[Cal]

Originally Posted by Olvin

Olvin: Igzy, make it easy on yourself pick any two of the "many" I posed that had to do with scripture.

Okay, two things.

Does eating and drinking the Lord, one of WL's favorite topics yet offend you?

Not unless it depersonalizes our relationship with God, turning God into more substance than Person. When that happens I think it's being taken too far, and I think Lee did that more often than not.

Otherwise, no, it doesn't offend me in general. It's scriptural.

One.

Like? The scripture says; we have been made partakers of the divine NATURE in Peter.

It does say that. My belief is that Lee's interpretation of that went too far, and read all kinds of things into it that weren't really there. Again, I think he depersonalized God and our relationship with him, turning it into more of a process than an intimate knowing between conscious beings.

The Bible says that eternal life is knowing God. My long experience tells me I can't gain transformation by bypassing an intimate relationship with God and just imbibe his "life" and "nature." I think that way of looking at things is a mistake and I cannot see that the Bible has that perspective. To know God you have relate to God, I mean the Holy Spirit. And before all the Holy Spirit is a Person, with a mind, an opinion, an attitude and a character. All the metaphors for the Spirit--water, breath, even life--are characteristics of God's PERSON. So the less you know the Person, the less you have those things.

Lee said that Christ is life, and He is. But he also taught that knowing Christ as life and Christ as "our person" are two distinct things. I think that is nonsense. If Christ himself is life then if you know life you know him and vice versa. And if you cannot simultaneously know Christ the Person and not have him as your person. It's funny the way LCers talk about "knowing life" as if it is somehow different from knowing Christ. But it can't be. This is what I mean when I say they depersonalize our relationship with Christ. They turned "life" into something that was almost just some kind of force or energy, like they were getting the benefits of God without having to deal with his person. Can't do it and it's a mistake to want to.

Sure, the Bible uses the word "metamorphosis." But the fact is we don't know exactly how the Spirit changes us. We do know that the Spirit leads us and we are to obey. I believe real transformation happens in those acts of obedience to Him, because that is my experience. I didn't experience much change simply by "eating and drinking." It really came when I realized God wants to change the way I think about things and how I react to things. And like it or not, changes of those kind require decisions to do things in certain ways. You can call that "acting" if you want. I call it obedience.

The issue is not whether you are acting or not acting, the issue is whether you are walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit. And in my experience sometimes he tells me to act. Sometimes God tells me to act happy to see someone that I'm not really happy to see. He tells me to love people I really don't want to love. And guess what? Like C.S. Lewis said, the more you act like you love someone, the more you start to genuinely love them. I believe it's part of the way God created us to work. Imagine that.

So your mocking of the word character by spelling it "charACTOR" is pretty short-sighted. I'm reminded of the true story of the elder who came home from a meeting to the sight of his sick wife washing the dishes. He went upstairs and didn't help her. Later, when their marriage was falling apart, she asked him why he didn't help her that night. He said he wasn't sure doing so was "of life." It probably would have been better for that elder if he had just "acted" like helping his wife was "of life," because God commands us to cherish our wives, even when we don't feel like it, and when we don't feel like it we should act like we do anyway because that's what a cherishing person does! Get it? He doesn't wait around for "life" to "transform" him. It's just that kind of nonsensical ungodly behavior that Lee's ministry often led to.

So I genuinely think that a lot Lee's ministry led us away from knowing God and into some kind of pseudo spiritual "inner life" experience that was not of God. Now I believe that God is known inwardly, as the Holy Spirit. I just think that Lee focused so much on his carefully constructed "inner life" theology that he missed the point, which was to know God. I think all his errors spring from that.

And I don't believe that anyone who truly knows God would abuse authority the way Lee and Titus and all those guys did. I've had the privilege to get to know some very godly men since I left the LC, and one thing they all have in common is they respect the authority of the Holy Spirit in each person. They would never presume to usurp it the way LC leadership does.

Two.

Okay, I've done what you asked. Trust me, Olvin, I know the Bible and Church history. Just because I don't interpret it as you do doesn't mean I don't.

I don't hate Lee and it is not my mission in life to lambaste him. My mission in life is to help people know God. And in my experience and observation, many of Lee's teachings are actually a hindrance to that. I'm sorry if that offends you, but if your main perspective on Christian truth is still Lee's version then you only see one side of the story. I see your perspective, because I've lived it, and I see the one I have now. You only see your perspective.

You don't have to agree with me, but I'm satisfied that my conclusions line up with the Bible, and they also match my experience.