[zeek]

Originally Posted by OBW

While I believe it is safe to say that we look at some of this differently, I don't think we really disagree.

As for "everyone else's teaching," I think that once you toss the outliers (like Nee and Lee) despite the somewhat broad variety in emphasis and even position on things like Calvinism v Arminianism, style of baptism, and a whole host of secondary issues, I may not prefer them all, but I do not have the problem with their teachings and their methods that I do with Lee and the LRC. And a lot of it can be wrapped into what you called the denial of the human right to think (my paraphrase). And that is a big one.

And once you are allowed to think for yourself, it becomes obvious that the reason they didn't want you to think because the only reasons you would pick them over almost any other Christian group were things that you would disagree with if given the opportunity to think.

So they had to shame you into thinking you were unspiritual if you even considered disagreeing with them.

As what we are conversing about is human freedom, the variety of positions one can choose seems limitless. Looked at that way freedom appears dizzying. But, freedom does not compel one to abandon one's Christian heritage. That characterization was a Witness Lee lie. If freedom is a human capacity, we can make choices as long as we live. If we are free; we are not compelled to make bad ones.

Interestingly, Lee contradicts Nee in The Present Turmoil in the Lord's Recovery and the Direction of the Lord's Move Today when he states:

This illogical and unreasonable rebellion is a test to the faithful ones. Any saint who knows the New Testament teachings logically and reasonably and who is faithful to the Lord according to His holy and unchanging Word would not care for the unbridled speakings in the present turmoil.

By invoking logic and reason, he contradicts Nee's principle that "None who follow reason can walk the spiritual pathway, because it is beyond and above human reasoning." Nee's principle made it disobedient to reason. Now Lee seems to recommend logic and reason despite counseling people against logic and reason and independent thinking many times. Inconsistency never seemed to bother him.