My Testimony: Olvin

[Cal]

I have not suggested that you don't know these things, my simple challenge was that apart from what you have learned from the ministry - do you know them. Now maybe you were confused with the term "the ministry" if you think it means LSM then you don't get it. If you understand that it refers to all those faithful men and women who throughout history have contended for the faith, and have pointed us to the person and work of Christ, then you would be quit presumptuous to exclude WL.

From that perspective, it would be quite presumptuous to exclude just about any church pastor. Almost all of them point to the person and work of Christ. So this is a huge group you are talking about.

But though Lee might be in that huge, general group. He is also in a special, less illustrious category. He's in that category of teachers that had a lot of potential, then went way off the deep end. So I don't think you can just throw him in with those of "the ministry" and be done with it. Doing that is a disservice to those who might be misled by him. Although he preached Christ and many of his teachings are mainstream, there is a thread of error which runs through his entire ministry which, ultimately, I think, disqualifies him from recommendation. When you simply say he was part of "the ministry" you in my opinion are negligent not to point out his misleading proprietary teachings (which he himself said were more or less unique to him) which treat God as more substance and process than someone who is conscious and personal, a subtle but serious error that leads people into extreme subjectivity and sets them up for group manipulation.

Again, to speak of "life" and "nature" is not wrong, per se. It's just way overemphasized and skewed in Lee's case. Yes, the Bible speaks much of "life." Zoe-life. But I think the Lee/LC interpretation of what "life" means is skewed. It turns God into something too general and vague and impersonal.

Take for example, the idea of "the sense of life." Lee's invention. Now, it's not wrong, it's what it leaves out that's dangerous. And what it leaves out is that you are dealing with a Person, not a feeling. This allows the "sense" to become so subjective that it becomes indistinguishable from other sensibilities and the opinion of the group. So then all someone has to do is say they "sense death" in someone else and that person becomes a leper. But many times the "sense of death" is just an emotional reaction based on culture, not the Spirit. You see this over and over in the LC.

An example is your reaction to me. Right off the bat, you judged my "spirit." I've noticed that LCers do this a lot. They are extremely subjective. They decide someone doesn't have the right attitude "in life" and then dismiss them. LCers are extremely difficult to reason with, because they tend to judge you for being "dead" or of a "negative spirit" if you have the wrong doctrines or express things in a manner they narrowly find objectionable. Which gives them the excuse, in their minds, to dismiss you without having to really think about or even clarify what you said.

Witness Lee is a tough nut to crack because he did say many good and inspiring things, and he also said a lot of flat-out destructive things. Because of this he invokes strong feelings on both sides, and strong feelings of ambivalence in the more thoughtful. Ultimately he created a lot of sheer confusion, and confusion is of the devil, not God.