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Originally Posted by UntoHim
Sorry, I would say the opposite - there were only but a few of the major teachings of Witness Lee that stand up to to scrutiny. The vast majority are found wanting.
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I did not say "major teachings of Witness Lee", I merely said "doctrines".
Most of what I was taught was fundamental doctrines taught and accepted by all of Christians.
The redemption of Jesus. The incarnation of Christ. Baptism. The Gospel.
Virtually all of the doctrines that were special to Witness Lee are suspect. I have scrutinized them and to my analysis they don't stand up to scrutiny. But, in 20 years in the LRC there was virtually no teaching on the MOTA. In my own experience I heard this from RG in a non official capacity, indicating that this was his opinion and not sanctioned by the leadership as a whole.
The Ground of the church was a crucial teaching, taught more than any other of his special doctrines, and yet over a 20 years period did I really get more than 5-6 weeks of focus on this doctrine? No. On the other hand there was a verse by verse teaching on every verse of the New Testament and every book of the Old Testament.
Yes, many of us took umbrage at Witness Lee's distinction between the Bible that was God's revelation and that was man's opinion, but when you go back through Psalms, Job, James and Proverbs it is very difficult to strain out that much of the offending doctrine. It is there, it is offensive, but it is a very minor portion of those four Life Studies, and that in turn was a very minor portion of his life studies.
As to the cover ups, Sister's rebellion, whitewash, slander and libel you can hardly find it anywhere in the doctrines. That stuff went into special fellowships. Likewise with the decision to sue other Christians. If you were not an elder you could have completely ignored 95% of that stuff.
In my opinion WL's MO was to package his brand of heresy in as much standard, fundamental teaching as he could.
I have tried to post as much of the offending quotes of WL that I can. What I have found is that the elder's trainings are the gold mine, when you read the doctrinal text designed for widespread consumption it is fundamental, vanilla, and hard to strain out the quotes that I remember. You heard his speaking orally much more than I did. When I went through his ministry looking for a reference to Watchman Nee's excommunication I was stunned to learn that it was fully edited out. Unless someone else found it I could not find it anywhere, and we all heard that account numerous times. My point is that what was spoken orally by him is very different from the written, published ministry. The doctrines I was taught came from the written ministry.