Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
I think it's worth looking at how much craziness the LSM move into China spawned. Every group seems to have its lunatic fringe, baptists included. LSM seems to have produced little except lunatic fringe. Thus my comparison.
http://www.chinasource.org/resource-...anity-in-china |
Aron,
You did not read this part which says to me that Lee/LSM is not responsible:
however, Lee himself was sent out of the country by Watchman Nee (聚会处), leader of the Little Flock churches on the eve of the Communist Liberation. Therefore, at its root the Shouters are a homegrown group.
I would doubt any website that starts off by saying "Of the most active cults
identified by the Chinese government". If the Chinese government is your source then it raises all sorts of questions about the credibility of your comparisons and assessments.
There are a number of false assumptions in your statement and the website you referenced does not support what you are claiming, that the LSM spawned all these cult groups. I think the reason for so many cults is because of cultural reasons like this one:
"Christianity becomes a substitute for folk religion, or just another folk religion"
and the government, as the article says:
In addition, government suppression of house churches forces members to hide, much like "secret societies." Their lack of space for communication and interaction means that they can easily become breeding grounds for heresies..
You have mentioned nothing like this in your post, laying the blame squarely on LSM itself, which is ludicrous. Much more likely that it is due to lack of access to educational material, even that provided by LSM. Nothing in the LSM literature endorses what these cults believe, they do in fact, say the opposite. Maybe if these house churches in China had the access to Witness Lee materials that we have in the West, they would be more educated and know that what they believe about certain things is wrong.
So we have a situation where the "genuine church" supposedly, wants the government to help them fight cults:
"In a way, they most want the government to help them fight against cults. "
The article itself says nothing about LSM. If LSM itself was a key player that spawned all these groups, this article would say so. Because it is a cultural thing then I doubt that it has much to do with an American based publishing house.
The ones mentioned are not products of the LSM. The site you quoted mentions a number of Chinese
homegrown Christian groups so "LSM move into China" did not "spawn craziness". It was already there to begin with or came about because of home grown reasons.
While it is easy to point the finger at countries like China for having cults, we must remember it is the most populous country in the world, so that is to be expected.
By comparison, I could easily say that the USA has spawned many cults in the world and how they hide behind the US Constitution. In particular, Mormonism is one of the few homegrown religions in the United States, one that emerged out of the religious fervor of the early nineteenth century. I could easily say that American Protestantism spawned the Mormon church and other racially-motivated cults that is today a size of about 15 million people. But I won't do that because then I would be making the same sort of outrageous claims you are making about the LSM.