Spiritual Authority by Watchman Nee

[aron]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

I was never sold this story. I heard RG develop this line of reasoning but felt he was cracked, however it was never put forward in such a way publicly... [t]his was Ray's personal "light".

Actually I was never sold this story -- "WL uber alles" -- by RG or anyone else, per se. What I was sold on was a "well-ordered church life". Remember that I and so many others were trying to escape the chaos of late-20th century USA life. Broken homes, drug addiction, violence, no order and no stability. Suddenly we find a spiritual "home" where everything seemingly has its place. "Brothers" sit in one area and "sisters" sit separately; "leading ones" and "co-workers" are clearly delineated. The headquarters seems to have a plan; even though it changes frequently and some of the rank-and-file have become discouraged, at least there are continual directives from above. There is structure, apparently.

Now, to someone who's struggling to emerge from chaos, this is a great opportunity to grow. It is like being a sprout in a greenhouse. Everything is climate controlled, there is "daily food" and so forth.

Looking back, several decades later, it actually looks like perpetual kindergarden. Nap time is still once a day, milk and cookies, storytime, and we are still reading "See Spot run". In other words, the greenhouse is about one foot tall, and one foot wide. Great for the first month, or even a fortnight. But rather restrictive soon after that.

Problem is, we fervently declared, during that first month, "We are for the Lord's recovery" -- we even sang it enthusiastically -- remember the melody from "I've been working on the railroad"? We pummelled this mantra into the front of our brains and when we started to hear ideas like the RG/BP "minister of the age" stuff, of a man so great that he was accountable only to God, well, we just kept singing, "We are for the Lord's recovery". We may not have bought into it, but we had bought WN's Local Church premise and now we had to live with the 'extras' - that WL was God's chosen man of the hour, with the accompanying rebellious subordinates and the inevitable storms and so forth.