Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
And we didn't consider. We were too snowed by the awesome amount of scripture. Too bad it so often really had nothing to do with the message.
And instead we get their elevation of the Chinese/Oriental culture. I am not saying that there is anything particularly wrong with Chinese culture. Just like American culture it has its strong points and its weak points. But neither is simply God's way. Both are man's way.
|
I think we're all partly "holistic" and partly "reductionistic/linear". Certainly Descartes' reductionist methodology became hugely influential in Western thinking, and is rightly credited for the great advances in science, technology, and ensuing prosperity. But the "holistic" approach, where the inscrutable wise man utters some aphorism to his "grasshopper", to reference the tv series Kung Fu, is also attractive. The dawn of the environmental crisis, racial tensions, unpopular war, and gender crisis/feminism of the '60s made us aware of the shortcomings of the Descartian model, where we'd put everything into atomistic "parts" boxes while ignoring the whole. And the Nee model with his holistic vision of the "church" and the loosely jointed logical constructions within captivated our attentions. And we didn't look too closely at those loose constructions. There were Bible verses and there were statements, and they didn't always match, or match consistently, but who cares -- "It's the church!!"
But we didn't realize that it wasn't "simply God's way... it was man's way." Now we're beginning to appreciate that with more clarity. I think that in the continued open discussion, objective reality is beginning to emerge. Like the Bible says, "here a little, there a little." (Isa 28:10)