Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
That now sounds so Asian mind to me now.
We should have told Lee that we preferred indigenous Christianity. ...And driven that Eastern Imperialist back to China.
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We're all biased, you know. I've met with a Foursquare Gospel Church for some years now, and I'm well aware of the craziness of Aimee Semple McPherson, how she rode a motorcycle into church, disappeared into the desert and pretended that she was kidnapped. Etc etc. I just went in there one day; I was feeling adrift and went in and sat down. Was it the Lord's spirit, or fate or chance or luck (good or bad)? I dunno. I just went in and sat down. And there I am today. It's my indigenous Christianity, and it's arguably "poor, pathetic, fallen, dark, etc etc".
We all have bias. We use filters to sift through the mass of experiences streaming in. Many of these filters are culturally-derived, maybe almost all. What's pernicious about Lee's filters, in particular, is that he couldn't see them, wouldn't admit that he had any, and convinced a bunch of us likewise. We endured beating after beating (sometimes literally - see bro
Ohio's testimony of the GLA experience), all the while convinced that it was pure and heavenly. "Glorious church life, feasting on such a rich store" - remember that song? Our portion in the LC was supposed to be rich, high peak, glorious, and pure and without mixture, while everyone else's experience was poor. But that, my friends, is a culturally-derived view, and model. It was an effective glue for the LC 'social contract', but still was human culture. Many of us got damaged or even spiritually destroyed, in the various storms and turmoils, but the model lived on.
But it's important to see it for what it really is. Yes, there's a lot of non-LC, non-Asian despotism out there, elevating of persons and lording over others. This particular brand, however was Asian, and its unfamiliarity helped mask it for what it was. Then, when things went south, we still didn't know what it was, and what was beating us so badly, so we toughed it out, convinced it was 'of the Lord', when really it was 'of men'.
'Covering the brothers'. That preserves the network. Leadership survives, network survives. Look what happened to the Mars Hill church group without Mark Driscoll. It imploded. 20,000 members to nada.
'Positive for the ministry'. The ministry is the life-blood of the network. No ministry, no network. So we must continually prop up and promote the ministry. Even when it feeds us crap, we must smile and say, "Yummy."
'Our leader is(or was) a spiritual giant'. Promote the leader, promote the group.
'Even when he's wrong, he's right'. Never question leadership. That is Asian culture.
'Get in line, and follow the person in front of you'. Asian practice. Watchman Nee's organizational scheme in the Little Flock.
'Everyone must be absolutely identical'. Conformity is good because it doesn't threaten group cohesion. We can't have individuals here. That leads to disharmony. Individuality might lead to chaos. We must, at all costs, preserve the network. Conscience, truth, justice - forget about it. Preserve the network.
'Don't waste your time' with the poor, weak, sick, and aged. They can't be used to build the network. Instead, get the useful 'good building materials'. Don't waste precious resources on those who can't pay you back in this age. This is Asian culture, without pretense of biblicality.
And so on. If I tried I could probably think of a dozen or twenty more LC-isms. And in many of them there's a strong Asian flavor. Sometimes it's pretty overt, with no Biblical covering. Usually, though, it's carefully reasoned out in scripture. But they came to scriptures with a cultural bias, or lens, or filter, and reasoned out a system based on that bias, and then exported it. Yes it is imperialism. Cultures are good at that. The Chinese aren't the first. But certainly that seems to be what happened here.