Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
Freedom,
Thanks for sharing Brother Kaung’s point of view.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the above.
I can picture it unfolding exactly that way and it shows Brother Kaung’s departure from Brother Nees teaching. You may fault Brother Lee for his faithfulness to Brother Nee but the fact that Brother Lee gave Kaung first right of refusal concerning the ground of the church in NY is also consistent with Brother Nee’s teaching to make sure the ground is not already established. Kaung just flat out rejected the ground of the church teaching by Brother Nee.
Drake
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I think you're making assumptions about the intentions of both Lee and Kaung. In Indiana's writing, he provided some insightful background on Lee's mindset when he came to the US. Here's what John Ingalls said:
Brother Lee came there to report to us of the time he had just had with C.J.B. Harrison of Westmoreland Chapel. For six hours, he and Brother Harrison met together. Witness Lee said that things were not clear at Honor Oak, [with Brother Sparks], but that Westmoreland was even more unclear. If Westmoreland were a denomination, we should leave it. He defined a denomination as a group who had a special name or a special fellowship (i.e., some are accepted, some rejected) or a special doctrine. He also said that it was not clear whether or not they were on the right ground.
“Brother Lee was not at peace and had some reservation about Westmoreland. He asked the question, “Is now the right time?” Continuing, he said, “We run a risk if we continue in this line [remaining apart from Westmoreland]. Such would be a shame to the Lord, to His name, and to His teaching. I am confident that the Lord will do a work in Los Angeles. We do not want to frustrate the work of God at this time. I am concerned for our future, so itis better to stop now and wait and see. You cannot do anything that is doubtful. We must always act from a pure conscience.”
Notice how Lee never directly stated that Westmoreland was on the
wrong ground. He only said he had reservations about Westmoreland, and that it wasn't clear whether they were on the
right ground. But according to what people have been telling me on this thread, Lee should have been crystal clear on the matter. This raises a very good question - if Lee was so adamant about the ground of locality, why didn't he just come out and say that Westmoreland wasn't standing on the ground? That's what I would have expected him to say, but he didn't. I would have also expected Lee to have been the one who spearheaded the initiative for the church in Los Angeles to
take the ground. It wasn't. It was John Ingalls, Samuel Chang, and others who later called to tell him what they did.
So getting back to Kaung... I have established that early on, that Lee wasn't insistent upon the ground. But when he came to New York, he pushed the matter on Kaung. This would suggest either hypocrisy or that there were hidden motives at play. That is what the facts support. The facts don't support that Kaung "flat out rejected the ground of the church teaching."