Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Lee's late-in-life output more and more took on this characteristic of heady metaphysical speculation, as if he felt the need to push the envelope more and more to show he was still receiving "recovered truth."
Should a person risk taking in ideas like the "four-in-one God" in order to obtain the good things Lee has to offer? Why when there are so many decent, healthy and down-to-earth alternatives out there?
LRCers don't care. To them there is no bad Lee, even when he talks nonsense like the "four-in-one God." But more sober-minded people need such a filter, and unfortunately no warning label comes on LSM products.
It appears simply that the average Christian could not safely navigate the whirlpools of bad Lee to find the calm waters of good Lee. Unless someone takes his ministry and reinterprets it with the bad parts removed, it's just difficult to recommend it in any form.
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Witness Lee would stress the orthodox fundamentals of the faith in order to ease the listener into complacency. We were following in the footsteps of the flock. We'd sing, "Just as I am/without one plea/but that Thy blood was shed for me" or "Blessed assurance/Jesus is mine/Oh what a foretaste of glory divine" and reassure ourselves that we were orthodox sons of Luther and Calvin and Wesley.
Then the revelations would start. And they were tricky because they were based on the Bible, and logic. "This shows us that", and who could argue? It surely seemed that this showed us that. Yet he would take us to the fringes of orthodoxy and even beyond.
To me this deviation from the paths of the ancients did two things. First, it satisfied the demand for "God's oracle", that Lee continually produce novelty. Then he could say, "No one else has seen this" or "nobody else teaches this". Second, it served to isolate the flock, and make his ministry the de facto "ground" of the local church. Because no one could go up to the microphone after the message and say, "But have you considered this?", or, "Well, yes you could make that argument. But my logic leads me to consider an alternative."
The safety in the counsel of many, per Proverbs, was gone. Now it was the revelation of God's oracle, centered on one man and his ministry. The 'oneness' idea had separated us from all other counsel (we'd been convinced that all other Christian fellowships weren't based on 'oneness'), and now the 'oneness' idea made us kowtow to the man at the podium. 'Good Lee' was just the preparation for 'Bad Lee' to come forth. It was the same person. The ground of oneness was merely preparation for the ground of ministry.