SPLIT THREAD - Early Lee - Later Lee

[OBW]

Hope,

I will start at the end because it is easy.

If I seemed to be saying that the craziness was part of a masterminded, that was not my intent. But allowing whatever happened to run its course can have an effect that might be useful, or turn out to the benefit of whoever is trying to gain control.

If I am constantly being chided by getting it wrong ─ first getting rid of my nice car, then being told that I spend too much time keeping an old one running; or running along for a few months doing crazy things just be “versus religion” or more accurately to be different ─ one of two things will happen. I will either get tired of the runaround and leave, or I will decide that I am a foolish sheep that needs someone to straighten me out. (This is clearly an over simplified analysis.) So what comes next? Migrate out. Move all over the country thinning ourselves out. Write songs about it. Then a year later consolidate to be strengthened with numbers. Even if the last paring ends in the way it does for the logical reason, the constant shifting has its effect. We talked about “new turns” almost biannually. You either become immersed or you leave. Those who stay will do anything.

Did Lee orchestrate it? Probably not. Did he watch it set things in motion? Could be.

You refer to Lee’s view of parallel items of the work and the church. Yet your own account of his desire to control the work while being hands off with respect to the church suggests a problem with the latter. That problem is where the line was between the two parallel items.

I note that among the earliest talks that you or George gave in Dallas that I heard concerned the “hireling.” This was juxtaposed against the typical Christian system of needing a pastor, music director, or whatever, and going out to hire one who would stay until either they got a better offer or the board of elders/deacons (whichever the particular church had) voted him out. But an elder was supposed to be part of the flock, even from the flock in human terms. And when I read Paul’s accounts to Timothy and Titus concerning the character and duties of the elder, I see someone who is concerned with the well-being of the flock. He is not concerned with something external, like a ministry, although he may help to identify ministries that are helpful and those that are not.

But if the elder is answerable to a person whose existence is an external ministry, even if somehow the only legitimate ministry, then his position with respect to the flock, the assembly, becomes that of a hireling.

And even if Lee said out loud that he had no intent to control any church, when his ministry office, an organization, and even person (his son), of which he should have knowledge of its workings, requires that assemblies ─ the parallel item that is not the ministry and is not under his control ─ buy a predetermined amount of LSM materials, who does he think is actually being asked to make those purchases? Unless a church is stockpiling excess materials in a back room, or burning the excess for heat and power, they must push it on their membership.

And if someone is sent from the LSM, the FTTA, or whatever, from afar to be, among other things, and elder, or even just a “coworker” who is required to be subsidized by the local assembly, has the line not been crossed?

Last, there is something telling in your account first of Lee wanting to get away from the practice of “the Work” yet believing he should have strict control over it, and second, the almost Jekyll and Hyde coexistence of the ministry and the church. Speaking strictly to the latter, while I must say that there were many positive things about being in the Local Church versus the AOG where I was before, those positive things had to do mostly with the opening of the word. But at the same time, there were already the beginnings of things in that opening that were off the mark. It was the desire of local brothers and sisters, like yourself, that these positives flourished as long as they did. Despite the way things had become, even in Irving, we were not having the kinds of contentious meetings that happened in Anaheim. What I am seeing now is that Lee’s focus was not the church, but the ministry. But without the Local Church, he couldn’t survive on the ministry. It had to remain loyal to him. But rather than give good sound teaching, he constantly had “push the envelope” teaching. He intentionally stirred up the saints against Christianity.

Somewhere behind a wall is a kitchen. It continually turns out food for the people who live nearby. They have grown used to its flavors and actually despise the normal entrees available at the local Italian place and the Tex-Mex place, the burger joint, etc. They keep being told that the other food will poison them. But what they do not see is that the kitchen is not even up to health standards of a small village in a third world country, and the ingredients include whatever has been scraped off the nearby highway. (While I never saw it, there was a movie in 1973 called “Soylent Green” that concerned the discovery of the ingredients in this all-important foodstuff in a futuristic, overpopulated earth.)

Now I cannot say that what we were taught was entirely drivel and the equivalent of road kill. But when you add in the “push the envelope” teachings, like becoming God, and the control issues, it might be that a significant ingredient was a spiritual equivalent. And when the “taste” of the members of the assemblies turns to the output from the darkest part of the whole combined organization, you have to wonder if we were all infected with an illness that altered our taste buds to miss the sour taste.

No, you are correct that there is no overwhelmingly clear evidence that Lee had a plan before coming to America. But even if that is true, the very history of the churches in the US and Lee’s history of double purposes, like making money, first through secular business ventures then through a non-profit, and becoming the revered and followed leader that Paul told the Corinthians to quit following exclusively and in a sectarian manner, suggests that Lee’s heart was not pure from a fairly early point, if not the beginning. He had mixed motives. He may have believed every teaching he espoused, even the rotten ones. But I’m not sure it was ever just about the ministry or the churches. It was about him. In his early meekness he rose in our estimation. If that was intended, his method was wise, because a foreigner coming in to assert himself as superior to the whole of the US, or at least Western teachers would have gone over like a lead balloon. But having gained that estimation, he could rise further through his demonstration of superior knowledge, which lead to him begin to suggest superiority in his demeanor, then in his sideways talking about the ministry and the one who brings it (and other similar sayings). Now the BBs have simply made the bold declarations “oracle of God,” “acting God” and the like.

I can almost hear Benson’s voice saying “our Brother Lee.” Lee is their “Brother Lee.” While I do not deny him salvation, he is not “my Brother Lee” in the way Benson would say it.

You are providing what is probably one of the most objective analyses of events possible. While there is no way to state that the roughly 30 year history of Lee in the US could be distilled to A caused B which caused C which cased D, etc., patterns are immerging. Surely the potential for ambition in others, such as Benson, Ron, Ray, Max, and many others had an influence on how it all played out. But it is clear that the oracle of God, the acting God, the apostle of the age, etc, was not just duped by these others. All the trouble cannot be exlcusively the result of his trusted inner circle and he be essentially free of responsibility. Things like the speaking/writing of Fermentation are not products of the oracle of God, therefore the very claim must be false. And if he was reaching for such a title ( even sort of, like sort of liking to be exalted) then he was false.

And since there is some evidence of a similar pattern in Taiwan, even accepting some desire to turn over a new leaf in the US only lasts so long when things like Daystar were already underway in 1971. (I actually did not realize that Daystar was already 2 years underway when we came along. So they were looking for more money in 73 and my Dad lost a little as a result. I have no idea how much, but while we were comfortable, we were far from wealthy. Any loss was felt, at least by my Dad.)