Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
I knew BenM during this time and then one day he simply disappeared from the church meeting without me hearing a word (I had moved to Odessa).
But I was clueless to his immorality, I was clueless to what was taking place in Anaheim and I would consider it very reasonable if the vast majority of saints at that time were "clueless".
I don't know where you get this idea of sexual immorality becoming a way of life in the Local Church. It certainly was not my experience.
|
It wasn't my experience either, until I found out what was going on. Perhaps this way of life is more accurately among the leadership and the offenders, but not among the majority of the membership. Witness Lee's ministry was, among other things, a "ministry of secrecy." That is, "cover the brothers", "don't say anything negative," and a climate of "shoot the messenger" as happened to John Ingalls and Max Rapoport. I described it as a way of life. Maybe there is a better term.
I only know of 2 instances of the elders dealing with sexual immorality, scripturally, both occurring over 40 years ago. One account was written by John Ingalls and the other I was a witness to in Houston in the early 70's. There were approximately 100 others in that meeting as well. We have three instances of Witness Lee's personal intervention to prohibit twice dealing with his son, and once BenM at the time you noted, BenM "disappeared."
Is there no end in sight? It's one thing to have doctrinal disputes with Lee's ministry and teachings. The practices of his ministry is another thing altogether. The current practice is to turn a blind eye to sins against the Body...which is the temple of the Lord.
When I hear that the Local Church leadership, actually the Living Stream Ministry leadership, stands in the assembly and says "John Ingalls was right to expose the handling of Philip Lee by his father, Witness Lee. Max Rapoport was right...Don Hardy was right...we were wrong to allow ourselves to be pressured by Witness Lee to protect sinning brothers. I'm not holding my breath until that happens, but this is the "way of life" to which I refer.
Nell