LSM's Plagiarism - An Initial Inquiry

[YP0534]

Just stumbled onto this issue this morning while looking more closely at Mr. Tomes' missive about "plagiarism."

The strange thing about this business is that it appears that there was an acknowledged tendency buried deep within this whole teaching program to produce some monolithic reinterpretation of Protestant Christianity.

Take Nee's localism and inner-life focus, add International Sunday School Bible study program, shake well: Local Church of Witness Lee?

I'm looking to get into the topic a little further...

It's kind of fascinating to consider, actually.

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by YP0534

I'm looking to get into the topic a little further...

It's kind of fascinating to consider, actually.

It looks like the International Sunday/Sabbath School movement may have been quite prevailing at a certain point up until WWI.

Probably not a coincidence.

It kind of looks like maybe a lot of it was built on a utopian model of global pan-denominational Bible study and fellowship that got smashed by a horrible war and the parts haven't really ever been reconnected for some reason.

[YP0534]

Hard to believe that I've never heard of this.

http://www.wfn.org/1997/04/msg00071.html

The existence of this movement, especially in its pre-WWI incarnation, is actually a rather strong and demonstrable counter to the exclusivistic claims of the Local Church, particularly to the extent that Lee himself in his ministry might be shown to have relied upon the publications of the forerunners of the National Council of Churches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...il_of_Churches

At the end of the day, the real problem isn't "plagiarism," "intellectual integrity" or some other ethical allegation or other. The problem is exclusivistic division from the rest of the believers in Christ and the hypocritical stance of denouncing Christianity while simultaneously appropriating what that system has produced.

We've frequently cited to the example in 1 Corinthians concerning Paul's teachings against divisiveness, and his rhetorical question is what? Is Christ divided? What's the answer to that question? That's not strictly an injunction against the divisions he's discussing. The answer is a statement of fact. Paul pleads for oneness in 1:10 but his context here appears to be that same old battle between Jews and Greeks. The pitched battle between those two sides was surely never fully resolved during his lifetime. At a certain point in his ministry he appears to have taken sides against the circumcision but then he's indulging James in Jerusalem near the end of Acts (and, of course, I've elsewhere proposed that "all those in Asia left" on account of this issue.) If I say I'm of Paul and you say you're of Cephas - is Christ divided? Simply? No.

In fact, God's doing His work inside and outside all the systems because He doesn't even recognize the divisions, even if we do.

I'm drifting too far off this thread so I'll close but my point is that Lee by his citations (and lack thereof) implicitly acknowledged God's working in such pan-denominational efforts as the Sunday School Movement. While he simultaneously maintained that God could never have His heart's desire fulfilled within such a system, which may be true in a certain sense, the fallacy is that Lee himself could devise (or build, if you will) a better international system to do it.

Christ isn't divided.

And building with somewhat less straw doesn't constitute you a wise master builder.