An Outsider's Story

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

Who's this JI character you speak of?

That would be John Ingalls. He is a brother who worked on the fiirst edition of the New Testament Recovery Version. If you have time, here is his story of events that transpired in 1987-1989.
http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vB...read.php?t=411

He is a respected brother who served in the recovery from 1962-1989.

[ToGodAlone]

Originally Posted by Terry

That would be John Ingalls. He is a brother who worked on the fiirst edition of the New Testament Recovery Version. If you have time, here is his story of events that transpired in 1987-1989.
http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vB...read.php?t=411

He is a respected brother who served in the recovery from 1962-1989.

Wow that's long.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to read that whole thing. From a quick skim it seems as though he's someone who eventually came to disagree with something within the LRC and got excommunicated. Would that be accurate? One thing that stood out to me in my quick skim was this particular quote:
"Statements made by some of the trainers in Taipei amazed us, as I am sure they did many others. Some examples are as follows:

1) “There is no need to pray about what to do; just follow the ministry.”
2) We don’t even need to think; we just do what we are told.”
3) “Follow Witness Lee blindly. Even if he’s wrong, he’s right.”
4) “If you leave the training, you’ll miss the kingdom.”
5) Our burden is to pick up Brother Lee’s teaching and way to make us all Witness Lees, like a Witness Lee duplication center.”
6) “To be one with the ministry is to be one with Brother Lee, the office, and Philip Lee.”
7) Since Christianity is in ruins, the Lord raised up the recovery; since the recovery is in ruins, the Lord raised up the FTTT."

If that is truly what was said in the FTT, then the LRC is in a worse state than I had previously thought. Especially #3 and #5. This is explicit WL worship. There was also a rather lengthy quote in part 4 that I found interesting. I think it was made by Titus Chu who, if I recall correctly, has something to do with the GLA split. There were 8 points, but I will only talk about the first two.

"1. Brother Lee’s position among the churches was overly exalted. The matter of greatest concern is that he would be idolized and thus replace the position of the Lord and the Holy Spirit in the church.
2. Brother Lee’s teachings and messages were overly read and repeated in the churches, causing us to be concerned that the position of God’s Word would be replaced. The words of man flourishes, and the Word of God languishes. The opportunities for the Holy Spirit to speak are scarce. These first two points are the fundamental problems."
I think these two points demonstrate exactly the problem I saw with the LRC when I first looked it up and when I attended the meetings. They are, in my opinion, correctly put as the fundamental problems. It was definitely to a far lesser extent in the meetings, but the emphasis on the HWfMW being used as the main text for the Lord's Table meeting instead of the Bible is a pretty good example of #2. I won't even go into what I think of the footnotes.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

Wow that's long.

TGA, let me provide a brief history, summarizing John Ingall's book:

JI was an elder in Anaheim for years, a well-respected pillar and "founding father" of the movement in this county. He helped put together the hymnal, edited books, gave conferences, etc. Anaheim is where LSM was headquartered, and its manager was the profligate son of WL named Philip, who was an obnoxious, drunk, unregenerate bully who abused church leaders around the globe.

JI and numerous other godly men around the globe began to resist LSM's takeover activities and at the same time attempted to remove Phillip from LSM management after several women were molested by him. Instead of listening to these men of God, WL and his lackeys ran a smear campaign accusing JI et. al. of forming a global conspiracy to overthrow his ministry, and branded JI a rebellious leper who needed to be quarantined or shunned by all.

That's the abbreviated version. "Short, quick, and to the point" as they used to instruct us.

[ToGodAlone]

Thanks for that summary Ohio. Never knew that Witness Lee's son was like that...or that he had a son. While I don't necessarily agree with the notion of "the Lord's Recovery" in the first place, knowing that this happened just puts more offenses on WL's list.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Ohio

TGA, let me provide a brief history, summarizing John Ingall's book:

JI was an elder in Anaheim for years, a well-respected pillar and "founding father" of the movement in this county. He helped put together the hymnal, edited books, gave conferences, etc. Anaheim is where LSM was headquartered, and its manager was the profligate son of WL named Philip, who was an obnoxious, drunk, unregenerate bully who abused church leaders around the globe.

JI and numerous other godly men around the globe began to resist LSM's takeover activities and at the same time attempted to remove Phillip from LSM management after several women were molested by him. Instead of listening to these men of God, WL and his lackeys ran a smear campaign accusing JI et. al. of forming a global conspiracy to overthrow his ministry, and branded JI a rebellious leper who needed to be quarantined or shunned by all.

That's the abbreviated version. "Short, quick, and to the point" as they used to instruct us.

The only other thing I would add is that JI would come and give conferences, so he wasn't just a name in the hymnal and RcV, he was someone who ministered a very sweet ministry. You felt like you had a relationship with him and it was unthinkable that after all those years he would be poisoned. What made it worse is that everyone acted like zombies, afraid to even enquire what happened for fear of also being branded as rebellious. You would like to think that after so many years there would be many brothers and other elders that would not accept at face value what they were being told but would look into these matters to see if they were so. But there wasn't. Then years later when we learn the real story you realize how completely shameful the whole thing was. And, he wasn't the only one. Ther were at least 5 brothers that left in a similar way by standing up to WL and being slandered and publicly ridiculed.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

3) “Follow Witness Lee blindly. Even if he’s wrong, he’s right.”
5) Our burden is to pick up Brother Lee’s teaching and way to make us all Witness Lees, like a Witness Lee duplication center.”
If that is truly what was said in the FTT, then the LRC is in a worse state than I had previously thought. Especially #3 and #5.

On point #5 I have never heard a trainee I have known speak that way. It could well have been a product of overzealous trainers?
On point #3 I've heard that, but I believe over time not even the top leading brothers can say that now. Not with all the LRC historical information available. These days, the response that has likely replaced #3 is "Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody's perfect." Except for Jesus.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by ToGodAlone

Wow that's long.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to read that whole thing. From a quick skim it seems as though he's someone who eventually came to disagree with something within the LRC and got excommunicated. Would that be accurate? One thing that stood out to me in my quick skim was this particular quote:
"Statements made by some of the trainers in Taipei amazed us, as I am sure they did many others. Some examples are as follows:

1) “There is no need to pray about what to do; just follow the ministry.”
2) We don’t even need to think; we just do what we are told.”
3) “Follow Witness Lee blindly. Even if he’s wrong, he’s right.”
4) “If you leave the training, you’ll miss the kingdom.”
5) Our burden is to pick up Brother Lee’s teaching and way to make us all Witness Lees, like a Witness Lee duplication center.”
6) “To be one with the ministry is to be one with Brother Lee, the office, and Philip Lee.”
7) Since Christianity is in ruins, the Lord raised up the recovery; since the recovery is in ruins, the Lord raised up the FTTT."

If that is truly what was said in the FTT, then the LRC is in a worse state than I had previously thought. Especially #3 and #5. This is explicit WL worship. There was also a rather lengthy quote in part 4 that I found interesting. I think it was made by Titus Chu who, if I recall correctly, has something to do with the GLA split. There were 8 points, but I will only talk about the first two.

"1. Brother Lee’s position among the churches was overly exalted. The matter of greatest concern is that he would be idolized and thus replace the position of the Lord and the Holy Spirit in the church.
2. Brother Lee’s teachings and messages were overly read and repeated in the churches, causing us to be concerned that the position of God’s Word would be replaced. The words of man flourishes, and the Word of God languishes. The opportunities for the Holy Spirit to speak are scarce. These first two points are the fundamental problems."
I think these two points demonstrate exactly the problem I saw with the LRC when I first looked it up and when I attended the meetings. They are, in my opinion, correctly put as the fundamental problems. It was definitely to a far lesser extent in the meetings, but the emphasis on the HWfMW being used as the main text for the Lord's Table meeting instead of the Bible is a pretty good example of #2. I won't even go into what I think of the footnotes.

I don't doubt that JI heard those things and repeated them accurately. However, I was a trainer in the FTTT and was very close to some others and I can assure you we would have strongly rebuked anyone who said any such foolishness. The only one I heard was the Witness Lee duplication center and to be sure I thought it was idiotic, but the environment was such that you couldn't say anything.In hindsight it looks like WL worship, at the time it seemed like novice brothers speaking foolishness (I never heard any of the trainers speak this, only visiting saints). I do know that Andrew Yu, who was in charge of the training was outraged at these accusations and spoke some very strong words to everyone in the Training to sober up and stop the foolishness.