Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsure
From 2015's ITERO and one of the HWMRs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8E...p=docslist_api
1: Does this document sum up all the major points of the "Recovery" view/ideology/whatever?
2: Is there anything in the outline or text that immediately stands out as questionable, or is a deeper analysis required?
3: Is there anything in here that is majorly hypocritical based on the experiences of the members of this forum?
Could I use this document as both an explanation to outsiders on what the LC claims to believe, and as a starting point for analyzing, deconstructing, and tearing down its questionable points? |
When I read the document, the first point that I saw was "
The Recovery of the Economy of God". That immediately raised a red flag in my mind. First of all, the LC would define "God's economy" as His dispensing. In other words, it is an activity that He is engaged in. So why does something that God is doing need to be recovered? Is His work insufficient? By this point alone, it would lead me to the preliminary conclusion that they are talking about something completely different than "God's economy" as it is found in the Bible. In 1 Tim 1:4 other versions don't use the word 'economy' but they do use words like
work,
stewardship, or
administration. I just find the notion to be completely absurd that God's way of running things need to be 'recovered'.
The understanding that God has a special way of running things is actually a simple concept, I think that this is a basic understanding that all Christians have. The matter of
what God is doing, is probably the bigger issue. With respect to this, I found the following point in the outline:
II God's economy was unveiled through the apostles, but because the believers lost the proper understanding of God's economy, there is the need for it to be recovered by the Lord:
So it seems that by this statement, what they are actually talking about when they say there is a need for God's economy to be 'recovered' is that an
understanding of God's economy is what needs to be 'recovered'. It would have been nice if they had clarified this initially, because understanding what God is doing is completely different than the realization of the simple fact that God is someone engaged in administering things.
I don't think that a separation of these two facts was their intention at all. It would seem that they want to lead people to believe that the fact that God has an administration is only validated if people have a proper understanding of that administration. Of course, this is just my speculation about what they are saying here, but it seems that they really want to lead people into the notion that God is only able to do things so as long as people understand what He is doing (which we are told is understood exclusively by the LC).
I must wonder though, what do they really mean by an
understanding of God's economy? Do they think that it means that they know how to pinpoint on a map where the Lord is 'moving' to? I'm certain that the implicit meaning of their statement is that they want to claim that they know exactly how God is administering things and that all other believers have lost that proper understanding. I don't think that even LCers would go so far as to claim that God is limited by our understanding of Him. The real issue is simply that they are trying to find ways to reinforce the supposed superiority of the LC. The main way that they do this is to take a simple concept (God's economy), then assign an esoteric meaning to it (which has only been interpreted by WL). If people buy into this, they are trapped by WL ministry, thinking that it is imperative for following the Lord.