The God who died

[Dave]

Originally Posted by awareness

In a sense we create our own Holodeck ... and take it as real. It works for awhile. And feels good. But reality is relentless ...

Witness Lee visited us in Santa Cruz in 1970 and I had dinner with him along with 3 others. It was at the daughter of Karl Hammond’s house. I remember Lee praying strongly for the Blood of Christ. Maybe he was praying for himself or for all of us. I have often reflected, was it Lee, or was it us as individuals who put our trust in a person. Lee was being Lee. Karl Hammond shared with me one time that he had gone to Taiwan because he heard all these swirling rumors about Lee. He said he came back satisfied that they were not true. However, Karl was always seen as the outsider by Los Angelos/ Anaheim, I guess because he was a maverick. Of course, looking back that was our salvation in Santa Cruz at least while I was there.

Interestingly, I have an article from Christianity Today from February 1969. I didn’t think of it much when I saw it but it was a precursor of things to come. It stated, “Carefully castigating all Pentecostal excesses, Witness Lee, scholarly “apostle” of the new in China’s indigenous church, generates a frenzy all his own. He is dividing not only the tranquil waters of the faithful in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia but the hegemony established by imprisoned Watchman Nee as well….Even founder Nee will have to follow the teaching of the self-proclaimed apostle or find himself ‘jobless’ Asia News Reports quotes ambitious Lee as saying in one of his more brazen pontifications.” One wonders why Lee really came and settled in the US e.g. to help his children, make more money etc. Also, who were those brothers who checked him out since I know they went to Taiwan. Maybe those who were in disagreement with Lee were kept away.

I have mentioned before that I remember Tim S. told me in Detroit when we first arrived there that he and Ron K. were trained in Los Angelos/Anaheim by Witness Lee. He said it in such a way as to minimize my experience in S.C. There was a certain superiority which existed among some of those in Los Angelos/Anaheim and that may well have been their undoing. They believed they had been trained, prepared and commissioned to lead the Recovery through migration. Also, they expected the same kind of increase they had experienced in Los Angelos. As it turned out their training didn’t amount to much.

In 1972 the Church in Los Angelos published a projection paper, “Prospective Migration Throughout USA and Emigration to Europe, Israel and other Continents” listing each year’s projected growth. As of 1972 they listed Los Angelos as having 5 halls comprising 1,050 people and in “other places” 26 churches with 2,600 people or a total of 3,650 people. This paper listed expected migrations and subdivisions of the Church in Los Angelos until the year 1982 where they expected to have a total of 230 churches and 66,000 people comprising migrations throughout the US and to Eastern/Western Europe and the Middle East. Of course, by 1982 they expected to have 11,000 people in 72 halls in Los Angelos. At the bottom they note that the increases were “Based upon rate of annual increase of 35%”. I guess they fell short.

Once we (all of us) became convinced that every word uttered by Lee was golden and divine we were finished. It was like we had resurrected the golden calf. What should we have expected? Lee may have been caught up in the adulation but we were blinded and couldn’t see beyond our noses. Of course, we weren’t close to the action so to some extent we looked to John Ingals and others for the cue. As much as I thought highly of John and others, they were caught up in what they thought was an historic movement led by a living Apostle, however flawed.