Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
So when the LRC died to us, was that our god? What happened to us?
I know that in my case it died slowly. ..My experience was not like everyone else's. It was slow. There were times that it was painful, although I mainly reacted with anger toward it rather than retreating to it.
|
A) My premise here is that we come into God's move, dragging our own agendas, motives, feelings, desires, and opinions. In the case of the Nee/Lee religious organization-building project, Lee ended up asking the Shanghai elders how it felt when they disfellowshipped Nee. Lee was appealing to their subjective experience, over the plain words of scripture. Paul had written, "Remove the evil man from your midst"; by contrast Lee said, "How does it feel, when you remove the evil man from your midst?" It was the kingdom of subjective experience. He thought he was exposing them but he was exposing the whole system.
Likewise Lee could later ask Max R. about his feelings, in discovering Philip Lee's behavior in LSM's headquarters office, and also ask Sal Benoit about how it felt to the saints in Boston that they'd lost thier "investment" in Timothy Lee's company, Daystar. Your feelings exposed your emotional investment in Lee's organization, and now your investment just died; how does that make you feel?
B) My second point is that our behavior often follows the failure of others'. In so doing, we correctly identify the splinter in someone else's eye, but miss the beam in ours: Nee could see the problems in Protestant Christian China (and elsewhere) but couldn't see the problems inherent in his response. Supposedly his Little Flock was pure, it represented the "normal" church on the earth today. That was why I referenced historical moves like the Protestant Reformation -- Luther could see the RCC problems but not his own; RCC leaders in 1054 could see failures in the Orthodox position; Lee critiqued "lifeless Protestantism" but his LRC movement was supposedly living and vital. Etc, etc. We can always point the finger somewhere else, and mask (ignore) our own subjective response.
For example, Nee didn't see the idea of absolute obedience while he was in the Protestant denominations; there, he was free to leave and set up his own, improved system. But once he got his Little Flock up and running, suddenly nobody else was free to do likewise. Suddenly Nee discovered "God's deputy authority," and doing anything independently or separately would be "rebellion." Nee, like Lee, exhibited a 'do as I say, not as I do' pattern. They could see the faults in others' behaviour, not their own.
And this applies to us all. My own writings here are just as suspect. I may see the situation with Nee and Lee, correctly (to some extent) identify its shortcoming, and then proceed to stuff my analyses with my own failures, wants, needs, prejudices, arrogance, and ignorance. In so doing, I build a God who dies. "Lord, it is good for us all to be here. I got an idea: let's build three huts. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." In fairness, Lee did note this, but he erroneously supposed that he as MOTA was free from this pattern. Paul had never made a mistake, as MOTA, nor did Nee, nor did he.
Subjectivism drives the construction of our supposedly objective reality.