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Originally Posted by Jay
At any rate we'll probably never know exactly the motivations for the bros in Moses Lake to dissent. But also it's some great points to consider with regards to the abuse of leadership, or the mishandling of leadership and alleged protective nepotism
I don't think it was regarding simply the church in Moses Lake wanting local autonomy. That's too basic in my view. I know that they did want this and I see no reason why Lee would seek to not allow them local autonomy, because as far as I know that's how the local churches function. They are or should be autonomous in a lot of their local dealings and functions. How exactly they interact with LSM is anyone's guess, or maybe people have certain experiences of control idk. But I seriously doubt this was the reason for the dissent in Moses Lake. For sure there was a disagreement between Lee and the leaders of the church of Moses Lake. The details of that I don't know. But I do know that Lee was saying they needed to fall under him and if they didn't they could go their own way, and they chose to go their own way and cut themselves off from the fellowship of all the other churches. I guess you could take from that that Lee DID in fact have autonomous control over all the churches. But again, I highly doubt that the only reason the dissent ensued was simply because Lee wouldn't recognize their autonomy. That doesn't sound right
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There may always be ulterior motives, such as those of Titus Chu in Ohio, but you can see in John Ingalls' testimony that autonomy was a primary concern of many elders and localities even long before Phillip Lee's sins were widely known. John Ingalls and Godfred Otuteye made much of this clear in their fellowship with other elders and regional/national leaders of The Local Churches. More and more orders and demands were coming in from LSM as if they had some kind of authority over the church, and those who resisted were often reprimanded by Lee or his subordinates. This only became worse when Phillip, who was not at all seen as a mature believer by many or even a believer at all by some, began to exercise this authority as well with little, if any, checks and balances from the churches. With time this culminated with more and more authoritarian teachings within The Lord's Recovery with doctrines such as "Minister of the Age," "God's deputy authority," "apostolic succession," "1000 years of darkness," "one publication." This goes hand in hand with their teachings of reflexively labeling any critics of LSM materials as "dissenters" and "poisonous" people who should absolutely be avoided regardless of whether or not you think they are right or are good people.
Autonomy was a pivotal and foundational reason for the localities in the Local Churches to express dissent because what they were seeing over the years reeked of the hierarchy and clergy/laity that Witness Lee had supposedly been standing against for so long. It went against everything that Lee had supposedly taught that The Lord's Recovery should be. Many elders disregarded the red flags for many years, but it became clear what kind of system was being built by Lee and his loyal followers, and it wasn't at all what Lee had promised them. Lee's reaction to these concerns was not proper humility, fellowship, and assurance, but public shaming of others, the tightening of the noose around many localities, and the culling of any who would speak up against him, leaving him and his successors with even more absolute control over the localities associated with The Lord's Recovery.
So while you may technically be right in saying that the issue of autonomy was not the only concern or motivation, for there are many involved with their own personal ideas and goals, it was the foundational and most widespread one since it led to Witness Lee's and Phillip Lee's abuse of power not only within the publication company known as Living Stream Ministry, but over many localities in the Local Churches.