Through a glass darkly

Why do most Christians here not rally round when their faith is being misrepresented?

'Witness Lee has essentially inserted the Chinese culture into the Christian faith. Of course this is not done transparently. This is what makes a full comprehension of the LC exceedingly difficult. Everything is done through a glass darkly, yet deliberately and deceptively. What I mean when I say that Lee has made his version of the faith Chinese is that the defacto default spiritual qualities and cultural affinities that he promotes as from the Holy Spirit are actually from Bejiing! I could go on for pages about the countless examples where he demonstrates bottomless contempt for the American culture and quietly replaces the Western notions of Individualisim, free thought, liberty and self-determinism with his entrenched Chinese notions of collectivism, homogony of identity, wholesale conformity, unity of thought (read : no thought), group chanting, prescriptive fashion, attitude, regard for authority, etc.. And he promotes these cultural straight jackets on the human spirit and mind as Christian!

I wonder if he has fully researched the individualism and self-initiative that is seen in the Bible and Jewish history. Check out Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Sampson and indeed ALL the prophets. In the New Testament Paul demonstrates such a maverick individualism (Gal. 1-2) that it boggles the imagination. Paul also said to emulate and imitate him.

Although my experience in Lee's cult left me with a distaste for all things religious, I am still a Christian and fervently believe all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. I know there was a purpose to my tenure in the LC and my experience served to provide a useful perspective on false teachers, fanaticism gone amuck, cultural genocide, and especially the manipulatibility of Christians who do not ferocioulsy guard their faith from appropriation.

God bless and may he liberate all lost Christians from the grip of Lee's man-worship cult and free their faith from his tyranny.'

Brent Barber - Former LC member

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Why do most Christians here not rally round when their faith is being misrepresented?

'Witness Lee has essentially inserted the Chinese culture into the Christian faith. Of course this is not done transparently. This is what makes a full comprehension of the LC exceedingly difficult. Everything is done through a glass darkly, yet deliberately and deceptively. What ...[text shortened]... of Lee's man-worship cult and free their faith from his tyranny.'

Brent Barber - Former LC member

Does he claim that Christians cannot be Chinese?

Yeah, I reject that.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Why do most Christians here not rally round when their faith is being misrepresented?

'Witness Lee has essentially inserted the Chinese culture into the Christian faith. Of course this is not done transparently. This is what makes a full comprehension of the LC exceedingly difficult. Everything is done through a glass darkly, yet deliberately and deceptively. What ...[text shortened]... of Lee's man-worship cult and free their faith from his tyranny.'

Brent Barber - Former LC member

First of all, my guess is that the "seeing through a glass darkly" comes from 1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13 King James Version (KJV)

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

It is perhaps the most profound and beautiful scriptures in the Bible. People can read it for themselves and decide.

@whodey said
First of all, my guess is that the "seeing through a glass darkly" comes from 1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13 King James Version (KJV)

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though ...[text shortened]... most profound and beautiful scriptures in the Bible. People can read it for themselves and decide.

And there is a certain hypocrisy in quoting scripture that one, by virtue of his political philosophy, doesn't believe in.

@suzianne said
And there is a certain hypocrisy in quoting scripture that one, by virtue of his political philosophy, doesn't believe in.

Exactly how am I so Suzy?

@suzianne said
And there is a certain hypocrisy in quoting scripture that one, by virtue of his political philosophy, doesn't believe in.

You know we don't see eye to eye on the issue of abortion, I even started a thread to get you to hash things out but you ran away.

Don't tell me you are going to run away again Suzy.

@suzianne said
Does he claim that Christians cannot be Chinese?

Yeah, I reject that.

The more I read about Witness Lee the more I am surprised that he doesn't get the same reception here as a Jehovah's Witness.

I suspect it is because his message has been sugar-coated here for so long by Sonship.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
The more I read about Witness Lee the more I am surprised that he doesn't get the same reception here as a Jehovah's Witness.

I suspect it is because his message has been sugar-coated here for so long by Sonship.

Somebody needs to ask them if the archangel Michael is Christ

@whodey said
Somebody needs to ask them if the archangel Michael is Christ

Well, according to Witness Lee:

"The sun signifies Christ...the moon can be considered a figure of the church, the wife of Christ...the stars first signify Christ…although Christ is the real sun, He does not appear as the sun during the present age of night. Rather, He shines as the bright Morning Star."

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Well, according to Witness Lee:

"The sun signifies Christ...the moon can be considered a figure of the church, the wife of Christ...the stars first signify Christ…although Christ is the real sun, He does not appear as the sun during the present age of night. Rather, He shines as the bright Morning Star."

That does not answer the question.

@whodey said
That does not answer the question.

You expect tangible answers from Witness Lee?!

(Or do you only consider an organization as a cult if it views the archangel Michael as Christ? )

@ghost-of-a-duke said
You expect tangible answers from Witness Lee?!

(Or do you only consider an organization as a cult if it views the archangel Michael as Christ? )

IF they equate Christ as a mere angel it is a cult using my definition.

A cult to me is replacing God with anything or anyone. JW's seem to want to focus all their attention on Jesus, which is Biblical, and then ignore God? You can't have it both ways.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

The apostles’ teaching in the New Testament is clear that all racial, social, and cultural distinctions have been abolished in Christ. Ephesians 2:15
Eph. 2:15 Abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, [so] making peace,
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Verses accessed from the Holy Bible Recovery Version (text-only edition) © 2012 Living Stream Ministry www.lsm.org
says that Christ abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances so that he could create the Jews and the Gentiles—the two categories of people separated by the strongest racial/social/cultural wall—in Himself into one new man. Colossians 3:10-11 says, “And have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” Concerning this verse Brother Lee said, “The very content, the constituent, of the church is Christ (Col. 3:10-11). In the new man there is no Greek and no Jew, no social rank, no racial distinctions, no national differences; Christ is all and in all (v. 11)” (The Basic Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, 27). Brother Lee decried the state of modern Christendom, saying that it had been leavened with national, racial, and class distinctions, using as an example the separation of blacks and whites in America into separate congregations. He concluded, “This is Satan’s corruption, so in the recovery we cannot allow anything like this to exist” (The Constitution and the Building Up of the Body of Christ, 33).

Visitors to the churches in the Lord’s recovery have been struck by the intermixing of races in oneness. If some individuals in the churches have not relinquished national, racial, and class prejudices, that is not the fault of the ministry or of the churches as a whole. That would simply reflect a lack of transformation on those individuals’ part. It is clear that the same was true in the apostles’ time; otherwise, Paul’s words in Ephesians, Colossians, and elsewhere would have been unnecessary. Such attitudes did not match the status of the church as one new man, nor did they represent the New Testament ministry. The same is true today. In 1983 Brother Lee gave a message titled, “The Practice of the Church Life—Grace Swallowing Up Race” (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1983: Volume 1, 111-119). May the enjoyment of God’s grace that swallows up racial distinctions increasingly be the testimony of the churches in the Lord’s recovery.

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A Specious Claim of Racism

Read More - https://shepherdingwords.com/a-specious-claim-of-racism/

'The main problem with the cult is the way it ruins people. The doctrinal matters are harder to pin on them, because Lee has said just about everything and its opposite. I even remember him bragging in trainings about being able to contradict himself and get away with it. The example I recall is him advocating tritheism in one long message, and in the next, modalism. He said both were biblical. He seemed to revel in the nonsense of it all."

(Source already provided).

@whodey said
Exactly how am I so Suzy?

If you had love for your neighbor, you would not pursue a "screw 'em, I'm tired of paying for them" mentality. Not to mention the "I'll vote for the guy most like me, who will lower our taxes and treat those not like me as poorly as possible" mentality.

Every day, you show far more hate than love for your fellow man.