Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
Calling on the name of the Lord would be one of the least peculiar, or not peculiar at all. Whoever wrote the article is an idiot if he thinks calling on the name of the Lord is somehow peculiar.
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The LC practice of "
calling on the Lord" is peculiar because there is no indication that what is practiced in the LC has any relation to the phrase found in the Bible. Actually even if "
calling on the name of the Lord" as it is found in the Bible was a formal devotional practice, we don't know what that practice entailed because we weren't there. It was presumptuous on Lee's part to claim that a loud repetitious shouting of the phrase "O Lord Jesus" was a lost Biblical practice that he had uncovered. I am confident that if there were any loud shouting that happened in the Bible, it was joyful praise, not a repetitious and rhythmic chanting. What happens in the LC is an classic example of group-think. Ever notice how awkward it was when a newcomer would enter a LC meeting and not participate fully in what the rest of the group was doing? It would make everyone so uneasy that one person wasn't going along with the 'flow' of the meeting. That's what it's really about.
Back on the subject of the RcV, when the footnotes serve to introduce or promote a practice unique to the LC such as calling on the Lord, it is a subtle form of propaganda being utilized. People reference study Bibles for help with difficult text or to get a better overview. When the commentary instead is used as a platform to introduce ear-tickling teachings or practices, the average reader might not catch on to what is being done. Don't forget, the RcV is being distributed all across the US as a free "study Bible." Do people who receive one realize what they're really being given?
If the LC thinks they have a practice that is beneficial to Christians at large, that's great, they can go write a book about it or discuss it in a way that allows other Christians to accept or reject it. By putting it in study Bible commentary, they are presenting it as fact or as something intimately associated with scripture. Unless the reader is aware of what is going on, it is not hard to give study notes more precedence than material written in a book on a certain subject. And that is exactly what the LSM is hoping accomplish with the RcV. They want LC teachings to be accepted as
fact bypassing normal discourse, because LC teachings can't stand up to that test.
I went to plenty of LC meetings where we exhaustively read the footnotes for whatever verses we were reading, and of course the idea behind doing this was that everyone presumed that thorough the footnotes (and only through the footnotes) could you obtain the 'correct' interpretation. And if that is the thought process that exists, people will swallow it all without a second thought.