Quote:
Originally Posted by gr8ful
It's important to be fair and precise when offering critique of anyone's practices or teachings, and as such I appreciate the balance in this reply.
While the forms of Calling and Pray-reading in the LC are uniquely stylized, they aren't completely unique within Christian practices. The Orthodox and Catholics have "The Jesus Prayer," for example, which is to repeat the name "Jesus" over and over throughout the day.
One benefit of the pray-reading every morning in my early years was gaining a deep familiarity with the Pauline Epistles, specifically, to the point that I nearly memorized them. The practice of memorizing a large script for a play is very similar to "pray-reading." Surely if someone can safely memorize "Death of a Salesman" or "Cats" they can use the same type practice with the Bible, safely.
The point I'm trying to make is that it's easy to criticize ancillary things like Calling and Pray-reading, but these are NOT the reason that Witness Lee can get away with claiming "My speaking of these main, new revelations in the past twenty-five years has been the oracle of God," and that claim making it through the editorial process into print.
There's other, bigger, problems such as hero worship, undue influence... things that match the BITE model. There are problems of "hiding history" (huge problems). Problems with delusions that the endlessly repeated outline points are "God's up-to-date speaking" that come with a heavy burden (which usually is to vindictively oppose someone for something seen as a threat to "The Ministry" and "God's Move" -- but I digress).
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My biggest issue that I have with both practices is this: both are derived from Eastern Religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and other practices that associated with the world of occult. There isn’t any Biblical instructions or mentions of these practices anywhere. Bringing in these ideas into Biblical Christianity, and equating them to “no big deals”, is a very dangerous game to play. I can’t and won’t get into these issues here on this thread, but I believe that majority of mental/emotional/cognitive issues that have also been noticed by a lot of people, are a direct results of people being exposed to the elements and practices that are strictly forbidden by the Word of God. There is plenty that has been stated in other threads regarding some of thes issues.