Quote:
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The second main aspect of the church life is that of the standing or the ground of the church. This term, the church ground, was first used by Brother Watchman Nee in 1937. Before 1937, we never heard or saw this term, and the matter of the ground of the church, as far as we have been able to determine, was not known."
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While I agree that much of Protestantism has, at least for a time, been just as dogmatic that their sect was
THE CHURCH and none else were, in each case, it was something different that was brought forward as the key to being in or out. Each key tends to be something not considered before — at least in that way.
And as I have said before, if it is something new in a religion that is grounded in something that was established centuries earlier, it is suspect. It should never be accepted simply because it sounds good or it is packaged with a great experience.
And there we go again with the problems surrounding experience. We learned how to spot experience in the LCM. It taught us to thrive on experience. To let the thrill of experience be tied to the understanding of truth with the result that we were fed untruth tied to experience and now have a hard time rejecting it.
I am beginning to think that that little story about Hunky and Dory in the Land of Food was misdirecting us. Yes, there is a verse or two that can be seen as directing us toward the bodily function of chewing as the way to take in God. But even that is metaphorical. When you then take that little bit out of the whole of the scripture — 66 books, many more chapters and a year of reading — and declare that it is the key to life, or what it is all about, then follow it with dismissal of things that are said many more times and with many more clear and straightforward words, then it is obvious that there was a ring in our nose and we were led where we should not want to go.
Every time we try to hold onto something special from the LCM, we give the novel and new power over the scripture that is solid, old, and sound. I'm not even sure that what we were taught about calling on the Lord is that sound. It was used more like an incantation that was designed to make us feel better immediately. Yes, God can do that for us. But were we just doing it for ourselves? It is clear that a room full of LCM leaders in Whistler, BC did just that in the middle of an unrighteous shellacking of one of their own for "sins" that didn't exist. And they felt better after that and could go on to throw more coal on the fire, tar into the pot, and gather more feathers. Do you think that someone who really called on the Lord could do that? I think they should have had their consciences pricked strongly if they really did. They should have felt worse, not better as they went back to their unrighteous lynching.
So, no matter how you feel when you do it, is it simply true that it really is "calling on the Lord"? Or is it saying words that we have tied to a better feeling? That evokes positive memories and emotions?
Can it be too minimalist to really be what we think it is?
Or is it only real if we are really trying to connect with God and not just do that thing we do when we feel down, bad, depressed, etc.? When we need a pick-me-up and there is no caffeine around?