[aron]

Why could Witness Lee hold forth upon the shoulders of giants, but nobody is supposed to hold forth on his shoulders? Where's the next Andrew Murray in the Lord's Recovery? He's forbidden - because WL was the last apostle and seer of the divine vision of the present age. Nobody is supposed to get new light after he passed; the age of spiritual giants is over.

But why can't I pick through WL and WN, take the good parts (if any), mix them with other witnesses of Christ both new and old, and create my own version of God's present speaking, to present to the flock?

Again, where's the next Andrew Murray? What kind of ministry banishes gifted brothers (and sisters) as ambitious and divisive? If you have any gift, or talent, or leading from God, it must be "blended away" so that you become part of the featureless Hive. We all must be absolutely identical, per Our Brother.

The phrase "Witness Lee was the last spiritual giant; the age of spiritual giants is over" is quite telling because there's no Biblical support for such a notion that I'm aware of. Instead it seems to be a product of human culture. This point should be made repeatedly, because it's been so well hidden in their history: the LC is an Asian church. And it's in statements like that above, where the veneer of Biblical covering has been abandoned, that the roots of this movement are clearly seen. There's a brief opening, and suddenly we can see what's inside: human culture, with all of its fallen earthly values, expectations, and behaviors.

And this collective value is intrinsic to Asian culture - don't question the leader. Show respect for Chairman Mao/Brother Lee/Whomever. To criticize the leader is to rebel against the divinely arranged social order, and to separate yourself from society. So the leader gets a free pass to criticize everyone else, to make mistakes, and to call out everyone from the podium and expose them. Yet no one would dare to do likewise to Maximum Brother! Submission to this system and its leaders, both implicit and explicit, is what makes the machine well-oiled. In LC-speak it might called "practical oneness".

In fact, the leader(s) have an open invitation to abuse the system, and those under them, to show that the system works. Therefore, I could watch TC essentially grovel publicly before WL, even using the phrase "I am ashamed", and it didn't mean that WL was an evil overlord or TC was an incompetent bumpkin, but rather that the system was in good working order. WL and TC publicly demonstrated for all present that they had a close working partnership within the collective. This idea of "face" is an essential component to understanding Asian social enterprises. Any textbook examining human culture would probably say this.

I respect Chinese people, history, and culture. But this arrangement is not "normal" at all, contrary to what WN taught, but rather is of the gentiles. And Asian gentiles are no different from Western gentiles - both are fallen and in need of divine remediation. In this the LC was no better than Western churches it despised as "whores" and "daughters of the harlot" and "Babylon". It may even have been worse, because its foundation stone was judgment and separation, not forgiveness and "receiving all those whom God has received in Christ Jesus."

But we were taught about double standards: there was the story of a man praying, who was thanking God that he wasn't like the sinner praying nearby. But he was! In God's eyes, they both were sinners. Yet one's prayer judged the other and one's prayer repented of sin. Which went away justified? And a very clear story was about the guy asking forgiveness of his debts, but who wouldn't forgive those who owed him. He wanted two sets of rules: one for himself (mercy) and one for the other (condemnation). Doesn't work that way.