There is a statement made by Lee found in
Indiana’s post, which I think provides some insight into why the local churches slowly but surely became “ministry churches.” Along with re-posting that quote, I want to also provide a strikingly similar statement made by Nee:
Quote:
Since we have seen such a high peak of the divine revelation, we need to put into practice what we have seen. Our practice will have a success, and that success will be a new revival—the highest revival, and probably the last revival before the Lord’s coming back….”
Living the Life of a God-Man According to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation (1994)
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Quote:
With each step that the Lord has taken in His recovery, the content of His recovery has become richer and richer. Today, it seems as if there is nothing more to be recovered. The recovery today has reached the stage of the Body. Perhaps this will be the last recovery. There may be other items of recovery, but as far as we know, when we reach the recovery of the coordination of the Body and the manifestation of authority, we have reached the final recovery.
(Messages Given During the Resumption of Watchman Nee's Ministry, Chapter 43
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As is evident from both of these statements, both Nee and Lee believed in this notion of there being a “final recovery/revival,” and of course, each man attributed this supposed event to something from his own ministry. For Nee, he thought this event would be characterized by two things he taught: 1)
the coordination of the Body and 2)
the manifestation of authority. Lee though that it would happen due to something that he had taught –
the high peak of the divine revelation.
From an objective standpoint, it seems like the common denominator in all of this is the notion of
recovery. While I believe the notion of
recovery to be highly erroneous, that’s a different discussion. The point I want to make here is that because all LC members believe that they are part of a
recovery, and because this
recovery is believed to be ongoing and
characterized exclusively by teachings from Nee/Lee, LC members have been inadvertently placed in the position where they feel obligated to receive “the ministry.”
The fact that WL was exclusively speaking everything that was deemed to have been "recovered," created an inherent conflict of interest, and there was no such thing as objectivity. Things got to the point where any of Lee’s actions could and would be rationalized by members. The dependency on Lee as the one who was "fueling" the supposed recovery is what produced “ministry churches” over time. Unless people were severely disillusioned with Lee, there was really no way to escape that. The reason that I say that, is because if a member were to question basic things like the promotion of LSM material or control over the churches, it would quickly become apparent that to draw the line with LSM is not enough. A disillusionment should really lead to other questions, especially the more difficult ones.