Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
Now, how does this relate to Christ building his church? Christianity has many variants. Some are loud and boisterous, some quiet, and still, and restrained. The variety of interpretations and expressions is impressively (or uncomfortably) vast. Reading the posters on this forum, I notice a disparity of views and experiences. And specifically, to my original comment on this thread, with Billy Graham's grandson - clearly there were behavioural instabilities beforehand, yet the star-struck Presbyterians at Coral Ridge ignored them, and paid dearly for it. The senior pastor began to repeatedly prey on the congregation, and lie about it, and cover up, and manipulate the board. Yet they are a Christian flock - God wants to use them, and wants me to receive them. Whatever their representation of Chist Jesus is, that is what it is.
For Witness Lee, uniformity was the way to Christ. Ohio's post showed this, and many of us had similar observations. WL's representation included conformity and control. God's spirit would then sweep across the face of the earth, and the "ministry" vindicated, and Christ would reign. He probably genuinely believed this. Although I reject this representation today, having seen the damage, confusion, rancor and discouragement it produced, I still get it - these are still human beings seeking God. It's okay. No, really.
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That's right! People get all kinds of ideas they think will help Christ build His church, and WL's was around some sort of cookie-cutter idea of uniformity that central command-and-control needed to impose. (And ironically, all the while, preaching about the autonomy of the local church body!)
"Thinking the same thing" is a matter of the one Spirit and can't be reproduced effectively (understatement) by a human source. I had a conversation just yesterday with one of our sharing bros about this. Here we have six brothers who rotate sharing a message on Sundays. We were talking about how one sharing bro didn't agree with another sharing bro on a particular point of scripture. But I really appreciate that this difference was okay, and didn't hinder fellowship one iota. In fact, to me it's a testimony of the oneness of the Spirit and how Christ is building His church (see Ohio, I do use that word!).