[Paul Vusik]

Originally Posted by OBW

Talking about these various LC practices is sort of a minefield because the purpose can hardly be faulted even if the methods may be. It is too much like so much of evangelical Christianity that argues that worship is simply about the heart. If the heart is right, then the manner of worship can't be faulted.

Yet the heart of man is stated as being incurably (my paraphrase) wicked. And if that is so, then what comes from any man's heart must be questioned.

Pray-reading, like calling on the Lord, seems to me to be near nonsense undertaken to do the Christian equivalent of Eastern mantras . . . to chant away the thoughts of the mind and be open to whatever. Like the popular "let go and let God" mantra. While at some level that is true, I do not believe that, in the context of wherever it is that such a phrase might have been dug up (like the golden calf that just came up out of the fire) it is really saying to just let go and let it happen.

Several years ago I was briefly involved in the early stages of setting up a Christian 12-step program for all sorts of issues, addictions, etc. When you read the 12 steps, very early it is emphasized that you must come to realize that you cannot do it. Yet in almost the very next sentence, you must. Many describe it as realizing that the wall in front of you is made of boulders so large that you can't even budge one of them. You realize your incapacity. But
ultimately, for any of them to move, you must put out your hands to move them. Not that you can do it alone, but that if you do nothing, no one else — no matter who you think your "higher power" is — is going to help you.

And turning verses into a word stew where nary a single word is recognizable nor connected to any other in a rational way will not magically infuse you with knowledge of what the actual phrases, sentences, and paragraphs say and mean.

And the LC practice of calling on the Lord seems harder to stand against because it just seems so good. But when you can ask a conference full of people to stand and call on the Lord 3 times before you go back to the business of spreading lies about another one from your number as you pass judgment to ostracise him from your little sect, the need to question the practice becomes all the more evident. Reminds me of the idea of going to my Dad's house, opening the door, and shouting "Hey Dad" a couple of times and then closing the door and going back to my business before he can even look up and see who it was who briefly darkened his door. Sort of a "drive-by calling." (A drive-by fruiting? — see who gets that one.)

If calling on the Lord along with years of pray-reading has convinced you that you cannot understand the Bible without first taking in Witness Lee's analysis of it, then it really hasn't done you much good. And reading and understanding the Bible then seeing if the "ministry" matches what you read and understood was one of Titus Chu's sins for which he was tossed out after a good round of calling on the Lord.

Go figure.

I don’t think that you can equate pray reading to some “Eastern mantras”, or some odd form of worship. Threre is a much deeper meaning and agendas behind that practice or process, that they try to achieve. So let compare apples to apples, and oranges to oranges. Saying “Christ has risen, yes indeed” doesn’t equal to mindless repetition and outright hypnosis of sorts, to achieve some kind of state of tranquillity, or presence of some being “as when it comes on calling on the lord a million times in the row”.