Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
As I see it, the reason such a question needs a reasonable response is so that we know that there are not other reasons the teaching has been propagated. One reason that has been mentioned is that of the shock value of such a teaching. I personally am convinced that this is one of the reasons the teaching has value to LCers.
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I was there when it rolled out and I agree. Lee was continually trying to keep the saints in turmoil and off balance. Look at the pattern of "moves" and "flows" like the Young Galileans etc. Lee continually blew strong winds into the LC. Deification was merely the latest and greatest (they all were the latest and greatest, when they rolled out). Shock value is a good term, here.
It was institutional pentecostalism: we were always shouting at each other in meetings, and being told to get "stirred up" and so forth. So teachings that strained at the borders of orthodox theology was probably one of Lee's ways of keeping us on edge.
And I doubt it was conscious; at least I've seen no evidence that it was so. It was merely the product of a system of hyper-subjective mysticism that Nee inherited from Guyon, Penn-Lewis et al. The continual state of excitement, even occasionally frenzy (I saw it and participated) was a natural outflow of this. And how better to institutionalize excitement than with novel and exciting teachings? (Even if they weren't actually novel).