Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
Under normal circumstances, if LC members read something by Nee or Lee that they disagreed with, they should have every right to vocalize that disagreement. Instead, they are forced to read things that everyone knows won't be taken seriously, yet they have to keep the disagreement to themselves, and simply 'ignore' things that bother them. Valuable time is wasted reading things of little value. And I'm not saying that Nee or Lee's ministry have no value at all, but because an exclusive use of their ministries has been mandated, the things of little value are mixed in with the things that do have the potential to be helpful, thereby resulting in an ultimate watering down of any potential benefit of these ministries.
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I remember attending a home meeting where we read a Nee excerpt in which he went on a rant about casinos/gambling. Obviously, among LC members or Christians in general, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would be interested in gambling or patronizing casinos. Therefore, the inevitable question arises, what is the value of reading ministry on that specific topic like that? Towards the end of that meeting, I felt a bit frustrated when trying to think of what I could possibly share as my ‘enjoyment’ from that reading.
In a situation like what I have described, I don’t fault Nee for having ministered on a topic of questionable relevance, rather I fault whoever haphazardly selected the reading material. Unlike Nee’s opinions on discipline children, I don’t find anything objectionable about speaking against casinos or gambling, however, the question in a case like this is how relevant or necessary the topic is. We mustn’t forget that the LC criticizes ministries that focus on subjects like marriage that are indeed relevant to people, however, whenever Nee or Lee went off on some tangent about something hardly relevant to anyone, LC members are expected to just read it without objection or complaint.
I attended enough LC home meetings to know that the part of the meeting where everyone’s attention started to become a bit strained is when it was time to read whatever the assigned material was. I think part of the reason for that was simply that everyone knew that there was little likelihood the reading material would meet any practical need. Again, the inability to identify with the subject of the ministry material at hand doesn’t necessary fault the ministry itself, but how it is being utilized. The LC likes to do everything in a cookie-cutter fashion. It is assumed that anything Nee or Lee taught is relevant to any situation at any point in time.
As far as I’m concerned, the root of the problem is related to how LC leaders have attempted to utilize and promote the ministries of Nee and Lee. I’m not aware of anyone on this forum who has claimed that Nee and Lee didn’t any positive aspects to their ministries. But the pressing question is why, despite the seemingly positive aspects of either or both ministries, that both ministries remain largely irrelevant and suspect to the general Christian public? I would say that by strongly and haphazardly promoting anything related to these ministries, LC leaders have successfully caused many people to see the questionable or irrelevant aspects of either ministry instead of anything potentially beneficial. At the present, it seems LC members are also beginning to experience the same kind of disconnect with these ministries.