It's statements like the following that bother me.
Quote:
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However, they do not represent items of our “essential beliefs,” based upon the Scriptures and the ministry of brothers Nee and Lee as presented in The Beliefs & Practices….(1978) and Brother Lee’s Speciality, Generality & Practicality…"
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While we always will be learning from various ministries, they are not the scriptures. Essential beliefs are based on the scriptures. It may be the ministry of someone (Nee and Lee in this case) that brings the scriptures to light. But the beliefs must be based on scripture.
The way this particular statement is made creates the thought that the ministry of Nee and of Lee can be a basis for essential beliefs. But it cannot. If the scripture does not support it, then it is not essential. So even though we may come to understand what it is that we believe is essential because of some man's ministry, the source of the essential belief must be the scriptures.
A significant problem that I have come to realize is that too much that is treated as essential by the LRC is found in the ministry of Nee and Lee, but not found in scripture. Yet the fact that it came from the ministry of Nee and Lee is treated as grounds for presumption that it is in concert with scripture. That little quote does not say that essential beliefs are only found in scripture. It actually says that they are found in scripture and in the ministry of Nee and Lee. And in saying that, it does not qualify that what is found in Nee and Lee has been checked against scripture.
Don't forget that Titus Chu was severely chastised in the write-ups of the reason for his excommunication for pointing people to actually read scripture and primary resources first, then reading the ministry. They would insist that we can't even understand the scriptures without the ministry, so why even bother with concordances and Bible dictionaries. In so many words, scripture was relegated to be whatever the ministry of Nee and Lee (and more specifically, just Lee) said it was. The LRC surely does not believe in sola scriptura. Scripture is not consulted to determine whether the ministry of Nee and Lee is correct. The ministry of Nee and Lee is consulted to determine what it is that scripture has said. And the result stands even if you just have to turn off your mind to accept the otherwise ridiculous thing that was just said.
Their standard is sola LSM. Who needs the bible when you've go Lee?