Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
I don’t think djohnson is “eliminating any consideration of any kind of control” (he can correct me if I’m wrong)…I think what he is saying is that we (LCers) voluntarily submitted to being controlled. If this is what he is saying then I agree. However I think it is worth noting that Witness Lee did not simply walk up to the podium and announce that he was some controlling false apostle who was going to lead us into false religion. God’s enemy is much smarter then that (and so was Lee for that matter).
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I agree. But the way it is being presented by DJ is to say that it simply is not control. Unless I have forgotten some of the details, no one put guns to the heads of the faithful in Jonestown. Yet to suggest that the members of what had been a relatively prominent ministry in California (SF area?) who now “willingly” drank poison and died did so entirely of free will is nonsense. The control of the will is far more sinister than the control of the body via shackles or threat of violence or death. And you generally cannot cause someone to commit suicide by threatening to kill them if they do not. The threat is pointless. If you are going to die anyway, let the evil ones do it on their own.
But slow erosion of the natural defenses of the mind against illogic, error, and even harm is control even if the state of the person is to have a will to do exactly what their controller wants.
No one ever starts by admitting that they are going to control your mind, will, pocketbook, and even actions. No one would step to the microphone and say that they are going to teach you things that directly contradict the agreed authority on the subject (in this case, scripture) and that you will stand up and applaud them for it. If they did, you would stand up and walk out.
No. They use tricks of argument, logical errors that are most-times easy to miss. They get you to focus so much on one part of the “authority” that you miss the other parts that would make their argument false. It is seldom in big steps. Instead, it is little bit by little bit. Like the frog in the kettle. I do not like to assert absolutely that Lee came to the US with impure motives. But there is something about the progression of his time in the US, beginning as benignly as he did. He gained acceptance as merely a wise teacher. Slowly he worked to be seen as someone who’s word on anything would be trusted. Then he sent Max out to stir things up, then he tossed Max out. (There were lesser things that only those in some areas saw.) Then the lawsuits. (There’s a twist of scripture.) Read the transcripts of Lee’s answers concerning him being an apostle and other such things. The nuanced wording that could not be pinned down. Many of his answers technically did not answer the questions. Those first lawsuits were barely over before he was being exalted, and he admitted he liked it. Was that something new? Who knows.
Then came the direct speaking about “the ministry” and the status of the one who brought it. He never directly said he was the one, but it was a thinly-veiled claim to Apostleship. Then the Oracle. His teachings became “high peaks.” And as Ohio said elsewhere, coming to the pure Word of God turned from battle cry to “a must to avoid.” The scripture could only be understood as interpreted by Lee. So HWMR and other materials spoken/written by Lee, or recompiled by the BBs from Lee became the source of spiritual knowledge. Scripture became a footnote to Lee’s words. Only the snippet that would support his words was used.
Am I wrong about fearing our own understanding of scripture? When we were having the one serious discussion with my parents about the LC about 3 years ago, my mother said, in so many words, that we could not be so certain about what scripture said. She all but said that you just have to call on the Lord and trust him, which in the context of the other things said that evening, meant that you trust what the “brothers,” especially Lee, told you.
We left the Assemblies of God at the end of 1972 because we had already been seeing more and then came across the LC. Now they can’t see for themselves that the error in the LC is greater than the AOG ever was. But they will not look on their own outside of what the LC says.
Yes, they allowed it. But it is a subtle form of control. And to deny it is to whitewash the actions taken by those who have used it to their personal and financial advantage. It is spiritual fraud. And people who are defrauded typically set themselves up for it. That doesn't make them responsible.