Quote:
Originally Posted by Koinonia
You and I are probably around the same age, and I know what you mean. Maybe it appears "old-fashioned" to me in some sort of religious context. Or perhaps you are right, and the practice is Chinese? My wife and I are both Asian, but born and raised in the US, so I relate to these things less as "Chinese" practices and more as byproducts of the LC experience.
I do think the practice of "secret" courtship leads to a lot of disfunction and irrational trepidation about entering into relationships (and also a more artificial dating experience). The logic I have heard is about "covering"--that you don't want to create an atmosphere for gossip by pursuing a relationship out in the open. So, you create this strange environment where hardly anybody knows about the status of your relationship until you announce engagement.
If I may ask, leastofthese, was your wife a member of the LC?
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Yes she was - but did not grow up in it. Her experience with the LSM churches was mostly through home meetings. She enjoyed the simplicity, the multi-generational fellowship, and had a close friend attending. Her friend also didn't grow up in the LSM churches. She had read very little Lee*, but had read some Nee. The concept of "locality" is interesting and attractive until you see how it is carried out practically in the LSM churches - and Lee's teaching on locality is not only extra biblical, but borders (or crosses) on heresy.
*edit - she had read very little Lee outside of the "footnotes", emanna, and HWFMR. In the churches of Witness Lee, Lee WILL be preached. Rule #1