aron's testimony

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I say let the opinions fly. Let the field be leveled. It's up to each of us to vett the ideas we encounter and pass judgment on then. If you abscond that responsibility then having someone spoon-feed you is not going to help and might produce a false sense of security.

Josh McDowell is funny. In the referenced article he says the internet is the biggest threat to Christianity. But in looking into a claim that the earliest manuscript of the gospel of Mark has been found, I watched a video by McDowell, who claims to have found it and own it ; a supposed manuscript dating, he claims, to the 1st c. - just fifty yrs from the autograph.

In this speaking he's at a podium working from his iPad. He's speaking to an audience, sometimes specifically to young people, about the Bible, and he boldly praises his iPad, saying, "Thank you Jesus," while gesturing honorably at his iPad.

So while claiming the internet is dangerous, he sells the iPad to his audience, even speaking specifically to young girls.

In the end, isn't he just confusing us, by overloading us with information, to the point of making us skeptical? Isn't he guilty of doing the same thing he claims the internet is doing?

McDowell is funny, brilliant, and widely and deeply informed. That's obvious. He's also an exceptional speaker. For a guy with no real credentials, he's become quite a phenomenal success, as an evangelical apologist.

Apparently, like what Dr. Bart Ehrman is to New Testament scholarship, Josh McDowell is to Evangelical scholarship ; where credentials don't matter, just as long as Evangelical orthodoxy is taught and supported. And Josh stands out as doing just that.

[aron]

Had a thought to share and decided to post it here. I was raised in the "hippy" era of the U.S., my parents did a lot of booze & drugs (Their parents drank heavily - my parents added drugs to that). It was a mess. Violence & sexual predation, etc.

Then, during the "Jesus movement", our family was invited to a Baptist church & got the Baptist hellfire sermon, and everyone went up front & received the Lord. Now, I distinctly remember that a choice was in front of me: I could either sit there in the pew & let everyone else go up front, and be damned to torment for eternity, or I could be welcomed and forgiven by a loving God. But also, this abstract concept of 'salvation' was presented within a social setting. My whole family went forward! What was I going to do? Get separated from them?! I mean, I was like 7 or 8 years old.

My point in recounting all this is that I probably would have gone forward, whether Muslim or Mormon or Zoroastrian setting. I did what I was told, which is how one got fed, clothed, and avoided (most) beatings. And, I wasn't equipped to intellectually parse the argument from the podium - I wasn't aware that down the road, Muslims and Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses were using similar recruiting tactics with other families.

What I'm saying is that I became a Baptist just like kids all over the world become whatever they become - because it seems like the best option out of the ones in front of them. Usually they're part of a socializing system that tries to remove choices and options. "It is this, or else". Everything is designed to take away your ability to think, to criticize, to choose one from among a variety.

My family eventually dissolved, as booze and drugs and violence won out, at least temporarily. So I left that shattered wreckage, and was ott & about, fueled by booze and drugs and anger. I was gonna punch you, before you punched me. Again, I was making the best choice that I could, given that my world-view pretty much consisted of drunken people punching each other. I was gonna get the biggest stick.

Then, I got sober, and soon after was in the Local Church... in an AA meeting, they'd said, "Turn your life over to God", and so living in a brother's house, going to 7 meetings a week, sitting in the front row and bawling like a hungry calf made a kind of logical sense. Instead of shots of Jack Daniels it was "OHHHHHH LOOOOORRRRRDDDD JEEEEEEEZZZZUUUUSSSSS!!!" over and over again. Again, looking back, I can see why this seemed like a good choice in the context of that moment.* I got clean, and was living as a Christian. At the time, it seemed like I'd made a good call on that one.

But the demons didn't go away. Year after year I lived in that brothers house, arranged the chairs for Lord's Day meetings, swept the sidewalk in front of the Meeting Hall. But the shame, the nightmares, the anxiety, the helpless rage, the obsession-compulsion behaviors, didn't disappear like I'd hoped and expected. And the local elders weren't interested in my case. One by one, they met with me, frowned as I shared my frustrations, as I told a non-LC story of not being healed, or 'metabolically-transformed' as they put it. And in so doing, they denied the reality of my existence.

My story is that I made what seemed like the best choices at the time, given the limited amount of information at my disposal. And that goes for Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and the Local Church elders who denied my pain. They all have done what seemed best at the moment, within the constraints of their world-view which was derived from and permeated every aspect of their immediate socio-cultural setting. In other words, everyone's doing the best they can with what little they have.

This has helped me to forgive and not try to place burdens on others which burdens they simply aren't equipped to bear. Everyone's doing the best they can, and some didn't get much to start with. Should I blame God for that? No. Rather, I can in each present moment choose peace, and find forgiveness therein. "If you forgive others, then God will forgive you. If you don't forgive others their trespasses, then God won't forgive yours." Pretty simple set of choices: forgiveness is offered as a reciprocal event, as a two-way street.

*and the Local Church acculturation process is very good at removing choice. Everything you allow, everything you agree to, is carefully designed to remove options, and manipulate your mind further and further into a corner, until it finds no available options but to succumb. Only by seeing this, can one effectively begin to resist.

[aron]

I'll add something here - not wanting to create threads with every new thought, reaction or idea - and will tie it to my previous post about the problem of children making life-altering commitments based on duress or poor information. But first I'll introduce what I see as 3 related characters.

Watchman Nee. One of the most influential Christian leaders, thinkers and authors of the 20th Century. Repeatedly removed from church leadership positions due to business dealings and sexual immorality. When the Communists took over, WN and the inner ring of his guanxi network tried to launder their wealth through 63 (!!) rank-and-file church members. No doubt if he'd gotten free, he'd have wanted it all back. Then, he openly admitted in court to producing pornography. His defenders say that admissions in Communist courts aren't valid, but why would he deliberately say something untrue? Either he lied to get better terms, knowing full well what his confession would do to the faith of those under his care, or else he told the truth, that he really did it. Either way, he doesn't come across as a Christian leader, or Spiritual Man, but rather as a fake and a fraud.

Witness Lee. Brought WN's message to the USA in 1962, which eventually produced dozens of local assemblies, training centres across the globe, and hundreds of self-published book titles. He also pulled church members into his son's motor home company, many of whom lost a lot, some who lost their whole life savings. He put his other son, a known sexual predator, to repeatedly (!!) molest church members. We can't say that these trysts were consensual, because of the imbalance of power. WL's son was the Boss who sexually preyed on the help, no different from Harvey Weinstein the mogul, or any other serial abuser who uses position to abuse others. Witness Lee knew this, abetted it, and then ran whistle-blowers and victims out of town, to save himself and his so-called ministry.

Ravi Zacharias. At his funeral, VP Mike Pence called him "the greatest Christian Apologist of this century." But then it came out that he was a sexual predator. He opened his own 'day spa' named Touch of Eden in Georgia (!!) and abused the help, who were brought in from other lands, and owned overseas properties for the same purposes. He also repeatedly made improper sexual advances to female associates in the USA.

At one point or another, I was impressed by these men and their so-called ministries. I could make the list longer, and perhaps should, but for time and brevity can use these 3 to make related comments.

1. How anyone can live like this and look in the mirror every day is baffling. I can only surmise they they were under the influence of some controlling spirit. That they were not only "Christian" but "Christian leaders", but whose repeated behaviours violated the basic tenets of the Christian faith, of how to comport oneself and act towards others... and yet somehow kept up an internal narrative that "this all makes sense"... amazing what utter weirdness the human mind can house.

2. The so-called ministry acts as a funnel, to lure in victims, create co-conspirators (i.e. supporters and group members), and then to hide the abuse. Any 'good' produced exists to convince helpers, to bring in the unwitting, and then to cover if the sins are exposed.

3. The public defence of and support for Zacharias' life and ministry eventually collapsed when an independent inquiry showed that the allegations (which were longstanding and widespread) had merit, and that his 'ministry' therefore had no merit. But the legacies of Nee and Lee have both been able to avoid this discredit, even with allegations equally longstanding and widespread, for a variety of reasons, perhaps mostly cultural. Today, if one speaks of what happened with WN and WL, they'll say, "Nobody's perfect." It's survived and spread under some reprobate viral offshoot of Christian grace -- "Let us [continue in] sin, that grace may abound."

4. Until I recognized this, and rejected completely the influence of these controlling spirits, I was under their sway. There's no "eat the chicken and spit out the bones" trade-off. It's all bones and feathers. There is no meat - none. My life was a rolling series of disasters until I realized what utter darkness they were fronting, and by association, what I was fronting. I had to meet this influence on its face. There's no avoiding repentance, no deal-cutting. They may have avoided this basic Christian fact, but I cannot.

5. Going to my last post, it's also important to forgive. "Lord, forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing." Like me, WN, WL, RZ (and followers) made decisions and commitments based on unquestioned cultural values, youthful ignorance, social and familial duress, and self-interest, and were ensnared and then enslaved by the effects of such decisions and commitments. Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive others for their trespasses against us." I won't be animated by bitterness, fear or anger. If I don't forgive, I can't be forgiven; see, e.g., Matt 6:14, 15.

In sum, I can call a spade a spade, and not excuse or look away - call it out, reject it utterly, and leave it behind. "Get behind me, Satan." But it's equally imperative to make peace, being at least partly culpable myself... at some point, I also came under such influence. There's no basis to judge others for things that I fell to, even unwittingly. Because they also were unwitting. I can call out bad behaviour and the systems that engendered it, confess my part and repent. I didn't take anyone's money or sexually assault church members, but by supporting and/or condoning such so-called ministries, I participated in and facilitated what happened, a host of wrongs. And for this, I repent.

Repentance isn't a place of judgment; it's rather a place of forgiveness, where the dreaded and rejected "other" and the damaged and rejected "self" are reconciled and healed: "As you do unto others, so shall it be done to you."

[aron]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

I had not seen your testimony before, but really enjoyed reading through it and your recent two posts!

You'll notice that my tenor has changed over the years. Initially, I felt that the LC had good experiences, but critiqued them for their spiritual snobbishness and self-congratulatory style - "Only we have the riches, and poor Christianity..."

I didn't have a bad experience at all, and only noticed some small bit of heavy-handedness from the podium, which is endemic to fundamentalist Christianity. A kind of painstaking, self-benefitting care to define what is the line of propriety, and to note with some satisfaction that "we" are on the proper side of the line and "they" are not.

I left because after years of call, call, call Jesus' name, I found that the promised inward metabolic transformation had not occurred. So I privately met with the leading brothers in my frustration, and they were not interested. It was a dead-end street, and I left, back to "Christianity", which offered me more hope for my spiritual journey.

It took years to find out what was behind the veil. Even now, if the Nee and Lee cheerleaders admit something may have happened, they'll say, "Brother Nee was falsely accused of immorality..." But even then, they won't say that he falsely admitted to the same. Just the accusation, that it was false. No mention of his confession. Or Witness Lee, "Daystar was an attempt to gain funds for the furtherance of the gospel." No mention that WL's son was President and chief beneficiary of the project. How much savings did Timothy Lee lose when Daystar went under? No transparency.

So my view of the entire project has dimmed over the years. Surely I need to repent for my participation. I got snookered, my ego got puffed - "God's best" and all that - and I got trapped by the insular, elitist, house-of-mirrors personality cult. We lift up one of our fellows, and by association, we're seemingly elevated, too. "Thank God I'm not in Babylon. I'm on Mount Zion, at the center of God's purpose." And when the signs show that it's not so, then the excuses start, selective emphases.

[Zezima]

Originally Posted by aron

It took years to find out what was behind the veil. Even now, if the Nee and Lee cheerleaders admit something may have happened, they'll say, "Brother Nee was falsely accused of immorality..." But even then, they won't say that he falsely admitted to the same. Just the accusation, that it was false. No mention of his confession.

What is being referred to here? Never heard of this before

[UntoHim]

Hey Mr. Z, please read this book and then get back to us!
https://www.amazon.com/My-Unforgetta.../dp/1625099401
_

[aron]

The use of the word "rogues" here isn't in the conventional sense of moral disapproval or disgust, since we shouldn't make moral characterizations of our peers. Rather, I'm thinking of the sense of a Christian who departs from the scriptural path, who usurps the charge to shepherd the flock, and who begins to beat and strip the other sheep of their covering of grace.

Originally Posted by OBW

Nee claimed that a deputy authority could not be charged for mere sins, but only for rebellion against God. This stands in total opposition to the clear Word that states that any person of authority should be openly condemned.

This is what I mean - when that person who has come capacity or gift for function, but instead creates a lever for their personal benefit, like Watchman Nee's use of Spiritual Authority. Paul taught, "Don't be drunk with wine", but supporters of Witness Lee say that drunkenness is okay for today's Noah or today's Paul, that the other body members must cover their exposed stupor. But there's nothing like this suggested in the NT - quite the opposite - to those whom much is given, much is required. But the rogue shepherd removes all that.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Former President of Liberty University, a prominent leader of the Evangelical Christian wing of American Protestantism, and kingmaker in electoral politics. Head of a conservative university with strict moral codes, was found in various compromising situations (photographed in inebriated disarray at galas, involved in an affair with his wife and the pool boy). Now in a lawsuit with Liberty U over his severance pay. https://nypost.com/2023/03/15/jerry-...irement-funds/

Ted Haggard. One-time President of the National Association of Evangelicals and public hard-liner on the issue of homosexuality, was himself discovered to be using methamphetamines with his gay dealer, and engaging in sex acts with the same. After losing his role in the megachurch, was "restored" and started another group, and was eventually charged with similar things in his new position. https://religionnews.com/2022/07/26/...w-allegations/

Jim Bakker. Prominent Television-based evangelical, convicted of embezzlement of investments in a Christian theme park, for selling time shares for rooms that didn't exist. Ultimately, he was imprisoned for 5 years of an 8-year sentence, then paroled. Once out, he went right back into the business, sitting in front of a camera, asking for money.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11/81455...ronavirus-cure

https://abcnews.go.com/US/scandals-b...ry?id=60389342

The Jim Bakker story is illuminating -- no matter how badly the well had been poisoned, he still went back to it as soon as able. Even though his 'televangelist' career brought ignominy and federal prison, he went back in front of the cameras forthwith. Why? I can only surmise that the lure of easy money was too much to resist.

All this was presaged by the WN & WL cases. Even when WL got booted from the Far East for his church-funded schemes with son Timothy, we see 10 years later that they were back in action, fleecing Americans for Daystar Motorhomes. It was simply too tempting to resist the siren call; easy money was waiting. We know that one church ponied up $200k - how much in total changed hands was probably considerable, for early 1970s standards.

And then WN with his apparently corrupt business dealings with family (WN and his brother ran a pharmaceutical factory) causing some fair degree of turmoil, and then repeated allegations of sexual impropriety also imploding his leadership position. Once "restored" to "his ministry", he went back to his old ways.

Put another way: when faced with the aftermath of repeating the old scams that were initially successful, and then collapsed into flaming ruins, or going out and getting an honest job like everyone else, these con men went back to scamming. The money was too easy, too good. When I read of WN demanding that church members "hand over" their properties after resuming his leadership role, it casts that episode in a whole new light. He was back in the game.

[Zezima]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Hey Mr. Z, please read this book and then get back to us!
https://www.amazon.com/My-Unforgetta.../dp/1625099401
_

Ah yes the ol’ “buy this book to get the truth” tactic.