House Church Talk - Re: conferences/agendas/our freedom

[Flash]

Claire wrote:
> I knew I'd be sticking my neck out here.  I have no experience with past conferences, but it appears there is an agenda here, to seek control over the house churches that the Lord has planted, to exchange organic body life and connection to the head of the body, Jesus, with a hierarchal system that they control.  It reminds me of how the Florida 5 heavy shepherding movement took over the many independent churches that sprang up during the Jesus movement.  They offered them organization, accountability, teaching - but the end result was a yoke of bondage, much abuse and much destruction.
> 
> We have seen cult-like house churches and I see that an authoritarian, hierarchal IC style leadership is far more dangerous in the hc than it is in the IC, due to the hidden nature of house churches.  I am not impugning these men's intentions, they want to straighten us out and get us all behaving in a way that they deem scriptural.  But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  We don't appear to learn from history.  I see the hc much like this child's rhyme, "When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.  
> 
> A lively discussion is taking place about this on New-Wineskins; I felt it was safe to share there as they strongly support non-hierarchal views and equality of women.  I have learned that these organizers believe women should keep silent, believe in hierarchal leadership, and only homeschoolers are allowed to be in this authoritarian leadership (the elitist hc/homeschool/ nexus) and now they want to have their work funded.  I suggest they take their cue from others, which may already have occured, and promise the religious right large families full of Republican voters in return for support.
> 

Claire - man do you lay it out and clear.  Thank you for your thoughts on this.  Your pointing to the massive problems politically connected right political stuff is something that we all can take to heart, really.  Really, there are soooo many traps out there for all of us, hence the real cloister is the Bible and the work of God all around us.  We really should draw back from soooo many influences if we want to know the Truth.  We really do spread ourselves too thin and become vulnerable.  Our cloister should be away from the many influences that seem soooo good but really become really baaaad as you point toward, Claire.  Thanks for explaining your original post.

I also saw what Bruce wrote asking on the woman issue you point to Claire.  I don't want Claire to be drawin into one big hairy woman discussion, but woman issues generally get there.  I will be interested to see if Claire can respond to what Bruce asks on this issue of women.

I guess my tactic may be a bit different about this issue.  I can hear other points of interest on this issue as we are brethren.  But, what I really want to understand on the woman issue that Claire has ideas about is the function of these ideas.  Claire - perhaps you could point to areas where equality of woman is problematic and give me/us what you see these functions can/should be?  Be it known that I come from a very traditional background concerning the woman in meetings, but I desire to learn what is wrong with these traditional functions.  A brief dialog as you gave about the hc conference is good - leave the fleshing out of the function to our experience/ideas.

Thanks again for opening this dialog, Claire - I hope to hear from you some more.

Dan ChiTown