Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
The real problem is that for the LCM, the Christian life it about meetings and quiet times. It is not about going to work, shopping in the grocery store, or driving down the road. It is the reason that so much belittling of human recreation went on. Those activities were only seen when compared to their version of spiritual activities...
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Testimonies in LC meetings were often included how the Lord came into the housewife's caring for her children, or standing in the checkout line. But it typically linked to the LC church life of being "filled with the Triune God", and that through the mediatory effect of "the ministry", in HWMR, publications, meetings, trainings, etc. And this created, as
OBW says, a false sense of what is spiritual versus secular.
For a rebuttal, see Jesus Himself. He was repeatedly accused of not being spiritual enough, for not segregating Himself from the riff-raff of the world, and for not observing the religious forms and customs and niceties.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
While it's true that none of us succeed in being perfect in the image bearing activities, the giving of grace by Christ for our failures is not an excuse to not try until we think we can succeed in all things. It is so that we do not lose heart as we work to fulfill the righteousness of the law.
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Somehow Jesus managed to fulfill the righteousness of the law, and yet be so normal and approachable. By contrast, the LC loudly rejected "religion" but arguably created a religion far more subtle and pernicious than the one it left. And the false dichotomy of "full-time training" vs "seminary" is an example. "Oh, we're not like 'X'", one says; all the while 'X' is just a make-believe construction, mostly unrelated to the actual world out there.
Nee was arguably directing and training people into a spirituality built around a congregational experience built around a Great Man syndrome. And when the Great Man collapsed into fallen humanity, their spirituality was ruined. LC/LSM apologists will point out Lily Hsu's failures as a Christian, but I wonder how many of her young compatriots fell from grace the same way? The training they received reinforced this, didn't prevent it. They were conditioned, and their conditioning was ruinous when the storm rose and the winds flew and the flood came.