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Originally Posted by Paul Chang
Many of these same sources influenced early Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, and Lee’s critiques of organization and tradition were reminiscent of voices in these contemporary movements. All these groups ostensibly eschewed established Christianity in the name of bringing ordinary Christians back into direct contact with the Holy Spirit. Of course, as they did so, they often formed durable and successful institutions of their own. Historian Grant Wacker has pithily encapsulated the complementary dynamism of this paradox
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Lee’s thought follows similar lines, with more emphasis on the spontaneous action of the divine life, and less emphasis on the “fury of charismatic fire.” In any case, it seems that the lasting power of these institutions owes something to their inherent contradictions. Rather than threatening incoherence, the Holy Spirit’s unpredictable leadership of pragmatic humans can both sanctify the institutions they create and serve as an endlessly renewable reserve for further reforms and adaptations.
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The way that Chang tries to characterize Lee here is deceptive. It seems he tries to argue that Lee’s belligerent attitude towards the traditional religious institutions in place at the time was nothing more than hyperbole, that it reflected a common thought in other contemporary movements as well. While it is completely true that the 60’s and 70’s saw a rise in those willing to question and challenge the traditional religious institutions, the goal among groups that emerged during that time was never to attack or bash what they came out of. They moved on, using the freedom gained to build up movements that they deemed to be more constructive. While Lee had every right to do the same, his attitude towards other Christians was wrong. And it seems he never truly “moved on,” as was evidenced by his continual obsession with so-called “degraded Christianity.”
As Chang notes, yes a lot of the groups such as the charismatics and free groups went on to ‘organize’ themselves, but I think that is rather insignificant, and not really contradictory. At a basic level, I don’t see such groups as having had a specific goal to avoid eventual organization. Mainly, they wanted to be free from the more traditional things. Practically speaking, as groups grow, it’s only expected that some amount of organization would become necessary. Even the LC had every reason to expect the same. The problem with the LC is that WL harshly attacked ‘organization’ even though he went on to do just that. And as
Ohio has noted before, WL also went so far as to label free groups as 'incestuous'. WL painted the LC as a group above all others, and that is why WL’s criticism of Christianity cannot be contextualized.
50 years ago, you might find an era in which the mainline Protestant denominations were quickly losing their sense of identity in a rapidly changing world with many fresh movements emerging. It’s no surprise then that the mainline denominations would come under critique by some. Perhaps some critique was well-deserved. But fast-forward to today, and the same denominations still exist and even represent significant denominational membership, making up some of the largest Protestant bodies in the country. So in the ensuing years did such groups ever become increasingly irrelevant? That’s really anyone’s guess, but it's not something we concern ourselves with, because what did happen is that many of the groups that emerged in place of the traditional groups have since matured (and even organized). Ultimately, there arose a viable alternative to a once dominate religious institution in America, and many have chosen to embrace that alternative.
This is why WL’s critique towards Christianity should raise red flags. If WL thought the denominations were dead/degraded, then he should have let them be and move on. Why worry about them? That’s what so many others groups were content to do. Yet here we are in 2017, the religious scene is completely different, but we have LC members repeating WL’s rants, fighting the same imagined enemy, as well as Chang attempting to rationalize WL’s aggressive rejection of traditional institutions.