Can you dismiss WL's ministry because of his sins?

[OBW]

One follow-up. My last post made some sweeping statements. For anyone who is incensed at them, rather than trying to dismantle them as a unit, let's turn to the teachings and the practices one-by-one and see how they fare. I will concede that I cannot prove my generalities in a single reply. But that does not make it invalid. It just makes the proof difficult.

And it has been happening here and on the old BARM for several years. We have discussed many of the doctrines; "ground of locality," "God's economy" (both the teaching and the book), the Trinity, the definition of soul and spirit, Spiritual Authority (Authority and Submission), elders, apostles, abiding v obedience, works v dispensing. The list goes on.

One thread was about teachings of Lee's that someone really liked. So many of them seemed to start with virtual dismissal of the actual words of the underlying scripture due to an over lay of "God's economy." Another thread covered the places where Lee altered readings and understandings in a manner that altered the meaning of scripture (under the title "The Leaven of Lee" or something like that).

We have discovered that even Nee openly restated scripture to his liking and no one batted an eye.

So if you want to discover the Lee (and possibly Nee) that evidences a disconnect from God rather than some special connection, we should pick a topic and start discussing it.

And as I so often will state, Nee and Lee are not authorities for this purpose. We can read what they say. But it is not true until it is discovered to be true because it accurately aligns with the scripture or with standard understandings of scripture. I would even go so far as to suggest that Brethren teachings should be considered suspect because, at some level, they did no better than Nee and Lee. Even to the point of similar exclusivity.

[Cal]

OBW,

I agree with your point. My point was that until people jettison the MOTA concept (and with it the Recovery concept), they will not be able to see Lee in a way where his failings even matter.

The "Recovery" was and is nothing more than Lee's private church, a subset of the Church in which he could make up certain rules and teachings which always pointed back to him as the final authority on everything. "The Recovery" is not scriptural, but he convinced enough people that it was real and he was at the helm.

Those two principles, being the Recovery and being the MOTA, are self-reinforcing. When rival publications appeared, Lee gave lip service to personal freedom while stating in no uncertain terms that any teachings which were not completely in line with his were not of the Recovery, i.e. not of God's up-to-date, unique move.

In other words, when you boil it down, it was all about him and what he thought. Period. Don't believe me, just read www.afaithfulword.org, an astounding bundle of circular logic whose conclusions are totally based on the notion that Lee and Nee were MOTAs which must never be questioned.

I agree that if Lee were any typical Christian teacher, he would not be taken very seriously (in fact he is not) because of his arrogance and his shady dealings. But until one learns to look at him simply as one looks at any other Christian, one is going to continue grade him on a curve, the curve of him being right even when he's wrong.