Why doesnt the leadership of SMC reply to the questions about its teaching on issues such as finances, marriage, divorce, treatment of children in meetings, rights of members, etc if they have nothing to hide? Why not reply with a statement regarding the questions posed on the Latigo website? If SMC is just one of many evangelical, pentecostal churches which seek to spread the gospel and see people grow in Christian maturity and receive the ministry of the spiritual gifts, then why not make a statement in response? Why the silence?

Younger members who read the posts here will not in some cases know what many of the posters are referring to, since some of the incidents, especially the finance-related ones, happened way back in the eighties. But I would think that most would have experienced some relationship issues, either themselves or their friends in church. Members must be reading the posts here and on Latigo, judging by the number of hits the websites are getting.

Rensil

There is only one answer I can find to your questions and that is to use a word that one of the other posters here used quite a while ago - “unconscionable”.

I honestly believe that no-one with a conscience could act as they do. The problem is they do not have a conscience – their view is that they hear God speaking to them because they have been specially chosen like Abraham or Moses, and the only thing they need to do is listen to that secret voice. No consequences are too bad – failed marriages, financial ruin, lifelong psychological problems, or even the vast majority of some congregations being clinically depressed are totally irrelevant in their eyes. All that is important is they listen to the voice that they think they hear.

Saying that you have no responsibility for the consequences of your actions is almost a dictionary definition of not having a conscience, which is why I think the word “unconscionable” is the best single word to describe their actions (or inaction).

There is no precedent for this anywhere in the Bible or the history of the Church. They quite clearly do not hear the voice of God, as the Bible says “you shall know a tree by its fruit”. That is the Biblical test, and it is also the voice of common sense. If the fruit is depression, failed relationships and a dying church, I think we can all work out for ourselves the kind of tree it is. Again, if they had a conscience, they could apply this test for themselves.

I was reading an interesting verse this morning – Micah 6v8: He has shown you O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Seems to me that ties in quite well with the question above. If the leadership of Struthers believed in this verse then they would HAVE to respond to some of the questions raised here and on the Latigo site.

If there is any hint that they have caused hurt and pain and they “love mercy”, they will immediately act. If they are not mentioned personally, but are part of the overall movement and aspire to “act justly” then they will immediately speak to the other leaders about how a just system can be develop to respond to the these issues.

Anything else is just waffle.

Rensil


As I have said before, they are a law unto themselves; they belong to the able family: unquestionable, untouchable, unreasonable, unteachable, unfathemable, unchurchable, unconscionable, unthinkable, unreachable, unhearable, unspeakable. unseeable, unconformable, uncorrectable, undebatable, undeceivable.

I have never seen wolves in sheep's clothing repent , or have a change of heart. They usually go down with the ship, and only after they have been deserted.


susie

Being in agreement to all the above and in short they believe in their own infallibility, which is what makes them dangerous .

I continue to be glad when I read more posts and articles. It can never be dismissed nor forgotten what innocent people have had to endure and suffer under the guise of "spirituality" and "godliness" of the SMC leaders. I can only speak from what happened to me 25 years ago.. but the damage is still evident and tangible almost in the flashbacks, the dreams, the psychological impact of my negative and hurtful Struthers experience which has remained with me every day of my life. Responsibility is a terrible thing, but these individual leaders surely must assume and accept the part they played (and continue to play) in affecting and damaging even destroying the mental and emotional wellbeing of many genuine people of all ages. The vulnerable, the innocent who would never dare question the word of God (i.e. the decisions/opinions/ orders and suggestions of the leaders). People are being unfairly and wrongly duped into giving money, time, relationships, life....not to God.. but to a corrupt system called Struthers Memorial Church ( and connected school and shops). I pray that more people will find the courage to speak up... to question and to ask for answers. A basic right! The only people who can give the answers to the negative experiences posted are in fact the leaders. God would have and does answer us. The sign of a good leader is one who is humble, contrite and caring. Why the silence?? does the truth hurt them too much? is it to sore to admit wrong doing? I urge people affected to speak through this forum. What a help it has been to me knowing that I am not alone in dealing with my mental and emotional disentanglement and freedom from a cult regime.

I think the question Rensil has raised here is exactly right and I agree with all the answers that have been given to it.

Why do they not reply?

Now we look back and we see things we didn't realise at the time we can see this lack of providing information, answers and reasons has always been a problem. They sent us out but they were never with us. They told us to expect sharing their teachings might well get us into trouble but never defended us or stood by us if it did. They never backed us up in any tangible way - for example by giving us proper information about their teachings. Then they dumped us as followers as soon as we had any problems at all. Does anyone else think that doing that to young Christians stinks to high heaven?

So now we ask them to justify their teaching which we were sent out to spread for them and they can't. They can stand up in now secret meetings (where the recordings are too embarrassing to be publicly shared) and say whatever pops into their head and call it God speaking. But as soon as there is public scrutiny they run and hide. In fact they are saying to their own loyal congregation – we are not going to stand up as your leaders and defend your church by dealing with these questions. We are in fact going to going to bravely pretend none of this is happening. We will leave each of you on your own to come up with your own explanation for the vast amount of material now questioning the validity of our teachings, our decisions as leaders, and the public record of our self serving unkindness to so many people.

We can only hope people do figure it out for themselves. They give no answers because they can't. They have no answers.

An excellent illustration of this comes from looking at the questions asked on this forum some time ago by the Pilgrimess.

<sup>Quote from the Pilgrimess:

Why did Struthers always start a separate Christian gathering at Higher Education establishments? Why was the established Christian Union not considered good enough?</sup>

Because I listened to them for two decades I came to the conclusion that the SMC leaders believe they are “better”, and more tuned in to God than most, if not all, other Christians and churches. Part of what helps them maintain that belief is cutting themselves and their people off from other influences. When people encounter other Christian leaders, other Christians and other churches (such as they do at Christian Unions) they realise very quickly that this Struthers teaching about their own superiority is utter balderdash. So, as I said earlier, they send young people out (or they did - these separate Struthers university and college things are long gone now), to push the "unique and special" Struthers message. We now realise we were sent out with no back up – even a simple document to give people explaining what Struthers believed, and why the leaders believed a separate college organisation was necessary. They were prepared to send us out to push their agenda but were not prepared to state publicly their rationale and give us the information we needed.

So – like today and their non response to these websites – they simply passed on to us the problems of trying to somehow explain their weird teachings as coming from the bible when we were – perfectly reasonably - asked to do so. This of course raised questions which we brought back to the leaders and we received a similar welcome to the one this forum has had. We (in our naivety) exposed their lack of any answers to these issues – which was no use to us as those on the front-line fighting to promote Struthers ideas. And then they dumped us as soon as the real world problems with their teaching which we raised became annoying to them. They could ignore these things – why couldn't we? Obviously not spiritual enough.

The leaders were at least smart enough to know that anything which documented their real teachings would uncover their arrogant attitudes and expose them - quite properly - to ridicule. So they the "brave leaders" hid behind us - the honest mugs. I do not believe God is angry with us for that. I do believe those who have called themselves leaders will be asked to give an account.

<sup>Quote from the Pilgrimess:

Why, when women were doing almost everything in the 'meetings' did the female leader insist that when the sacraments were being given out it had to be done by one man and one woman, not 2 men?

Why, when Bible classes were run, were females allowed to lead the group (at that time comprising mostly young boys) on their own but when a male was on the rota he had to be accompanied by a female? (This was nothing to do with 'Disclosure' but to do with the church leader not trusting the spiritual condition of men.)
I know some young men who have turned out to be strong and highly respected friends in their own part of society who were frozen out at a young age as they were considered 'dark'.</sup>

I knew of the attitude but not that it was put into practice in this particular way. It was and remains the teaching of Struthers (until they publicly change it) that God has revealed to them, particularly through the views of the lady who started Struthers, that men are fundamentally less "spiritual" than women. If this sounds unhinged and bizarre teaching - it is. Yet they subjected men (and boys) to this repeated claim for years but have never had the courage to admit this teaching in public, for example in any of the many books printed by the church. If they did this they knew they would be stepping outside any sane Christian interpretation of the bible and they know they have no ability to justify this. Yet they believed it was a fact because God told them.

And they act on it as illustrated here by the Pilgrimess.

Latigo in their report on the Humiliation Sermon write about a sermon just a year ago where the speaker has a weird rant about the unsipirituality of "young men" in the church (evidenced by the fact that they liked humour) and who who had to be “driven right out of the church” as a result.

Is there any answer you can share with the public as to where this anti-male teaching and attitude comes from Struthers leaders? No we thought not.

Obviously there are serious capability issues in the Struthers leadership. They have no biblical training, they have no accountability so have not had any need to learn how to justify their teachings, and the belief that God speaks to them because they are special (a bit like Moses) has gone to their heads. Proof of that is when their "inner voice" contradicts any recognisable bible teaching and they choose to follow the "inner voice".

How convenient.

Any pain they have caused people, every vision that has failed to materialise, and each supposedly God given teaching they have later changed are so far left unexplained. They then characterise every mention of these real and important things as satanic opposition – as if that was even a reason not to answer. Not for Jesus or for Paul, or come to that for Amy Carmichael and CT Studd. They would all tell the Struthers leaders their duty was to answer all of this and answer it well - or apologise and change.

The real reason for the silence I think we all know. Much of their teaching is utter nonsense and has no biblical foundation. To address our questions would expose that. Seeking “the deep presence of God” has become a substitute for speaking the truth, knowing the truth and helping those in need. Seeking experiences and personal revelation has become the primary goal – not the much harder work of learning about, obeying and following the Christ revealed in the bible.

Thanks for all your replies and comments. Like Chesterk55, I totally agree with all of them. I heard that SMC held a celebration recently, to celebrate 60 years of being in existence. I believe this to be rather an exaggeration because, as far as I'm aware, SMC didn't exist as an actual church 60 years ago but comprised only a small number of people who left established churches and who got together to pray and seek for the baptism in the Holy Spirit in particular. The 50 years of existence was never mentioned ten years ago. OK, Mr Black had not long passed away, but there was no thought of counting the years at that time.

What I also can't understand is why the secrecy over this celebratory event, which was allegedly held as a kind of outreach and with choir performances? It wasn't advertised in advance nor put online, as most events of this kind would be. Most celebrations are held for people to share the happiness. So was it a reaction to all the exposure here of the wrongs committed by SMC leaders and others, or to the issues which are discussed on the Latigo site?

How can they celebrate when/if they read the posts on this Forum written by people who have been hurt, shunned, damaged and held back over many years by the SMC leaders and sub-leaders? You only have to read lintar123's post above, to see an example of the harm that has been done 25 years ago to a sincere and young Christian, and the suffering it has brought her over the subsequent years. How can they celebrate?

I was wondering if any other posters here have considered using YouTube to share these testimonies and thoughts, in textual and anonymous form ?

This might be a more immediate and accessible way to get the message across to many people - particularly the younger generations.

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres
Obviously the Pastor of Cumbernauld church does not practise what she preaches as the above quote from 1 Corinthians 13 clearly states that if you have all the knowledge but do not have love, you are nothing.

If the Cumbernauld Pastor is a Primary School teacher , I am sure parents would be disturbed if they were aware of her behaviour. Especially in the light of what Susie had experienced and wrote about on April 11 2011

You state elsewhere in this forum that Struthers have no heirachical chain of command and that therefore the Pastors are a law unto themselves. Also someone mentioned perhaps broadcasting on You Tube. The thing is if you want to reach the wider community and therefore prevent other people suffering the same trauma that many of you have experienced it may be worthwhile bringing this forum to the attention of the local press or indeed to the Local Authorities who ARE her employers In You tube and even on the internet you have to be specifically looking for this kind of information to come across it,
It grieves me very much to read some of the accounts written in this forum and the suffering people had t oeindure. When joining a church community one should be welcomed into the fellowship of the church its a shame this was not the case in Cumbernauld for many people.