Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
For a group that supposedly has no organization, it's kind of funny how everyone can exhibit a uniform practice across every LC you visit.
|
Every group has to be "exactly identical" with "no differences whatsoever" according to the RecV footnotes in Revelations, in which Lee traced the problems of the seven Asian churches to the apparent differences among them. But what is the basis of this uniformity? The subjective "revelation" of the supposed "seer of the age".
Look at how Nee and Lee are cast by their apologists:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul H. B. Chang
Lee helped to spread Nee’s more reserved, sublime form of Christian mysticism and church practice. In the 1940s Lee even played a crucial role in restoring unity to Nee’s home congregations in Southern China after a period of internal turmoil. . .
Thus, it is clear that Lee’s opposition to both institutions and traditions returns to the same point. Lee posits that both institutions and traditions are artificial constructs that deprive people of direct contact with Christ. God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.
The source of Lee’s critiques is also easy to trace. Through Watchman Nee, Lee received a theological heritage that was heavily indebted to the Anglo-American holiness movements of the 19th century. These holiness teachers, like many Christians before them, attempted to reform or renew Christianity by infusing it with a fresh, living piety. In this way, they were very much of a piece with the Romantic temper of the times, prizing extemporaneity and naturalness.
. . . Instead, the focus of [FTTA] instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did. .
|
The Guru from the East has a "sublime" or "mystical" Christ, which is experiential to him, rather than stressing objective truths or overt doctrines. "So subjective is my Christ to me" etc. The subjective Christ eventually led the self-appointed Seer away from the Bible itself, often cast as "fallen" and "natural", into the snares of his imaginations. Folks, if anyone tells you that the Bible is just natural concepts, run away. Run away. That's ultimately the "ground", or the basis of LC unity: Watchman Nee's personal revelations led to Witness Lee's personal revelations, which then were used as a template on the text, paring much of it away as unprofitable. Ultimately, even love was dismissed, charity and good works were called useless, etc, even when the NT record clearly holds these as paragons of Christ-like behavior.
And, where did the NT expositors reject the OT text as fallen and natural? Where? Yet this kind of thinking became the basis of the "practical oneness" of the LC programme, rigorously enforced in the various assemblies as it is promoted in the Full Time Training. The subjective experiences of Witness Lee are the lodestone of the LC programme, and the only means of ascertaining "Christ". The "extemporaneity" which Mr. Chang cites is merely that of Mssrs Nee and Lee. Everyone else was and is expected to "get in line" and "hand over". Nee made that clear, once he'd assumed total control, and Lee then propped up Nee as his ticket to the top. Nee was the Seer of the Age, Lee his hand-picked successor, and no one can possibly deviate from their subjective and mystical experiences.
In fact when Lee died nobody was allowed to be Guru, anymore. The Age of Spiritual Giants was over, they said. What kind of institution do you think will follow that line of thinking? A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.