Misrepresenting God: Delegated Authority (Nee)

[HERn]

Originally Posted by OBW

The question I have, like on some other issues, is whether it is important that we understand something that could be called "delegated authority" in this day and age outside of the very terms that are already used for whatever human authority there should be in the church.

These special doctrines that are codified seem too often to be for the purpose of making them into more than they actually are. Like making an elder or other leader immune to claims of wrongdoing. Like when Nee claimed that only God could deal with the sins of a deputy authority.

Really? Fire must come down from heaven to consume the pedophile priests? Or condemn church leaders for abusive practices? (not just thinking about the LCM here)

But this is where deputy authority was going. Even if Nee seemed to write (some) truth in the book, was it really there for that truth? Or was if for the purpose of arriving at a place where he could never be excommunicated again for sexual immorality? And if you want to be part of this congregation, you have to go along with this new rule that exempts me from claims of any wrongdoing that the police will not come arrest me for.

My gut tells me both Née and Lee used that doctrine to cover their ugly a#&. Yes, I know I'm cynical, pray for me.

[HERn]

Originally Posted by HERn

My gut tells me both Née and Lee used that doctrine to cover their ugly a#%. Yes, I know I'm cynical, pray for me.

Ok, I'll use logic. Did Christ, Paul, Peter, John, or any of the church fathers use DA to prevent criticism? How about Luther (on a beer binge he might have), Calvin, ... let's skip hundreds of years... Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, the last John Paul Pope?

It seems that only crazies like David Koresh, Sun Yun Moon, Jim Jones, and many others play this kind of card. Why would anyone (like Lee, Née, the blindeds) want to be associated with that kind of cultish practice?

[aron]

Originally Posted by HERn

It seems that only crazies like David Koresh, Sun Yun Moon, Jim Jones, and many others play this kind of card. Why would anyone (like Lee, Née, the blindeds) want to be associated with that kind of cultish practice?

I was recently reading the "Life Study of John" online. Chapter 23, section 2. Titled: "Frustration of Human Opinions". Not sure what was in the rest of the chapter, but according to what I could see, the main point to be learned from the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead was not to have opinions. That's it, folks - the true "intrinsic significance" of the gospel record is for us to "drop our concepts" and follow God's DA without question. No wonder they are called a cult.

http://www.ministrybooks.org/books.cfm?n

WL might have been able to siphon off thousands or even tens of thousands of seeking ones during the Jesus Movement of the seventies, to become his unquestioning acolytes. But I really doubt this kind of teaching is going to prevail, in the long term. It's both anti-God and anti-human. It turns us away from God to a self-appointed "deputy", and denies us our essential humanness, to try, to fail, to see, to learn, to grow. Just be "absolutely identical" with God's so-called oracle.

At the bottom of the page it says not to copy these "spiritual riches", so I'll merely quote one point WL made.

Martha and Mary considered that the Lord should have come immediately. This was their opinion. But the Lord never acts on the basis of anyone's opinion; He always acts according to His own will.

To me this is flat-out wrong. The gospel record repeatedly said that the Lord didn't act according to His will, but rather was completely submissive to the will of the Father in heaven. And the epistles affirmed this. I could cite a half-dozen verses, or more. This is a basic tenet of the Christian faith, no? How could WL have missed this essential point?

p.s. There's nothing wrong with letting go of our opinions. It's arguably a good thing. But to make that the focal point of the gospel message is extremely myopic at best.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

p.s. There's nothing wrong with letting go of our opinions. It's arguably a good thing. But to make that the focal point of the gospel message is extremely myopic at best.

This highlights the hallmark of Lee's equivocation -- when do our thoughts and words become those dreaded "opinions?"

My opinion is that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and died on the cross for my sins. I'll even die for that "opinion," but over on the alt-views that opinion is condemned as merely my unsubstantiated and unproven "opinion."

The LC uses the matter of "opinion" like progressives use their "politically correct" speech -- designed strictly to silence the mouths and minds of the rank and file. If my speaking matches that of the powers that be, then it is approved and sanctioned for further use. Otherwise my opinion may frustrate Jesus, and cause Him to even weep, or so Lee has said. (John 11.35 and footnote 3 of John 11.27)

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Ohio

The LC uses the matter of "opinion" like progressives use their "politically correct" speech -- designed strictly to silence the mouths and minds of the rank and file.

Someone's opinion will be heard in the LC. Ohio, Terry, etc is rendered as politically incorrect. If it's the blended's opinion, well now their opinion is the "feeling of the Body". As it's the politically correct opinion to have.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Terry

If it's the blended's opinion, well now their opinion is the "feeling of the Body".

God's delegated authority, by definition it seems, doesn't have an opinion. God's DA has God's oracle. Everyone else has an opinion.

I think this extends from an obsession with order at the expense of freedom. The "freedom of the Spirit" of Jesus and Paul is completely extinguished in the Chinese-flavored drive for "good order in the church".

There's a spirit which manifests itself in fallen humanity, which piggy-backs upon the revelation of Jesus Christ, and which ultimately strips the gospel of all its motive force. HERn cited Jim Jones and David Koresh; my poster child is the Mormon church. The "Jesus Christ" the Latter Day Saints talk about is not the Jesus Christ of the Bible; rather they use the natural desire to access God through faith in Jesus Christ to introduce a different spirit, and catch people, and pull them into their net.

If you hang around the LC long enough, at some point this spirit will manifest. Bill Mallon was told by RG, "We do what we are told", regarding Philip Lee as "the Office" of LSM. Awareness heard regional Florida overlord MP tell him, "You will take my personality as your own", mimicking MP's personality being subsumed by that of WL. In my case, I heard the FTTA trainer tell us, "Don't waste your time" with the poor, or sick, or weak; go for the Caucasian college students. Go get the good building material. And I heard, "The age of spiritual giants is over; it is the age of small potatoes". This statement had nothing to do with the Bible, and everything to do with the cultural agenda seen in the collective.

At some point the Bible stops getting piously waved in the air, and scripture gets ignored, because Big Brother has spoken. The logic simply becomes that Maximum Leader WN or WL said it, therefore it's in the best interest of the Mother Ship to ignore the poor, or to elevate one member to god-like status, or to obsess over relative position in the hierarchy, or pretend that Christians on Campus are "just Christians". Because our culturally-derived Mother Ship model dictates this thinking, and this behavioral norm. Just do as you are told. And don't question; be one with our brother's burden.

Originally Posted by aron

I was recently reading the "Life Study of John" online. Chapter 23, section 2. Titled: "Frustration of Human Opinions". ...the main point to be learned from the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead was not to have opinions. That's it, folks - the true "intrinsic significance" of the gospel record is for us to "drop our concepts" and follow God's DA without question. No wonder they are called a cult.

Reading WL going over the gospel of John and boiling it down to "life" versus "opinions" was something like reading a book review of a Zane Gray or Louis L'amour or Larry McMurtry novel, where the reviewer says, "In chapter one I noted men and horses. Chapter two also had men and horses. Chapter three through eight as well. Chapter nine: no horses. Chapters ten through eighteen all had men and horses. Therefore this book is clearly about men and horses."

The LC's culturally-based idea of good order in the church needed John's gospel to be about life versus opinions, so there it is. There's your book report. Enjoy the riches.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

I think this extends from an obsession with order at the expense of freedom. The "freedom of the Spirit" of Jesus and Paul is completely extinguished in the Chinese-flavored drive for "good order in the church".

Jesus said, "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." -- John 8.36

Paul said, "For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion." -- II Timothy 1.7