Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
... the members really do not function but, rather, read from the HWFMR, thereby just re-speaking what Lee said. True. One has only to go to a meeting or two before this is clearly seen. To leave the script is dangerous. So, in effect, they do not share what God has surely given them (because we ARE assured that "each man HAS"--present tense), but what one man said years and years ago. Only Lee is functioning, really.
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In order to understand the LC experience, I think that you have to understand the historical/cultural matrix that gave it birth.
Just as Marxism was born out of a critique of capitalism's ills (which were, and remain, many), so did Watchman Nee's "normal" christian church life arise as a response to the dormancy and stagnation he saw in the Western clergy/laity model.
But in Nee's and later Lee's Asian-influenced mindset, any functioning organizational model needed strong central leadership. Therefore ideas like "deputy God", "Authority and Submission", etc were promoted as necessary. Therefore the original thought of every member functioning became sublimated to the idea of every member being in harmony with the center, which ultimately reduced the notion of 'functioning' to every member standing up, one by one, and declaring, "Gee, Chief, what a great idea!!" and then sitting down. Because of their cultural lens they can't see the absurdity of it. And their cultural lens is threatened by any give-and-take as disorder, chaos, disharmony. Order must prevail. Freedom is secondary.
By contrast, if you look at the "normal" christian experience in the Book of Acts, on Pentecost each one declared in a unique tongue the glory of God. Yet there was harmony.
And there was "much discussion" in Acts 15 at the conference in Jerusalem, on what to do about the Gentiles flooding the church. (see e.g. v. 7). Yet it wasn't disorder. On the contrary, disorder was temporarily allowed, to find the true order, i.e. God's will for the group at that moment.
The LC attempt to externally impose "oneness" or "harmony" or "coordination" or "blending" or however they put it, looks an awful lot to me like the oneness imposed by Babylon - "And whoever didn't have the mark was not permitted to buy or sell", etc. That is the "oneness" that says, "If everybody did exactly as I say, then there would be peace." Well, duh.