Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
I believe what the blendeds resurrected with "One Publication", Witness Lee initially spoke in the mid-1980's as a subtle shot directed at Bill Freeman. Much like the former Soviet republic's "Pravda", Witness Lee wanted there to be only one source of ministry publication received by the Local Churches. As Witness often said of himself, he's done the research, he has all the facts. No one needs to read writings of other ministers because he (Witness Lee) has gleaned all there is to glean from their writings.
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Since I spent my whole life in the LCM, the use of a single ministry never struck me as odd. I firmly believed that Lee had “gleaned” all there is from other ministries. The fact that I was involved in a group of “ministry churches” was of little concern to me. In fact, I think I kind of liked it in a way, because I felt I could go to any LC and know what to expect. It’s the same thing with going to any restaurant franchise, you know exactly what to expect, you know what will be on the menu.
What eventually became the biggest point of concern to me, was not the general use of Lee’s ministry, but the fact that Lee was a “paper pope”. LC leaders have gone far beyond just using Lee’s ministry as the singular ministry that everyone appreciates. They now actually consult his ministry for direction and to make and justify decisions. One example that comes to mind is the FTT extension center in Boston. The justification the brothers gave for starting it is because it was Brother Lee’s “burden” to have something like that in Boston. Well, the problem is that saints have to donate and support such an endeavor and the only justification for it is “brother Lee wanted…” In my mind, it’s just completely absurd. If Lee was still alive, I could maybe understand it. Given the fact that he’s dead, why are they still trying to do what he wanted?!?!?!?? You would think they would at least have the common sense to make reasonable decisions without saying “Brother Lee wanted…” or “if Brother Lee were here he would….”
I noticed this same phenomenon at a local level, and that’s where it really affected me the most. It got to the point where most everything being done activity-wise (gospel preaching, campus work, etc.) became a matter of consulting Lee’s ministry for direction and to determine what to do. For example if we were going to do something related to the gospel, we would read Lee’s ministry on how to preach the gospel the “correct” way. Same thing with the campus work or anything else. When saints were apathetic towards the “church life”, the brothers would try to get them in vital groups. Every action that was taken was rationalized according to something Lee said. That is what really got to me after a while. Like I said, I could understand everyone having a deep, common appreciation for Lee’s ministry. My problem was that it was used as the basis to address any situation or activity in the present, it became really weird. Lee was neither alive, nor was there any reason to completely ignore the actual situation by reading some ministry excerpt.
Another issue that arose out of all of this was that most of Lee’s ministry that currently serves as the LCM “paper pope” is straight out of the “New Way” portion of his ministry. LC leadership is constantly busy implementing and re-implementing things like shepherding, door-knocking, vital groups, home meetings, PSRP, etc. It’s a never ending process. History shows exactly how much of an enormous failure the New Way actually was. In spite of this, when something fails, leadership will attempt to implement it with a different spin. The truth of the matter is, LC leadership cannot drop their obsession with Lee, nor can they envision a LC environment that doesn’t involve following his ministry to a ‘T’. The possibility of Lee’s ministry being wrong in any way is altogether out of the question. When it comes to practices, the failures are always blamed on the members. When it comes to Lee’s teachings, they are viewed as something that will meet everyone’s needs at the exact same time. It’s hard to understand what keeps people going so long in that environment.