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Originally Posted by OBW
At some level, the local churches have been a personality cult since the very beginning (at least in the US). So many of those who were enticed with Lee's speaking were already reading Nee and trying to figure out how it should be practiced in their lives. ...I will not deny that there have been some from Texas that have helped to make the LRC what it is today. But it is not just Texans.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rayliotta
That person's peculiarities become mapped all over the group. Thanks, aron. This statement says a lot. What is this odd force by which the peculiar traits of one or two people are projected onto a whole group?
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I have seen personality cults that were the size of a local congregation. Pastor Bob dominated the scene. Or, Pastor Bob becomes a kind of "bishop" with several affiliated congregations. Or, Pastor Bob becomes a kind of "apostle" with a whole movement "affiliated" with his ministry. (That was the LSM term: "local churches affiliated with the ministries of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee.")
Now, what was in it for the rank-and-file? I suspect they saw it as a simplification, and a short-cut. The easy road. Just do what you are told. Troubling uncertainties are removed. They vicariously absorb the confidence of the group's mentor. And the ambitious ones now have a center and a focus of their efforts. The Ray Gravers now have found their Yoda, and it isn't Jesus Christ. It's someone offering a fast-and-easy path to Jesus Christ. "Call, call, won't you call Jesus' name". Some simplified formula. I bought it; I was there, too.
The peculiar traits themselves are largely irrelevant. Every personality cult has its own personalities, languages, behaviors, values, expectations. When RG said, "We do what we are told", when MP said, "You will take my personality as your own", they were doing us all a favor, by removing the pseudo-spiritual sheen and showing us what lay beneath.
We are pack animals, and we want a king. Look at the story with King Saul, look at the crowd coming to Jesus to make him king.... "Herod the Idumean usurper will be banished, and the line of David would once again be ascendant!! Wonderful!!" See how our minds work?
Nee, for example, offered an opportunity to throw off the foreign yoke. Remember that the Boxer Rebellion was fresh on every one's minds... suddenly a native son arises and the "true church" is born, there on the local ground, and not a franchise of some German or English church. It was very attractive, and hugely successful. Suddenly everyone there thinks the success is due to the brilliant and gifted Nee. A personality cult is waiting. Nee buys into it, and the "Jerusalem principle" is born. Consolidation, and handing over.
And I think Lee's experience, coming into the ferment of the Jesus Movement days, is similar. Just a strain of the same virus. As was TC, DYL, the Blendeds, Bill and Patsy Freeman, etc. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of such groups out there. Bait and switch: the easy path to glory, just come to the local church and shout "O Lord Jesus!", and it becomes indentured servitude to the latest "Minister of the age" or "God's anointed one". I bought it; I was there, too.