Quote:
Originally Posted by Witness Lee
"...according to my observance throughout the years, most of the co-workers have a human spirit of "power" but not love. We need a spirit of love to conquer the degradation of today's church…this is what the recovery needs".
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I wonder what today's blendeds think of this assessment, that they only have a human spirit of power, not of love? Years later, they made a big deal about how WL warned them of TC's independent ways; did anyone heed this warning about them, as well?
And as
Ohio noted, this assessment fits WL to a 't'. He also was all about human power. Look where he ended up, and how he got there, and how he kept himself there.
(Of course, we all need this warning, as well. How much love do I display? Very little. Mostly self-interest. So I'm not immune, either).
Quote:
Originally Posted by a former elder
"... in the Chinese culture... the one at the top is Lord. You do not question, or criticize, never, ever!! or you are through, finished..."
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The problem with culture is that we don't see our own. It's like going to a fish and asking them if they feel wet. They'd reply, "Whatever do you mean?" They've been swimming in water all their life, and don't know anything else. WN's culture became the lens, or the balancing-scale, which he used to determine what was 'normal' in the church life. Of course the Western model looked abnormal to him, and to his countrymen, and arguably it was in fact distorted when compared to the NT text. But look at the alternative that he and WL proposed: also abnormal to the extreme.
Again, I ask, where's the opportunity for "much discussion" seen in the Acts 15 gathering in Jerusalem? (see v 7). The idea of give-and-take is completely alien to this culture, from what I see. Where's any semblance of mutuality? Where's the "one another" in Paul's "receive one another" and "confess your sins to one another"? What happens to the word "fellowship" in this culturally-dominated atmosphere? In actuality, it becomes a top-down, don't-ask-any-questions flow of directives, couched in spiritual jargon - "We all have to be one", etc. In the more clinical phraseology notating the EL and Shouter cults: they're marked by "close operational control"; i.e. power. Human power and human control.
And I remember what initially caught my interest: the word "reality." We (or, WL) translated the NT "truthfulness" as "reality". Here, I thought, was the end of forms and rituals - here was reality itself, in a normal local church life. Instead, it was simply human activity, draped in spirituality. It seemed new and different, and would finally realize God's will for humanity here on earth. But its differences were superficial - we'd merely traded one human culture for another. Bottom line was, it was just people being people. WL can have the last word, here: "It is a spirit of human power, not a spirit of love." Amen to that, brother. Amen.