Quote:
Originally Posted by alwayslearning
I am just giving my opinion in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight. If we take the sweep of LC system history starting with let's say Watchman Nee's excommunication in Shanghai. Add in Witness Lee maligning TAS and causing a big division in the Far East. Plus the Daystar mess and what surrounded it. Sprinkle in the fall outs with DeVern Fromke and Stephen Kaung. And the excommunication of Christian Chen. Then throw in the migrations and consolidation flows. (And that's the very very abridged version.) This brings us pretty close on the time line to the "Young Galileans" flow. We know after that flow came the "New Way" flow and then the upheaval that resulted in John Ingalls, etc leaving. IMHO considering it in a wider context puts the "Young Galilean" flow in a different perspective than as a stand alone event.
Concerning Max wanting the elders to resign I think it has become clear that he was a front man for Witness Lee. And BTW I think Witness Lee was clever to do it this way from a selfish and worldly point of view. (Not Christian of course.) He took himself out of the risk in case there was any push back. Or to use another term he maintained plausible deniability. He knew the elders - for example in GLA - were not appointed by Max. They were appointed by him or Titus in counsel with him. So the elders could have 2 possible reactions: take Max (an upstart in their view) at face value as a deputy of Witness Lee or call Witness Lee to verify if he actually wanted those elders he appointed to resign. We know most did the latter. And Witness Lee took the temperature of the situation and used his plausible deniability card when he realized the level of push back.
Without what happened 10 years later (with Max completely out of the picture) we would lack clarity on this issue. But we know Witness Lee's coworkers at his direction systematically went about changing the "status quo". They even told the young people they should be like the "Red Guards" and start a "Cultural Revolution". Any elders or coworkers who would not fall in line with the New Way were considered out of the "flow". But further than that they insisted that all elders and coworkers become one with the "Ministry Office"/Philip Lee - it's General Manager. So essentially part of the New Way was "oneness" with Philip Lee. This idea and practice was incorporated into the New Way as part of the package. And this became a litmus test.
John Ingalls, John So, etc were not against the New Way. Who would be against home meetings and gospel preaching? (The only thing John So was concerned about was door knocking in Germany because it did not match the cultural way of doing things especially with the Nazis history and what a knock on the door by a stranger meant in the national consciousness.) What they were against was "oneness" with an immoral man who was considered Witness Lee's top coworker.
So I still maintain that Max could have survived the "Young Galilean" flow. Witness Lee might have made him repent to a few offended elders and coworkers here and there to smooth some ruffled feathers. But if Witness Lee would have kept Max in the work everybody would have accepted it. No problem. Mistakes were made let's move on. IMHO that would have been the general consensus. But with Philip Lee on the warpath forget it. Max was out along with everybody else who would not engage in a cover up.
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First of all what's the background of Devern Fromke and Stephen Kaung parting ways with Witness Lee? Was Witness too difficult to work with and placed too much an emphasis on the ground of locality?
Second of all beginning with Max and continuing with other elders and co-workers who would not ignore their conscience (relating to Phillip Lee), their circumstances was generally designated as "God is sovereign". Rather than labor on relationships to maintain oneness of the brothers, these brothers were generally washed their hands of by the ministry since their concerns with people, matters, and issues would not benefit the ministry. To say "God is sovereign" meant I have nothing more to do with this brother or this sister.
More to say later.