to get myself rescued. For
 the next 5 years, I spent my time and effort trying to confirm that I
 was one of God's elect, where before I had assumed it and acted
 accordingly. I tried to live a sinless life. Every effort was matched
 with futility and hopeless despair. Every small transgression was
 further evidence that despite my prayers, and my desires, I was
 living outside the state of Grace. I was growing truly despondent.
 When the "Big Picture" finally was revealed in the "U", I could only
 see myself at the bottom. I would try to cheer myself up with verses
 like "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
     The fact is that I succumbed to this teaching aggressively. And
 it produced in my spirit aggressive results: Hopelessness, despair,
 without "confidence for the Day of Judgment."
 
 It took the better part of 8-10 years to work through that damage.
 For a time I would stay drunk with the only others on the planet who
 understood me; other hopeless ex-members. We fellowshipped over Vodka
 about our mutual destruction with Levity. Vodka and Levity for the
 pain. There was some still voice deep in my spirit that could not
 completely be given over to this doctrine. I could rebel, but little
 else. Perhaps all that was the only defense left for my spirit, I do
 not know. I do know that I did not resolve my doubts about this
 teaching through its examination. I resolved it by examining other
 things. I examined Love. OK. Even if Stewart was right, is he loving?
 Is he kind? If he is not loving, does it matter what he teaches? Can
 you be correct and yet not be right? How unfair to speak so much of
 sin and death and avoid God's Love! LOVE! Other evidence came to
 light. How could a good shepherd have so many destroyed sheep? The
 heaps of ruined lives surely stinks all the way up to the Heavens. I
 notice now, that there was never any "Love Meeting" Nor was there
 ever a "Hope Meeting"
    In hindsight, my simplest explanation for how I came through this
 doctrine is by avoiding it. I grew to where I was looking at the
 behavior not the teaching, and I found my answers there. And then, a
 watershed of new understanding about Stewart and his behavior. His
 tease. His controlling. His always knowing better- even in his error,
 we were the ones that were not sharp enough. I think it was Joseph
 Goebels, the founder of the Propoganda machine of the Nazis who
 said "the best lie is 90% truth." When I look at Jesus, I see kind,
 loving, caring, truthful. When I look at Stewart I see Joseph Goebels.
 
  >>
Hi Jim, what you wrote, in the last part of your post, reminds me of Jesus's
warning, concerning the leaven of the Pharisees, MATT 16:12. It certainly
explains the principle.
                                                                Herm