Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Let's discuss the practice of Intimidation in the Recovery. Lots has been written about the LC method of rebuking, public shaming, humiliating others ... supposedly done in order to "perfect" other brothers.
According to the history of the "Recovery" given to us by Lee himself, this practice of strong rebukes had its origin with a missionary sister named Margaret Barber in China. She used this "recovered" practice to perfect W. Nee, who alone could endure her extremely harsh rebukes. Thus W. Nee was matured for Christian ministry. I'm not making any of this up, I heard this from Lee on numerous occasions....
...Where do we find these Intimidation techniques in the scriptures? Can anyone find a verse showing us how to "perfect" the brothers by rebuking and humiliating them? How can this be "recovered" if it has no record in the scriptures? Where can we find this pattern among other men of God in church history? Surely Schaff's History ... would have recorded this?....
...Note also that his own son Philip, though an unregenerate profligate, also used these same techniques as he took over LSM. Unfortunately he even treated the sisters worse than the brothers.
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Well indeed, it seems we’ve come full circle on the need for psychiatric intervention in the LC, starting with its founder, Watchman Nee!
On the one hand, disempowering young women and imposing himself on them sexually for his own gratification, using his status to prevail upon them in this way. Intimidation again!
Then ‘paying’ for his sins…allaying his guilt….by subjecting himself to the harsh recriminations of an older woman. Flagellation in the manner of the catholic church before Luther’s time, at a guess?
Instead of being able to unravel this toxic and intense disturbance in his relationship to the opposite sex, he embedded these practises into his ministry. The shameful side of it hidden, the other side promoted as noble. I suggest them to be two sides one problem. (I know he then brought this practise into general use, but this is the dynamic wherein WN learned it, at the feet of a harsh, punitive woman…it seems even a bit sadomasochistic to me, though I don't like to feel I should say that.
Maybe his final 20 years of life away from females altogether (in prison) was God’s saving grace to him?
To be fair, he lived in a culture where you did not show your weakness and in a time when there was no help of the counselling kind. (That it is available today is evidence of Cal’s suggestion that things are getting better in some ways on this earth, not worse!!)
Furthermore though, it reveals the danger of being in a position of authority for anyone with unresolved personal /psychological problems. It also underlines the theological errors in the LC on several levels.