Quote:
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Originally Posted by Witness Lee
We all know that Christianity gathers a group of people for a church service. They hire a speaker who has theological knowledge, who is very eloquent and capable, and who is able to run an organization and bring people together. Such persons are rare in Taiwan but quite common in the United States. They are all well-known persons in Christianity, but the work of these well-known persons has "killed" every one of their church members. On the one hand, these church members have been brought to the Lord through them, but on the other hand, their speaking has "killed" these church members. Some may say that kill is too strong an expression, but at least we can say that the members have become accustomed to listening to messages; they have become drugged and become numb. They only know that a Christian should be a proper and good person and that he should attend the church service every Lord's Day; that is good enough. However, from the perspective of the spiritual supply of life, such a way completely annuls the members' function.
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So according to Lee, the "service" in "Christianity" completely annuls the function of the members of the Body of Christ. I would argue the contrary: at least one person, the reverend or pastor or minister, gets to seek the Lord for His current speaking to the flock. Has any co-worker of Lee been able to seek the Lord for guidance for the "message" given in the LC "meeting"? No. They're expected to repeat the content this week's HWFMR. The footnotes in RecV (see e.g. Rev 2,3) make it explicit: each group, and meeting, is to be "absolutely identical".
Anyone working apart from the material delivered by the publishing house in Anaheim quickly got their chain yanked. My LC elder once tried to give a conference on a Witness Lee book that he appreciated. The blendeds got wind of this, and gave him "fellowship", and said, "No, we must re-speak the latest training messages." And they sent out a Blended Co-Worker to see that the speaking conformed.
Nobody can function in such an environment, because it would be a threat to "the ministry". The One Trumpet edict made that clear - only Lee could function. Everyone else had to parrot him, as God's oracle. "Be a tape recorder", we were told. Don't deviate from the pattern of Lee.
I stress the last line from the quote above, "Such a way completely annuls the members' function." The only individual leading, here, is how loudly to shout the words given to you by Lee's deputies, and how many shouted repetitions: 3, 4, or 5?
It's a clear double standard: LC dogma holds that the "service" of "Christianity" kills the church members, but the "meeting" of the "local church" restores their function. How? By repeating a couple lines from HWFMR, with a timer running so that if you go over 1 minute the piano bangs a note? That is our restored function?