Mere Christianity or Degraded Christianity?

[DistantStar]

During the time I questioned the LC, I was reading books by C. S. Lewis. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he told of how he was very much influenced by two... Catholics... The one was G. K. Chesterton who I really admire for his brilliant wit, and the other was J. R. R. Tolkien, his friend (he authored The Lord of the Rings.

C. S. Lewis did not become a Catholic, yet he did consider these two as Christians.

In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis talked about how new converts to Christianity are standing in the Hall of Christianity. In the hall there is no discussion and fire and interaction. All of those are found in the rooms, with the rooms representing denominations, whether Catholic or Protestant or whatever.

The goal of this book of his was to give a defense of the Christian faith which all Christians; Catholic, Protestant and others, hold. He tried to find the middle ground. To give an account of the "Hall". In other words, that which all Christians believe, the "Mere" Christianity.

In my posts so far I've tried to show how, as others pointed out, normal Christians will often worship and support each other, regardless of their nominal denomination. In fact, I've seen increasing respect between Catholics and Protestants in general.

Now for the LC...

The chief thing which bugged me about the LC was their lowly view of the so called "denominations". It always struck me as seriously hypocritical. After all, they are just as much a denomination as all the rest. Another thing which bothered me was their disinterest in apologetics in general. I recall one instance where I discussed the Biblical account of creation, and the problem of evolution, with one LC member. He basically dismissed its seriousness. He told me about a time when an atheist threw out a lot of questions for him to answer, but this friend of mine simply kept saying "Just trust in the Lord" or something similar.

I have a very big interest in apologetics in general, especially the works of William Lane Craig, Michael Licona, John Lennox and all the rest. And guess what? All of them are in the "evil denominations".

Now here is the point I want to come to in this post: The LC sees Christianity as degraded (or am I wrong?). That somehow the so-called denominations lost their way and that the LC have found some hidden truth (a characteristic of a cult, by the way, but I won't say more of this here).

What would you choose? This isolated better-than-other-denominations denomination (to be frank) with no interest in truth or reason, with little to no cooperation with other Churches, disturbingly with their own Bible version, with only two "apologists" (Lee and Nee), with a history of controversiality? Or the evil denominations which respect each other, try to find the truth to life's questions through studying hard so as to actually have answers, appeal to many educated people and Bible versions and who allow (and tacitly even encourage) disagreements while still seeing themselves as united?

The apologetic dimension I've mentioned is important to me personally. A few months back a friend of mine lost his faith through reading Nietzsche and journals on evolution. When we finally talked about this, I couldn't answer a single question of his at that time. Afterwards as I went home I walked past the LC. At that moment I recalled what that LC friend of mine said: "Just believe". If this friend of mine who was losing his faith went to the LC, they would NOT have helped. They would not even have tried to help him find answers. He would have went away thinking that Christians are as pathetically ignorant and blind as he thought.

I'd like to hear some thoughts. Keep Lewis's Hall in mind.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

What would you choose?

1. This isolated better-than-other-denominations denomination (to be frank) with no interest in truth or reason, with little to no cooperation with other Churches, disturbingly with their own Bible version, with only two "apologists" (Lee and Nee), with a history of controversiality?


Or

2. the evil denominations which respect each other, try to find the truth to life's questions through studying hard so as to actually have answers, appeal to many educated people and Bible versions and who allow (and tacitly even encourage) disagreements while still seeing themselves as united?

I don't think the choice is really that simple and clearcut. The evil denomination very often is very, very dead. I once worked on wall street, the pension fund for one of the Episcopal churches in NYC is worth billions. Some of these denominations have not become influenced by the world, they are the world. They serve a purpose to give the appearance of righteousness to the wealthy (think the Godfather).

On the other hand it was not fair to say that the LC (when I was there) had no interest in truth or reason. On the contrary I received an excellent training in the Bible while there. Some may take issue that we were taught a few doctrines that do not stand up to scrutiny, but I doubt that would be any different in any other group. Others have complained of the training fees, but I would have paid more had I gotten this training from a denomination. Witness Lee was a gifted teacher that made studying the Bible enjoyable for a very large congregation of several thousand. That is not easy.

I think your real question is about apologetics, philosophers, Nietsche, etc.

[UntoHim]

Very good topic Distant Star. Your perceptions of the general attitude of Local Church members, especially the leadership of the Living Stream Ministry, are spot on accurate. Of course they have had this deplorable attitude towards the rest of the Body of Christ ingrained in them from the teachings and practices established by Witness Lee. A small percentage comes from the teachings of Watchman Nee.

Here is a excerpt from a booklet distributed in 1978 entitled The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Church:

"We stand outside of and apart from historical, organized, institutionalized Christianity because we regard it as a system filled with unscriptural teachings and practices."

This statement has never been retracted or modified in the slightest. In fact, it is still found within at least one of the Local Church's websites: -http://www.localchurch.org/beliefs/q...tml#question13

Many, if not most, of the members, and all of the leadership, consider Christianity "a system filled with unscriptural teachings and practices". The current leadership is also unapologetic about Witness Lee's teaching that "Judaism is Satanic, Catholicism is demonic, and Protestantism is Christless.” They have also steadfastly refused to retract or modify this outrageous statement in the slightest.

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

On the other hand it was not fair to say that the LC (when I was there) had no interest in truth or reason.

Well, to put a finer point on it, it would be more than fair to say that the Local Church had very little interest in truth or reason that did not come directly from Witness Lee.

Some may take issue that we were taught a few doctrines that do not stand up to scrutiny

Sorry, I would say the opposite - there were only but a few of the major teachings of Witness Lee that stand up to to scrutiny. The vast majority are found wanting.
-

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Sorry, I would say the opposite - there were only but a few of the major teachings of Witness Lee that stand up to to scrutiny. The vast majority are found wanting.
-

I did not say "major teachings of Witness Lee", I merely said "doctrines".

Most of what I was taught was fundamental doctrines taught and accepted by all of Christians.

The redemption of Jesus. The incarnation of Christ. Baptism. The Gospel.

Virtually all of the doctrines that were special to Witness Lee are suspect. I have scrutinized them and to my analysis they don't stand up to scrutiny. But, in 20 years in the LRC there was virtually no teaching on the MOTA. In my own experience I heard this from RG in a non official capacity, indicating that this was his opinion and not sanctioned by the leadership as a whole.

The Ground of the church was a crucial teaching, taught more than any other of his special doctrines, and yet over a 20 years period did I really get more than 5-6 weeks of focus on this doctrine? No. On the other hand there was a verse by verse teaching on every verse of the New Testament and every book of the Old Testament.

Yes, many of us took umbrage at Witness Lee's distinction between the Bible that was God's revelation and that was man's opinion, but when you go back through Psalms, Job, James and Proverbs it is very difficult to strain out that much of the offending doctrine. It is there, it is offensive, but it is a very minor portion of those four Life Studies, and that in turn was a very minor portion of his life studies.

As to the cover ups, Sister's rebellion, whitewash, slander and libel you can hardly find it anywhere in the doctrines. That stuff went into special fellowships. Likewise with the decision to sue other Christians. If you were not an elder you could have completely ignored 95% of that stuff.

In my opinion WL's MO was to package his brand of heresy in as much standard, fundamental teaching as he could.

I have tried to post as much of the offending quotes of WL that I can. What I have found is that the elder's trainings are the gold mine, when you read the doctrinal text designed for widespread consumption it is fundamental, vanilla, and hard to strain out the quotes that I remember. You heard his speaking orally much more than I did. When I went through his ministry looking for a reference to Watchman Nee's excommunication I was stunned to learn that it was fully edited out. Unless someone else found it I could not find it anywhere, and we all heard that account numerous times. My point is that what was spoken orally by him is very different from the written, published ministry. The doctrines I was taught came from the written ministry.

[Evangelical]

Lewis's hall does not exist, it is not real.

Christianity is one big room without any smaller rooms inside. Yet the denominations have constructed the rooms, it is a man made thing.

A person cannot believe in one Lord, one body one Spirit and one baptism and at the same time believe in denominations.

And people can't lose their faith. They can only lose something which they never had in the first place.

[UntoHim]

Sorry DistantStar, I'll do my best to not let this thread get hijacked like some of your others. You have brought up some very legitimate and pertinent concerns regarding the teachings and practices of the Local Church of Witness Lee.

Originally Posted by DistantStar

What would you choose?
This isolated better-than-other-denominations denomination (to be frank)

Good start! The Local Church is indeed a denomination. Over the years they have been rightly dubbed "The Local Church", "The Local Church of Witness Lee", "The Lord's recovery church" and numerous others. They have even filed lawsuits (against other Christians of course) using the name "Local Church".

with no interest in truth or reason,

Again, there is in fact, no interest in truth or reason apart from the teachings and practices established by Witness Lee. It starts with Lee. It ends with Lee. One need not look any further than a Local Church book room or the curriculum of the Local Church faux seminary, (Full-Time-Training) to understand that all truth and reason comes through the person and work of Witness Lee.

with little to no cooperation with other Churches,

NO COOPERATION. NONE. ZILCH. NADA. What part of "We stand outside of and apart from historical, organized, institutionalized Christianity" does anybody not understand? These people are serious about this. Witness Lee taught that "Christianity is christless". Period. End of discussion.

disturbingly with their own Bible version,

The actual translation of the Recovery Version New Testament is relatively good. It's actually very similar to the New American Standard Version. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not. I cannot comment on the Recovery Version Old Testament. I'm not a student of biblical Hebrew. Maybe others can comment on this. Of course the "disturbing" part is the copious amount of footnotes from the teachings of Witness Lee. Many of these footnotes contain the more "questionable" teachings of Lee. Actually, most of the footnotes are simply cliffsnotes of the "Life Studies" - the printed messages of Witness Lee during the various bi-annual trainings and conferences.

with only two "apologists" (Lee and Nee),

Glad you put "apologists" in parenthesis, because neither Nee nor Lee were anything close to a Christian apologist, except maybe for their own particular teachings and practices. For the reasons listed above, more than one legitimate, bonafide Christian apologist/scholar has intimated that the Local Church shows many of the traits of a personality cult.

with a history of controversiality?

Man, you have no idea! Of course anybody who bothers to hang around this joint for more than a minute or two can probably pick up on this one.

I'd like to hear some thoughts.

Well, such as they are...there they are.

[micah6v8]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

Lewis's hall does not exist, it is not real.

Christianity is one big room without any smaller rooms inside. Yet the denominations have constructed the rooms, it is a man made thing.

A person cannot believe in one Lord, one body one Spirit and one baptism and at the same time believe in denominations.

And people can't lose their faith. They can only lose something which they never had in the first place.

I have no problem with the analogy of Christianity as one hall with different rooms.

The apostle Paul likens the church to a human body with different members. A finger would look different from a liver and also function differently. But this difference does not matter if the different body parts together make up one human body.

One thing we need to remember: when Paul talks about oneness, he is talking about unity, not uniformity.

If the rooms of an apartment could talk, I agree it would be a problem if the living room claimed it was more important than the bedroom and the kitchen started arguing with the study-room.

[DistantStar]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

Lewis's hall does not exist, it is not real.

Christianity is one big room without any smaller rooms inside. Yet the denominations have constructed the rooms, it is a man made thing.

A person cannot believe in one Lord, one body one Spirit and one baptism and at the same time believe in denominations.

And people can't lose their faith. They can only lose something which they never had in the first place.

You still miss Lewis's point. You are just another room. That you claim ownership over the entire house does nothing to change this reality.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

Lewis's hall does not exist, it is not real.

Christianity is one big room without any smaller rooms inside. Yet the denominations have constructed the rooms, it is a man made thing.

A person cannot believe in one Lord, one body one Spirit and one baptism and at the same time believe in denominations.

And people can't lose their faith. They can only lose something which they never had in the first place.

In "reality" there is one big hall with no rooms. That is the ideal. But we don't live in the ideal. Even Lee admitted this with his reality of the Kingdom vs appearance of the Kingdom dichotomy.

There are different rooms. That is the practical reality. Appealing that there is only one real room would be fine if you didn't insist that your room is that room. Doing that is worse than there being many rooms. No one is wise enough to insist that his vision of what the one room should look like is correct. Only nutballs do that.

So the practical reality is there are many rooms, small and large. Then there is one little bitty tiny room in the corner. It has one occupant who is busy hammering nails in his walls to make them stronger while insisting his room encompasses the entire hall. This is Evangelical's room. Please try to not let the hammering bother you.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

Another thing which bothered me was their disinterest in apologetics in general. I recall one instance where I discussed the Biblical account of creation, and the problem of evolution, with one LC member. . . .

At some level, I honestly think that apologetics has been overrated for the past 200 years or so. It was a product of the modern age. While there are references to reason and Paul did some rather fine reasoning, it was not in the way that apologetics are so often done now.

You gave the example of evolution. I will not defend or refute evolution. But its place in any discussion would seem to be within a study of creation. And when we look at what is written, it should be evident that the account in Genesis 1 is not intended as a historical account of HOW, but a grand statement of WHO. The HOW and the WHEN are not described. But the force that made it happen is stated very clearly.

Beyond theories on the how, we really don't know anything about it other than that God did it. Apologetics is useless because there is nothing that stands to the scientific or pseudo-scientific analysis.

And some parts of the history of God are beyond apologetics. Once you accept certain premises, then apologetics can be used to get somewhere. But those who dismiss those premises supply their own. Or assert that it is irrelevant and just live their lives.

In short, for the most part, you can't argue anyone into salvation. Their eyes have to be opened to something beyond what is known.

Understand that I am a product of modernity, and apologetics, and believe virtually all that the apologists argue for. I am not supposing that we do not need theologians to really study the Word in more detail than the rest of us have time for. I am not saying that the things that the apologists argue for are not true.

But I am saying that with respect to those outside of the faith, when you are living in a world that is turning postmodern, then an analysis of logic within the confines of a book that they have not yet decided is wroth considering possibly true is not worth a lot.

We need a different approach. And when I look at the "preaching" that Jesus did to the publicans and sinners, it would seem that he didn't do much preaching. He lived righteously among them. He ate with them. And our call is not to convince them, but to love them.

[DistantStar]

Originally Posted by OBW

You gave the example of evolution. I will not defend or refute evolution. But its place in any discussion would seem to be within a study of creation. And when we look at what is written, it should be evident that the account in Genesis 1 is not intended as a historical account of HOW, but a grand statement of WHO. The HOW and the WHEN are not described. But the force that made it happen is stated very clearly.

I agree. That's why we need apologetics: so people will see the reasonability of the Bible in particular and Christianity in general.

Originally Posted by OBW

Apologetics is useless because there is nothing that stands to the scientific or pseudo-scientific analysis.

How is it useless? Many people have come to faith through the works of John Lennox, Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, Nabeel Qureshi, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, etc.

Originally Posted by OBW

In short, for the most part, you can't argue anyone into salvation. Their eyes have to be opened to something beyond what is known.

I agree to an extent. All in all, and all the apologists I mentioned realise this: it is the Holy Spirit which has to work in the hearts of people. Facts without God is just... facts.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:2

Yet many people like my friend want to believe, but they cannot in good conscience believe that which seems to them to be a lie. The Christian worldview has to be shown to them to be reasonable. Sure only a minority require such evidence. Yet I think it very noble to reach out to them.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

The Christian worldview has to be shown to them to be reasonable.

Maybe it is more that the Christian worldview has to be lived by someone to make it more than a theory or ideal with nothing substantial behind it. And if the Christians would live their worldview instead of studying their worldview, then maybe some would see it as something tangible instead of something thought about but not tangible, therefore unable to be grasped.

[aron]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

During the time I questioned the LC, I was reading books by C. S. Lewis. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he told of how he was very much influenced by two... Catholics... The one was G. K. Chesterton who I really admire for his brilliant wit, and the other was J. R. R. Tolkien, his friend (he authored The Lord of the Rings.

C. S. Lewis did not become a Catholic, yet he did consider these two as Christians.

In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis talked about how new converts to Christianity are standing in the Hall of Christianity. In the hall there is no discussion and fire and interaction. All of those are found in the rooms, with the rooms representing denominations, whether Catholic or Protestant or whatever.

The goal of this book of his was to give a defense of the Christian faith which all Christians; Catholic, Protestant and others, hold. He tried to find the middle ground. To give an account of the "Hall". In other words, that which all Christians believe, the "Mere" Christianity.

In my posts so far I've tried to show how, as others pointed out, normal Christians will often worship and support each other, regardless of their nominal denomination. In fact, I've seen increasing respect between Catholics and Protestants in general. .

I grew up Protestant, son and grandson of Protestants. I was saved in a Baptist altar call. So I'm somewhat biased, prejudiced by my experiences.

But I see Protestantism with two basic issues that it never seems to shake (there are surely exceptions: I paint the grand generalization here). First is that it is 'me' centered. "So subjective is my Christ to me/Real in me and rich and sweet" wrote Witness Lee. Subjective faith was the focus. But that was the expense of Jesus. Our faith, so crucial to our walk, became in the work, the move, the latest revelation, the leadership's burden. Our faith became in whatever Christ we built. The one in the Bible was secondary; trumpeted when we could align Him, and (often, it seemed) ignored when not needed, or unhelpful. Our focus was 'our' faith, not the faith of Christ. We were seduced.

The second problem with Protestantism is that it's based on rejection. Luther rejected the RCC, the Baptists rejected the Lutherans, the Brethren rejected the Wesleyans, etc. Nee rejected everyone else, and then his spiritual heirs (Dong, Chu, Philips) rejected each other. The Vineyard rejected the Calvary Chapel, Hillsong rejected the Vineyard; everytime someone gets a 'move' or 'burden' or 'leading' or 'vision' it leads to another split.

Take for example the New Apostolic Reformation. Supposedly the problem with Protestantism is that it lacked apostles! So a bunch of candidates step to the fore (Lee among them; the Apostle of the Age, even). Each 'apostle' thinks that he or she is the new center. Subjectivism, again. But if apostleship were the issue, then Luther should have stayed in the RCC! To me it's just a whirlwind, spinning round. Same with the 'church' issue. If recovering the True Church were all it was about, then we should all be in the Ethiopian or Coptic church. But that's not it. Jesus is it. Always is, always will be.

By so little we're led away, and snares encompass us. But I remain a Protestant. Like Paul cried out, "I am a Pharisee, son of Pharisees!" Like Paul, I'm a Pharisee who's seen the light. But I'm still a Pharisee. "In whatever you were called, in this remain", was his counsel. Today I feel that I understand this word.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Protestantism. . . is 'me' centered. "So subjective is my Christ to me/Real in me and rich and sweet" wrote Witness Lee. Subjective faith was the focus. But that was the expense of Jesus. ... Our focus was 'our' faith, not the faith of Christ. We were seduced.

What I meant was that we're easily seduced by the experiences of self. The institutional church, with all the writings of the Fathers, is a bulwark against that. With the Reformation, every visionary could draw others along as they chased their subjective response to their own personal interpretation. So we got innumerable splinter cells. "Sola Scriptora" became Me and My scripture and My interpretation and My group who I've convinced (seduced) to think like Me. The Church of Me.

The ironic proof of this is that among the many Post-Protestant splinter groups, we see numerous "One True Church" sects, each with their own Apostle of the Age; dozens even, I'd warrant. The LC is not an isolated incident - in fact it's spawned a half-dozen One True Church variants of its own, if you count the Mainland Chinese as I do.

My solution is Jesus Christ. Instead of focusing on OUR experience of Christ (as we imagine Him, usually [NOT trustworthy!!]) we can instead see Him in Scripture, and HIS experiences of the Father ("I come to do Thy will, O God; behold in the roll of the book it is written concerning Me") as the NT writers did (see the many OT quotes in the NT text), as the Fathers did in turn, and so forth through the ages. Jesus Christ alone is trustworthy, He alone is called the True and Faithful Witness. Every other witness is suspect at best.

As we focus on Jesus Christ, plainly and repeatedly revealed in Scripture, three things will happen. First is that we get the Father. Christ leads us to the Father. Always. Second is that we get the Spirit. The Spirit reveals the Son to us. Always. Third is we get fellowship - if we're on earth, seeing the Son, He'll bring fellowship. Always. Our vision is not for ourselves, it's to share, to feed, to heal, to build, to encourage, to comfort. And the church (ekklesia/fellowship/oversight) will prune our vision, and keep us from being seduced by our subjective fancies and wandering off the plantation.

Again, the danger of the Protestant Reformation, though it was good, and necessary even, is that thereafter, every person is in danger of following his or her own "revealed truth", away from the flock, and drawing others along after them. We'll indeed see visions, and dream dreams; the acid test is: will these visions and dreams and voices pull us all together, or lead us apart?

I think the verdict of history is in on the Nee/Lee vision. It's had 100 years to play itself out. Storm after turmoil after quarantine after division. Because we were distracted, and took our eyes off of Jesus; and placed them on the subjective Little Flock/LC "Christ-and-the-church" Christ. It is truly "sinking sand": like Peter on the water, we began to look around, and we sank. And I was there, and did it too, but hopefully I'll learn from bitter failure. Peter failed, repeatedly, but eventually he learned.

[DistantStar]

Originally Posted by aron

"Sola Scriptora" became Me and My scripture and My interpretation and My group who I've convinced (seduced) to think like Me. The Church of Me.

C. S. Lewis had a point on this as well, though in this instance he referred to prayer. In the Screwtape Letters he talked about how we tend not to pray to God - the external God who actually is - but to some image we have of him, or some object on the wall we look at when we pray. We tend to forget that God is outside of our perceptions. Thus when we pray (and to tie in with your point in general) we need to realise that God, though he resides in us, is not just some picture or subjective image we have, but a very real objective being outside of us.

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

C. S. Lewis had a point on this as well, though in this instance he referred to prayer. In the Screwtape Letters he talked about how we tend not to pray to God - the external God who actually is - but to some image we have of him, or some object on the wall we look at when we pray. We tend to forget that God is outside of our perceptions. Thus when we pray (and to tie in with your point in general) we need to realise that God, though he resides in us, is not just some picture or subjective image we have, but a very real objective being outside of us.

Re: "a very real objective being outside of us" - the Bible says God is inside of us.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

...we need to realise that God, though he resides in us, is not just some picture or subjective image we have, but a very real objective being outside of us.

Originally Posted by Evangelical

..the Bible says God is inside of us.

Brother Evangelical, please slow down a bit and try not to give such knee-jerk reactions. DistantStar has been a very deliberate and thoughtful poster, and he is also the starter of this thread. (C.S. Lewis was also a very deliberate and thoughtful writer). I do understand and appreciate that you are here defending a certain side of things and a certain viewpoint (don't forget most of us were also in such a position for many years), but try not to take so many shots in the dark before you even know what your shooting at. Fair enough?
-

[aron]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

Re: "a very real objective being outside of us" - the Bible says God is inside of us.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory", and "The Spirit witnesses with our spirit" are the kind of verses subjectivist and experientialist defenders might use. But that wasn't my point. My point was, what is our focus?

If the focus is " Christ in me", then the "me" part will eventually remove the "Chist" part. Focus on our participation in the divine becomes a chimera. Self will intrude. Witness Lee asked the Shanghai elders, "How did you feel?" when they expelled Watchman Nee. God had become a sensation to them.

[aron]

Originally Posted by DistantStar

I'd like to hear some thoughts. Keep Lewis's Hall in mind.

I googled "Protestantism" and "Subjectivity" and this was on the page. I will make some comments on how this relates to Lewis' Hall after the quote.

Originally Posted by Louis Bouyer

The logic of the principle of justification by faith, in its subjective aspect . . . testifies clearly to the strange power of Protestant institutions, built up on the original system, to eliminate altogether the religious insights it was considered to subserve. Here, as we have already observed, the reaction against its negative possibilities came much sooner than elsewhere, since it was aroused in Luther himself by the anarchical excesses of the Anabaptists of Muster, who, however, had only taken literally some of this expressions on the subject of “faith.” Hence his insistence on a church where the authority of the temporal ruler should replace that of the bishops, and whose laws, framed in the spirit of purest absolutism, should replace the Canon Law of tradition. In this way the Lutheran church soon became a wholly bureaucratic church, one among other departments of the modern State, with the absolute ruler directly governing men’s souls.

The Calvinist church, for its part, escaped that danger. But, to the extent that Calvin or his imitators in Scotland and Holland succeeded in what they aimed at, it represented a form, no less severe, of spiritual regimentation. In order to restrain the anarchy and counter the dispersion of the various subjectivisms, it tried simply to authorize and impose on all the subjectivism of the founder. The Calvinist church, and artificial construction to ward off the effects of the dissolution of the Church of tradition, where Protestantism, on plea of reform, had destroyed it, was but a particular ideal of Christianity, stamped in every detail with the genius of Calvin, and made a norm for all.

However, this is not true only of those systems erected as a result of a reaction, prompted by prudence, against the element of anarchical subjectivism introduced by Luther in his preaching of personal religion. It applies equally in cases where this reaction was not present, though in forms less obvious or at any rate less naively displayed. In fact, apart from the extreme case of absolute subjectivism, resulting immediately in the rejection of any organized church, whenever a Protestant church is set up, it must be on a basis of subjectivism, particularly when organized in opposition to another and to the traditional elements it retains. A person who makes his own ego the ultimate norm of this religious beliefs and practice can obviously not feel at ease in a church that holds to any objective criterion. The church, however, that he himself founds will soon become far more oppressive for other people, being based on his particular brand of subjectivism. This is the reason for the ceaseless multiplication of Protestant sects, which, once started, gathers speed, since each new foundation is as a rule established on a narrower base than its predecessor. Hence, too, those doctrinal formulations, carried to the extreme of theological subtlety, that the churches, desirous of putting a stop to this crumbling process, come to impose on their members. The two processes seem antagonistic and are so, historically; but they both spring from an individualism that either carries the protest against any form of objectivity still further, in the name of freedom or else creates an ersatz objectivity out of tyrannical individualism. Experience shows that the human mind is prone to oscillate continuously between these two tendencies; the ego is correspondingly less respectful of other as it is more preoccupied with itself..

From, The Decay of the Positive Principles of the Reformation

My point is that experiences are good and even necessary. But if we trust them we will be driven out of Lewis' Hall. Only that which passes through the Bema of Christ is real. He is risen, glorified, and real. Something of His Spirit is indeed here. But we shouldn't trust our experiences as ontological entities in their own right. Do not trust the gift, but the Giver. Then you will always have food for those in the Hall. If you trust the gift, a truth or doctrine or experience, you will be led away.

The subjective impressions of Nee and Lee became the bases of a delusional, oppressive Protestant sect. We should learn from this. It's a warning. Nee and Lee and their captive flocks are not alone in this regard.

[DistantStar]

Originally Posted by aron

I googled "Protestantism" and "Subjectivity" and this was on the page.

Very interesting indeed. You are right, only trusting experience can by dangerous. I think at least being conscious that we are all, even after these hundreds of splits, still a part of the "Mere Christianity" will help us to remember not to dwell in our own subjective experiences. It will help us foster respect for other views and perhaps even lead to greater unity.

As I've pointed out, from my experience, there seems to be increasing respect between denominations in general and between Protestants and Catholics as well. This cooperation will hopefully in part prevent further fracturing.