[aron]

Originally Posted by SeekingWisdom

Whatever aligns with the Word of God I say amen, and I ignore the rest.

I understand that, it's the safe view, the "do no harm" view. But we applaud Martin Luther for not keeping quiet, and we also applaud John Wesley for speaking up. Both were told by peers to keep quiet, don't rock the boat, yet they persisted and were expelled from the assembly. I remember the comment of one aged and distinguished cleric: "By so little, Mr. Wesley, do you despise the holy sacraments?" To the Anglican it seemed "so little" but to Wesley it was worth talking about. And the cleric felt that the holy sacraments covered all the defects. To Wesley they did not.

Yet today, many have sided with Wesley and Luther, saying that they're not rebels but rather men of conscience who followed their inner voice. So there's a judgment call to be made. I can't tell you to speak, or to be quiet. Everyone has to follow their voice.

Originally Posted by SeekingWisdom

But I lack the wisdom to address this issues in a proper way as a young brother. For me, it does not seem as simple as just exposing the sin and darkness (not too sure if that is what you meant by calling out). Or exposing sin and darkness in such a way that leads to life.

An anonymous internet forum is one way to address these issues. I posted my list of questions, and am still waiting for answers. The fact that no answers have been forthcoming tends toward the idea that my questions do need to be asked, in some format.

(Even your reply on women in leadership, that "there were problems" - what problems? Caused by whom? My thought is that WL wouldn't let women in leadership roles because it automatically eliminated half of his potential rivals. [and we men went along because we were thereby categorically superior to half our fellow church members])

I think of the woman who was molested by Philip Lee, the LSM Office Manager, in the 1970s. What it must have been like going home, staying quiet in front of her husband. She couldn't speak because PL was connected to WL who was untouchable. Eventually when it was exposed, the those who spoke up were expelled from church, the damaged family was relocated, and PL went back to molesting other women. Sometimes speaking up is necessary. Yet even so, what venue one speaks up, what manner, and to whom, are all judgment calls.

Originally Posted by SeekingWisdom

I read through quite a lot of the material testifying against LSM and the LC. I invested a lot of time reading through testimonies, open letters, and even some recordings. I occasionally check for new threads on this website. All of it was for the sake of drawing a picture of what LSM and LC was, and what it has become.

The best picture I've put together of what happened - how it started, how it changed, what it is now and why - is found in the thread "The Asian Mind/the Western Mind" in the "Apologetic discussions" section. I think that certain cultural presuppositions were invested in the principals (WN and WL) which they in turn placed on the flock. In China of course it went over more smoothly. In the West, in the 1960s, Eastern Christian mystic WN seemed a fresh alternative to the tired Western church going though the throes of Vietnam War, Baby Boom rebellion, environmental crisis, nuclear threat. By associating with WN, WL got a free pass for a while. But eventually all the cultural baggage became the elephant that trampled everything in the room.

But you can see how it was packaged and sold in the 1960s and 1970s. Look at the words in "Splendid church life his green garden" -- "New and Fresh!" [Hymns #1237] Sounds like a laundry commercial. Or, "Myst'ry hid from ages, now revealed to me" [#948] - the Inscrutable Guru from the East deplaned, and we all sat round and got the skinny straight from God. Turns out, it wasn't straight from God. It was home-brewed theology shot through with Continental mysticism filtered through oriental culture. Seemed "New and Fresh" for a while but it wasn't.