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Originally Posted by Ohio
Looking back, it's just amazing how WL was given such a free pass for his miserable failures, including Daystar.
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In order to motivate the sheep to officially release Witness Lee from all financial obligations, they also told us that Lee was a crushed, broken man, who was grieving before the Lord, barely able to raise his head (or language similar to this) because of the pain he felt over having hurt the saints. I remember, at the time, that the words they used caused me to form a mental picture of Witness Lee on his knees weeping before the Lord. Of course, this started my emotional heart strings playing, and I joined John in gladly signing away any hope of the return of his mother's hard earned money--money she wanted her son to have.
While writing the book, I remember asking myself if had I taken money from others and hurt them as Lee did, what would I have done? Would I have paid it back later, if I became able to do so? My answer was, "Absolutely, yes." I would not want to give account to the Lord for the harm I had caused to His children. I would want to restore what I had taken from them, no matter how long it took.
After the book was published, a brother who had been an elder on the east coast during the 70s, told me that he had seen a copy of Witness Lee's income tax return in the late 70s (77 I think) and that Lee had made a million dollars that year (just a few years after we had released him). I remember saying, "What!!!???" How could that be? I asked, "If he had income like that, why didn't pay us back!?"
So, I feel like asking again today, "If the portrait they painted for us of Witness Lee's post-Daystar-gig condition was a true one, then why didn't Lee pay his brethren back before he died?" (I suspect that the "broken man" picture we heard in Texas was more likely an embellishment of Ray Graver's imagination which was designed to more easily manipulate the sheep.) But okay, let's say he was a broken man and he couldn't make any pay-back in the 70s, then why not do so before the end of his life--especially when he was so repentant, and all that, on his near death bed. How about adding to his parting words, "Oh, and you newly appointed blended ones, see that money goes to pay back every one I hurt financially in the 70s, even the 'little potato' contributors." Surely, funding by that time was not a problem. I mean, didn't "pay-back-my-debts-to-my-brothers" belong higher up the Blendeds To Do list than "spend-millions-to-sue-other-believers-and-defend-the-ministry"?
Jesus paid a huge debt for us--one he didn't owe us. So why wouldn't a man who was "becoming God" find it important to make retribution of money he did owe (not legally, of course, but certainly as a Christian leader who used his position and our regard for him in an highly questionable way)? It seems it was more important to Lee to build a god-man publishing empire and make a god-name for himself than to do what was truly godly and right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
If God was truly for this investment endeavor, do you really think rising gas prices due to the OPEC Cartel could have destroyed this fledgling enterprise? Was our God so grossly incompetent in global monetary affairs to have allowed this horrible misfortune to occur? Or was this just a coincidentally freakish business mishap? How could WL know the oil markets of the day? It could have happened to anyone!?!
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I suppose that those of us who invested should also ask ourselves about our own motivation for putting money into Daystar. Were we just a bit too anxious to make money, a return on our investment, (ah hmm, for "the Lord's Recovery")? Was that a factor in our easily being tempted to run out and "sell our possessions" and lay their price at the feet of our very own apostle?
History seems to say pretty clearly that personal gain was a factor on all sides of the equation. It also says, "Apostle? No. Bernie, who then Made Off with the money? Yes."
Thankful Jane