Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
Did Lee really change? Or did he just get more confident to let his grandiose dreams out of the bag? I suspect more of the latter than the former. He had a history going back to Taiwan, and even to China before that.
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I think that this is a difficult question to answer. I do think that certain characteristics of WL that later became more problematic were there from day one. I also think that WL didn't set out to become the person he was at the end of his life.
What I see is that WN served as WL's role-model. WN ruled churches in an autocratic fashion, and that is what WL saw as an example, an example which he imitated. Eventually the lust for power consumed him, just like it would for anyone handed that kind of power. Combined with insulation from criticism and negative feedback, things got more and more bizarre.
I think that under different circumstances, namely him not having a free pass to do whatever he chose, yes, his ministry would have still have had that 'fringe' element to it, but things might have not been so bizarre.