Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
Brother Lee is criticized in this forum because he assessed that the situation in Christianity was lacking and fell short in their practices and teachings according to the Bible... what he often termed “poor, poor Christianity”.
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I see two related issues. First, address the assertion "Christianity is lacking", and second, if Christianity is "too poor", as I remember WL putting it, is his ministry somehow exempt? Or is it also too poor? Maybe even the worst?
1. We can always find a Westboro Baptist Church or Church of Beyonce to castigate, but are these representative of the greater mass, or not? How to objectively assess Christanity?
My own way has been to go back in time. In the 4th century with the so-called 'robber council' at Chalcedon I see a Christianity that had wholly and completely lost it's way, and in no wise collectively represented the gospel message of Peter, James, Paul, and John.
Bitter in-fighting over meanings of Greek words that today, if you ask the particulars (EOC and OOC), they just collectively shrug and say, its complicated.
And it got worse. In some ways there has been a struggle to revive the gospel, but overall it is a mess. To put it simply, yes it is lacking.
2. Is there really a "rich ministry of Witness Lee" (yes that's the term they use) or is it also impoverished? I would say, impoverished. The local churches affiliated with the LSM are a spiritual gulag archipelago, a string of impoverished assemblies where believers are afraid to think or listen for the Shepherd's voice. If Witness Lee didn't say it, it doesn't exist. And if he did, that's supposedly God's oracle.
It is a wasteland, barely Christian.
Somehow Watchman Nee was able to read 3,000 Christian classics, so-called, but today they as Nee's heirs advise to only read one publication? What a farce. What if some elders in an LSM-affiliated local church decided to preach on Sunday morning from some other ministry? Or - gasp - just from the Bible? How long do you think it would take for Anaheim to hear? Two hours? Four?
And I'm not addressing the practices, merely the teachings - One Publication Policy shows how thoroughly Babylonian in thinking this group is. The practices are exponentially worse. Not even "barely Christian", but rather "the way of the nations". Matt 20:25, Lording over one another. Shameful.