Experiences in South Florida Around 1980

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Plenteous

Igzy, Awareness is old enough to be my father (at least). I am a young man. It is difficult for me to respond graciously to someone who would recklessly post this kind of venom:



Please read that again.

In a later post, he compares me and my father to schizophrenics. No one invited these vicious attacks. Now, you have said that I, and/or my father, are brain-washed and fanatical and unable to "engage in balanced, independent thought."

All of this is based on Awareness' uncorroborated account of a meeting decades ago.

How am I expected to respond?

Dear Plenteous,

This is far from the only story I've heard about these kinds of practices. It sounds just like many others I'm heard of, many from first hand reports, and some I've observed myself. The LC engaged in fanatical disciplinary practices which caused serious psychological damage to many.

Although I cringe at and have learned to filter awareness' hyperbole, I don't doubt for a minute that he was abused along the lines he describes. He's either completely crazy or something serious happened to him.

When I say fanatical I mean having a set of values which cause otherwise decent people to do things that are not reasonable. It is not reasonable to consider speaking against Witness Lee as "poisoning." Why put things in such inflammatory, one-sided terms?

I don't have any reason to doubt that you and your father are generally good people and Christians. But the fact is the LC movement made fanatics of us all. It made us do things to people in Christ's name that someday we will be ashamed of in His presence. Though your father may be a good man in many ways, you may have to deal with the fact that he took part in these sorts of things as well.