Quote:
Originally Posted by John
ZNPaaneah,
I know that this discussion took place awhile back; but I thought that I should respond to your post, since it contains several inaccuracies as well as misleading information:
- The Mindbenders does not claim that pray-reading came to the U.S. from the Far East. The book also does not claim that pray-reading was based on chanting.
- I don’t know if the church where you claim that pray-reading started, the one “going through great turmoil,” was in the U.S. or the Far East. If you are maintaining that pray-reading started in the U.S., what you wrote is inaccurate based on what I’ve read and been told, in addition to what I experienced in The Church in Houston (having been there from its inception). If you meant that pray-reading started in the Far East, your description sounds like it might have come from Living Stream Ministry propaganda.
- You state that “it is not right to blame WL for bringing this practice from the Far East.” What we can charge Witness Lee with is teaching it and promoting it to us in the U.S.; whether he brought it from the Far East or vice versa, or neither. In other words, where it came from (or even whom it came from initially), is not so important in this discussion. It’s what Mr. Lee did with it that’s most important, I think. And, the type of pray-reading that he did advocate and demonstrate was what I might call the Oh-Lord-Amen-Hallelujah (OLAH) kind, as described previously in this thread, not what is apparently referred to in Ray Graver’s booklet (which I haven’t read). One of the major thrusts in the Local Churches, including Houston where Ray was a leader, was to “get out of your mind and get into your spirit,” and pray-reading was one of the methods we were to use to accomplish that end. We were told that we shouldn’t use our minds when contacting the Word, because the mind was the wrong organ to use!
- Witness Lee was able to use pray-reading to maintain control of the Local Churches in the Far East after the 1966 split there. Since a number of church leaders had split from him because of his dictatorial control (among other things), pray-reading was one of the techniques that he was able to leverage to ensure that leaders would not be able to gain power and influence that would be outside of his control. Under Lee, pray-reading was taught in the Far East—the OLAH kind. It was one of the ways the saints there were given to escape the rational mind and become free in the Church. (This is my very high-level, partial summary of observations and conclusions by Fred in his 1975 anthropological doctoral dissertation, “Ritual as Ideology in an Indigenous Chinese Christian Church.”)
- You state that by 1981 that the “Recovery Version” was almost finished. One of our “Recovery Version” copies bears a copyright date of 1985. I don’t think many would consider a book to be “almost” finished when it didn’t come out for four more years. If you have one that bears an earlier copyright date, please let me know.
- You wrote as if Ray Graver was “running with” a version of pray-reading that was more biblical (my word) prior to 1981; yet, he was part of the leadership that was encouraging the original OLAH pray-reading in The Church in Houston.
This post of yours was disturbing to me; because, it appears that you have written as an authority yet misstated what The Mindbenders presented about pray-reading, glossed over Witness Lee’s push of mindless pray-reading into The Recovery, didn’t mention Fred’s observations on the subject, and incorrectly surmised that Ray Graver’s story in 1978 and ’79 was more like “original” pray-reading when the original in Houston was the OLAH kind. |
Methinks ZNPaaneah has confused the MindBenders with the God-Men by Duddy. Since the lawsuit it is hard to get your hands on a copy the key is that the God-Men was pushed by Intervarsity, which now refers to points made in that book as being made "anonymously".
Calling on the Name of the Lord Compared to Buddhist-style Mantras: Critics claim that the practice of "calling on the name of the Lord" is similar to Buddhist mantras. Members find it hard to understand what is "Buddhist" about calling "O Lord Jesus!" They cite the innumerable passages in the Old and New Testaments that tell believers to "call on the name of the Lord". They further consider the critics' accusation akin to Paul's persecution of the early Christians, where he was authorized to arrest all who called on the name of the Lord (Jesus) (Acts 9:14). (
http://www.indopedia.org/index.php?t...ch_controversy)
Pray-Reading: Critics claim that Local Church members worship the published words of Witness through their practice of Pray-Reading. Members "pray-read" non-inspired spiritual works, such as the words of hymns and the words of Witness Lee as well as other Christian writers. They strongly defend the pray-reading of the Bible based on verses such as Ephesians 6:17-18 that mentions taking the Word of God with all prayer, and verses such as Jeremiah 15:16, Matthew 4:4, and 1 Peter 2:2 that talk of eating, drinking, and breathing the words of God from the Bible. Pray-reading is sometimes described as "Buddhist" by critics because it involves repetition in which critics say the mind can be distracted from Christ by Satan. (
http://www.indopedia.org/index.php?t...ch_controversy)