"The Multiple Invisibilities of Witness Lee"

[Koinonia]

The Multiple Invisibilities of Witness Lee
—Paul H. B. Chang

In 1989, a Chinese-American minister named Witness Lee (Li Changshou) founded a school that is now one of the largest post-graduate theological institutions in the United States. The school currently enrolls well over three hundred full-time equivalents.(1) Bucking national trends, it shows healthy signs of growth, recently opening an extension campus in Boston to complement its main campus in Southern California. Furthermore, these North American campuses are only one national manifestation of a larger phenomenon. Internationally, there are about a dozen such schools representing every inhabited continent, all of which trace their founding to the same Chinese-American minister. The fact that this story is so little known, even among Asian-American theological educators, is the result of repeated attempts at erasure from multiple parties, including the founder himself. The reversal of these erasures is a difficult but rewarding task, one that reveals a fascinating, untold story about a major Asian-American theological figure.

Biography

Lee was born in 1905 in the Chinese province of Shandong. He came from a deeply Christian background, writing that “My mother’s maternal grandfather was a Southern Baptist, who in turn brought my mother into Christianity.” Although she was baptized in 1885, Lee concedes that he himself was only a nominal Christian, “Though I attended the Southern Baptist Church services and Sunday School in my youth, I was not saved and was never baptized by them.” Through the efforts of his sister, however, Lee was eventually baptized as a member of the Chinese Independent Church in 1925.(2)

In April of that same year, Lee heard the preaching of the itinerant evangelist Peace Wang (Wang Peizhen, 1899-1969). He later related that his actual conversion began from that day. As he walked home, her powerful speaking so affected him that he prayed “God I don’t like being usurped by Satan as Pharaoh, through the world as Egypt; I would like to serve You and preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus through the villages at any cost for my whole life.” Lee did not immediately begin full-time ministry. Instead, he spent some years with his local Brethren Assembly and eventually came into contact with the independent Chinese minister, Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng, 1903-1972).(3)

Lee increasingly respected and identified with Nee’s teachings, and Lee became a recognized leader among Nee’s followers, especially in Northern China. During the 1930s, as Pentecostal revivals enflamed Shandong and its surrounding provinces, Lee helped to spread Nee’s more reserved, sublime form of Christian mysticism and church practice. In the 1940s Lee even played a crucial role in restoring unity to Nee’s home congregations in Southern China after a period of internal turmoil. By the time of the Communist victory on the mainland, Nee trusted Lee enough to send him to Taiwan to continue their work in the face of a potentially “desperate situation.”(4)

Nee’s fears were proven correct. He was soon arrested along with many other indigenous Christian leaders during the Communist Party’s consolidation of power during the early 1950s. He would remain in prison until his death in 1972. Bereft of his spiritual mentor, Lee forged ahead. Once again he proved to be an exceptional religious leader, guiding the Taiwanese congregations through a period of rapid growth. Membership exploded from five hundred to more than twenty-five thousand in six years.(5)

In 1958, Lee visited the West for the first time and “stopped in America for a short while” as part of a longer trip to Europe. Initially, because of the distance, language, and cultural barriers, he did not entertain even the “slightest thought of going to the United States.” Instead, he regarded Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia as more promising mission fields. After a few more visits, however, he “had a deeper impression” and decided to apply for a visa. In 1962, Lee immigrated and eventually became a naturalized American citizen.(6)

Shortly after Lee’s arrival, tens of thousands of East Asian immigrants would follow him into the country under the changes in immigration policy made by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. They comprised a natural audience for Lee and his message, but Lee did not focus his efforts on them, writing that “I was very clear within that the Lord did not want me to work among the Chinese immigrants. Rather, He wanted me to bring His recovery to the typical Americans.”(7) Again, Lee succeeded impressively. Lee’s message, derived from Nee’s, criticized mainstream Christianity for its ritualism and formality. At the same time, in the context of the Cold War, Watchman Nee’s imprisonment was something of a cause célèbre in the evangelical subculture. Lee thus appealed both to those who wanted to reform Christianity and to those who wanted it to shore up traditional American values. Lee attracted thousands of “typical Americans” to his meetings.

Eventually, Lee cemented a following among the Asian immigrants as well. In 1984, Lee lamented retrospectively that because he concentrated his efforts nearly exclusively on non-Asians in the early 1960s, “after six or seven years we lost from five hundred to one thousand saints [from among the Asian immigrants].” Still, “two years ago we began the Chinese-speaking work” and “the number of Chinese saints has become stabilized, and new ones are gradually being gained.”(8)

Lee spent most of the rest of his long life in Southern California, publishing prolifically and overseeing the spread of local congregations. Under his guidance, new churches were established across the United States and throughout the world. By the time Lee died in 1997, his ideas were circulated and practiced in significant numbers in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania. Since his death, the growth of these congregations has continued at a rapid pace.

Promises and Problems of Institution and Tradition

The fact that Lee’s work has survived his passing suggests the creation and maintenance of robust institutions and traditions. In his written works and oral preaching, however, Lee frequently disparaged both “institutions” and “traditions.” Thus, although scholars of religion have frequently employed these terms in value-neutral or even positive ways, they must be applied to Lee and his followers with some care.

For instance, at one point, Lee argued that “Actually, according to God’s New Testament economy, there should not be any organization in the church. The church is not an organization but an organism.” He went on to explain his understanding of the difference between the two: “An organism is an entity entirely of life. Nothing in our body is produced by organization. In contrast, in an organization nothing is living; every piece is dead. Everything in an organization is a human work arranged by human hands.”(9)

Similarly, Lee inveighed against tradition, even when depicted in the broadest sense. “Whether a person is sinful or not sinful, moral or immoral, that person is occupied by something other than Christ, by some element of the thousands of years of human history. We may call this the six-thousand-year human tradition.” Lee continued by pointing out the source and outcome of this tradition, “Satan, the subtle one, is lurking behind the six-thousand-year human tradition. Due to his influence, we live in this tradition instead of in Christ.”(10) In contrast, Lee wrote “Nothing commanded by God could ever become a tradition, for God’s word is always fresh. A tradition, on the contrary, is something invented or initiated by man.”(11)

Thus, it is clear that Lee’s opposition to both institutions and traditions returns to the same point. Lee posits that both institutions and traditions are artificial constructs that deprive people of direct contact with Christ. God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.

The source of Lee’s critiques is also easy to trace. Through Watchman Nee, Lee received a theological heritage that was heavily indebted to the Anglo-American holiness movements of the 19th century. These holiness teachers, like many Christians before them, attempted to reform or renew Christianity by infusing it with a fresh, living piety. In this way, they were very much of a piece with the Romantic temper of the times, prizing extemporaneity and naturalness.

Many of these same sources influenced early Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, and Lee’s critiques of organization and tradition were reminiscent of voices in these contemporary movements. All these groups ostensibly eschewed established Christianity in the name of bringing ordinary Christians back into direct contact with the Holy Spirit. Of course, as they did so, they often formed durable and successful institutions of their own. Historian Grant Wacker has pithily encapsulated the complementary dynamism of this paradox.

Pentecostals’ primitivist conviction that the Holy Spirit did everything, and that they themselves did nothing, bore grandly pragmatic results. It freed them from self-doubt, legitimated reasonable accommodations to modern culture, and released boundless energy for feats of worldly enterprise. At the same time, this vigorous engagement with everyday life stabilized the primitive and kept it from consuming itself in a fury of charismatic fire.(12)

Lee’s thought follows similar lines, with more emphasis on the spontaneous action of the divine life, and less emphasis on the “fury of charismatic fire.” In any case, it seems that the lasting power of these institutions owes something to their inherent contradictions. Rather than threatening incoherence, the Holy Spirit’s unpredictable leadership of pragmatic humans can both sanctify the institutions they create and serve as an endlessly renewable reserve for further reforms and adaptations.

Multiple Erasures

The similarities between Lee’s experiences and those of the Pentecostals do not end with their paradoxical adeptness at building institutions even while denouncing them. It is helpful to consider Lee’s relationships with other Christians as well. Like the early Pentecostals, Lee was frequently treated with deep suspicion by other American Christians. To some extent, this mistrust can be traced to the novelty of his message. Lee was willing to criticize popular Christian ideas and practices if he felt that they were not biblical. He also spoke of deification, a well-established, historical Christian doctrine that nevertheless sounded strange and unfamiliar to many American Protestants. Other tensions resulted simply from competition in the religious marketplace. Because of both the religious demographics of the United States and the nature of his message, Lee (like many religious leaders before him) found that many of his followers came from existing Christian denominations.

Unlike the American Pentecostals, however, Lee had to deal with the additional burden of being ethnically Chinese. During the 1960s and 1970s, American fears of cults and sects, especially from the East, were acute. The cover of one book published in that period used a terrifying illustration of Lee that depicted him with a sinister smile. The image reflected in his eyeglasses suggested his control over a wild mob of followers. Another book argued that Lee was one of “The Mindbenders.”(13) In recent years, some of Lee’s most strident critics have recanted. Many of these critics were part of the evangelical “counter-cult” movement, and now admit that their work was based on an unfair double standard.(14)

Lee’s Chinese heritage has become a liability in another sense. The Chinese government has never reconciled itself to Watchman Nee’s legacy. Although some of the congregations that follow Nee have now been incorporated into the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the official Protestant church of the People’s Republic of China, many others continue to operate in more liminal spaces.(15) In China, Nee’s name has never been cleared, and Lee’s name and his followers are still tarnished by association. If the persecution of the Chinese government was something of an asset during the Cold War, in the context of China’s growing international influence, it now carries dangerous associations.

Stigmatized in his adopted country and unwelcome in his country of origin, Witness Lee occupied a space that would be familiar to many other Asian-Americans. Powerful actors have repeatedly tried to occlude Lee’s reputation and voice. If these external attempts at erasure were not enough, the interested scholar must also contend with Lee’s complicated attempts at self-erasure.
In one of his visits to Asia, Lee had strong words for his fellow diasporic Chinese. He wrote:

We have a wide assortment of people in the church. There are Chinese, Japanese, Indonesians, Filipinos, and Malaysians. We also have some here from Singapore and Thailand. I would ask you, do you live by Christ or by the culture in which you have been raised? Many of you are overseas Chinese. Do you live by the Chinese culture, or by the culture of the country where you are? You may be a Chinese living by the Filipino culture, or by the Indonesian, Malaysian, or Thai cultures. Your overseas Chinese culture has been influenced by the native cultures. What you live by is this mixed culture, not by Christ.(16)

The convictions that encouraged Lee to reject institutions and traditions in favor of a direct dependence on Christ also indicted cultures and ethnic backgrounds of all kinds. Lee, of course, was intimately acquainted with the hybridity of overseas Chinese culture. Nevertheless, he rejected it in favor of a deeply otherworldly piety, one that followed the dictum in Colossians: “There cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.”(17)

Thus, although Lee has been discussed here as Chinese, Asian, and American, he would reject all such categories as distractions from his true identity and his message. In another place, he foreclosed the possibility of retaining even the slightest hint of national origins, “In the church, there should not be the European, Asian, American, Mexican, Chinese, or any other flavor, but only the flavor of the Triune God expressed in His unique image.”(18)

Seeing the Unseen

American Christians, the Chinese government, and even Lee himself have all attempted at different times to erase different aspects of Lee’s identity, message, and accomplishments. Lee’s counter-cult detractors in the United States have categorized him as a dangerous foreigner, trying to corrupt American Christianity. In China itself, the government has persecuted and jailed Lee’s followers along with Nee’s. Lee himself might prefer that any appraisal of his life focuses narrowly on the truth of his teachings, as coming directly from the Holy Spirit.

Almost any evaluation of Lee’s life and work threatens to upset these complicated stakes. And yet, it is a project that is well worth the effort. Witness Lee and his teachings are not going away. Since his death, Lee’s followers have continued to propagate and practice his theology. They have now established local congregations in every state in the U.S., and may now have more active members than any other Christian group on the Taiwanese island. Lee and his teachings have raised up indigenous leaders and congregations in many different countries, making him rather unique in Chinese Christianity and even among Chinese religious leaders more generally. And finally, the institution referred to at the beginning of this essay, the Living Stream Bible Truth and Church Service Training, commonly known as the Full-Time Training in Anaheim (FTTA), is almost completely unknown, despite its remarkable success.

Every year, more than one hundred fifty students enroll in the FTTA. Chinese Americans are disproportionately represented, comprising a significant minority of each incoming class. As a whole, however, the rest of the student body is impressively diverse in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and geographical origin. All of the students have already received their bachelor’s degrees, many of them from America’s top-tier research institutions. Most are American citizens. A few international students may also enroll, but only if they are proficient in English. Otherwise, they may be encouraged to attend one of the other international Full-Time Training Centers with courses offered in their native languages.

The vast majority of these so-called trainees will finish the entire two-year, full-time course of studies, which includes over two hours of classroom instruction every day, five days a week. Trainees have the option of taking New Testament Greek. Otherwise, the curriculum is almost entirely derived from Watchman Nee and Witness Lee’s published works. The classes are thematically arranged, and, besides Greek, there are no electives. Thus, all students will take courses on “The Triune God,” “The Body of Christ,” and “The Experience of Christ as Life,” among other offerings.

The classes are mostly taught by a faculty of “trainers,” many of them chosen by Lee himself during his lifetime. Lee always prized a living piety over formal education, and the qualifications of the trainers reflect this preference. Most of them have graduate degrees, but only some are from fields that might be found in faculties at typical seminaries. Even those with seminary degrees or doctorates in church history and biblical languages rarely draw directly from their academic training when they teach. Instead, the focus of instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did.

Although lectures and studies are the focus of the FTTA, the scope of the training far exceeds the classroom. Trainees also perform menial services. For instance, they prepare and serve their own meals and clean the common areas of the campus, including bathrooms. They are subject to multiple roll calls every day, which are intended to teach them punctuality. Their living quarters are inspected weekly for violations like stray hairs and smudges. They also engage in ministry on college campuses, in the community, and with neighborhood children. In some ways, their work resembles the novitiate of a religious order more than a typical school.

And yet, after two years, most of them will eventually go on to secular jobs or other graduate programs. A minority will commit themselves to full-time ministry and some of these may enroll in a third year of studies focused on practical ministry at the newly opened extension campus in Boston. Even the full-time Christian workers will have no special status in the congregation. Lee rejected all ministerial titles and clerical systems. In the mind of the training graduates, every Christian should be a “full-time” servant of God. Whether or not they relinquish their jobs in the secular world is of secondary importance. Of much greater importance is the fact that every graduate of the training return to their local congregations. There, they seek to live out their training for the rest of their lives, in service to all the members of the body of Christ.

Conclusion

Every aspect of this training was originally designed by Lee himself, and both trainers and trainees consider themselves to still be participants in “Witness Lee’s training.” They are not wrong. Like Lee himself, the training stands out from its peers. Lee was American, Asian, Chinese, and none of the above. The training may be considered a bible school, seminary, boot camp, and community outreach center, and yet it is also different from all of these. Despite these idiosyncrasies, there are broader lessons to be learned.

Part of the success of the FTTA is due to its extensive integration into a larger network of churches. The FTTA publishes no advertisements and has no staff devoted to expanding its outreach or enrollment. Its growing student body is almost entirely a testament to the examples of its alumni in their home congregations. Most trainees enter the training after being inspired by their interactions with training graduates. Training graduates thus produce more entering trainees, in a rapidly repeatable cycle.

In some ways, the success of the FTTA is also due to the fact that it is not meant to produce professional clergy. It may thus have broader appeal to those who do not feel a particular sense of religious vocation. This also means that trainees are usually not disappointed if they are unable to find a job in full-time ministry upon graduation. They are conditioned to look upon their time in the training as the beginning of a lifelong journey, and thus, a worthy experience in itself.

Both of these strengths point to a third important theme. The FTTA may succeed because of its conflicted relationship with its own institutional existence. Both its lack of much support staff and its detachment from professional clerical training point to the fact that the FTTA was founded, in part, to efface itself.(19) Lee’s goal was not to help the training become a successful or prosperous school. In fact, Lee urged trainees not to “preach, talk, advertise, or say anything about the training.” Instead, they should disappear into the churches and focus on living out their training in an irreproachable manner, “a life of the gospel.”(20) The paradox of the FTTA’s health as an institution is that it is not designed to invest in its own institutional survival.(21) This allows its stakeholders—faculty, staff, students, and alumni—to focus with great intensity on the message of Lee’s ministry and on individual human relationships.

This essay has highlighted the FTTA as one aspect of Lee’s legacy that might be of particular interest to Asian-American theological educators. Additionally, he left behind an immense oeuvre of tens of thousands of pages, a pattern of church leadership on multiple continents, and at least tens of thousands of followers around the globe. The effects of his life and work are only beginning to be explored.

Paul H. B. Chang is Acting Assistant Professor of Global Christianity at the University of California, Riverside. He is currently completing his dissertation on the Chinese minister, Watchman Nee (1903-1972), and expects to graduate from the University of Chicago Divinity School at the end of this year. He is also an alumnus of the Asian Theological Summer Institute and a former fellow of the Forum for Theological Exploration.


Works Cited
Association of Theological Schools. “Annual Data Tables.” Association of Theological Schools, The Commission on Accrediting. Accessed on July 20, 2016. http://www.ats.edu/resources/institu...al-data-tables

Christian Research Journal, 32, no. 6, 2009.

Duddy, Neil T. The God-Men: An Inquiry into Witness Lee and the Local Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981.

Lee, Witness. Crucial Principles for the Christian Life and the Church Life. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2007.

_____. God’s New Testament Economy. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1986.

_____. Instructions and Exhortation to the Trainees. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1990.

_____. Life Messages. Vol. 2. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1992.

_____. Life-study of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2001.

_____. Life-study of Philippians. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2000.

_____. Life-study of Matthew. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1998.

_____. Rising Up to Preach the Gospel. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2003.

_____. Watchman Nee: A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1991.

Sparks, Jack. The Mindbenders: A Look at Current Cults. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1977.

Wacker, Grant. Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Yang, Fenggang. “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China.” The Sociological Quarterly, 47, no. 1 ( 2006): 93-122.

(1) Given the annual data tables of the Association of Theological Schools found at http://www.ats.edu/resources/institu...al-data-tables, Witness Lee’s “Full-Time Training in Anaheim” would be one of the 35 largest “graduate schools of theology” in the United States as of 2015.

(2) Witness Lee, Watchman Nee: A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1991), 283.

(3) Ibid., 284-85.

(4) Ibid., 320.

(5) Witness Lee, Life-study of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2001), 14-15.

(6) Witness Lee, Rising Up to Preach the Gospel (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2003), 21.

(7) Ibid., 22. Lee never offered any reason besides “the Lord’s speaking” for this, but given the existing popularity of his work in the Sinosphere, one might suspect that Lee’s going to the United States was to open new and different doors to his ministry.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Witness Lee, Crucial Principles for the Christian Life and the Church Life (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2007), 72-73.

(10) Witness Lee, Life-study of Philippians (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 2000), 166-67.

(11) Witness Lee, Life-study of Matthew (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1998), 534.

(12) Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 14.

(13) Neil T. Duddy, The God-Men: An Inquiry into Witness Lee and the Local Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981); Jack Sparks, The Mindbenders: A Look at Current Cults (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1977).

(14) Christian Research Journal, 32, no. 6 (2009). The entire issue is entitled “We Were Wrong” and is dedicated to extensively retracting and refuting many of its authors’ own previous criticisms of Lee and his followers.

(15) The underground/official church dichotomy is unhelpful and potentially misleading. For a better explanation of China’s religious market see Fenggang Yang, “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China,” The Sociological Quarterly, 47 no. 1, (2006): 93-122.

(16) Witness Lee, Life Messages, vol. 2 (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1992), 197-98.

(17) Colossians 3:11, from Lee’s own Recovery Version.

(18) Witness Lee, God’s New Testament Economy (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1986), 871.

(19) The FTTA not only lacks advertising and outreach staff, it also has no alumni relations or fundraising staff. Its employees are focused either on providing personal, pastoral care to the trainees or working with trainees to maintain the physical premises.

(20) Witness Lee, Instructions and Exhortation to the Trainees (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1990), 44.

(21) Lee’s model for the FTTA was probably the multiple trainings of Watchman Nee, all of which were temporary.

[Freedom]

In 1989, a Chinese-American minister named Witness Lee (Li Changshou) founded a school that is now one of the largest post-graduate theological institutions in the United States.
...
For instance, at one point, Lee argued that “Actually, according to God’s New Testament economy, there should not be any organization in the church. The church is not an organization but an organism.” He went on to explain his understanding of the difference between the two: “An organism is an entity entirely of life. Nothing in our body is produced by organization. In contrast, in an organization nothing is living; every piece is dead. Everything in an organization is a human work arranged by human hands.”

It's a bit interesting (and indeed ironic) that this attempt to legitimize WL would do so by making an appeal to the FTTA. The excerpts that I quoted show the hypocrisy in this kind of argument. On the one hand, the author argues that WL was never a prominent or well-accepted leader in U.S. Christianity because he opposed traditional institutions. We've all heard that kind of argument before. As we know, WL went on to form an institution of his own, the FTTA. For the author to then claim that WL, the opposer of institutions and organization, should be recognized for his legacy, an institution called the FTTA, that argument is just completely absurd.

Of course, Chang tries to downplay the idea that the FTTA is an institution, but any objective person knows that simply isn't the case. People don't just end up there because they feel to go. They are pressured over time and make to feel it is the only reasonable thing to do with one's life. Those who don't go are made to feel like outcasts. Particularly when I attended SoCal college conferences, the brothers giving the conferences always seemed to make time make a sales pitch to get soon-to-be graduates to attend the FTTA. In contrast to any claims in this paper, the FTTA employs aggressive outreach tactics and increasing enrollment is no small matter.

I get the impression that in recent years, the LC has been seeking to plant members in the world of academia to act as apologists for WL. It appears that Chang is one such person. I take no issue with anyone attempting to present academic research or discussion on Nee/Lee or the LC. But if people want to do that, they should consider all the facts, such as the tumultuous context under which the FTTA was started. Just as much as WL's legacy is hundreds of college graduates, eager to attend the FTT, WL's legacy is also that of purging even his most adamant supporters. So many who once greatly appreciated Lee have since packed their bags and moved on. That is the other side to WL's legacy, the legacy which the LC will never be able to reconcile it with.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Freedom

I take no issue with anyone attempting to present academic research or discussion on Nee/Lee or the LC. But if people want to do that, they should consider all the facts, such as the tumultuous context under which the FTTA was started. Just as much as WL's legacy is hundreds of college graduates, eager to attend the FTT, WL's legacy is also that of purging even his most adamant supporters. So many who once greatly appreciated Lee have since packed their bags and moved on. That is the other side to WL's legacy, the legacy which the LC will never be able to reconcile it with.

Emphasis mine. Just to follow up on Freedom's post, all coins have two sides. Those positive towards LSM cannot reconcile nor comment on the other side of Lee's legacy Freedom is alluding to in a transparent fashion.

[Unsure]

Who is this guy, Dr. Chang?

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Unsure

Who is this guy, Dr. Chang?

I don't know that he's a 'Dr.' yet. What I can gather is that he is trying to complete a dissertation in Global Christianity, something along the lines of WN/WL being influential figures who haven't been properly recognized.

Here is a heading that I found for one of that talks that he gave:
Thur, Jan 15th, 2015, 12:00pm-1:20pm (Pick Hall Lounge):
“The Vine… So Long That It Encircles the Globe: The Significance of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee in Global Christianity” – Paul Chang

The Christian ministers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee are two of the most creative and influential Chinese religious leaders of the 20th century. Their ideas gave rise to a number of movements that now account for millions, with indigenous leaders on all six continents. I will contextualize their thought by placing it in conversation with the larger traditions of Christian and Chinese thought. I will also offer my working definition of Global Christianity to show how Nee and Lee’s ideas contribute to our understanding of Global Christian phenomena.

It also appears he was from Chicago, but has since moved to Riverside, CA.
https://divinity.uchicago.edu/paul-chang
http://religiousstudies.ucr.edu/full...ty/paul-chang/

[OBW]

There is nothing transparent about this article. It is the standard opaque garbage that is typically generated by the LRC. It looks like this person is a loyal follower of Lee attempting to get positive material published about Lee in a seminary by doing doctoral studies there and doing his own publishing.

The whole bit of the terminology of "transparent," "invisible," and "erasures" are nothing but misdirection and filler.

There is nothing transparent about Lee.

He is never invisible to the LRC except when trying to say that they don't simply follow his every word without serious scrutiny.

And Lee is never erased — except when they publish his spoken word into books so that they can point to what he is documented as saying. This allows them to claim that he never said what he said because it is not in the book. But it is always on the tape of the speaking that became the book. The official copies may be erased or hidden, but there are people who still have them to this very day. And many others who agree that he said what is now claimed that he did not say.

Now if he were to retitle his article to "the Sleight of Hand and Cunning Craftiness of Witness Lee" I would have cause to agree.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by OBW

The whole bit of the terminology of "transparent," "invisible," and "erasures" are nothing but misdirection and filler.

For the record, I would also hope that Mr. Chang would take note that no one outside the LC had the goal to 'erase' anything legitimate that Lee was doing. The counter-cult movement only sought to call into question the concerning things being spoke by him. Outside Christians only sought to understand why Lee and the LC were intent on burning down all bridges and outreach. Lee's inability to address such things in a mature way was what caused him to not be taken seriously by outsiders. That 'erasure' was entirely his own doing.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Paul Chang

The reversal of these erasures is a difficult but rewarding task, one that reveals a fascinating, untold story about a major Asian-American theological figure.

I feel there is a lot of irony in this attempt to characterize Lee as influential Asian-American figure. No doubt, Chang is attempting to increase awareness of both Nee and Lee, but it seems that the end of result of such efforts will only further cement the existing perceptions that are in place already. As a backdrop to this, I was considering how Nee is likely perceived by those outside the LC. What came to mind is that he might be simply viewed as an influential Christian leader from China. Beyond that, maybe a few here and there have read his books, but that general view obviously doesn't reflect how the LC views him. So if Nee is characterized as a past influential leader of Global Christianity, that's not really saying much as far as the LC is concerned. To get people to view Nee in such a way does nothing to further the purpose of the LC.

Moving to Lee, he was obviously a leader who saw himself as having purpose outside of China/Taiwan. Of course, we know now that part of his coming to the U.S. was because he had little option to stay in Taiwan. For sure, the LC has a distinctive Chinese cultural element to it, but all in all, Lee had a much more grandiose view about his own purpose. He eventually came to see himself as the global leader of a world-wide movement.

Lee’s successors officially engraved his MOTA title, and for anyone in the LC to think anything less of Lee is the equivalent of heresy. Obviously that kind of peculiar view held by the LC could not be arrived at by any amount of scholarly research. The end effect of what Chang is attempting to do will be that Lee is further compartmentalized as nothing more than an influential Asian-American. Even those on this forum could probably say that Lee was an ‘influential’ Asian-American figure (what kind of influence is a different subject). But influential none the less. Anyone could hold such a perception of Lee if they wanted to, and it wouldn't translate into anything more than that.

That's why I’m not so sure that Chang realizes what will be the outcome of what he’s doing. In the academic world it can be expected that there will a great amount of objectivity. Therefore, these attempts to portray Nee/Lee as special and unique figures don’t automatically get any blind ‘amens’ like they would within the LC. If anything Chang might succeed in garnering more interest in studying the two men. And when such studies are undertaken by those outside the LC, there will be different conclusions. That is the true irony of it all.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Paul Chang

Many of these same sources influenced early Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, and Lee’s critiques of organization and tradition were reminiscent of voices in these contemporary movements. All these groups ostensibly eschewed established Christianity in the name of bringing ordinary Christians back into direct contact with the Holy Spirit. Of course, as they did so, they often formed durable and successful institutions of their own. Historian Grant Wacker has pithily encapsulated the complementary dynamism of this paradox
...
Lee’s thought follows similar lines, with more emphasis on the spontaneous action of the divine life, and less emphasis on the “fury of charismatic fire.” In any case, it seems that the lasting power of these institutions owes something to their inherent contradictions. Rather than threatening incoherence, the Holy Spirit’s unpredictable leadership of pragmatic humans can both sanctify the institutions they create and serve as an endlessly renewable reserve for further reforms and adaptations.

The way that Chang tries to characterize Lee here is deceptive. It seems he tries to argue that Lee’s belligerent attitude towards the traditional religious institutions in place at the time was nothing more than hyperbole, that it reflected a common thought in other contemporary movements as well. While it is completely true that the 60’s and 70’s saw a rise in those willing to question and challenge the traditional religious institutions, the goal among groups that emerged during that time was never to attack or bash what they came out of. They moved on, using the freedom gained to build up movements that they deemed to be more constructive. While Lee had every right to do the same, his attitude towards other Christians was wrong. And it seems he never truly “moved on,” as was evidenced by his continual obsession with so-called “degraded Christianity.”

As Chang notes, yes a lot of the groups such as the charismatics and free groups went on to ‘organize’ themselves, but I think that is rather insignificant, and not really contradictory. At a basic level, I don’t see such groups as having had a specific goal to avoid eventual organization. Mainly, they wanted to be free from the more traditional things. Practically speaking, as groups grow, it’s only expected that some amount of organization would become necessary. Even the LC had every reason to expect the same. The problem with the LC is that WL harshly attacked ‘organization’ even though he went on to do just that. And as Ohio has noted before, WL also went so far as to label free groups as 'incestuous'. WL painted the LC as a group above all others, and that is why WL’s criticism of Christianity cannot be contextualized.

50 years ago, you might find an era in which the mainline Protestant denominations were quickly losing their sense of identity in a rapidly changing world with many fresh movements emerging. It’s no surprise then that the mainline denominations would come under critique by some. Perhaps some critique was well-deserved. But fast-forward to today, and the same denominations still exist and even represent significant denominational membership, making up some of the largest Protestant bodies in the country. So in the ensuing years did such groups ever become increasingly irrelevant? That’s really anyone’s guess, but it's not something we concern ourselves with, because what did happen is that many of the groups that emerged in place of the traditional groups have since matured (and even organized). Ultimately, there arose a viable alternative to a once dominate religious institution in America, and many have chosen to embrace that alternative.

This is why WL’s critique towards Christianity should raise red flags. If WL thought the denominations were dead/degraded, then he should have let them be and move on. Why worry about them? That’s what so many others groups were content to do. Yet here we are in 2017, the religious scene is completely different, but we have LC members repeating WL’s rants, fighting the same imagined enemy, as well as Chang attempting to rationalize WL’s aggressive rejection of traditional institutions.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Freedom

As Chang notes, yes a lot of the groups such as the charismatics and free groups went on to ‘organize’ themselves, but I think that is rather insignificant, and not really contradictory. At a basic level, I don’t see such groups as having had a specific goal to avoid eventual organization. Mainly, they wanted to be free from the more traditional things. Practically speaking, as groups grow, it’s only expected that some amount of organization would become necessary. Even the LC had every reason to expect the same. The problem with the LC is that WL harshly attacked ‘organization’ even though he went on to do just that. And as Ohio has noted before, WL also went so far as to label free groups as 'incestuous'. WL painted the LC as a group above all others, and that is why WL’s criticism of Christianity cannot be contextualized.

It has long been my understanding that Lee's entire "denominational" paradigm was receive from Nee, whose views basically reflected the contemporary Chinese mindset towards Western culture, post Boxer rebellion. aron has recently posted many thoughtful observations to provide support to this conclusion. In order to condemn western churches, and yet receive western Christian writings, Nee also developed the saying that they "stand on the shoulders" of Christian ministers before them. So nice to have things both ways.

Lee's comments about "denominations" pervade his early writings in the US. By the time he began speaking the Life Studies, these comments were for the most part irrelevant. Denominations were declining, and new born believers (like myself) everywhere were seeking new venues to pursue their Savior. This is why I find it almost ludicrous for some of the posters here to continus to reference Lee's denominational mindset as if it were still relevant. It's like they are 17th century Anabaptist Amish still reading about organized church oppression in north central Europe. They really need to get out more.

One of my points here is that Lee's vast volume of writing have far less original thought then I once believed. His views towards the ecclesiastical structure of the greater body of Christ in the US were completely out-of-date as he ministered in the US. He could find nothing in either Nee's writings nor Brethren writings which he could apply (i.e. "stand on") to that current situation. The move of the Spirit was all together new, and though his LC's greatly benefited from it, he was also threatened by it. His perceived "enemy" had taken on a new fresh face.

So, Lee used the old Exclusive Brethren tried and true method of applying some "rotten" O.T. type to your perceived enemies. Thus, perhaps for the first time, we see Lee's attempt at original allegorical hermeneutics, using some O.T. story which directly applied to his perceived enemy to the Recovery -- spontaneous gatherings of new born seeking Christians -- who could no longer be classified under the umbrella of the "evil denominations." Lee's new found "original thought" was despicable, labeling these "free group" gatherings as the incestuous children of Lot conceived in a cave escaping God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah -- sort of like today's "cavemen" from those Geico commercials.

Besides all the hypocrisy surrounding LSM, what causes me to mourn their long-standing position was the fact that they never knew who their real enemy was. Our real enemy cannot be seen. Our real enemy is not men, least of all those of the household of faith. In order to promote their own agendas, Exclusives, from the time of Newton's and Muller's excommunications in the mid-1840's, have always erected walls around their congregations claiming "bogey men are out there," and holding their people in fear. The history always follows the same pattern: Use a move of the Spirit birthed out of social unrest, return to the pure word of God, enjoy a blessed time while the power structure develops, expel perceived rivals, close the doors, claim to be the guardians of the truth. Repeat.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Freedom

And as Ohio has noted before, WL also went so far as to label free groups as 'incestuous'.

Probably the context of that statement Ohio is alluding to was post 1974. In the 1960's WL would visit WHEREVER he was invited. Denomination or free group. In early 1960's Las Vegas WL would visit the free group my dad was meeting with at the time. Based on what I know, it is hypocritical to label free groups as incestuous. Perhaps it would be better to say what WL had an issue with was their receiving was according to Romans 15:7 and they didn't follow or take a particular ministry?

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Ohio

The history always follows the same pattern: Use a move of the Spirit birthed out of social unrest, return to the pure word of God, enjoy a blessed time while the power structure develops, expel perceived rivals, close the doors, claim to be the guardians of the truth. Repeat.

This was a great post, Ohio. Required reading.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Ohio

It has long been my understanding that Lee's entire "denominational" paradigm was receive from Nee, whose views basically reflected the contemporary Chinese mindset towards Western culture, post Boxer rebellion. aron has recently posted many thoughtful observations to provide support to this conclusion. In order to condemn western churches, and yet receive western Christian writings, Nee also developed the saying that they "stand on the shoulders" of Christian ministers before them. So nice to have things both ways.

Lee's comments about "denominations" pervade his early writings in the US. By the time he began speaking the Life Studies, these comments were for the most part irrelevant. Denominations were declining, and new born believers (like myself) everywhere were seeking new venues to pursue their Savior. This is why I find it almost ludicrous for some of the posters here to continus to reference Lee's denominational mindset as if it were still relevant. It's like they are 17th century Anabaptist Amish still reading about organized church oppression in north central Europe. They really need to get out more.

This is a good point. I’m inclined think that whatever criticism of denominations that Nee originally had was linked to a fear of their influence. He wanted a homegrown movement and that’s exactly what he started. It’s interesting that such criticism of denominations would continue after the movement had been started. Why worry about what the denominations were doing? At some point, the LCM in China was deemed to have application outside of China. At least the story that Lee told was that in the wake of the communist takeover, he was sent by Nee to Taiwan to save what they had ‘recovered’ there in China. That first transplant, along with a subsequent one to the U.S., suddenly made it a movement that was removed from its original intended context.

In the U.S., Lee was met with suspicion and there was a strong reaction to his rhetoric about denominations and Christianity. It obviously wasn’t the best approach if he really felt that he had something of benefit to share with those in the U.S. So essentially, his ministry in the U.S. ended up being the exact thing that those in China were resistant to, the foreign missionaries and all. In fact, Nigel’s latest writing makes mention of this phenomena in the section under the heading What Happens when the West-East Flow is reversed? It’s not to say that Lee didn’t have the right to try to accomplish something here. It’s just that he expected to be able to do what he wanted with no roadblocks and that obviously didn’t happen.

It seems that the LC has made these frequent attempts to characterize Nee and Lee as ‘undiscovered’ or ‘underrated’ ministers that Christian need to hear about and appreciate. Obviously, that sidesteps the entire issue at hand. All the ‘opposition’ to Lee was directly related to his belligerent attitude towards Christianity. At a basic level, the underlying lack of interest in Nee/Lee is most likely a simply issue of relevancy. What they taught was most applicable in another place at another time. Taking all the questionable teachings out of the equation, I think people simply don’t know how to relate to these ministries.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Paul H B Chang

Part of the success of the FTTA is due to its extensive integration into a larger network of churches. The FTTA publishes no advertisements and has no staff devoted to expanding its outreach or enrollment. Its growing student body is almost entirely a testament to the examples of its alumni in their home congregations. Most trainees enter the training after being inspired by their interactions with training graduates. Training graduates thus produce more entering trainees, in a rapidly repeatable cycle.

This is a lie, as Freedom's testimony has shown. College conferences are peppered with exhortations by LSM employees and all year long, students are continually pressured, often with subtlety but often overtly. "Stay in the pipeline, don't be a dropout. You want to be an overcomer, right?"

I view the paper as a thinly-veiled whitewash, attempting to cover the absurdity of an institutionalized movement which was founded on rejection of every other movement as the product of fallen humanity's organizational efforts. Somehow this new organization wasn't one at all, but a living organism. Yet every other organization by contrast was dead, lifeless, hopelessly corrupt. So you see naive statements like "no staff devoted to outreach or enrollment" when it's exactly the opposite. All those help-ful "co-workers" and "trainers" exist to suck others into the same system.

These pseudo-scholarly efforts remind me of the Mormons holding a conference in Provo, Utah, and inviting Christian scholars to participate. They don't care for the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they want to use reputable scholarship, so they hold a conference to paper over thier cult status.

I don't consider the LC to be a cult on par with the LDS, but the principle this is the same: a post-protestant fringe sect reliant on the legitimacy of Protestant institutions it left, even while it decries them as whorish Babylonian abominations. What hymns do they sing in the FTTA? Ones by Luther, Darby, Wesley, Crosby, Cowper, Newton et al. - while they deny any association with "Christianity", which in their narrative has fallen into institutional torpor.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

Now if he were to retitle his article to "the Sleight of Hand and Cunning Craftiness of Witness Lee" I would have cause to agree.

I think the title is appropriate: where in this paper is Witness Lee's phone call to Sal Benoit, telling him the LC "investors" took a bath on Daystar and they lost their virginity? Invisibility.

Where's the story of the "unspiritual chef" who Lee put in charge of his "kitchen", who repeatedly molested the help, causing thousands of church members to exit in what Lee called "rebellion"? Invisibility, again; multiple invisibilities.

The fact that one can't point out glaring flaws such as nepotism with sons Timothy and Philip(the 2 stories above), shows that the minister, his ministry, and the organization he founded were and are deeply affected by human culture, which culture Lee always maintained didn't exist anymore. In the LC, whatever you do, don't criticize the "Big Boss", aka God's humble bondslave. In the People's Republic of China, you can get fired for publicly pointing out Chairman Mao's mistakes, 40 years after his death; in the Local Church of the Living Stream Ministry, you'll likewise get expelled as "leprous" or "rebellious" if you mention any of Witness Lee's flaws, 20 years after his death.

Those all-too-human flaws are now rendered invisible; so much that you don't notice that they're invisible. Which was the idea.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I view the paper as a thinly-veiled whitewash, attempting to cover the absurdity of an institutionalized movement which was founded on rejection of every other movement as the product of fallen humanity's organizational efforts. Somehow this new organization wasn't one at all, but a living organism. Yet every other organization by contrast was dead, lifeless, hopelessly corrupt. So you see naive statements like "no staff devoted to outreach or enrollment" when it's exactly the opposite. All those help-ful "co-workers" and "trainers" exist to suck others into the same system.

The LC likes to make claims, saying that they are "not an organization", and it is upon such claims there is the presumption that it makes them better than anyone else. The most apparent issue is the fact that the claim about not being an organization is completely false, but the other issue is the underlying notion that a supposed lack of organization is somehow 'better'. I think that's where the trap is. The level of organization that exists within the LC is probably no different than many other groups. Larger movements need some type of organization, and the larger they get, the more things will become 'institutionalized'. I don't think that such things really make or break a group, and certainly a group cannot be judged solely based on how much structure exists within the group.

When WL came to the U.S., he stumbled upon a period of social unrest and change. It obviously worked to his advantage in terms of getting the LCM started and up on its feet. The issues that the denominations were facing at the time is what I would characterize as an inability to adapt and change with the times. This of course, was related to high levels of structure, organization and institutionalized practices. The solution to the problem, however, was very simple. Many just chose to “move on” to other groups, like Ohio has mentioned. There was really no need to look back and criticize. But what Lee did instead of acknowledging that others had perceived the same problems and had also moved on to form their own groups, he took a cheap shot at denominations.

It made it really easy for him to paint the LCM as something vastly superior when what he was comparing it to was an institutionalized form of Christianity whose relevancy had already been called into question. Unlike others, he couldn't simply move on, he had to use every opportunity to make the LC appear to be so 'special'.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

I don't consider the LC to be a cult on par with the LDS, but the principle this is the same: a post-protestant fringe sect reliant on the legitimacy of Protestant institutions it left, even while it decries them as whorish Babylonian abominations. What hymns do they sing in the FTTA? Ones by Luther, Darby, Wesley, Crosby, Cowper, Newton et al. - while they deny any association with "Christianity", which in their narrative has fallen into institutional torpor.

It's ironic how WL took so much of what he had appreciated from other groups and made it a part of the LC, while simultaneously criticizing such groups. Interestingly, such things quickly formed the institutionalized practice of the LC, and remains unchanged to this day. Today LC practice seems reminiscent of what might be found in a time capsule from 40 years ago.

As I see it, WL never really "moved on" from what he seemed so terribly concerned about. He only moved far enough away to gain space to start his own group, which quickly began to posses the characteristics of things that he criticized.

The problem that faces the LC today is they greatly treasure their institutionalized practices and traditions, yet in the public eye, they have to find ways to rationalize their badmouthing of other Christians. What do they badmouth Christians for? For being 'traditional' and organized. Arguably, the LCM embraces a form of practice that is arguably much more institutionalized than even some of the most organized groups. Just look at how easily they get into squabbles about issues like using electric guitars and drums in meetings. For a group that supposedly has no organization, it's kind of funny how everyone can exhibit a uniform practice across every LC you visit.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

For a group that supposedly has no organization, it's kind of funny how everyone can exhibit a uniform practice across every LC you visit.

Every group has to be "exactly identical" with "no differences whatsoever" according to the RecV footnotes in Revelations, in which Lee traced the problems of the seven Asian churches to the apparent differences among them. But what is the basis of this uniformity? The subjective "revelation" of the supposed "seer of the age".

Look at how Nee and Lee are cast by their apologists:

Originally Posted by Paul H. B. Chang

Lee helped to spread Nee’s more reserved, sublime form of Christian mysticism and church practice. In the 1940s Lee even played a crucial role in restoring unity to Nee’s home congregations in Southern China after a period of internal turmoil. . .

Thus, it is clear that Lee’s opposition to both institutions and traditions returns to the same point. Lee posits that both institutions and traditions are artificial constructs that deprive people of direct contact with Christ. God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.

The source of Lee’s critiques is also easy to trace. Through Watchman Nee, Lee received a theological heritage that was heavily indebted to the Anglo-American holiness movements of the 19th century. These holiness teachers, like many Christians before them, attempted to reform or renew Christianity by infusing it with a fresh, living piety. In this way, they were very much of a piece with the Romantic temper of the times, prizing extemporaneity and naturalness.

. . . Instead, the focus of [FTTA] instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did. .

The Guru from the East has a "sublime" or "mystical" Christ, which is experiential to him, rather than stressing objective truths or overt doctrines. "So subjective is my Christ to me" etc. The subjective Christ eventually led the self-appointed Seer away from the Bible itself, often cast as "fallen" and "natural", into the snares of his imaginations. Folks, if anyone tells you that the Bible is just natural concepts, run away. Run away. That's ultimately the "ground", or the basis of LC unity: Watchman Nee's personal revelations led to Witness Lee's personal revelations, which then were used as a template on the text, paring much of it away as unprofitable. Ultimately, even love was dismissed, charity and good works were called useless, etc, even when the NT record clearly holds these as paragons of Christ-like behavior.

And, where did the NT expositors reject the OT text as fallen and natural? Where? Yet this kind of thinking became the basis of the "practical oneness" of the LC programme, rigorously enforced in the various assemblies as it is promoted in the Full Time Training. The subjective experiences of Witness Lee are the lodestone of the LC programme, and the only means of ascertaining "Christ". The "extemporaneity" which Mr. Chang cites is merely that of Mssrs Nee and Lee. Everyone else was and is expected to "get in line" and "hand over". Nee made that clear, once he'd assumed total control, and Lee then propped up Nee as his ticket to the top. Nee was the Seer of the Age, Lee his hand-picked successor, and no one can possibly deviate from their subjective and mystical experiences.

In fact when Lee died nobody was allowed to be Guru, anymore. The Age of Spiritual Giants was over, they said. What kind of institution do you think will follow that line of thinking? A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Nee was the Seer of the Age, Lee his hand-picked successor, and no one can possibly deviate from their subjective and mystical experiences.

In fact when Lee died nobody was allowed to be Guru, anymore. The Age of Spiritual Giants was over, they said. What kind of institution do you think will follow that line of thinking? A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.

Simply put, their subjectivity must become your objectivity, even if it kills you.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Paul H. B. Chang

God cannot be bound by hierarchies, organizational protocol, or even God’s own history of action. Instead, God is “always fresh” and can directly inspire every member of the body of Christ in a living, unpredictable way.

. . . Instead, the focus of [FTTA] instruction is to help trainees come to understand the Bible as Nee and Lee themselves did. .

So first Chang claims that LC environment allows God to "directly inspire" each member, and then later he claims that the FTTA is needed to help members understand the Bible like Nee and Lee did.

That highlights how the LC operates. They give LC members the impression that the LCM represents a fresh/living atmosphere where everyone can follow God in the absence of tradition, organization, etc. But as it turns out, 'fresh' or 'living' is synonymous with subjectivity, something only a WL was allowed to define.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

. . as it turns out, 'fresh' or 'living' is synonymous with subjectivity, something only a WL was allowed to define.

Look at the subjectivism in handling the OT text. Often interpretive rules were followed to the letter, only so much as the apostles' OT citations. Elsewhere the self-assumed seer had free reign to impose new interpretive rules.

Peter and John and Paul were followed scrupulously in handling the text; occasionally Peter and James were not. But where no NT citation forced his hand, WL could allow his subjective assessments to act as objectve realty itself, for him and his group. No other reality was even imagined -it didn't matter that Peter and Paul in Acts, and the writer of Hebrews, and John's gospel had given an open invitation to construct other narratives from scripture. And WL's imagination thus became the basis of LC reality.

The existence of the FTTA is to codify and institutionalize WL's subjective experience.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

The existence of the FTTA is to codify and institutionalize WL's subjective experience.

This is exactly why there will never be any significant acceptance or acknowledgement of the FTT or any other part of WL's legacy. Chang characterizes the FTT as "one of the largest post-graduate theological institutions in the United States" and also claims that it's part of a 'phenomenon'. He obviously views it as something special and would like his readers to do the same.

That sad truth is that the FTT has one and only purpose. No one identifies this purpose better than WL's hand-selected FTTT trainers who were quoted as calling it a "Witness Lee duplication center." That's exactly what the FTTA is today. Impressionable young adults are sent there to learn how to recite WL teachings. So this is WL's true legacy. He left behind a pattern to follow where people can learn to live, act and talk like he once did.

[Cal]

Right. And when it get right down to it most people probably instinctively get this. As much as the LCM wants to believe the FTT is about spreading "the truth," it's really about spreading Witness Lee's truth. It's really about get more people hooked on Witness Lee.

[aron]

One can see subjective experience leading the prophet astray, by considering his teaching against clear NT precedent.

Jesus said, "These things were written concerning Me." WL said, "No they weren't; they were the OT prophet writing about himself, according to his fallen human imagination."

Peter said, "David, being a prophet, knew that God had promised a Seed. ." WL accepted that only for the citation in question, from Psalm 16, but elsewhere when the psalmist wrote similarly that "He rescued me because He delighted in me" WL said, "No, God did not delight in David the sinner." NT precedent was ignored, even overturned. The "mystical Christ" of WL's subjective experience caused him to not see Jesus in the confessional text, even though the writers of the NT had done this repeatedly before him (cf Heb 2:9 &c).

I'm not claiming that my interpretation is right & WL's is wrong; rather that WL's experience narrowed his perception, and his discipleship programme kept anyone else from seeing what he couldn't see, even when a pattern in NT reception suggested otherwise.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Right. And when it get right down to it most people probably instinctively get this. As much as the LCM wants to believe the FTT is about spreading "the truth," it's really about spreading Witness Lee's truth. It's really about get more people hooked on Witness Lee.

I have a number of LC friends on Facebook who attended the FTTA in recent years. I have noticed an interesting trend among these attendees. Right before starting the FTTA they will usually make an announcement to all their friends stating that they will be attending a "Bible truth school" and will also have limited access to Facebook. The similarity between these posts has led me to believe that it's probably something the FTTA trainers urge them to do so that people don't think they just disappeared off the face of the earth.

But what is particularly interesting is some of the reactions I've seen to these type of posts. Never anything negative, but a lot of comments like "Oh I didn't know you were a Christian" or "I didn't know you were interested in attending seminary." Judging by these types of responses, those who are the friends of some of these LC members never even got the slightest hint that their friend was a Christian or had any interest in attending some kind of formal Bible school. So the perception that those outside the LC are getting is not that it’s a place their friend is enthusiastic about going to, it’s a place that all the sudden their friend is 'disappearing' to. Obviously, it gives people an uneasy feeling about the FTTA.

So as far as I’m concerned, when LCers make all these claims about how great the FTTA is, their actions send the exact opposite message. If the FTTA were such a ‘phenomenal’ Bible school, you could expect future attendees to be planning ahead well in advance, to enthusiastically tell their friends about their plans, etc. That’s not what happens at all. It’s quite the opposite.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Obviously, it gives people an uneasy feeling about the FTTA.

For many years in the GLA, those returning from the FTTA were filled with suspicions about Titus Chu and the GLA leadership. Obviously LSM used the FTTA to drive a wedge in the hearts of the young ones. FTTA trainers felt that all of the young people belong to them and were their "fruit," and actively undermined the life-connection between the attendees and their supporting churches.

Secondly, the FTTA graduates were often poorly equipped for real life and a healthy Christian walk. Knowing WL teachings does not translate into knowing the Lord and His word. Thus many young people required extended personal coaching in order to be reoriented to "normal" life.

Titus Chu also has had periodic times of training called "10 month labors" in Cleveland. These were much more focused on the scriptures, with many opportunities to minister to the other participants. They could not be called "Trainings" because WL and his lackeys would have a heart attack. Another valuable feature was to encourage students to attend by taking off a semester or a year of college. It was much easier to re-enroll in classes after such a break, then it was to find a job afterwards. TC's coaching tended to help the person long-term than to be simply a recruiting tool.