[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

Here is a testimony from someone who met with the LCs for quite a few years. You can see what happened when fervor turned to fear.

Anyone who knew the saints in the church in Berkeley during those days can testify we were crazy lovers of Christ and each other. Then, an unusual event happened a few years after we arrived. Bro. Lee had sent some "new elders" to the church in Berkeley without telling the original elders. Later I found out this was because "they" were more absolute for Bro. Lee's Ministry.

Within 1 week of this situation, there was a huge fallout. The original elders along with half the saints left the local church. As a young believer, I was confused and devastated. Some of the dear brothers and sisters I knew and loved were gone. On the Lord's Day meeting, the remaining saints shouted, "the Devil has been routed, Jesus is Lord!" and, "We are for the Lord's Recovery." I, out of fear and my wife stayed in this situation, although I am ashamed that I ever participated in that meeting.

By that time I was starting to surrender my spiritual understanding and my conscience to obey at all costs Bro. Lee and those who followed him. Being a young believer, I visited some of the saints who had left. They were very angry and bitter that they were treated in such a manner being young believers themselves. There was nothing a little brother like me could do. Who would listen to me anyway? After this horrific weekend, it wasn't about how you were with the Lord, but it was how are you with the "ministry of Witness Lee."

In this instance you have Christian believers who have the Lord's speaking, both in their conscience and in the Holy Bible, being overturned by the demands of others. You have people who literally turned their lives over to their church group, as if it were equivalent to God Himself, being told, "Go along or get out." If they left the church group it would be equivalent to leaving God; but if they remained within the group in this situation, as many did, their ability to function as Christians was deeply circumscribed, if not nullified.

Now it was no longer the Lord, the Word, the Spirit, or their conscience, as the controlling factor in their Christian journey, but rather what leadership wanted. This became their "new speaking" within the group, and as Ohio said it led to a complete redefinition what it meant to be a functioning Christian.

And we heard the story from Berkeley that Max Rapoport tried to destroy the church there, and Witness Lee stepped in to restore it. It's no wonder that the Bible requires a couple eye-witnesses before passing judgment.