Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
As a church kid myself, I would also add that it was my experience that the two concepts were regularly conflated in practice and in speech in the local church. I think the other two aspects of the ground of the church were more spiritual in nature and therefore fell to the wayside in emphasis, because it was harder to pretend like other believers are not one in those ways. The "one church one city" part grew in importance because it was concrete rather than nebulous, and was the stark difference between the local church and denominations, such that it kind of took over and became equated with the ground of the church. As such, when I listened to the video, I didn't have a problem with how it was presented, because it was in line with how I had heard the concepts used.
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I think I see now that Lee is conflating the two, and I'm just about 100% certain they're not supposed to be conflated. As far as I know they are two different things. The ground of the church as I understand it literally is the concept of 'one church per one city.' And the ground of oneness COMES OUT of the concept of uniting the body in each city. Which is probably what gave Lee the confidence and liberty to bash the denominations so harshly, because in his mind it was justified based on their not dropping their practices to meet on the ground of oneness of locality. So naturally the LC couldn't be one with anyone else who wasn't meeting on the same correct ground...and I'm not saying I agree with that attitude. It's an elitist and exclusive attitude. On the one hand maybe the denominations are degraded. On the other hand should we constantly bash them? I don't think so, we're all brothers and sisters in the Lord
So now I'm thinking that Lee is wrong in his speaking if he is conflating them, which it seems the evidence shows that he did. I suppose one just gets so caught up in the amount of his words and his works that you fail to notice important details like that. I know in the LC they make it a point to "stay on the line of life" which is a mantra to essentially only focus on Christ and the spirit. The bigger concepts the average member probably just leaves up to the speaking brothers or the higher up brothers. So it's interesting that more people don't realize or recognize when significant errors like that are presented in their writings/speakings
For a long time it's been in the back of my mind while reading Nee/Lee ministry that I am pretty sure the spoken messages are not verbatim or word for word what gets put into the books. I am sure at least some editing is involved in things that are said, and I'm pretty sure certain questionable comments and quotes are left out when they put the speaking into book form. Take from that what you will. To my mind it kiiiiind of opens up the possibility to leave out things said that make them look bad and to take liberties to add or put more clarity onto things said. Which is at least somewhat suspect
In fact I remember listening to some old tapes of Lee and things that he said in any particular message and what was put into the book later on were definitely expanded upon. The books come across very polished and very thoughtful. His speaking a lot of times comes across not quite that way. So I am just about fully positive that they take much liberty in editing into his speakings and elaborating more on concepts that he was speaking about. How far and how wide this adding was who knows. You'd have to go back and painstakingly listen to the message and compare it with the words in the book form