[Drake]

Gideon>" But… (and here’s where my lack of history possibly kicks in…), weren’t there groups that stayed faithful to the Word even through the dark ages? I believe the Anabaptists were one? (Maybe others?) So how would WN/WL view these faithful brethren? Were they part of the Recovery? Pre-Recovery? (It strikes me that it perhaps almost parallels OT Israel- as small as it may have been at times- there ALWAYS remained a remnant that remained faithful to God?) So the Reformation took off and grew over time- and MAAAAAAAANY Godly teachers have come and gone in the last few hundred years. WL et al would seriously claim that THE VAST MAJORITY OF TEACHERS since Luther (I believe I’ve caught wind of a small list of others that are approved by LC?) are wrong and have missed the theological boat? I’m not trying to be rude, but that seems an enormously wide-sweeping, self-serving, prideful claim to me. Only the LC has “true truth’? Only they have it right? That seems scarily elitist and unbiblical to me. (I want to clarify here- in my few visits to the LC I have not caught the slightest hint of this elitism- and the few folks I’ve gotten to know actually seem to refer to other believers as such. But it does concern me if this is truly an ongoing teaching of the LC?)"

Gideon,

There were recoveries during the dark ages before the Reformation. Yet the Reformation represented a monumental shift. Following the Reformation many servants were raised up such as the Anabaptists who stood on Luthers shoulders in that they baptized those that were justified by faith. Calvin, Wesley, the Moravian brothers, Govett, Pember, the Brethren, ... too many to enumerate here but Watchman Nee's "What Are We?" covers the flow of God's Recovery up to and including servants and events up to about a hundred years ago when he spoke it. That booklet may be found online at LSM.org under the online publications and read for free. All of those servants had their place in the history of the Lords Recovery. Far from dismissing them we all are standing on their shoulders!

We do not hold the view that only we are right theologically. It is fair to say we believe the Lord has given us a special calling. Apart from that special calling we have no reason to exist. Here is a summary from the booklet I mentioned:

"Hence, what are we doing today? We should answer as John the Baptist did that we are a voice in the wilderness (John 1:23). Our work is to sound out the call to God’s children to return to God’s central purpose, to take Christ as the center of all things, and to take His death, resurrection, and ascension as the basis of everything. This is the message of Colossians 1 and 3. We know the position of the church in the New Testament. We realize that this position is lofty and spiritual. We thank God for the help rendered to us from the Western missionaries. Yet God is showing us today that we should bring everything back to God’s central purpose. Our work today is to return to the biblical ground of the church."


What some characterize as elitist is just our commitment to follow our calling before the Lord.

Hope that helps.

Drake