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Originally Posted by Awoken
So OSAS, don't know, Lordship Salvation, don't know... I think those are both just selective doctrines that focus on specific verses of the Bible and leave out others. Better to just be a Bible-believing Christian and walk in the fear (and love) of God, as we are encouraged by John, the Lord Himself, and many others...
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Yes, overstressing any aspect of Scripture - either salvation by faith or reward by works (which works aren't replacing faith but are demonstrations thereof [cf Ja 2:14-26]) isn't profitable.
But I wanted to come back to another point, because our focus isn't on WL, WN, or RZ, who are now gone, but about we who remain. Why do we gather around some people, lift them up unduly, ignore warning signs?
Mike Pence: "In Ravi Zacharias, God gave us the greatest Christian apologist of this century." One should probably never say this of anyone, just like we shouldn't say "Witness Lee is MOTA" - no believer should be held as uniquely superior. But my question is, Why do we do this? I want to expose such enabling errors.
My answer is, identity: we identify ourselves with what we perceive as greatness, what we aspire to. I felt that associating myself with the ministry of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee I was on "the express elevator to the top", as I put it in my youthful mind. I was no longer "just a Christian" but now "a Christian associated with the ministry of WL and WN", which I felt was vastly superior. So by my identification and association, my portion supposedly increased.
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Originally Posted by aron
I watched well-known evangelical Christians as they eulogized at his funeral, including NFL player Tim Tebow and VP Mike Pence. My first thought was, "We made this man in our image." We projected what we wanted [needed] him to be so that through him we could find what we thought we wanted ourselves to be. He was, and remains, at least somewhat our creation, representing in our minds a reflection of where we felt we were going.
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And if RZ got Tim Tebow to publicly identify and associate himself with RZIM, then donations would go up, as a new demographic would tune in through TT. If I go to Charity Navigator, they list income: FY 2013 at $18 million; FY 2014 at $22 million; FY 2015 at $25 million. It seems that RZIM profited through the association with folks like TT and MP.
That's the outer ring, the dupes. Then there's the inner ring, who profit directly by pushing RZ as "minister of the age", or "The greatest apologist on earth" or whatever. On the same Charity Navigator page, under "Salary of key persons", I see daughter "Sarah [Zacharias] Davis" as "Director" getting $208,000.00. Do you think she wants the truth? I doubt it. Think of all the padded expenses were added to that $208,000.00 annual salary. She had a strong incentive to promote RZ. Then, other daughter Naomi runs "Wellspring", a "humanitarian" arm of RZIM. Then wife Margie and son Nathan had paid "staff positions" of salary/benefits unknown. There were literally dozens I'm sure whose well-being was directly tied to promoting and preserving an image, and how much that image corresponded to reality, was secondary.
And I believe the same kind of dynamic existed at LSM. A host of well-meaning and ignorant dupes, then as you enter the inner ring, a group whose consciences have been altered by increasingly dependent and compromised relations with the source of corruption. They (board of directors etc) are supposed to be safeguards of the public trust, but are instead chief enablers of the abuse.