Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
I guess I can start out with the first paragraph.
1. My first issue is the title. If LSM truly considers the "recovery" work of the Lord to have broadly started with Martin Luther as they say (see 3rd bullet point here: https://www.localchurches.org/beliefs/recovery/), and claim that "the Lord's Recovery" is not a name used to refer to the churches under Nee/Lee, then the title right off is ludicrous.
2. "...there should be one publication among us." To say "among us" is instantly divisive in the Body of Christ, as Nee himself stated. To paraphrase, "if we use the term "we" or "us" to refer to anything other than all the believers in a city, then we are schismatic."
3. "testimony of our oneness in the Body" - I didn't know there was supposed to be a separately grouped entity in oneness within the Body! I thought the whole Body was supposed to be one.
4. "safeguard for the unique ministry in the Lord's recovery" - what does this mean exactly? What is the Lord's recovery, defined? Again, if it goes back to Luther, then Lee/Nee cannot claim uniqueness in anything, and the ones upon whose shoulders they stood should be part of this ministry.
5. I can't even go on, they throw so many overblown buzzwords into the next sentence that my brain short circuits - "no way" "preserve" "integrity" "crucial" "practical oneness" - enough already.
I don't even know if I can do this. Others are more than welcome to jump in and make suggestions for this thread. I just wanted to at least give a place for the One Publication letter specifically. |
Ok... so...
I’d like to approach it differently and get the lay of the land from a higher slope rather than start hiking in the canyon so to speak.
Therefore, I ask, what explanation is provided in the document about the document? What does it say about its purpose? What problem was it trying to solve, if any? Is there anything in the document that provides context or explains the situation? In what way do the proposed solutions address the problem and are there alternatives to address the same issue? Is scope defined? Are there limitations defined?
I’d say the document addresses most of those questions.
To your first point Trapped about the “Lord’s recovery”... the scope... I do not find the scope of
this document to encompass the broader definition of “Lord’s recovery” beginning with Luther. Brother Lee and the document repeatedly state that a narrower definition is being used... it says “According to the practice established by Brother Nee...” and again “When we were on mainland China...” . This is one of the vectors in the scope of the document ... that is, the document is addressing something in these current phases of the Lord’s recovery. If we were to try to apply the points of the document to the broader definition of the Lords recovery beginning with Luther is doesn’t apply or make sense. So anything stated in the document only applies to the period in the Lords recovery, approximately the last hundred years, till today from His recovery beginning, or part way into,in China.
Drake