[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

Readers will be familiar with my occasionally waxing poetic over the Church Fathers, an area of textual reference vastly overlooked and underutilized in the Protestant tradition. The 'sola scriptora' folk will say, "But it's not in the Bible" if one leans too heavily upon, or gives too much credence to the teachings and interpretations of the ancients.

Lee was fully in this Calvinistic vein: if one waved ideas "not from the Bible" before him, they were summarily dismissed as the imaginations of men. Paradoxically, Lee then pinned his so-called high peak theology on one of these Fathers, not on scripture. Talk about a double-standard!

I do appreciate the Fathers much more today than previously, and hold them to a standard of great admiration, respect, and reference them as those having access to oral traditions and private teachings that were lost over time. Thus they open a window into the past, otherwise inaccessible. But I could present many, many teachings and sayings of the Fathers which the LC people wouldn't have even the slightest interest in, because, "it's not in the Bible"...

Lee was also very selective with whose writings were considered acceptable in general. It seems Lee referenced very few post-19th century works. He even said "From 1945 to 1984, I found out that in both the English-speaking world and the Chinese-speaking world, there was not a weighty spiritual book published."

So why did Lee get to determine which writings were and weren't useful? Also, why could he get away with referencing such a small set of writings in general?