Who Said It?

[OBW]

ZNP,

Based on your most recent post, it would appear to me that you spent several years dancing around the edges of something you never really understood. If you never actually read the stuff, but only existed on what you heard in various localities, it was never "perfect Lee" no matter how much we say that they are all parroting Lee.

In fact, I have found that it is seldom in hearing and speaking that I notice errors, or the questions arise. I was gone many years from the LRC before I questioned its teachings. Only when I began to read it for myself from that online treasury was the shoddy theology, illogic, and logical errors made clear. And from what I can see in the works I have read or perused, the logical errors were seldom just mistakes, but willful steps taken to force the discussion where it was wanted to go. Even Nee did it. Not at the level that Lee did.

I would suggest that you were captured by the way the LRC "does church" more than anything else. It was (even still can be) appealing. But the way you do church does not command blessing upon your errors, no matter how many times you sing Psalm 133. ("Your" is in reference to Lee and the LRC, not you.)

I'm beginning to see a disconnect between the LRC you experienced while working on the Irving hall, living in Odessa, New Hampshire, and the FTTT in Taiwan, and the LRC that Lee taught year after year. And maybe you are right that you didn't hear that much about Lee. They weren't reading sermons out on the property in Irving. And no matter what you think of George W, he was among some who were not the most lock step, turn off your mind supporters (although I think he may have simply allowed himself to slide into the background now).

I think George was a little like you in that respect. There was something about the LRC that was appealing to him and once he reached a certain age, it was hard to consider that he could be that wrong, so he just resigned himself to it. My last contact with George was quite disappointing. He seemed an empty shell compared to the man I knew in Dallas. Almost seemed to not recognize me other than someone to repeat trite catch phrases to.

And if you returned to NY where they didn't even use LSM materials for morning watch, I would say that the "church life" that you were so strong for was not the "church life" that Lee intended. Or that so many others were involved in. It was something else. Just happened to stay loosely connected with the LRC.

In an odd way, your stories about time in the LRC are like viewing the whole of the United States from the perspective of 5 different remote rural communities. Or the working conditions at a NY sweat shop as seen from the owner's office on Madison Avenue. Your experiences are real. And they are personal. But they are not the LRC. Not the one that I joined in 73 and left in 87. Or the one that send my sister to Taiwan, and holds her and my brother and father to this day. And I am sure that Dallas is not entirely representative of the most gung-ho localities. But it is far from anything that you suggest as ever being the norm in the LRC.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by OBW

Based on your most recent post, it would appear to me that you spent several years dancing around the edges of something you never really understood.

I enjoyed this post.

Couple of comments in response.

1. I like GW. And, yes we are probably quite similar in many respects. However, I did experience a year and a half where he was trying to break me in the same way you might break a horse.

2. I find it very difficult to consider my experience "dancing around the edges":

Houston with RG and BP -- not the edges
Irving at time of construction -- not edges
Odessa -- at time the gospel move was all the rage, hence the reason to send GW and 2 other brothers out there.
NH -- that was the edges, but it was for one year.
Taipei during the FTTT -- not the edges, though perhaps from a US perspective.
NY -- not the edge, a very significant church, though loosely affiliated with lSM.

Also, although I didn't major in WL I actively spoke and taught the bible virtually every week and trained trainees in the gospel work.

Personally, I feel that saints who attended LRC meetings as the sum total of their Christian experience, in my mind they were dancing around the edges of the Christian experience. Yes I heard many quote WL in messages and testimonies, but I always felt this was due to a lack of experience of Christ of their own.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

I enjoyed this post.

Couple of comments in response.

1. I like GW. And, yes we are probably quite similar in many respects. However, I did experience a year and a half where he was trying to break me in the same way you might break a horse.

2. I find it very difficult to consider my experience "dancing around the edges":

Houston with RG and BP -- not the edges
Irving at time of construction -- not edges
Odessa -- at time the gospel move was all the rage, hence the reason to send GW and 2 other brothers out there.
NH -- that was the edges, but it was for one year.
Taipei during the FTTT -- not the edges, though perhaps from a US perspective.
NY -- not the edge, a very significant church, though loosely affiliated with lSM.

Also, although I didn't major in WL I actively spoke and taught the bible virtually every week and trained trainees in the gospel work.

Personally, I feel that saints who attended LRC meetings as the sum total of their Christian experience, in my mind they were dancing around the edges of the Christian experience. Yes I heard many quote WL in messages and testimonies, but I always felt this was due to a lack of experience of Christ of their own.

I'm glad you took my post the way you did. I definitely was not complaining about anything, just wondering if there was some angle that explained your experience and observations that maybe none of us had previously considered.

As for the "dancing around the edges" part, it was probably not the best cliché for what I was thinking. But even down there in Houston under RG, and then being in the FTTT, your own description of your experiences seems to reflect an attitude, perspective, etc., that was not commonplace for even others where you might have been at the times (especially in Houston). I'm sure that you were really into it enough. And it looked enough like the mainstream LRC thing to fool others (not that you had any idea of fooling anyone) and to even make you consider yourself down in the main thing.

But there is just some kind of disconnect that I think maybe even you weren't able to see at the time.

In any case, just some observations of history from a different perspective.

[Cal]

Actually, Z, you are blessed to have missed out on Lee drilling into us that we were "God's one unique move." Trust me, you don't want those tapes running in your head.

I wish I had been out in the hinterland with you. But, anyway, God knows what he's doing.