Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
Localism as defined by Nee was an excuse and an opportunity for various Alpha Dog scenarios to play themselves out: Nee, Lee, Chu, Freeman, Dong, Blendeds. And that doesn't include the craziness on the Mainland that followed the LSM. Until you see it for what it is, it has power over you.
If the local church were truly local, they'd take the fellowship from Anaheim as only that, fellowship. And they'd also receive fellowship from Duluth and Decatur. If they were truly local they'd receive all the saints in their locality, not just those affiliated with the ministries of Nee and Lee. If they were truly local they'd love their neighbour. Etc etc.
The localism of Nee and Lee produced ministry propagation stations, not local churches.
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Many of the saints in the Recovery's early days in the US, were profoundly affected by Nee's book
TNCCL. Now I don't agree with everything in that book, (e.g. only the Apostle can appoint elders in every city) but numerous safeguards were spelled out in great detail to preclude ministry abuses. Unfortunately, at least in the minds of Nee, Lee, and Chu, the book was simply bait to catch the better fish.
I have heard of various accounts, concerning both Lee and Chu, where brothers actively approached them with serious and numerous discrepancies between their actions and those prescribed in Nee's book, and they were shut down. Famously, Lee said, "
don't tell me about that book, I was there." Nee himself also violated his own book once restored to the ministry. The stories about Darby and the Exclusives violating their own principles have also filled many books.
Thus the so-called "recovery" of
localism was a ruse, never implemented. This so-called long-lost-missing-link of divine revelation according to some God-ordained pattern has never worked, at least not in real life. It only reads well in a book. Kind of like communism -- hard to argue its theories, yet in practice, only dictators use it.