Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
When it came to treating his brothers with the love of God, Luther was very much like the last MOTA in Anaheim. Luther threw many under the bus... In true MOTA fashion, he could not work together with others, unless he was in charge.
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Luther behaved maybe better than we would have in similar circumstances; and if there be a kingdom reward he might be found far up the table than us "small potatoes". Who knows? Certainly, though, he had his faults, some pretty glaring.
But our point here has not been to measure the man Luther; rather it is that circumstances, and situations, and people, are not as simplistic as we might have been led to believe. Luther was arguably (and I largely agree) a man used by God. Yet there were also aspects of the tale which don't shine as brightly, as with Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, and others of whose histories we got mostly biased accounts. And this obviously includes those of Mssrs. Nee and Lee. We heard that their only faults might have been that they were too patient, too trusting, too forgiving of others.
But I argue that those kinds of one-sided, glowing tributes lead to strange and paradoxical conclusions. For example, if it was of God that Luther left Catholicism, and a similarly that Nee left Luther's Protestantism, then why are any such further moves called "divisive", "Satanic", and "rebelling against God"? Perhaps because such contradictory assessments further the narrative. Likewise Luther's biography often got simplified, with any unpleasant bits toned down, in order for him to fit the "hero" mold we got in the Protestant-biased histories.
For me it all comes down to this: those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In the local church versions of church history, the RCC was the paragon of evil, and today the local churches have created something arguably worse than the RCC. They ignored all the unpleasant, troubling and contradictory parts of their own histories, until those hidden parts mushroomed so large that they're obvious to all but the most blinded.
In what way has Anaheim become the new Rome, you may ask? Well, let me give just one example to make my point. Erasmus managed to survive within the RCC system, although he was on thin ice at a couple points. The papal powers had to decide whether more damage would be done by eliminating this popular and infuential writer, or by tolerating him. And Erasmus, aware of this, tried to serve the truth as he saw it without becoming a martyr. For example, he continually denied being the author of "Pope Julius Excluded from Heaven", although the writing style was unmistakably his, and he would smile and wink when his friends pressed him privately about it.
My question is this: would an Erasmus survive today, in the "One Publication Policy", Living Stream Ministry-dominated Lord's Recovery? I would answer, not a chance. Any tolerance his voice found within the RCC would be absent today in the local churches of Lee. This is why I see in the "One Publication" edict a distinct echo of the human-centric "oneness" of Daniel 3:6 and Revelation 13:15.