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Originally Posted by Larry Chi
Witness Lee Business Failures Disrupt the Church
Around 1959 Mr. Lee had some investment failures and he lost a great deal of money.
This brought the first financial crisis to the church. All the donations and contributions from the church members were used, and still the church owed people a large amount of money. Because of this situation, brother Lee forced the elders to sell a piece of land belonging to the church in order to pay the debt.
That piece of land was located on 19 East Road, section 4, and had been bought by the church to build a training center and a new assembly building. Because of that many coworkers and church members were especially unhappy about this fiasco. Mr. Lee knew this was something that he did wrong and because of that he went to the United States and stayed on the west coast.
After Mr. Lee left Taiwan, the church coworkers formed two sides. One side was Mr. Lee’s strong followers, while the other group had questions about some of Mr. Lee’s Lee’s activities. Those two groups had a strong difference of opinion, which greatly impacted the church activities and made much of the church work difficult to carry out.
Finally, some of the coworkers who were Lee followers asked Mr. Lee to come back to Taiwan to resolve differences. In the summer of 1969. Lee came back to Taipei. He decided to get rid of those coworkers who disagreed
with him.
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There appears to be similarity between what happened in Taipei in 1959 and the U.S. in the 1979 (Daystar Motor Home Company and Phosphorous Overseas Stewards) and also in Brasil about 2008 or 2009 with Dong Yu Lan.
In all cases, there was a division between two camps, one group which tried to examine what appeared to be gross financial impropriety, and one group which said, "Ask no questions. Follow blindly." In the case of the phone conversation between Sal Benoit and Witness Lee, and in some of the records of the Estancia Arvore da Vida and Dong Yu Lan, the answer was the same. "None of your business". In the Brasilian case, the answer was phrased thusly: "The business finances of Dong Yu Lan are a black box. You cannot see what is inside."
So much for the kingdom of transparency and light. In all cases, asking for transparency led to mass exodus, as all but the "true believers" couldn't handle the stench of hypocrisy. The humble servant of God was revealed to be an autocrat, accountable to no one.