Originally Posted by aron
I wanted to come back to the point of my first post here on this thread. Imagine a flock of birds or a school of fish moving together through space, and suddenly they all shift direction. It is impressive, even mesmerizing. How do they do it?
Now look at Watchman Nee: first he sold the idea of "autonomy" and "independence" in the local church, then called the Little Flock. In the 1920s and 1930s whole congregations moved away from the Western-affiliated model and to Nee's model. The Methodists had done the hard work of conversion and now Nee's model was, they complained, "stealing the sheep". But in fact the sheep were voting with their feet. No more foreign church affiliation, but the true, 'normal' church of the Bible.
Then Nee reversed course, dramatically. Suddenly he discovered the 'Jerusalem Principle', in which one church was the HQ and everybody had to line up. 'Handing Over' followed suit. Not just the local, autonomous, independent church but the Mother Church became the focus. Also Church Leadership. Who's the Big Boss?
And they all followed suit. How could all these people reverse course so dramatically? I can understand Nee's motives, but what of the thousands, even tens of thousands, who immediately followed suit? I believe they were hard-wired with a cultural imperative which made building up the Collective a prime directive. Both the original "autonomous" directive, which expelled foreign affiliation/domination, and the "Jerusalem" directive, which consolidated power, direction, and coordination, were seen as building up the Network/Hive/Collective. So in both cases they would be followed en masse. There is no contradiction.
The only problem was when the Little Flock Hive ran into a bigger Hive. The Commie Hive. Then, the 'People' and the 'Party' won over, and the Little Flock was seen as a counter-revolutionary movement which needed to be expunged. Just as WN brooked no deviance to his Authority Model, so neither did the Communists. And they had the guns, so the fall of the house of Nee was great.
Later, Witness Lee resurrected the same model in the USA, with interestingly similar patterns. First, throw off the yoke of Religion. We answer only to Jesus. Then, spread to all the cities of the earth. All local and autonomous. Then, consolidation began - we all have to be One. See the classic RecV footnotes in Revelations 2 and 3. All churches have to be absolutely identical.
Ideas like Blending, Fellowship, Coordination were now the new norm. We must have the Practicality of the Body of Christ. In other words, just as Nee said 50 years earlier, Find out who is in front of you, and get in line. So culture triumphs, in the end.
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