Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
This idea of seeing something and finding yourself in the minority is both the way forward and the way into lala land. Sometimes we as a larger group really are stuck. It takes someone willing to read what is there, have a revelation as to what it is actually saying, and raising their voice/hand and suggesting that we rethink.
And yet it is the allure of unique thinking that captures so many into cults or other marginal sects. The idea that I/we have knowledge that only a few others have and that the majority is ignorant.
It is a dangerous place to be. . .
And therefore, the one, or few, who come up with a different way may be precursors to either the forward movement of the church, or the exit of some from "the way."
Or they may just be pushed-down without any real consideration by those who have decided that it is all settled. Yet they are unable to see that their "settled" position was not the settled position of not that many years ago, therefore who is to say that we should be settled.
And it is "we" and not just "me" who should be concluding. I can read. I can suggest. I can engage. But I cannot dictate or determine alone.
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I dragged this over from another thread, because it speaks to something vis-a-vis, the discussion of Darby, Nee, and Lee. The pattern I see is of someone who gets caught by an idea, whether "secret rapture" or "local ground" or whatnot; they come into a dissenting, isolated fellowship that has rejected the status quo as "dead Christianity", and then proceed to dominate this closed and vulnerable flock with their promulgation of said idea. They may not be the originators, but they become the champions: they do a kind of scorched-earth warfare with the idea and everyone who doesn't get on board is excluded. The human cost of their theology's triumph is merely a cost of doing business.
Now, they're left with the Bible, which they outwardly profess to love and obey, and the voice in their head, which tells them what the Bible is saying. None other can intrude; the thrice-recommended "safety of many counselors" in Proverbs is now long gone. Only them, their Bible, the voice in their head, and their submissive acolytes are left. The group into which they've come now has no recourse but to go into the ditch. None can restrain the madness of the prophet, the self-anointed "seer of the divine revelation."
With Lee, an example can be seen when the voice in his head told him that many scripture passages, both OT and NT, were low, natural, fallen human concepts and he believed it. His interpretive metric must prevail, and increase, and the Bible itself lost -- we prayed over ministry outlines and rejected scriptures as unprofitable. (I've gone into this in some detail in the "Psalms" thread, and elsewhere.)
With Nee, it can be seen in some of his bizarre later statements, when he was trying to run 'his' Little Flock. . . orientalisms like "get in line" and "know who's in front of you" and "handing over"; the sudden revelation of the centralizing "Jerusalem Principle"; his responses to the threats his hegemony faced by the newly-triumphant Maoists; all this exposed Nee as a fallible human like the rest of us, yet one now devoid of any help from peers. He'd already determined that he had no peers, and only one voice in the room mattered, which was his own, and now his voice was cracking, but what could he do? He'd built his nest and now he and the rest had to live in it.
With Darby, there's a misplaced emphasis on previously hidden truths: a secret coming, for example, which will precede the bright glory that will be seen from East to West. Commensurate with the obsessive promotion of these recently "recovered truths", there's the ejection of everyone that can't toe the line of doctrinal dead letters. There's a complete absence of love for any other human being, which makes his obvious devotion to his mystical hidden Christ seem quite unbalanced (i.e. unreal) indeed.
And so on; I'm unqualified to offer detailed critiques of these men or their ideas. But what little I see is plain: "The Bible alone" was merely a vehicle for "my ideas alone" which ultimately made for a deformed Christian assembly: it was no longer the Christian assembly of "we", but had become the assembly of "me". Not a normal Christian church life at all.
(Perhaps not coincidentally, Lee's Blended Lieutenants referred to such dominant ministries as spiritual "giants". But the scriptural record of the Giants isn't good, unfortunately; they ate up men, until the cries of the afflicted earth reached to heaven. Such Giants [Gk:
"grigori"] dominating the intellectual and behavioral landscape of the Christian church probably isn't healthy, at all. See e.g. Gen 6:4)