Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
What was Lee's excuse? We will probably never know in this life.
But Lee's basic error was putting his beliefs ahead of both God and people, even if in his madness he wasn't quite aware he was doing that. Religion has a way of making people crazy.
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I liked the phrase, "iconic ideal" - it illustrates the idol-building going on. Instead of a person - Jesus - as the way home to the Father, we got impersonal abstractions, one after another. I could list a half-dozen but why bother.
At the source of the error was an unexamined set of cultural filters. Watchman Nee put it best, "Whenever you enter a room, you need to figure out who is in charge." This is Chinese culture, and it permeated the group from stem to stern. This unexamined view lies at the very heart of Nee's "normal church" building scheme.
In this view there simply has to be one untouchable leader at the helm, God's oracle, deputy God, today's Moses and today's Paul.
Now, this dilemma of "who's in charge here" isn't unique to the Chinese. "And they all were arguing as to which of them was the greatest." But it's a Chinese solution to the common human dilemma. And it's completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
On the cross Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them because they don't understand what they are doing." Amen.