Alan Hemenway Response & Postscript to Jack Langford

November 17, 2007

Bro. Jack Langford,

I am pleased to hear from you and to get the copy of your letter to Burnell. The timing is interesting in that I had spoken with Burnell on the phone at length last night and my main interest was in his meeting with you. It sounded like a very pleasant meeting. Anyone would have loved to be there.

There is a departure in your letter that is apparently based upon a false premise and it takes you on the wrong course. Burnell says that he told you that you wouldn't be permitted to give a message at Camp is because he believes that you are personally disqualified, certainly not for the subject matter.

Most of the folks, unknown to you at Camp, are already privileged of the Lord to have found their way to becoming separated Christians -- and still growing in the Lord. You and I have gone through that process and are still going. We know that the Lord tarries -- He is patient with us. You and I as Christians were not out of the Grace of God, when by our ignorance, we were in denominations, and it took years for us to see the whole picture of the Church -- perhaps I should say that still... nobody has the whole picture of the Church.

I believe that Bro. Wilbur and Bro. Maurice would be pleased with the attitude at Camp Dwight as being compatible with the spirit of the Living Christ that is found there in shoe leather. The spirit is of Grace. We do not bite and devour or look for issues to place expectations on others to re-create them in our own image. It's like what I assume the early days of fellowship with the Johnson families were, and I pray that this communion will not become what happened to the other group, since the Johnson's left the scene, and were shrewdly replaced by ambitious men who all wanted to be a somebody. They tried to imitate their false perception of Maurice Johnson. He was qualified to speak the message with authority. They, the ambitious and unqualified, wanted authority, and the results were fleshly. Selfish and lacking love. It was their ministry and not the Lord's ministry. Someone such as Burnell with his testimony and heritage and knowledge, and someone such as Jim Johnson with his testimony and heritage and knowledge, saw these things many years before you finally did. You were mis-used in your condemnation of them and all the others, for seeing the same things you see now.

Burnell's walk and doctrine are consistent with a heritage of four generations. [Your estranged father and my father were drunkards.] Burnell's testimony is transparent and it is in shoe leather for all to see, wherever he goes -- the same for his whole clan for six generations. They draw other Christians to themselves by the Christ that is seen in them... Christians of similar spirit, who network with other Christians of similar spirit. Who has anything better than this to show for themselves?

Many of the folks you know who go to Camp Dwight are suffering by the markings in which you played the lead role. I've heard an estimate that 250 families are split and can't see their loved ones. I pray that you will come to the place where you will see that what happened to you in Texas, quite recently, is what you did to others... really for the same reasons; despotic leadership. They were not marked because their objective was to go to Disneyland or to go to denominations -- a straw horse. I asked them! They were sensitive to scripture regarding leadership and the so-called leadership failed the test... as not representing the Church which is Christ's Body.

We have in Bend, Oregon, a chance gathering that is more than a chance gathering -- if you can see the Lord's hand in it. It's called Christianity. It is tangible -- right before us. To find it and not admit it... is a lack of faith and acceptance. It's like a sabboth rest; peace and contentment. In a cult like RAG, there are always issues to keep folks fearful and enslaved. i.e., There's no victory in this life! Some people have an obsession to keep fighting even though the battle is over. The Church does not war against itself. The enemy is not the Church. And you don't get the unsaved saved if you treat them like the enemy. Christ won folks by his love and compassion. Christ and the apostles condemned false religious leadership... false leaders who made shipwreck of the faith or held the Jews in bondage to the temple and to the priests.

To stand before Christ with the burden of having done such great destruction among Christians in the Body of Christ, for those whom Christ died, appears to me to be a burden that would be to much to bear -- to admit. The apostle Paul faced it and was victorious; and look who he turned out to be. There are many families willing to forgive you.

This I know about you: You can still make a very important contribution to the Body of Christ -- one by which we can all be blessed. I believe that everything you have to offer is spiritually on hold -- without blessing, until you confess your sin of destruction of the Body of Christ, with the false markings, and apologize to the families that are separated from their loved ones because of what you did. This is the consensus of many.

I am anxious to extend the right hand of fellowship and to embrace you.

Your Brother in Christ,

Alan Hemenway