Good Lee/Bad Lee: Can They Be Separated?

[TLFisher]

Yes Terry, and why did those leaders believe their churches could not function without Lee's Ministry?

It was because Witness Lee, who had previously hoodwinked (and addicted) them into exclusively consuming ONLY HIS "Cargo", also warned those same leaders that a total collapse of their church would be the logical outcome!

Liar, liar pants on fire :crazy:

https://www.johningalls.com/WiseMasterBuilder-Essential-Med.jpg

Watch the 17sec video HERE (https://www.bitchute.com/video/3G1UqhyiR1Rd/).
Download it (4meg) HERE: https://www.johningalls.com/WiseMasterBuilder-Essential.m4v

P.S.
PriestlyScribe, lets look at the churches that parted ways with Living Stream Ministry?
Have they collapsed? No they have not. Church in Toronto is still going on as are the churches in Moses Lake, Rosemead, etc to name a few.
I think the real reason why Local Church elders cling on to Lee's ministry, is the reaction Living Stream would respond with if a Local Church decided to drop the publications and just use the Bible.
The bottom line is money. Local Church affiliated with Living Stream Ministry only exist primarily for the benefit of Living Stream Ministry. Weekly church services are secondary to the ministry publications.

[Ohio]

PriestlyScribe, lets look at the churches that parted ways with Living Stream Ministry?
Have they collapsed? No they have not. Church in Toronto is still going on as are the churches in Moses Lake, Rosemead, etc to name a few.
I think the real reason why Local Church elders cling on to Lee's ministry, is the reaction Living Stream would respond with if a Local Church decided to drop the publications and just use the Bible.
The bottom line is money. Local Church affiliated with Living Stream Ministry only exist primarily for the benefit of Living Stream Ministry. Weekly church services are secondary to the ministry publications.
I would add that LC leaders (now I refer to those in both in Anaheim and Cleveland) use various techniques to make their member LC’s more dependent on their own ministries.

[OBW]

PriestlyScribe, lets look at the churches that parted ways with Living Stream Ministry?
Have they collapsed? No they have not. Church in Toronto is still going on as are the churches in Moses Lake, Rosemead, etc to name a few.
I think the real reason why Local Church elders cling on to Lee's ministry, is the reaction Living Stream would respond with if a Local Church decided to drop the publications and just use the Bible.
The bottom line is money. Local Church affiliated with Living Stream Ministry only exist primarily for the benefit of Living Stream Ministry. Weekly church services are secondary to the ministry publications.I would suggest that even when looking at Toronto and the others, to some extent Lee was right. The "recovery" as he defined it somewhat collapsed in those places. Why? Because they were no longer under the thumb of the LSM and Lee's dream was no longer realized in those places.

Reminds me of some of the lyrics from the spoof song "Star Trekkin'." One verse has Spock speaking to Kirk:
It's life, Jim,
But not as we know it
Not as we know it
Not as we know it
It's life, Jim,
But not as we know it
Not as we know it
Captain

So it would be "It's an assembly, Lee, but not as we knew it . . . ."

Surely some went on pretty much as before while others morphed into something different. Maybe more like the dreaded Christianity that was previously vilified.

The real question should be "what is the 'Recovery' and is that really what should define us?"

So, as Obi Wan would have said, "From a certain perspective, Lee is right." His vision of the "true church" in the recovery is such that no matter how much a defecting church may continue on almost identically to what it was before, it has left a hole in the "recovery" and has spiritually collapsed. (Of course, only under Lee's meaning of "spiritually collapsed.")

[TLFisher]

Because they were no longer under the thumb of the LSM and Lee's dream was no longer realized in those places.

That is precisely why I call churches affiliated with Living Stream Ministry as ministry churches. They serve real no purpose if it isn't to propagate Living Stream Ministry publications and events.
Are they local churches? Not any more than any other church within a given city. It is because they are ministry churches, there no concern or care within the communities their physical address is situated.

[Jay]

Apparently this has been the final outcome with many of the so-called "Ministers Of The Age"?

https://blendedbody.com/WitnessLee/WL-MOTA400.jpg
Photo by PriestlyScribe - October 1987 Taipei, Taiwan

Modern Mystical Teachings and the Word of God. F. B. Hole

Chapter 6 Fanciful and Extravagant Ideas (https://stempublishing.com/authors/hole/Art/MYSTIC_TCHNGS.html)

While I believe that Lee's massive ego was a major factor here, the itching ears of worshipful MOTA followers may expect more and more tickling...lest their legs start walking...

P.S.

I still hear talk about "new light" from the word in the LC. I'm sure it's a tickling thing in the hearts of the coworkers and the blendeds. I've heard them say things like "we are still receiving new light from the word." And then I've heard them also say things like "we still may receive new light," which is kind of dubious implying that probably Lee's contribution was a "closing" contribution to the revealed ministry light, etc. I'm not saying there's no light there either, and no new light, I believe their is, but it's very interesting to view it all in the context of how much they revered him like he was a direct oracle to God. It puts a lot of things in perspective and in their place when you finally see it all from that angle. It's like "oh no wonder they act like that, they uplifted this man to a near deity status." So of course they're going to sweep a ton of stuff under the rug regarding his personal life. Which is super culty behavior. At the very least you would have to say Lee reveled in his position and didn't do a great deal to quell their making him a celebrity. I'm not sure I see this behavior in the early churches with regards to Paul. I mean the entire book of 2nd Corinthians is all about Paul's constant suffering. Yet Lee was living like a celebrity. I guess God knows

[Jay]

My contention in a nutshell is that Lee's bad teachings came out of those periods of time when his character was also in question.

Sorry if this appears to trigger moderator action. The OP never designated Good/Bad as teachings only independent of one's character.

Let me just itemize a few examples from my thoughts before I get cited by Topiq again.


High peak theology (Bad Lee) followed the smear campaign and quarantines of many godly brothers
LSM takeover actions of the Jan 1974 workers' gathering followed Daystar corruptions
The healthiest time of WL's ministry in the US (Good Lee) followed a period of repentance as testified those who were there in the beginning

Some have said that bad behaviors come out of bad teachings, but I have said that the reverse has occurred more often.

Interesting points

[Jay]

This point also had a huge bearing on me personally, and also the ones I was with. We just "knew that we knew" that we were in something "very special" to God, and that the Recovery would soon make a huge impact upon the greater body of Christ. I distinctly remember as a young man praying and waiting for the books Mindbenders and God-men to get exposed and then open the way for the Recovery to explode onto the scene. The longer I waited the more this gnawing feeling grew in my heart -- "what happened?" The hype surrounding the "new way" revived that hope, but the quarantines of the late 80's distinguished it for good.

Much of the corruption in the Recovery resulted from holding onto this kind of vain hope. If we were "that special," then any business venture (ie Daystar) would be blessed. If we were "that special," then any naysayer was opposing God himself. If we were "that special," then all our teachings would revitalize and revolutionize the entire body of Christ. If we were "that special," we would soon bring the Lord back. I really believed that.

This is why I often say that our exclusive claims and our elitist pride are the root of the problems in the Recovery. These allowed certain men to elevate WL to acting god status. In conclusion, much of our hope and faith in the Recovery was simply based on WL and LSM hype.

mmm ok but this is kind of shortsighted. I'm sure many held this viewpoint. Even today when I go to preach the gospel with the LC brothers they have a sort of "we're doing a big work for God" kind of attitude. But actually throughout history the pure church has been hidden, attacked, damaged, marginalized, lied about, confused, etc. That is a marked distinction of satan being active against it. I would also say that Lee has correctly likened the pure church to a small vine tree, not a big tree like we see in Matthew 13, which is undoubtedly Christendom and modern Christianity which is just Babylon. Any preacher who sets out to do a big great work is probably not really in line with God. God works in hidden and small ways. The enemy likes to make things grandiose

With that said though it lends to probably some errant behavior throughout the decades in the LSM American churches. I know Lee had a very very successful run in the Philippines with churchizing and setting up local churches there, I think it was before he came to the states or the early years of his stay in the US. At certainly at times Lee was trying to mimic the success of say like Mormons and LDS who would go door to door and had a great deal of success that way. Lee wanted to copy them in the 80's with his new way blueprint. And then at some point they changed that up and adopted an even more relaxed way. I know that probably the door to door thing brought in a lot of damage for maybe indirect things, such as being exposed to damaged families. I myself was exposed to damaged people when my mother and father took me door to door preaching in Moses Lake. I'm sure I wasn't the only one

So the problem with the "big movement" type mentality is that I don't believe it's biblical for one. Every instance we see of Jesus preaching he was also avoiding the crowds and he was avoiding fame at every turn. He wasn't doing a big movement in the worldly numbers sense, but he was helping the lowly and imparting life everywhere he went

So a catch-22 and maybe just another failure of the LC and Lee to be that kind of ambitious. I remember reading Lee say that he was concerned at how small the increase numbers were, I think in his book 'The New Way' or some title like that. But anyway, it's a funny thing that happens when men get caught up in a movement type mentality. The flesh easily tends to come out and then things happen like "this is MY ministry" type of behavior because they want credit for their work. Just kind of a can of worms all around

But I don't believe the LC was ever meant to overshadow or overtake the denominations etc. Even if Lee at one point had thought that or said that. As far as God is concerned, I don't think that was ever his plan because he just never moved like that. He was always working behind the scenes in small hidden ways. Even now in the LC there's a prevailing maxim that goes something like "even in the recovery there's only a small number of overcomers." So that concept of smallness is real