Arthur M. Casci Testimony

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

As our pastor says, that'll preach!

It's been a long time since anyone agreed with something I posted!

You caught me off guard.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

It's been a long time since anyone agreed with something I posted! You caught me off guard.

We like to mix it up a little here, just to keep you from getting too comfortable. Seriously, though, I felt that your words were an excellent summation of the ministry of Jesus Christ. The lepers, the sick, the blind, the lame, the poor. All of these were ministered to, again and again. These were truly the "lost sheep". But the Father's love came to them through Jesus Christ, as it has to us all. Peter neatly summed up the ministry that he observed for three-plus years: "...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil". (Acts 10:38) Jesus consistently went around doing good, and compassionately helping and healing those who couldn't repay Him. He just told them, "Give thanks to the Father, go in peace, and sin no more".

Originally Posted by Ohio

Compare that to today's LC work. Ole "Blanket Fred" couldn't make it past the door usher checking badges. My how Lee had changed from those early days when the Spirit was moving in America.

One reason that the LCs love the so-called "campus work" today is that it does the pre-screening for them. If "Blanket Fred" doesn't make it past the admissions committee and into the University of Michigan, then he doesn't get a pamphlet from LSM.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

One reason that the LCs love the so-called "campus work" today is that it does the pre-screening for them. If "Blanket Fred" doesn't make it past the admissions committee and into the University of Michigan, then he doesn't get a pamphlet from LSM.

After studying the history of the Plymouth Brethren in Great Britain in the mid-19th century, i concluded long ago that "early-Lee" in the US closely coincided with OPEN Brethren (Groves, Chapman, Muller, Craik) ideals, while "later-Lee" corresponded with Exclusive Brethren (Darby, Wigram) exclusionary precepts.

Blanket Fred was a brilliant guy. I was close to his brother for years. Once Fred decided that counter-culture became too crowded for his liking, he cleaned up and returned to the culture of his roots in wealthy suburbia, which is exactly what the LCM has done.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Blanket Fred was a brilliant guy. I was close to his brother for years. Once Fred decided that counter-culture became too crowded for his liking, he cleaned up and returned to the culture of his roots in wealthy suburbia, which is exactly what the LCM has done.

My point in raising the whole 1960s social dynamics, which was so excellently put forth in Casci's testimony, is that the counter-culture was just another human culture. It rejected the "square" box of conventional culture, but it created its own box. Maybe differently shaped, but a box nonetheless. The counter-culture was a human reaction to human activity, which activity was of course largely a reaction to other human activity.

WL sold us that WN wasn't simply reacting to dormant Protestantism on Mainland China, but that WN's Little Flock was wholly a move of God. But it wasn't. It was merely another human reaction; Martin Luther had reacted to the RCC, the Brethren reacted to Luther's failings, and WN reacted to the Brethren. And so forth.

This perhaps touches on the problem of human behavior: we are unstable. One day long hair is in fashion, and short skirts. The next day it is short hair and long skirts. Back and forth we go. I made notice of Oprah Winfrey on another thread, how she lost weight and had a party on national television when she again could wear her old jeans. I watched it and felt, "She will gain it all back again." Why? Because the reason she gained the weight in the first place was still there: instability. The fact that she had a special show to celebrate her weight loss indicated unmet need. Up and down we go.... the roller coaster of life. I picked on her because she is one of the more successful people in the past 20 or 30 years, publicly. She went from nothing to a multimillionaire. But the instability remains, and the lacks.

Anyway, God was there, in the Jesus Movement of the 1960s. No doubt. Also in the LC variant of the Jesus Movement. Those glorious meetings were really glorious. But it also involved the move of humans, not just WL but you and me, and the instabilities and contradictions inherent in those actions. We reject culture, and rightly so, but we create a "new" counter-culture, which is merely more culture. So the "new Christ" of the LC was simply more of the same. Christ is always new, but our "new Christ", as a reaction to someone else's "old Christ", has the seeds of oldness built into it. Sooner or later they will appear.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Anyway, God was there, in the Jesus Movement of the 1960s. No doubt.

Really. How do you know that?

I remember the instability back then. I experienced it firsthand.

I had a friend that was in the Children of God. He came back from the west coast to visit family and friends. He told me all about the CoG and wanted me to come with him and join.

My instability, as you call it, was driving me. To me at the time I was faced with two choices. One to join the CoG, or two to join the Rosicrucian's.

I drove from Detroit to San Jose Ca, where the Rosicrucian University was. Long story short, I bumped into the church in Santa Cruz. The rest is history.

Was that God moving in the 60s? Was the CoG God moving in the sixties? The movement that arranged the brothers to sleep with a different sister each night? The movement that invented "Flirty Fishing?"

If not, what of the Jesus movement of the sixties was God moving? I got into the local church. Brought by a grifter from China selling cheap suits at flea markets. And that turned out to be a farce. Was that God moving in the sixties?

Down thru history there's been lots of such Jesus movements ... the fruit obviously of human instability, as you say, that came to naught.

The Welsh Revival, of early 20th c. is a popular example. The minister of that movement was Evan Roberts. He claimed direct visions from the Holy Spirit (bring anything to mind - ring a bell?).

But the one that it said to have inspired Watchman Nee's The Spiritual Man, Jessie Penn-Lewis, with her, War on the Saints shot that revival movement down, claiming it was not the movement of God, but a product of demon possession.

How can we know for sure what is a movement of God, and what is not?

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

How can we know for sure what is a movement of God, and what is not?

That is a good question. But how can we know anything? In reality, we cannot. We are impermanent creatures; how can we know of permanence? Of the things that abide, and remain?

Ultimately it becomes, for me, a matter of faith. I do believe that there is a world, that it is round, that it has history. In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Etc. And there's a narrative, in our hands, of the man Jesus. By faith I receive it. I believe it. And likewise it seems that the Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead has similarly operated among men, since those days. However, the problem is, how much is God, and how much is man? That, I cannot answer. As Orson Welles said of Paul Masson wine, "We judge no wine before its time". Jesus was judged, and raised; He's the Victor. You and I, and the rest, our time is not yet, so judgment still waits.

Nonetheless, I do believe God has moved among humanity, at least in part, and it seems to have occurred in the "Jesus Movement" of the 1960s. Those young people who swelled the ranks of the LCs also swelled the ranks of the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, and other burgeoning groups, were responding to God's call. And yes there was some really weird stuff as well. Both you and Casci have testified of being almost caught by the CoG... "my feet nearly slipped' (Psa 73:2). And the Calvary Chapel's leading light of the young generation, named Lonnie Frisbee, was so charismatic that he couldn't keep his hands off the parishioners, both male and female, and died of AIDS in 1993.

Yet who can judge? We all fail. That's one thing that seems solidly established in this swirling world of impermanence. But it still pleased God to send His Son. That I do know. If anything is real, that's real.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

I remember the instability back then. I experienced it firsthand.

I had a friend that was in the Children of God. He came back from the west coast to visit family and friends. He told me all about the CoG and wanted me to come with him and join.

My instability, as you call it, was driving me. To me at the time I was faced with two choices. One to join the CoG, or two to join the Rosicrucian's.

I drove from Detroit to San Jose Ca, where the Rosicrucian University was. Long story short, I bumped into the church in Santa Cruz. The rest is history.

This testimony is confirmation of the previous post. (#84) These kids were easy pickings for Witness Lee and his ilk. They sang, "I'm so happy in this lovely place...Christ is new and fresh, available and near".

[Lisbon]

Originally Posted by aron

My point in raising the whole 1960s social dynamics, which was so excellently put forth in Casci's testimony, is that the counter-culture was just another human culture. It rejected the "square" box of conventional culture, but it created its own box. Maybe differently shaped, but a box nonetheless. The counter-culture was a human reaction to human activity, which activity was of course largely a reaction to other human activity.

WL sold us that WN wasn't simply reacting to dormant Protestantism on Mainland China, but that WN's Little Flock was wholly a move of God. But it wasn't. It was merely another human reaction; Martin Luther had reacted to the RCC, the Brethren reacted to Luther's failings, and WN reacted to the Brethren. And so forth.

This perhaps touches on the problem of human behavior: we are unstable. One day long hair is in fashion, and short skirts. The next day it is short hair and long skirts. Back and forth we go. I made notice of Oprah Winfrey on another thread, how she lost weight and had a party on national television when she again could wear her old jeans. I watched it and felt, "She will gain it all back again." Why? Because the reason she gained the weight in the first place was still there: instability. The fact that she had a special show to celebrate her weight loss indicated unmet need. Up and down we go.... the roller coaster of life. I picked on her because she is one of the more successful people in the past 20 or 30 years, publicly. She went from nothing to a multimillionaire. But the instability remains, and the lacks.

Anyway, God was there, in the Jesus Movement of the 1960s. No doubt. Also in the LC variant of the Jesus Movement. Those glorious meetings were really glorious. But it also involved the move of humans, not just WL but you and me, and the instabilities and contradictions inherent in those actions. We reject culture, and rightly so, but we create a "new" counter-culture, which is merely more culture. So the "new Christ" of the LC was simply more of the same. Christ is always new, but our "new Christ", as a reaction to someone else's "old Christ", has the seeds of oldness built into it. Sooner or later they will appear.

My my my I liked that quote! How we enjoyed the ride for a few years. It was fun, enjoyable. We had a dozen pretty good guitarists, one tremendous pianist, and electric base. What more could you want? We sang "What a happy day" a thousand times. But where was the reality? WL was so bent on changing 'truth' to 'reality'. Confidence scammers always hit what they're selling insisting it's not what it appears.
When problem after problem occurred, it was just hidden so the scam could ride on as our brother Phillip Lin so nobly wrote. And in my area it is pretty well still hidden to quite a host.
Lisbon