The Ground — Lee's Answer to Jesus' Prayer for Unity

[OBW]

There is a new thread on Deputy Authority that speaks of elders putting people out of the church for not toeing the line and keeping any questions or doubts to themselves. We talk about the abusive leadership. The dogma and exclusivity. The wholesale disregard for significant portions of the scripture, whether it is James, the Psalms, even Jesus words concerning obedience. And on and on it goes.

And it has bothered me why highly educated people put up with it. While we have noted that the system naturally attracts some who are weak minded, there are an uncanny number of highly intelligent people who do not just stand up and declare it all to be ridiculous and walk out with a number of others in their wake.

But these are not where my thinking began. It began with the ground of the church. Actually, not even there, but with the prayer by Jesus that we would be one. It began to bother me that as important as being one is, it was essentially not taught directly by Christ. Instead it was prayed that we would become one.

Then along came Witness Lee who declared that being one was easy. You can just meet together “on the ground” and all would be well. Drop names and the blessing of God would flow. No need to arrive at the unity of the faith. Just arrive at the meeting hall of those in your city that “meet on the ground.”

Then attribute everything positive to the fact of the ground. And declare everything that is negative to the attack of the evil one. Convince them (once upon a time that included us) that it was the ground that provided all the benefits. Once you are fully indoctrinated with the ground — that magical, no effort ground — then you will tolerate a lot of problems to keep your place on the ground.

You will tolerate deputy authority. You will tolerate the trite “it doesn’t mean that” or “that is not according to God’s economy” because failing to go along could separate you from the ground.

And without the ground, there is no unity. There is no oneness.

And the thing that Jesus had to pray for on our behalf was finally made easy by a Chinese minister almost 20 centuries later when he figured out what Jesus could have taught in just a few words back in about 29 A.D.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

Once you're fully indoctrinated with the ground — that magical, no effort ground — then you will tolerate a lot of problems to keep your place on the ground.

The magical, no effort ground has been accompanied by unrelieved turmoil since Day 1. The remnant of the "Blended" today who are congratulating themselves on remaining on this ground might ask themselves, Where is the peace?

If God has to continually send fire upon the ground to purify it, how magical is it, really?

To me it's like someone saying, "If everybody would just do what I say, then there would be peace." The guy doesn't know what the word "peace" means. He doesn't have a clue.

[Cal]

"One church in a city" only becomes a problem when you start trying to organize it under one leader or group of leaders. Note that "being one on the ground" in the LCM always boiled down to doing what the elders said. So "the ground" was really a mechanism for empowering elders.

The weak point was always the question of who gets to decide who are the elders. In the LCM's case it was always just their little sandbox, so who cared? But when you start scaling the model to include everyone in city (which the LCM said the model was always supposed to accommodate) who the leaders are and and who decides becomes a BIG problem, and the whole thing falls apart because it just becomes a game of king of the hill.

No. Real peace between Christians, the kind that begins to manifest the oneness the Lord prayed for, is not the result of cheap methods or simple ideas. It was bought with a dear price and requires a complex set of relationships between many parties, all of whom are letting the peace of Christ rule in their hearts. No power plays, no claims of rightful status, no shoving. Just the amazing result of Christ working in all of us.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Igzy

No. Real peace between Christians, the kind that begins to manifest the oneness the Lord prayed for, is not the result of cheap methods or simple ideas. It was bought with a dear price and requires a complex set of relationships between many parties, all of whom are letting the peace of Christ rule in their hearts. No power plays, no claims of rightful status, no shoving. Just the amazing result of Christ working in all of us.

Good point. Lee thought he had developed the formula to organize oneness, but the end result was just division. One way I really began to see past the ground of oneness/locality was to see several small LC's in big cities meeting in a home with 10 or so members. They claim they are the only ones meeting on the ground. They presume that they are the only people who are "one" in that city. It's just absurd. Less that 1% of the population in the city thinks they are occupying the proper ground that makes everyone one.

If nothing else, if those in the LC think that they are expressing oneness or are meeting on the correct "ground", they should be doing something positive that demonstrates why their way is correct. Obviously, they can't really do that, but it just goes to show that their hypocrites. If the LCM as a whole or a certain church thinks they have a special oneness, why are they hiding in a homes or in a meeting hall with no name? I guarantee there are LC's out there that no one would even know existed unless they were connected to the LSM church network. It contradicts the very notion of "the ground".

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Igzy

"One church in a city" only becomes a problem when you start trying to organize it under one leader or group of leaders. Note that "being one on the ground" in the LCM always boiled down to doing what the elders said. So "the ground" was really a mechanism for empowering elders.

The weak point was always the question of who gets to decide who are the elders. In the LCM's case it was always just their little sandbox, so who cared? But when you start scaling the model to include everyone in city (which the LCM said the model was always supposed to accommodate) who the leaders are and and who decides becomes a BIG problem, and the whole thing falls apart because it just becomes a game of king of the hill.

No. Real peace between Christians, the kind that begins to manifest the oneness the Lord prayed for, is not the result of cheap methods or simple ideas. It was bought with a dear price and requires a complex set of relationships between many parties, all of whom are letting the peace of Christ rule in their hearts. No power plays, no claims of rightful status, no shoving. Just the amazing result of Christ working in all of us.

I understand your points. And I do not disagree.

But I think you are missing my point. Oneness, or unity, is not the most talked-about think the the NT. And Jesus did not really say much about it at all besides in that prayer where he asked the Father that they would be one as they are one. If it was really as simply as just dropping names and meeting under one set of elders within one city, that would have been easy to say. Not really that hard to do and therefore little need to pray about it.

But instead we rock along for centuries being totally divided (according to those who say that unity is the primary thing) and it is simply fixed by being "on the ground." The problem is declared without actually establishing that there is the problem that is claimed. And the solution is provided. Just drop names, have one set of elders for one city, and you are one.

(Well, you also have to follow the teachings of the one who brought you the fix. Call it a payment for services rendered. And since it is owned by the group, it is intellectual property that you must pay for every year into perpetuity. How? By coming to the trainings. Buying the books. Refusing to buy anyone else's books.)

How is it that Lee figured out how to guarantee the Lord's blessing when even the Lord himself had to pray for it. And then years later Paul makes a comment like "until we all arrive a the unity of the faith." How difficult can it be to arrive if all you have to do is meet on Meandering Way, or Windswept, or Ball Road (those would be Dallas, Houston, Anaheim) and you have arrived?

There is nothing in the ground. There is even nothing in the call to all meet together unless you are willing to meet other than in the way that you choose. The scriptures do not choose ground, music style, format of worship, type and arrangement of chairs, even the delineation of where there are elders over an assembly that covers greater or less than an entire city.

It has a nice sound to it. But any gathering will eventually come to believe in a certain way. And if there had not been Lee behind the "ground" then someone else's staff would have shepherded us in a different direction. We may not have been as dogmatic about ours v theirs (and that is a good thing) but it would not have created automatic unity. Except maybe among those inside the walls of that assembly, or of those connected assemblies.

Jesus prayed we would be one. Lee substituted ground as proof of oneness and then lashed-out at all who did not come and join. Proof of the folly of the ground. Just one more reason to divide. And be dogmatic about it.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by OBW

Jesus prayed we would be one. Lee substituted ground as proof of oneness and then lashed-out at all who did not come and join. Proof of the folly of the ground. Just one more reason to divide. And be dogmatic about it.

Suppose you live in Austin, Texas and there's going to be a city-wide prayer. All the different non-denominational and denominational churches would be one.....that is except for one church whose stance is only they are on the proper ground.
Is that not division? There's an opportunity to declare as Christians in a city we would all be one and there would be no division among us. Yet the matter of the ground becomes divisive.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by OBW

But instead we rock along for centuries being totally divided (according to those who say that unity is the primary thing) and it is simply fixed by being "on the ground."

I have said repeatedly that distorted oneness is perhaps the most evil invention devised by God's enemy. Something which sounds so good, so noble, and so spiritual gets distorted into a weapon for God's enemy to destroy God's people. Think about the Catholic system for almost 2,000 years. Built on oneness. For centuries oneness was used to silence those who spoke for God. For centuries oneness was used to justify murders, inquisitions, and worse. For centuries oneness was used to introduce idolatry, Mary worship, and worse.

If Catholic oneness was so good, then why would anyone want to leave it. If "hopelessly divided" Protestantism was so bad, then why have the genuine children of God risked martyrdom to obtain it's liberties of the Spirit. It's kind of like the old saying about Communism and its iron curtain -- tear down the wall and see which way the people go.

John Darby hijacked the helm of the Plymouth Brethren movement. They began with a common interest in Biblical prophecy, and then were greatly used by God to mine deeper into the scriptures, and ride the British empire with the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Darby then used distorted oneness to bring the movement back into the bondage of Rome. Some have said he became a far worse pope than the one in Rome he condemned his whole life.

Lee picked up on Darby's tenets and his updated vision of distorted oneness. Lee knew how to have it both ways. He would start out in a new place like the "open brethren," allowing the liberty of the Spirit to bear fruit. Then his exclusive brethren distorted oneness would take over bringing all his adherents into subjection.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Ohio

John Darby hijacked the helm of the Plymouth Brethren movement. They began with a common interest in Biblical prophecy, and then were greatly used by God to mine deeper into the scriptures, and ride the British empire with the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Darby then used distorted oneness to bring the movement back into the bondage of Rome. Some have said he became a far worse pope than the one in Rome he condemned his whole life.

Lee picked up on Darby's tenets and his updated vision of distorted oneness. Lee knew how to have it both ways. He would start out in a new place like the "open brethren," allowing the liberty of the Spirit to bear fruit. Then his exclusive brethren distorted oneness would take over bringing all his adherents into subjection.

Lee's concept of oneness used to seem so reasonable to me. Lee made it a black and white issue to where where there is either oneness or division, you can't have both. Of course, any notion of there some form of absolute "oneness" among human beings is completely absurd, it will never happen. There will always be divergent opinions, dissension, disagreement, etc. Lee thought that he could avoid all that by create a system in which people simply submitted to him, agreed to use his ministry exclusively, and all the sudden they would all be "one".

It might have appeared to work when no one stood up to challenge Lee's system, but once people began doing that, it really exposed the situation for what it really was: oneness through uniformity.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

I understand your points. And I do not disagree.

But I think you are missing my point. Oneness, or unity, is not the most talked-about think the the NT. And Jesus did not really say much about it at all besides in that prayer where he asked the Father that they would be one as they are one.

Oneness is like holiness. We are all holy and we are one. We just need to walk in those realities. The problem with the LCM was they tried to define oneness so specifically that their oneness became divisive.

Remember how they'd use the term "practical oneness?" "Practical oneness" sounded so no-nonsense. "Practical oneness" meant practically definable oneness, which led to enforceable oneness, which led to, of all things, divisive oneness, also known as exclusiveness.

The Bible does emphasize oneness, but not as the supreme virtue. Paul talked about being like-minded and so forth. But to me he was talking about getting along well enough to not tear each other down and to get things done. If we are constantly at odds nothing gets accomplished and the testimony suffers. But the LCM elevated oneness to such a lofy ideal that they practically discounted the blessed service of those Christians they saw as not being "one." Like I said, divisive oneness--"oneness" that produced the very problems that Paul's exhortations to unity were intended to avoid.