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Originally Posted by BlossomingLily
I was "gained" on campus and my parent DO NOT agree with me being here, I don't know how to go on
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
I'd recommend reaching out to forum members Znpaaneah and Aron. They might be best able to provide guidance from their experiences with the full time training.
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I'm not an expert, but have opinions and will share if you take my word as what it is - an opinion.
The Living Stream Ministry aka "Local Church" or "Lord's Recovery" puts pressure on people to yield to them - their 'gospel' creates psychological tension and emotional stress which is relieved if you "submit" or "surrender", seemingly to the Lord Jesus Christ but really to the programme of indoctrination and culture of subjugation to the ministry of Witness Lee.
Witness Lee wasn't perfect, and the indoctrination programme lends to errors, some subtle, some glaring. Like Watchman Nee before him, Lee's Bible interpretation was marred with ignorance, cultural bias, and self-interest (as is mine of course, but I'm not starting a church).
First off, Lee's culture taught that you don't question group leadership; he was supposedly God's oracle, with the so-called ministry of the age. Nothing could be further from the truth. I heard FTTA trainers tell us, "don't waste your time" with the old, the sick, the weak. Don't waste your time with those who can't repay you in this age. Instead, go after the "good building material", i.e. young naive college students. Is that from the Bible or fallen human culture?
This kind of mindset clearly opposed the teachings and example of Christ, and I recognised that even then, and spoke against it, but was ignored (and stayed on several more years because I was 'sold out' or 'wrecked' for the programme).
Second, if you look at Witness Lee's teachings, some of his departures from the apostolic precedent are striking. For example, the New Testament reception of the Psalms: Jesus said that David was "in spirit" writing about Him (Jesus); and Peter said that David was a prophet and foretold the coming Messiah, the promised Seed. Something like 40 times the Psalms are cited as authoritative.
Witness Lee said no, David was a muddled, God-fearing law-keeper who typically didn't know what he was writing. Probably 2/3 to 3/4 of the contents of Psalms is panned as "mixed sentiments" or "fallen concepts" in RecV footnotes. So here, as elsewhere, Lee clearly departed from established precedent of the Christian church, from the NT composition up to the present age.
Third, Witness Lee wasn't even qualified to be a Local Church elder, since Paul said that an elder should have believing children and Lee put his ne'er-do-well sons onto church money. If you haven't read about Daystar and Timothy Lee, or about Philip Lee who who ran the LSM office for 10+ years, molesting the sisters and poisoning the church, you should.
Witness Lee repeatedly put his family above the church, and made us put the church and his ministry above the Lord. The whole thing is a false god, one of the "powers of this age"; if you read Protestant history it's flush with so-called prophets with special, proprietary visions used to siphon off some of the flock for themselves.
Now, what to do? Just get out. You got in, so get out. You're an adult with choices and free will. You chose to go to the FTT; now make a decision to leave.
p.s. be careful what you write because they monitor sites like this; they already know there's an unhappy trainee, consorting openly with the "opposers". And they know you aren't a church kid but are pulled from a college campus. If they find you they'll put pressure on you - can't have any sheep sniffing at freedom! That might give people ideas.