Arthur M. Casci Testimony

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I can go to a hundred different churches on Sunday and feel like there are a 100 "different" Christ's and/or gospels. The people are different, the message is different, the service is different, the building is different, the music is different, etc. etc. It all comes down to how we define "different." Neither LSM nor this forum uses a definition for "different" which I can agree with, and which agrees with Paul's initial use of the phrase in Galatians.

Well I paint with a broad brush. Maybe too broad in this case. But you & I both agree that once WL got us to bite on the " new" concept, he could sell us anything. Every thing that he said was then by definition "new", and everybody else was old. New became subjective, a moving target, and it could be whatever he needed it to be.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

Well I paint with a broad brush. Maybe too broad in this case. But you & I both agree that once WL got us to bite on the "new" concept, he could sell us anything. Every thing that he said was then by definition "new", and everybody else was old. New became subjective, a moving target, and it could be whatever he needed it to be.

What you say is true.

From my vantage in "greater Ohio," I have always resisted the notion that the LC's were cultic and preached "another" gospel. These are just not things I can say with a clear conscience.

Today I was outside walking with a neighbor who mentioned today was Easter for him, since he is a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. In the past I might have condemned them for "another" gospel, but I am no longer so sure of my judgments. They proclaim faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the way of salvation. Isn't that enough?

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I have always resisted the notion that the LC's were cultic and preached "another" gospel. These are just not things I can say with a clear conscience.

Yours is a conviction on the topic that I have vacillated on depending on the "difference" that is currently in front of us. My general conclusion is that Christ is Christ, but that there is something in the teachings of some groups that makes their description go from marginal to someone else. We are clear that some do not think Christ is even God. And some hem and haw about it, declaring that Christ is just the brother of Lucifer and/or some prophet. (Not a lot different than what the Moslems think.)

The LCM is not where those groups are. But they do define away parts of the historical Jesus and what he taught. The idea of maintaining a higher view of the righteous law was taught by Jesus, but to the LCM even the old version is declared as something to be avoided or ignored. If it is important it will flow out of "the dispensing." The Father and the Son may be one, but are not described as the same. But they might as well be as far as LCM teaching goes.

The LCM, from the time of Nee until now has been about the inner life teachings that Nee was steeped in early on. The inner life is not wrong if it is not the only "life" taught and lived. But for the LCM, that is just about all there is. Like those commercials about having an unbalanced diet where everyone is walking around slanted almost 45 degrees relative to the ground, there is a lot more to the full Christian life than what the inner-life people teach. And Nee and Lee took that teaching to a nearly ridiculous extreme.

No, they do not teach a different Christ. Yet so many aspects of what their "same" Christ teaches to us today does not look like what the rest of us are learning from Him. Theirs seems to be an abridged version. That might not be a big deal if it is The Teachings of Christ for Normal Living. But instead is seems to be Our Favorite Chapter From Christ's Words Reanalyzed for Isolated 'Church Life' Living. And then they spend a lot of time telling us how that paying attention to the rest of the stuff is evidence of being degraded.