Quote:
Originally Posted by rayliotta
It may be difficult to overstate how much of a role these cross-cultural misunderstandings and blind spots play/ed into the recovery dynamic, at least in North America.
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The LC apologist might say, so what? So WN and WL were Chinese, and the current expression in North America bears a somewhat Asian stamp. So what? Martin Luther was German, and this perhaps "colored" his ministry, and the Protestant Reformation, arguably a Northern European reaction to the Roman church. So what if Lutheran or Calvinistic thought then had Germanic tinges? John Wesley's Methodism was arguably colored by his English-ness. Jonathan Edwards was a New England Puritan colonist, and his thinking reflected his upbringing. Dwight Moody was a typical Midwesterner - open, expansive, energetic, and optimistic. So what? So what if there are Asian aspects to LC culture?
My reply is this: we don't realize how many blind spots we have. Nee's "normal church" was read through a cultural lens. Period. If you don't see this, you don't see it. But Nee's so-called normal church was his normal church, not the normal church for everyone at every time. Doesn't mean that the European/North American church model, imported onto Chinese soil, which Nee reacted to, wasn't corrupted. It was. But the Nee model was also corrupted. We all are. That's just the way it is. The one who thinks he sees most clearly is the most blind of all.
So the blind spot in the LCs is big as a house, big as a bucket loader running over everyone and everything. Big as a tank in your living room. And then one wonders why the furniture is always crushed. So, blame it on the "storms" and "turmoils" and "rebellions" inherent in humanity, in life itself. And therefore one is unable to learn, to grow, to change. Always remaining true to the "vision", or lack thereof.