Lee and LC: Home Runs and Strikeouts

[Cal]

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while. The Lord has been doing a great work in my life. Though I'm free from Lee and the LC. I still own him/it some credit, and some discredit. Here goes:


Witness Lee and the LC have always been a little like Babe Ruth. They've had some home runs, for which they should get credit. But they've also had a lot more strikeouts, for which they should be accountable. Here is a summary of the things of theirs I’ve retained and rejected.

Home Runs (Good)

Enjoy the Lord/Experience God – Probably the single best thing to take from Lee overall. Many Christians know that we should experience God and be in relationship with God. But the best way to summarize this relationship is that it is by nature to be enjoyed. A Christian should never have an experience of God that is not, on some level, enjoyable. Our relationship with God should be pleasant, upbeat, positive and joyful. In a word, we should enjoy it. In general, Lee’s emphasis on the Christian life as a matter of experiencing God in reality was on target.

The Human Spirit – The truth of the human spirit is important because it makes real some very crucial ideas, (1) that God is not vaguely “in us” but in us in a specific way; so (2) there is a part of our being to which we can “go” where we find God; (3) there is a part of our inner being that corresponds perfectly with God, as opposed the other part (our soul) which does not. This gives us greater clarity in understanding our sometimes complex and conflicting inner feelings; (4) it is our spirit that makes us unique in God’s creation. “Enjoy Christ in your spirit” is still the most central truth I keep from the LC.

Calling on the Lord/Turning to the Lord – This teaching can be abused. But the idea that you only need invoke the Lord’s name to make contact with Him is a huge help, as is the idea you can turn to him at any time.


Base Hits/Fouls Balls (some good, some bad)

Triune God – Lee’s view was helpful in several ways, starting with it pushed against the idea that God is three-headed. The Trinity is not three guys. It is one perfect Being seen from the aspect of his perfect relationship with his perfect self. Lee saw the unity of the Godhead, but he did not see the roots of that unity, and so erred in saying that God is Triune for dispensing. But actually God is Triune because he is conscious of himself and has a relationship with himself. The Spirit is not for dispensing then, but rather is God’s experience of himself, and so is crucial to our experience of him as well.

Still, Lee declared a more flowing, dynamic Trinity than the awkward three-headed-but-we-have-no-idea-why model of tradition. And his identification of the economical roles of the Trinity, especially the Spirit as the realization of God, were very helpful. But Lee over-emphasized that the Father is the Son and the Son is the Spirit. Of course, this must be true in some sense because all three are God and God is one. But to continually repeat such a mantra without any explanation of why God is three is unbalanced. However, it’s hard to argue that Lee’s model was not more helpful to a living experience of God than the traditional model.

Local Church/Unity – The model of a simple, generalized unified community of believers is a good one. But the LC abused and twisted this idea into a grotesque excuse for self-promotion and exclusivity. The idea that a group must only call itself “the church in…” to actually be the church in a city is silly. Nothing in scripture declares or even implies such a thing. All Christians in a city make up the church in that city. But that church can be manifested in many smaller churches, as the examples of house churches in the New Testament suggest. But certainly there is no ground for any subset of a church in a city saying it has a more valid status than other groups. Yet, the basic idea of unity among believers is good. It’s just the LC has no right to define for everyone else what that unity should look like. Instead of telling everyone to practice unity according to them, they should have practiced being unified with the whole church in the city with greater sincerity.

God is Accomplishing Something in Time -- One problem I have with Christian doctrine in general is that it does not clearly state that Jesus' return depends on God finishing a work in the Church age. Some seem to think God is just going to say, "Okay, I've seen enough. Let's move on." or "Okay, you guys couldn't get the job done, let me just fix things." and send Jesus back. But it's important to realize that God's work in time is not going to end in failure. God is going to get the victory and accomplish what he is after. And he intends on accomplishing something not directly, but through people.

Lee saw that God is attempting to produce something in time. His mistake was to limit it to a very small subset of the Church, that is, his movement. From the Bible we know that the Lord is trying to produce his Bride and the sons of God. Just how this is worked out specifically we don’t know for sure. But we can know that it will end in a victory for the Lord, not a defeat. This brings into question our fundamental view of how the Kingdom comes, even to reconsider pre- and post-Tribulation issues. The LC’s view is that the world and non-LC Christianity get worse and worse, while their tiny subset of the Church gets better and better, until God raptures them, the Overcomers, and everyone else is left to trudge through the Tribulation. But doesn’t this view imply a failure? What happened to the shining city on the hill? What happened to evangelizing the world? What happened to the salt of the earth? Did it only really strongly effect 144,000? Would God be happy with that? Billions strike out and only a relative handful get runs? How is that a victory?

I believe that the Church is actually meant to have a profound effect on the world, and that the Kingdom will come in a strong way and there will be much positive influence on culture. God will get the majority of the victory, but “the third part” will be unrepentant, just like a third of the angels fell. He will rapture most of humanity, but the third will be left. God will win the ballgame 2 to 1.

In general, however, the idea that God is trying to produce something is good because it gives us hope and incentive to spread his word, and not hide in fear and isolation. We are ambassadors for his Kingdom, and his kingdom is going to win.


Strikeouts (Bad)

The Lord’s Recovery – This idea really has no useful purpose other than to allow a subset of the Church to claim special status. Yes God is “recovering.” He’s been doing that since the fall. It’s called “salvation.” The idea that there was a wonderful purity and clarity in the early days of the Church which got corrupted and lost and now is being recovered is far from accurate. Early saints were unclear on many things most present Christians take for granted, and there was mixture from the beginning, starting with it being a mixture of Christianity and Judaism. There has been purity in pockets all down through history. The Church has gotten much clearer on the core truths of the Bible lately, but this has been happening all over and is largely a result of modern information technology. The idea that God is only working to build/recover his Church in the LC movement is beyond absurd.

Trainings/FTT – Nothing wrong with educating Christians. But Lee’s “training” model is typical of the LC’s over-the-top, self-glorifying approach to anything associated with it. Kids, pressured to demonstrate they are “for the Lord,” are compelled to separate from their lives and families for weeks on end. The model is only necessary if the purpose is to bamboozle people into thinking submitting oneself to an isolating indoctrination center is crucial to God’s plan for their lives, which it isn’t. It’s only crucial to furthering the LC culture and mindset by inundating impressionable young people before they are capable of defending themselves against it.

Isolationism/Exclusivity – Christians should be holy. But they should also be able to relate to other people and their culture. The LC is more concerned with their own spiritual state than being an observable testimony of anything, and so it is ironically invisible. The mindset “hide and don’t let the world corrupt us” is not Christian. Jesus lived and ministered among the people. He was out in public rubbing elbows with everyone he met. He wasn’t afraid of being corrupted by the world. Holiness is a heart matter. Truly holy people can talk to just about anybody. Only religionists turn their noses up at other people. The LC became so snobby that it turned its nose up at most of God’s own people.

Impersonal Transformation – God transforms us by our getting to know him and becoming obedient to him. He doesn’t transform us by metaphysical magic. The whole “God being worked into our being” mantra is not supportable biblically or experientially. If God is being “worked” into our being, just where is that happening? If God has been worked into a believer’s soul, what happens to that “God” when the believer indulges in sinful thoughts, feelings and decisions? Where does that “God” go when he backslides? It just makes no sense. Transformation is a result of God changing our attitudes. The more we become like God the more we are easily filled. But we don’t have “more God” in our “being.” He just more easily shines through us because our soul is more aligned with his.

Lee’s view of God as a “dispensed” commodity served this impersonal model, to the point that LCers tended to identify God more as a stuff than as a conscious Person who wanted to have relationships with us. Yes, God is our Light, Life, Breath, Food and Drink. But all those things are ways to describe how we experience him as a Person. Until we learn to obey him as our Lord, little transformation, little true change actually takes place in us. There is no side-stepping becoming broken and obedient, though enjoying grace does make that lesson easier.

Mingling/God’s nature becoming ours/Element of God being added/God painting himself into us and all the other metaphors that Lee used for this impersonal magical process are included here. Growth in eternal life is getting to know God the Person. You can’t get it without getting to know him. That means a real, conscious relationship of two individuals. There is no other way and you wouldn’t really want there to be anyway.

The fact is some long-time LCers show precious little signs of real life change. This may be because they spend too much time “eating, drinking and breathing,” and not enough time listening and obeying.

Satan in our Flesh – This doctrine only exists because Lee, being overly fond of symmetry, couldn’t resist it. God gets in our spirit, so Satan must be in our body, and man is caught in-between as a soul. How perfect! Unfortunately, it’s not Biblical. Man’s fallen nature is man’s alone. Actually, Satan in our flesh corrupting our nature was just an echo of Lee’s impersonal transformation model.

Man Becoming God — This is the worst of the worst. Lee not only struck out with this one, he threw the bat into the stands and killed a hot dog vendor. It’s based on rickety logic (“we have God’s life, so we must be God! Right?” Nope.), and again on Lee’s infatuation with symmetry (“God became man, so man must become God! Right?” Nope. ). Statements like “God in life and nature but not the Godhead” are absurd because if it’s not the Godhead it’s not God, period. This doctrine is downright heretical, and no good can come from telling imperfect fallen people they are “becoming God.”

The LC should have dumped this blatantly bogus bit of Lee-babble a long time ago, but are saddled with it because of their unwillingness to say Lee was wrong about anything—which ironically identifies them as a fringe and suspect group in more ways than one.


Conclusion

The LC has always been a perplexing blend of the very good, the so-so and the very bad. Unfortunately, there is more bad than good. The good attracts people to the group and keeps them hanging around believing it is something special. The bad meanwhile damages them and their ability to love and fellowship with other Christians, and thus prevents them from fulfilling their true destiny. People need to be aware of these facts.

[Weighingin]

Thank you, Igzy!
This helped me understand my conflicting feelings about the LC.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Weighingin

Thank you, Igzy!
This helped me understand my conflicting feelings about the LC.

You're welcome!

P.S. I added one more thing to the Base Hits/Foul Balls section, God is Accomplishing Something in Time

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Igzy

The LC has always been a perplexing blend of the very good, the so-so and the very bad. Unfortunately, there is more bad than good. The good attracts people to the group and keeps them hanging around believing it is something special. The bad meanwhile damages them and their ability to love and fellowship with other Christians, and thus prevents them from fulfilling their true destiny. People need to be aware of these facts.

Welcome back Igzy! Don't make yourself so scarce!

Thank you for this very succinct and concise wrap up of the dynamic in the Local Church of Witness Lee. Unfortunately, the people who are best equipped to give such a comprehensive description, and sound such an important warning, are people like us who experienced it all from the inside, and have subsequently been delivered from this very "perplexing blend of the very good, the so-so and the very bad". I say "unfortunately" because we are just broken, incomplete vessels of mercy - just like Witness Lee, just like his followers, both current and former, and just like anyone who has never heard of Witness Lee or the Local Church. But the simple fact is that we are all that the Potter has to work with

I think it's super important that you bring up this point of the Local Church being a mixed bag of sorts. I would like to personalize it by bringing forth the reason that the Local Church is a mixed bag is that Witness Lee, like all sinners saved by grace, was a mixed bag himself. This should be a surprise to no one. Yet, one of the biggest problems...maybe the biggest...is that Lee built himself up as the one apostle, the one minister for the age - a pure and complete godman who was called and authorized to bring "The Lord's Recovery" to the Body of Christ. Of course while we were around, it was not put in these exact words, but now the Blended Brothers have no such inhibitions or qualms about declaring Witness Lee as such a man and his personal ministry as such a ministry. And this brings us to the reason that LocalChurchDiscussions exists - "Open discussion of the Local Church Movement and the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee". (and by the way Igzy, our banner on top is getting old and warn out...could you please design a new one for us?)

Thanks again for your post and welcome back. Stick around my brother.
-

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Conclusion

The LC has always been a perplexing blend of the very good, the so-so and the very bad. Unfortunately, there is more bad than good. The good attracts people to the group and keeps them hanging around believing it is something special. The bad meanwhile damages them and their ability to love and fellowship with other Christians, and thus prevents them from fulfilling their true destiny. People need to be aware of these facts.

Igzy, thanks much for this! Great fellowship here for all LC members, former and current! Once again Igzy has provided us much needed perspective on our common LC experiences.

I would only add that it is extremely unhealthy for us not to recognize the good which we found in the LC's. It is a lifelong lesson for us to learn to thank the Lord for all the good and all the bad. We have a good, good Father, who loves us to the uttermost!

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Igzy, thanks much for this! Great fellowship here for all LC members, former and current! Once again Igzy has provided us much needed perspective on our common LC experiences.

I would only add that it is extremely unhealthy for us not to recognize the good which we found in the LC's. It is a lifelong lesson for us to learn to thank the Lord for all the good and all the bad. We have a good, good Father, who loves us to the uttermost!

Hey, good to "see" you guys again, Ohio! Yes, our Father above all is good. He never sacrifices people for institutions, whether they be someone's ministry or someone's version of church. People always come first to him. That's who he died for.

[OBW]

On the Triune God . . .

I have come to realize that the confusing analysis provided in the Athanasian creed is almost more meaningful than the standard evangelical doctrine of the trinity. And much more on the mark than Lee's "they're just one."

I got more on board with the idea that there is a separation in their unity when I read the following in John 17:11

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

If this is what we know about the "oneness" of the Father and the Son, then if they are simply the same "person," then how are we one like that? There is something in this statement that makes our ability to be one (in this world in this age) like the oneness of the Father and the Son. We know this says something about our oneness. But does it also say something (not everything) about the oneness of God?

I realize that this is just one statement of several from which we learn about the nature of God. And each is given in a context and is not revealing everything about what we call the Trinity (and therefore cannot be construed as simply the rest of the story). But this claim of a well-defined doctrine of the Trinity is more like a committee effort. Lee's was worse than the regular definition. But Athanasius got it better than either. It is Three, and it is One. Don't conflate the one or compress the three. Accept it as it is . . . something beyond our understanding. Triune is not "simply one." Nor is it simply three. It is Three and it is One — in a way that we cannot fully comprehend.

[OBW]

BTW.

I really like your analysis of "impersonal transformation." We must each be transformed though our active participation, spoken of in Romans 8 as "walking." Not just basking in a trickle of "dispensing."

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

BTW.

I really like your analysis of "impersonal transformation." We must each be transformed though our active participation, spoken of in Romans 8 as "walking." Not just basking in a trickle of "dispensing."

Thanks Mike! Good to hear from you again, too!

[Cal]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Many thanks to our resident Sheep Dog for preforming a much needed, long overdue forum face lift. Also a big thanks to Igzy and the other big dog, OBW for checking back in and assisting all of us in "Making sense of the Lord's Recovery Movement".
-

You are welcome! Glad to help.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

I realize that this is just one statement of several from which we learn about the nature of God. And each is given in a context and is not revealing everything about what we call the Trinity (and therefore cannot be construed as simply the rest of the story). But this claim of a well-defined doctrine of the Trinity is more like a committee effort. Lee's was worse than the regular definition. But Athanasius got it better than either. It is Three, and it is One. Don't conflate the one or compress the three. Accept it as it is . . . something beyond our understanding. Triune is not "simply one." Nor is it simply three. It is Three and it is One — in a way that we cannot fully comprehend.

I get that. The question I ask is, if we are in the image of God, how are we triune? God is the whole God, not just one of the three. So if we are truly in his image, we must be triune, too. Lame explanations like body, soul, spirit as our three don't cut it.

Years ago, I was reading an article in Time or Newsweek about Christianity. Someone was quoted in it saying, "The Trinity shows us that reality at its most fundamental level is relational." That jumped out at me, and was the seed of my realizing that the way to "understand" the Trinity is to see it, not from the aspect of substances or hypostases, but from seeing at as the result of a singular, perfect, all-knowing Being who is self-conscious.

This Being would have had, before anything else existed, a Relationship with himself. He would have a perfect relationship with and know and love everything about his perfect self. He would have a self-image, so to speak, which in him somehow (this is the part I don't understand) became Another, the Son.

The Son is what God sees when he thinks about himself, so he is the perfect "image" of God. Where did that image first exist? In God's own thought about himself. This is why the Son is the expression of God, the God we see, because he is the God that God sees.

What about the Spirit? The Spirit is the relationship between the Father and the Son. That is, the Spirit is God's experience of himself. That is why he is our experience of God, too. The Bible says the Father loves the Son. It never says the Father loves the Spirit. Why? Because the Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit is the essence of God because a being's essence is summed up in how he feels about himself.

We can pick up a faint notion of this, because we have a self-image and we have a relationship with our self-image. But because we are imperfect and our knowledge of ourselves is incomplete, this experience is shadowy for us. Yet, we still can have a notion of our triune-ness. I am me. My self-image is me. And my relationship with my self-image is me.

Anyway, in the beginning there was a Relationship. Somehow, within the being of the Perfect Singular Being, the principle of Relationship with Another was born. THAT is the mystery of mysteries. And from it, God's whole purpose of creating and loving others, and his intent for us to love others, were born.

This theory may be accurate, it may not. But it is a better explanation that any I've heard. If it's not true then, as C.S. Lewis said, something better is.