Quote:
Originally Posted by Arthur M. Casci
That night after the meeting, Randy introduced me to many of them. They immediately welcomed me and showed great concern. I asked to stay for a week or two as a trial period, and was housed in a large duplex with about 10 members, who said I could stay until I decided whether to join the group. Nobody forced me to join. Nobody needed to. I was ripe for the picking.
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I wanted to bring
AMCasci and
awareness' testimonies forward to show something of the time (late '60s-early '70s) that caused Witness Lee's movement to grow, flourish, and spread, and that set the seeds for the issues that followed. I came in 10 years later, when those who remained were talking in hushed tones about "rebellions" and "storms" and "turmoils".
These testimonies show that the zeitgeist, or spirit of the time, does indeed matter, and influences how people react. Something like "Beatlemania" informs us how the Witness Lee 'recovery' group grew in the West, because both fed from the same source: a pool of young, impulsive teens (Baby Boomers) who wanted something new. And they poured in by the hundreds, even by the thousands. Just like 400,000 who went to a rock concert on a farm in upstate NY (Woodstock). The people were moving, restless. The "flow" was already there - Witness Lee just tapped into it. The Jesus Movement was soon afoot, and there were naïve young Christians waiting to be siphoned off. Look at how many groups sprung up in that era. David Berg and the Children of God, the Peoples Temple that ended in Guyana with mass suicide. Instability. Moonies, Hare Krishna, Weathermen, etc.
I hold that understanding the "climate" of a time helps tremendously. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a case in point. Jesus and John the Baptist both came out of the wilderness, and had very harsh words for the priests from Jerusalem. The Qumran sect, supposedly the Essenes,
also had a lot of harsh things to say about the established priestly and kingly classes in Jerusalem. Probably they had withdrawn since they felt corruption was so bad there.
It's perhaps not a coincidence that John called the Jerusalemites "brood of vipers" and the Qumranites, also desert-dwelling sectarians, had similar invective in their scrolls. But the fact that another witness or testimony has arisen besides John the Baptist in the NT, gives us a picture into the Zeitgeist of the times. Both political and religious dissatisfaction was high. And people like Witness Lee and the Blendeds, with their "there is nothing new to learn" mantra, miss that. We shouldn't make the similar mistake. Just because Watchmen Nee didn't read something doesn't mean we can't learn.
Back to the late-'60s and early-'70s local church of Witness Lee experience, the so-called Lord's recovery, we sang songs like, "I'm so happy in this lovely place... He [Christ] is new and fresh, available and near". Witness Lee sold subjectivism. Like
awareness says, it's a kind of 'special-sauce-gnosticism' that supposedly brings the initiates into a new and fresh plane of existence. But it's really just new and fresh marketing for the unwise. It's the same-old, same-old in a 'new and fresh' box.
The remedy for it all is Jesus. Look at the hymn (#1237) Splendid Church Life. Who's the subject? The "I" of the "I'm so happy in this lovely place" is the naïve young Christian snookered in by Lee & Co. But the "I" of the Bible is Jesus. Witness Lee sold us the "NT believer enjoying grace" but the subject of the Bible is Jesus. Accept no substitute. Or the "grace" you "enjoy" might be dust.