"The Multiple Invisibilities of Witness Lee"

[aron]

Originally Posted by Paul H B Chang

Part of the success of the FTTA is due to its extensive integration into a larger network of churches. The FTTA publishes no advertisements and has no staff devoted to expanding its outreach or enrollment. Its growing student body is almost entirely a testament to the examples of its alumni in their home congregations. Most trainees enter the training after being inspired by their interactions with training graduates. Training graduates thus produce more entering trainees, in a rapidly repeatable cycle.

This is a lie, as Freedom's testimony has shown. College conferences are peppered with exhortations by LSM employees and all year long, students are continually pressured, often with subtlety but often overtly. "Stay in the pipeline, don't be a dropout. You want to be an overcomer, right?"

I view the paper as a thinly-veiled whitewash, attempting to cover the absurdity of an institutionalized movement which was founded on rejection of every other movement as the product of fallen humanity's organizational efforts. Somehow this new organization wasn't one at all, but a living organism. Yet every other organization by contrast was dead, lifeless, hopelessly corrupt. So you see naive statements like "no staff devoted to outreach or enrollment" when it's exactly the opposite. All those help-ful "co-workers" and "trainers" exist to suck others into the same system.

These pseudo-scholarly efforts remind me of the Mormons holding a conference in Provo, Utah, and inviting Christian scholars to participate. They don't care for the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they want to use reputable scholarship, so they hold a conference to paper over thier cult status.

I don't consider the LC to be a cult on par with the LDS, but the principle this is the same: a post-protestant fringe sect reliant on the legitimacy of Protestant institutions it left, even while it decries them as whorish Babylonian abominations. What hymns do they sing in the FTTA? Ones by Luther, Darby, Wesley, Crosby, Cowper, Newton et al. - while they deny any association with "Christianity", which in their narrative has fallen into institutional torpor.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I view the paper as a thinly-veiled whitewash, attempting to cover the absurdity of an institutionalized movement which was founded on rejection of every other movement as the product of fallen humanity's organizational efforts. Somehow this new organization wasn't one at all, but a living organism. Yet every other organization by contrast was dead, lifeless, hopelessly corrupt. So you see naive statements like "no staff devoted to outreach or enrollment" when it's exactly the opposite. All those help-ful "co-workers" and "trainers" exist to suck others into the same system.

The LC likes to make claims, saying that they are "not an organization", and it is upon such claims there is the presumption that it makes them better than anyone else. The most apparent issue is the fact that the claim about not being an organization is completely false, but the other issue is the underlying notion that a supposed lack of organization is somehow 'better'. I think that's where the trap is. The level of organization that exists within the LC is probably no different than many other groups. Larger movements need some type of organization, and the larger they get, the more things will become 'institutionalized'. I don't think that such things really make or break a group, and certainly a group cannot be judged solely based on how much structure exists within the group.

When WL came to the U.S., he stumbled upon a period of social unrest and change. It obviously worked to his advantage in terms of getting the LCM started and up on its feet. The issues that the denominations were facing at the time is what I would characterize as an inability to adapt and change with the times. This of course, was related to high levels of structure, organization and institutionalized practices. The solution to the problem, however, was very simple. Many just chose to “move on” to other groups, like Ohio has mentioned. There was really no need to look back and criticize. But what Lee did instead of acknowledging that others had perceived the same problems and had also moved on to form their own groups, he took a cheap shot at denominations.

It made it really easy for him to paint the LCM as something vastly superior when what he was comparing it to was an institutionalized form of Christianity whose relevancy had already been called into question. Unlike others, he couldn't simply move on, he had to use every opportunity to make the LC appear to be so 'special'.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I don't consider the LC to be a cult on par with the LDS, but the principle this is the same: a post-protestant fringe sect reliant on the legitimacy of Protestant institutions it left, even while it decries them as whorish Babylonian abominations. What hymns do they sing in the FTTA? Ones by Luther, Darby, Wesley, Crosby, Cowper, Newton et al. - while they deny any association with "Christianity", which in their narrative has fallen into institutional torpor.

It's ironic how WL took so much of what he had appreciated from other groups and made it a part of the LC, while simultaneously criticizing such groups. Interestingly, such things quickly formed the institutionalized practice of the LC, and remains unchanged to this day. Today LC practice seems reminiscent of what might be found in a time capsule from 40 years ago.

As I see it, WL never really "moved on" from what he seemed so terribly concerned about. He only moved far enough away to gain space to start his own group, which quickly began to posses the characteristics of things that he criticized.

The problem that faces the LC today is they greatly treasure their institutionalized practices and traditions, yet in the public eye, they have to find ways to rationalize their badmouthing of other Christians. What do they badmouth Christians for? For being 'traditional' and organized. Arguably, the LCM embraces a form of practice that is arguably much more institutionalized than even some of the most organized groups. Just look at how easily they get into squabbles about issues like using electric guitars and drums in meetings. For a group that supposedly has no organization, it's kind of funny how everyone can exhibit a uniform practice across every LC you visit.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

For a group that supposedly has no organization, it's kind of funny how everyone can exhibit a uniform practice across every LC you visit.

Every group has to be "exactly identical" with "no differences whatsoever" according to the RecV footnotes in Revelations, in which Lee traced the problems of the seven Asian churches to the apparent differences among them. But what is the basis of this uniformity? The subjective "revelation" of the supposed "seer of the age".

Look at how Nee and Lee are cast by their apologists:

Originally Posted by Paul H. B. Chang

Lee helped to spread Nee’s more reserved, sublime form of Christian mysticism and church practice. In the 1940s Lee even played a crucial role in restoring unity to Nee’s home congregations in Southern China after a period of internal turmoil. . .

Thus, it is clear that Lee’s opposition to both institutions and traditions returns to the same point. Lee posits that both institutions and traditions are artificial constructs that deprive people of direct contact with Christ. God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.

The source of Lee’s critiques is also easy to trace. Through Watchman Nee, Lee received a theological heritage that was heavily indebted to the Anglo-American holiness movements of the 19th century. These holiness teachers, like many Christians before them, attempted to reform or renew Christianity by infusing it with a fresh, living piety. In this way, they were very much of a piece with the Romantic temper of the times, prizing extemporaneity and naturalness.

. . . Instead, the focus of [FTTA] instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did. .

The Guru from the East has a "sublime" or "mystical" Christ, which is experiential to him, rather than stressing objective truths or overt doctrines. "So subjective is my Christ to me" etc. The subjective Christ eventually led the self-appointed Seer away from the Bible itself, often cast as "fallen" and "natural", into the snares of his imaginations. Folks, if anyone tells you that the Bible is just natural concepts, run away. Run away. That's ultimately the "ground", or the basis of LC unity: Watchman Nee's personal revelations led to Witness Lee's personal revelations, which then were used as a template on the text, paring much of it away as unprofitable. Ultimately, even love was dismissed, charity and good works were called useless, etc, even when the NT record clearly holds these as paragons of Christ-like behavior.

And, where did the NT expositors reject the OT text as fallen and natural? Where? Yet this kind of thinking became the basis of the "practical oneness" of the LC programme, rigorously enforced in the various assemblies as it is promoted in the Full Time Training. The subjective experiences of Witness Lee are the lodestone of the LC programme, and the only means of ascertaining "Christ". The "extemporaneity" which Mr. Chang cites is merely that of Mssrs Nee and Lee. Everyone else was and is expected to "get in line" and "hand over". Nee made that clear, once he'd assumed total control, and Lee then propped up Nee as his ticket to the top. Nee was the Seer of the Age, Lee his hand-picked successor, and no one can possibly deviate from their subjective and mystical experiences.

In fact when Lee died nobody was allowed to be Guru, anymore. The Age of Spiritual Giants was over, they said. What kind of institution do you think will follow that line of thinking? A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Nee was the Seer of the Age, Lee his hand-picked successor, and no one can possibly deviate from their subjective and mystical experiences.

In fact when Lee died nobody was allowed to be Guru, anymore. The Age of Spiritual Giants was over, they said. What kind of institution do you think will follow that line of thinking? A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.

Simply put, their subjectivity must become your objectivity, even if it kills you.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Paul H. B. Chang

God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.

. . . Instead, the focus of [FTTA] instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did. .

So first Chang claims that LC environment allows God to "directly inspire" each member, and then later he claims that the FTTA is needed to help members understand the Bible like Nee and Lee did.

That highlights how the LC operates. They give LC members the impression that the LCM represents a fresh/living atmosphere where everyone can follow God in the absence of tradition, organization, etc. But as it turns out, 'fresh' or 'living' is synonymous with subjectivity, something only a WL was allowed to define.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

. . as it turns out, 'fresh' or 'living' is synonymous with subjectivity, something only a WL was allowed to define.

Look at the subjectivism in handling the OT text. Often interpretive rules were followed to the letter, only so much as the apostles' OT citations. Elsewhere the self-assumed seer had free reign to impose new interpretive rules.

Peter and John and Paul were followed scrupulously in handling the text; occasionally Peter and James were not. But where no NT citation forced his hand, WL could allow his subjective assessments to act as objectve realty itself, for him and his group. No other reality was even imagined -it didn't matter that Peter and Paul in Acts, and the writer of Hebrews, and John's gospel had given an open invitation to construct other narratives from scripture. And WL's imagination thus became the basis of LC reality.

The existence of the FTTA is to codify and institutionalize WL's subjective experience.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

The existence of the FTTA is to codify and institutionalize WL's subjective experience.

This is exactly why there will never be any significant acceptance or acknowledgement of the FTT or any other part of WL's legacy. Chang characterizes the FTT as "one of the largest post-graduate theological institutions in the United States" and also claims that it's part of a 'phenomenon'. He obviously views it as something special and would like his readers to do the same.

That sad truth is that the FTT has one and only purpose. No one identifies this purpose better than WL's hand-selected FTTT trainers who were quoted as calling it a "Witness Lee duplication center." That's exactly what the FTTA is today. Impressionable young adults are sent there to learn how to recite WL teachings. So this is WL's true legacy. He left behind a pattern to follow where people can learn to live, act and talk like he once did.

[Cal]

Right. And when it get right down to it most people probably instinctively get this. As much as the LCM wants to believe the FTT is about spreading "the truth," it's really about spreading Witness Lee's truth. It's really about get more people hooked on Witness Lee.