In Reply to: Mo Letters posted by Niek0 on January 16, 2006 at 20:28:21:
I find Berg's indictment of the mainstream churches interesting in light of his unrepentant racism. Many of the mainstream Christian churches in the US lined up in strong support of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in during the 60's--a time when Berg was an itinerant preaching evangelist. Maybe Berg viewed the church Christians who marched on Selma to overturn discriminatory laws as "liberals"--? Regardless of how one labels institutional churches like Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians & Lutherans because of the stance they took on civil rights, I wouldn't accuse them of being aligned with the System in order to keep poor people down.
I've concluded that Berg's hatred of mainstream Christianity and the institutional church was a way to express his deep resentment of his mother. He couldn't really make a break from her until she died--he was too cowardly, too emotionally castrated by his perceptions of her.
"Ecclesia" is a feminine noun, and it is often characterized as a mother.