Leaders of the Lord's Recovery

[UntoHim]

I, like Mike, must reluctantly defer to the "available history" that we now know of "early Lee" back in Taiwan, and even of the early Lee behind the scenes in the early days here in America. After all, there is ample evidence that he was hiring and firing elders on his personal whim, melding in the affairs of local churches, and even engaging in financial malfeasance back in the 1960s. These are well chronicled facts, and not just the petty grumblings of some bitter, former LC members. (get that, our dear Blended lurkers?)

In any event, I would echo what OBW has just posted:

Originally Posted by OBW

2. He came here hiding his dark side until he could gain sufficient control over us.

My reasons for thinking the second is more likely is that while he was still gentle with us here in America, he went back to Taiwan and cleaned house in a way that was a lot like times yet to come in the U.S. To me, that casts a big cloud over any claim of genuineness in those "Jesus People" days in the 60s and early 70s.

Originally Posted by Ohio

I will say also that many brothers in the GLA still hold to the simple maxim handed down from Titus Chu: W.L. good, B.B. bad.

You know, I heard the exact same thing in Orange County CA back in the late 1980s, except back then the mantra was "Witness Lee good, John Ingalls and John So bad". And you can bet that before that, in 1950s-1960s Taiwan/Hong Kong/Philippines, the cry was "Witness Lee good, fill-in-the-blank brother(s) bad". Get the picture...and the picture is not pretty folks. History is a very repetitive thing when it comes to us sinful, selfish and proud creatures, and unfortunately, with a shamefully large number of Christian leaders.

***I actually wrote this post before Indiana made this last post. I have heard of such writings from brothers expressing such things, but this is the first time I have ever seen early Local Church history related in such a detailed and succinct manner. When Indiana gets a chance, maybe he could give us more detail about this book and if it has been fully translated into English yet.***

-

[OBW]

Yep. There it is. A "cleaning exercise" in 1965. A man who was no longer functioning as an elder, or anything else, in Taiwan returns to oust those who will not put him back on the throne of the MOTA. The term was not yet in play, but he was claiming the top spot that Nee had defined in Spiritual Authority.

Meanwhile, back in America, he was still an itinerant preacher with no place of authority.

He may have been seen in the corner saying "Oh Lord, Mercy" over and over, but since the U.S. history is not older than 1962 or 63, to be so dictatorial in 1965 is not really much of a time off.

Meanwhile, we in America were just getting ready to see the first of his venture failures in the early-mid 70s. So we had this continuing honeymoon while he was acting very differently to the churches in Taiwan (and possibly elsewhere?). I am having a hard time being very generous concerning his period of repentance because it seems more like those brief forays into Christianity like Bob Dylan did. When things get rough, cry out for mercy (which Lee mocked us for singing in the Psalms) then toss it aside and return to the SOP when things get better.

I begin to wonder if he was ever more spiritual in any way than any of the rest of us. Just had the look of it.

Reminds me of a discussion between Elizabeth and Jane Bennett concerning Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham. I can't find the exact words now, but the paraphrase would be something like "One has all the appearance of propriety while the other actually has the propriety." (I thought I could find a copy in my nook (shared with wife) but it is not there.)

Lee clearly created the appearance of a man of God but whether he was actually capable of ever being so is much less certain. (Actually sort of like another comment about Mr. Wickham.)

I know that I am being hard on someone who many still think of as a good teacher gone bad. I once thought that way. But my mind began to change in about 2007 (fully 20 years after leaving the LCM). Now I keep seeing reasons that he should never be accorded the rank of "good teacher," or even be a teacher at all. They just keep piling up.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

Meanwhile, back in America, he was still an itinerant preacher with no place of authority.

Not yet. But it does seem inevitable, at some point, given the character.

I'll never forget the story of the young brother in S. Cal who came up and laid his sizable inheritance at WL's feet. This so-called man of God and apostle of the age, with all his business failures and troubles behind him, which might have taught him to repent and go a different route, still decided to create a motor home company: Daystar. He made one of his sons President, made appeals for "investment" from within the church meetings, etc. What a fiasco. The guy never changed.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Indiana

The book by Larry Chi was sent to me from his home in San Francisco in 2003.

Pardon my asking, but who exactly is Larry Chi? Is he someone who was associated with WL in Taiwan?

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Pardon my asking, but who exactly is Larry Chi? Is he someone who was associated with WL in Taiwan?

(This was added to post #365 at the bottom.)

The book by Larry Chi, formerly a responsible brother in Taiwan, was sent to me from his home in San Francisco in 2003. The selected portion from the book on the Taipei church history was professionally translated here in Seattle. Also, Larry Chi discusses, from the Taipei saints' viewpoint,the life practices they heard about in the U. S., and that, before long, were introduced to them by visiting saints, stirred up to share what they had been enjoying in the U.S.

I had two copies of the book that ended up in the hands of two Taiwanese brothers in my area, who wanted to read the book. I got the part of the book I wanted at the time, but it would be good to retrieve the books, if I can, and see now what the teachings were that the brother had addressed in the book that he was concerned about. The whole book has not been translated into English that I know of.
(In the writing, the names were replaced with blank lines for presenting on the forum.)

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

You know, I heard the exact same thing in Orange County CA back in the late 1980s, except back then the mantra was "Witness Lee good, John Ingalls and John So bad". And you can bet that before that, in 1950s-1960s Taiwan/Hong Kong/Philippines, the cry was "Witness Lee good, fill-in-the-blank brother(s) bad". Get the picture...and the picture is not pretty folks. History is a very repetitive thing when it comes to us sinful, selfish and proud creatures, and unfortunately, with a shamefully large number of Christian leaders.

For the record, I should add (and you know this very well) that I never agreed with this paradigm handed down to the GLA from Titus Chu: W.L. good, B.B. bad for a number of reasons.

My primary reason is the one you stated -- why does Lee always come out smelling like a rose and never taking any responsibility for his failures? Why does he assemble this massive smear machine to go after the prophets sent to him by God? How is Lee any different than the Pharisees who killed the prophets sent to them?

[Indiana]

www.twoturmoils.com/PeopleChangeBensonLetter.pdf

Benson Phillip's referral some years ago in a letter to the church in Akron about a comment Witness Lee made that "people change".

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Larry Chi

Around 1959 Mr. Lee had some investment failures and he lost a great deal of money. This brought the first financial crisis to the church. All the donations and contributions from the church members were used, and still the church owed people a large amount of money. Because of this situation, brother Lee forced the elders to sell a piece of land belonging to the church in order to pay the debt. That piece of land was located on 19 East Road, section 4, and had been bought by the church to build a training center and a new assembly building. Because of that many coworkers and church members were especially unhappy about this fiasco. Mr. Lee knew this was something that he did wrong and because of that he went to the United States and stayed on the west coast.

There was another incident that happened toward the end of the 1950’s that involved Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. Mr. Lee and some of the overseas coworkers developed some serious differences because the coworkers could not take Mr. Lee’s absolute authority. Everything was dictated by Mr. Lee, and he would not take any input from anybody. In addition some of the well-to-do church members were very unhappy about his handling of the financial matters. This was due to the fact that a lot of the money had been contributed by these church members, and Mr. Lee would handle the finances according to his own viewpoint. The overseas coworkers did not feel they could trust him anymore. Because of the differences they split up. Originally, the Philippines were very important for Mr. Lee because there were several well-to-do church members there who supported the church financially for a long time. So in 1960 the Manila church decided to sever relationships with Mr. Lee totally.

When Mr.Lee left Taiwan to the U.S. in 1960, it was not really that he went there to open up new frontier. Rather, it was because of his own personal failure in Taiwan that he escaped to the U.S.

Early Mr. Lee, meet Late Mr. Lee. SAME MR. LEE.

-

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Early Mr. Lee, meet Late Mr. Lee. SAME MR. LEE.

UntoHim, you just said exactly what I said you have said all along and now you say it again. In the future I will no longer say it is you who says what you say and rather just say it myself, and then let you say what you say for yourself.

[UntoHim]

What did he just say?

-

[aron]

Originally Posted by Larry Chi

Witness Lee Business Failures Disrupt the Church

Around 1959 Mr. Lee had some investment failures and he lost a great deal of money.

This brought the first financial crisis to the church. All the donations and contributions from the church members were used, and still the church owed people a large amount of money. Because of this situation, brother Lee forced the elders to sell a piece of land belonging to the church in order to pay the debt.

That piece of land was located on 19 East Road, section 4, and had been bought by the church to build a training center and a new assembly building. Because of that many coworkers and church members were especially unhappy about this fiasco. Mr. Lee knew this was something that he did wrong and because of that he went to the United States and stayed on the west coast.

After Mr. Lee left Taiwan, the church coworkers formed two sides. One side was Mr. Lee’s strong followers, while the other group had questions about some of Mr. Lee’s Lee’s activities. Those two groups had a strong difference of opinion, which greatly impacted the church activities and made much of the church work difficult to carry out.

Finally, some of the coworkers who were Lee followers asked Mr. Lee to come back to Taiwan to resolve differences. In the summer of 1969. Lee came back to Taipei. He decided to get rid of those coworkers who disagreed
with him.

There appears to be similarity between what happened in Taipei in 1959 and the U.S. in the 1979 (Daystar Motor Home Company and Phosphorous Overseas Stewards) and also in Brasil about 2008 or 2009 with Dong Yu Lan.

In all cases, there was a division between two camps, one group which tried to examine what appeared to be gross financial impropriety, and one group which said, "Ask no questions. Follow blindly." In the case of the phone conversation between Sal Benoit and Witness Lee, and in some of the records of the Estancia Arvore da Vida and Dong Yu Lan, the answer was the same. "None of your business". In the Brasilian case, the answer was phrased thusly: "The business finances of Dong Yu Lan are a black box. You cannot see what is inside."

So much for the kingdom of transparency and light. In all cases, asking for transparency led to mass exodus, as all but the "true believers" couldn't handle the stench of hypocrisy. The humble servant of God was revealed to be an autocrat, accountable to no one.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Larry Chin

Glorious Atmosphere Did Not Last Long

Unfortunately the glorious atmosphere did not last very long. There was a big change in 1970. In the summer of 1970 there was a special international gathering in Los Angeles. There were about 100 members who came to join the gathering from the Far East, with about two-thirds of them coming from Taiwan. Most of them were the leading coworkers from various churches in Taiwan. In that special gathering, Mr. Lee used strong derogatory language to insult and degrade coworkers from Taiwan. He called them outdated and said all the churches from the Far East were outdated. There were two reasons for him to do so...

He wanted to use the free spirit and animated style of the American church members to shake up the members from the east. He wanted the Far East members to believe that the yelling, screaming and jumping up and down by the American church members was an expression that showed that the Holy Spirit had entered into them. He forced the Far East members to accept that they were outdated and that they ought to be ashamed. He wanted to re-establish his absolute authority and power over them.

In Chinese culture, screaming and yelling and jumping up and down entails "loss of face", no? No wonder they were unwilling. If Lee shows up, and says you are outdated, and you need to jump up and down and scream "O Lord Jesus" then essentially your doing so is not a surrender to God, but to Lee.

Also makes it very interesting that the Lee disciples in Mainland were called "Yellers" and "Screamers" and "Shouters". He noted their numbers approvingly, and called them by this name, before they were revealed to be under cultic influence (Lee is the Fourth of the God head or the Returned Messiah or whatever).