[MacDuff]

UntoHim

Thanks for hangin around for a while, I knew you had it in ya (glutton for punishment….anybody who stuck around the Local Church for any length of time has a little of that in him). Speaking of the Local Church, no wonder you ended up blowing out of there…you seem to be quite the deep thinker, philosopher, anthropologist, church historian….gee did I miss anything yet? Anyway, if you’re any one of these, well we all know that that dog won’t hunt around the parts of the Local Church.

Here’s the thing. Now that I understand where this forum is coming from, I really can’t identify with the gist of this forum because I suffered zero abuse at the hands of the Recovery. They talk about things that happened before I came and after I left. And I see no reason to discuss their problems with the Recovery that I have no practical experience of. And my view of reality is obviously not the same as their views. I’m not really much for pontification, as some would surmise. This place feels about as foreign to me as a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses to a cradle Catholic. Can you give me a good reason to hang around?

Nothing personal to anyone here. No one here has abused me in any way. In fact for the most part they’ve been quite civil. Which shows more character than what I would have initially expected.

I’m not a Christian. While I still have some hope, and maybe a little faith, that what the Bible says is true, I have absolutely zero faith in Christianity. To most Christians and those who leave it, the Bible and Christianity are basically synonymous. And Christians would say that what the Bible says to me, when it differs from their own view, or when it differs from some predetermined understanding of a Historic Christian Faith or Biblical Christian Faith, is my own interpretation. Meaning my own opinion. Which if true, that the only way I can understand the Bible is through my own imagination, it would mean that I should have absolutely zero faith in the Bible as well, or at least my own understanding of it.

Which means what? That I should just go ahead and be an Atheist? Or that I should just put my trust in a particular denomination of Christianity?

I’m not given to deep thinking, philosophizing, or any of the other things you mentioned. I have no formal “Christian” education. My education has been in a totally natural endeavor. I just see things in a different light than Christians do. And have more faith that the supernatural, if it indeed exists, should be real and practical where the rubber meets the road than most Christians think it is. Ergo, the difference in thinking between the common consensus and I where human rulers related to believers are concerned. We are agreed that non-believers need human rulers to guide them. Where we disagree is in thinking that the same thing applies to believers. A practical denial of the reality of the supernatural relating to Christianity in my view.

Sorry if you got the impression that my little quip to you was focusing in any way around Martin Luther, and your points about him are well taken, but I think you dodged my point about the “truth”. “The truth will triumph through us”…that was the catchphrase.

No need to dodge something that went that far over my head.

More on objective truth below.

Don’t know if you remember or not, but Witness Lee was real big on emphasizing that he was bringing “recovered truth” to us poor, poor Christians in America. In fact, more than once, he told his followers that if even he deviated from this “recovered truth” we should stop following him. Of course many of us found out that this was all bunk. He only cared about “truth” if it put his person and his work in a good light.(and sometimes his family) When push came to shove, when the going got tough, we found out that to Witness Lee “truth” was a moving target – truth was what he wanted it to be depending on the situation.

My question would be “recovered truth” in relation to what? Lee acknowledged his relationship to Protestantism. Protestantism has all kinds of “recovered truth”. One such truth is called reformation truth. The ideas of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fides are considered recovered truth by Protestants who follow the thinking of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Seems to me, in typical Protestant fashion, Lee needed a banner term and “Recovery” became that term. Like “Restoration” became the banner term for an earlier idea of Reversionism.

I remember that in what little I actually read and heard of Lee’s messages in the early 70’s, he had a tendency of saying one thing then saying something else later on. That didn’t set well with me. So I really didn’t pay much mind to what he said. Not knowing he was the ruling elder, I didn’t think I had to. And as I recall, there was a denial he was some kind of Recovery Messiah. The amalgamation of the Ministry and the churches wasn’t apparent in Elden Hall. At least not to me. It seemed to me that down in the trenches we were experiencing something much simpler, more real, and more practical in Elden Hall than anything Lee was talking about. But I was young and dumb at the time. I may have only experienced exactly what they wanted me to experience. And looking back, there was a lot of emotionalism that was thought to be an expression of Spirit in Elden Hall.

I do remember Lee referring to “poor Christianity”. And to Catholicism and her Protestant daughters. I also remember that Lee was given to a lot of allegorical interpretations that meant nothing to me. I was only interested in allegory presented in the Bible. Lee’s interpretive allegorization went way beyond the Bible.

I’ve been opposed to the practice of Biblical interpretation for some time. One can interpret the Bible to say or not to say just about anything. And Christians tend to take full advantage of the practice. A consequence of denominational thinking. It’s as if Christians don’t really want to know what the Biblical writers themselves have said. So they interpret the Bible to say something more to their liking. And humanity being a study in diversity, what the Bible says to Christians tends to be diverse.

This is NOT “the truth” that I was referring to in my post. The truth I was referring to is not a moving target. The earth is round. This is truth. It was truth even when there were people running around saying it was flat. If I jump off of a tall building (with no parachute or other assistance) I will face “the truth” of gravity. The “truth” of gravity will remain truth, even if somebody tells me not to worry and that I will have a happy landing.

I’m with you there. If only more Christians would relate that to their understanding of the Bible. The Bible isn’t 1+1+1+1 + interpretation = a well thought out doctrine of objective truth. It just = 4 + an interpretation. And then it’s the interpretation that’s believed, not the Bible.

More to follow.

MacDuff