Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
The LCs run a comprehensive thought-suppression system whose perniciousness lies in how well it masks itself.
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Once I was in an immersive "church life" experience, living in a "brother's house" with meetings 6 days a week, plus an equal amount of informal "fellowship", and when I left, the ingrained LC thinking remained. Even though I went back to Protestant Christianity physically, when I read a spiritual book, I'd say, "That's not God's economy"; same with Christian meetings: if the pastor said something good, I'd think, "Brother Lee already covered this." Or, again, "That's not God's economy". It took years to get such knee-jerk reflexive responses out of my head, and to think critically; it took years to slowly unpack it and see the deeply rooted and self-reinforcing system of mind control. LC mantras had covered the doorways of thought.
That's why I call it pernicious, in that it maintains power because LC members are trained, or conditioned, not to critically examine the thoughts the ministry's put in their heads. They're led to suppose that every other teaching can be wrong, even the Bible can contain "fallen human concepts", but the "ministry" - never! That option has been removed - one simply isn't allowed to think that - to even entertain it is being "negative".
You don't want to be negative, do you? Critical thought in the LC is forbidden fruit, held up as the first step to independence and then rebellion.
Since leaving, I've learned to question most everything; I believe and confess that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day, and that the blood of Jesus is efficacious, and cleanses me from every sin. On that I'm consciously dogmatic, because the NT clearly states this: if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that God raised Jesus from the dead, you'll be saved. Likewise, it says that if I forgive others their trespasses, God will forgive mine; Jesus taught this prayer, and I repeat it.
Beyond that, we have the right to question; if anyone comes along with an "extra", we should examine to see if indeed it's so. All the "derived truths" are actually man-made abstractions, theological overlays imposed on the text. But anyone can come up with abstractions - Witness Lee could, so can I. But I don't take any of them on face value, especially mine! "Prove all things, hold to what is good." The journey continues.