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Cal · 03-03-2015, 09:14 AM

I understand your point, OBW. And I appreciate your patience with me. I just disagree with your conclusion, that's all. I think it's the wrong reaction.

That is, I disagree that it is talking about experiencing Christ (rather than talking about experiencing righteousness, grace, faithfulness, or whatever) that leads to the trouble. What led to the trouble in the LCM was saying we should experience Christ in oneness, devotion to the Lord's Recovery, faithfulness to the ministry, building the church (actually questionable things), while concertedly de-emphasizing other things that we should have experienced Christ in (e.g. freedom to follow our consciences, liberty, etc.)

The problem in the LCM wasn't in focusing on experiencing Christ. It was in the warped results we were taught that experiencing Christ would produce. Many LCMers (Jane, Ohio and many others) experience of Christ led them to have a problem in their consciences about how things were going there, and they were slapped down for it. So it wasn't the experience of Christ that hurt them.

If you generally experience Christ, yet leave the door open for him to lead you in any specific way he wants to (from the Word and other Christians), I think it is hard to go wrong. There is nothing wrong with saying I want to experience Jesus, because you never know quite what you are going to get at any moment. You have to be on your toes. You might be trying to experience the Lord as being quite grave and the Lord might be saying he wants you to be a little lighthearted. As long as it doesn't violate the Word, who are we to argue?

It's my belief that we would have had few problems if we would have done the same things we did (meeting and practicing more or less the same) while leaving the door wide open for the Lord to lead us directly from the Word, rather than from Witness Lee. Because the Lord would have been able to correct us.

There was a reason the Lord so filled the LCM in the early days. It was because he was prepared to use us and bless us. We started out on a pretty good track. We had a (nominal anyway) belief in ultimate authority of the Word and respect for the leading that could come from any member of the Body. But Witness Lee and his cronies hijacked all of that and short-circuited it.

So I just disagree with you that talking generally about experiencing Christ is not good. You put forth a theory that it is, but you haven't really proved the connection between generalizing experience and error. I guess if you stop reading the Word and receiving fellowship and just focus on "experience" there could be issues. But as long as you have them both to balance your experience I think you'll be okay. What happened in the LCM is we actually left the Word and fellowship. We flocked to Witness Lee and his advice and turned our back on 99% of the fellowship of the Body of Christ. No wonder our "experience" got warped.

I think most people can generalize talking about experiencing Christ without falling off the deep end. There is always going to be exceptions to the rule. But as I said, the exception proves the rule.

That's just my opinion.

03-03-2015, 09:14 AM	#26
Cal Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: USA Posts: 4,333	Re: The Experience of Christ I understand your point, OBW. And I appreciate your patience with me. I just disagree with your conclusion, that's all. I think it's the wrong reaction. That is, I disagree that it is talking about experiencing Christ (rather than talking about experiencing righteousness, grace, faithfulness, or whatever) that leads to the trouble. What led to the trouble in the LCM was saying we should experience Christ in oneness, devotion to the Lord's Recovery, faithfulness to the ministry, building the church (actually questionable things), while concertedly de-emphasizing other things that we should have experienced Christ in (e.g. freedom to follow our consciences, liberty, etc.) The problem in the LCM wasn't in focusing on experiencing Christ. It was in the warped results we were taught that experiencing Christ would produce. Many LCMers (Jane, Ohio and many others) experience of Christ led them to have a problem in their consciences about how things were going there, and they were slapped down for it. So it wasn't the experience of Christ that hurt them. If you generally experience Christ, yet leave the door open for him to lead you in any specific way he wants to (from the Word and other Christians), I think it is hard to go wrong. There is nothing wrong with saying I want to experience Jesus, because you never know quite what you are going to get at any moment. You have to be on your toes. You might be trying to experience the Lord as being quite grave and the Lord might be saying he wants you to be a little lighthearted. As long as it doesn't violate the Word, who are we to argue? It's my belief that we would have had few problems if we would have done the same things we did (meeting and practicing more or less the same) while leaving the door wide open for the Lord to lead us directly from the Word, rather than from Witness Lee. Because the Lord would have been able to correct us. There was a reason the Lord so filled the LCM in the early days. It was because he was prepared to use us and bless us. We started out on a pretty good track. We had a (nominal anyway) belief in ultimate authority of the Word and respect for the leading that could come from any member of the Body. But Witness Lee and his cronies hijacked all of that and short-circuited it. So I just disagree with you that talking generally about experiencing Christ is not good. You put forth a theory that it is, but you haven't really proved the connection between generalizing experience and error. I guess if you stop reading the Word and receiving fellowship and just focus on "experience" there could be issues. But as long as you have them both to balance your experience I think you'll be okay. What happened in the LCM is we actually left the Word and fellowship. We flocked to Witness Lee and his advice and turned our back on 99% of the fellowship of the Body of Christ. No wonder our "experience" got warped. I think most people can generalize talking about experiencing Christ without falling off the deep end. There is always going to be exceptions to the rule. But as I said, the exception proves the rule. That's just my opinion.