Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
A few observations:
MP to awareness: "You will take my personality as your own"
Blended Brother to Bill Mallon: "We do as we are told"
Philip Lin to John Ingalls: "In my conscience I know that you are right according to the truth, but according to my culture I must follow Witness Lee".
RK: "Can we ever honor our brother Witness Lee too much?"
TC: "We owe Witness Lee our lives".
Anonymous: "Witness Lee - even when he's wrong, he's right"
All of these are kind of off the record observations, and not codified in official statements; yet a set of observations does allow some tentative hypotheses. Mine was that Asian culture in the LRC, both in teaching and practice, was far more pervasive than we had been led to imagine.
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All good observations. And in most cases they expose the core of the upper echelons of the LRC hierarchy. But every aspect of that is not seen and practiced in the same way in all places.
I will say that one leading one in Dallas could have been much like MP. I saw some of it. I also saw and heard reports about his living. He was moral in the big sins, but he was a cheater. And a bully. He did work for people then had them pay him by contributing to him through the offering box. He would simply go-off on people on occasion. Berate them unmercifully and accuse them of all kinds of nonsense. I'm sure that some of it was to create effect and some of it was to cow someone into submission. I almost told him off one time. But bit my tongue.
But the real Orthopraxy is what the local members are doing. What is their practice and why? Even how is the local group "managed." That is too often as varied as the nature of the leaders and the people there. Do they even see the effects of the practices of the BBs and the full-timers? Often not. But the Christianity that they practice is the result of the teachings they receive. Their practical oneness and love for all believers (as well as unbelievers) is affected by the nature of the doctrines they hold. And if they hold doctrines that are critical of other Christians, then their practice with respect to interaction with those other Christians is likely damaged. And you can't expect their interactions with the unsaved to be better than that.