Witness Lee and the Lord's Recovery Movement

https://www.dailychess.com/forum/spirituality/former-atheist-testimony.165643

Former Atheist David Wood's testimony.

This really is a bonkers extract from Witness Lee's Living Stream Ministry:

"In the New Testament God came to regenerate man with Himself as life. John 1:12 says, 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.' When we become children of God, we have God's life and nature. Since goats beget goats and cows beget cows, surely God begets gods. If cows begot cows and goats begot goats yet God begot human beings, this would indeed be something strange. That which is begotten must be the same as its begetter. There is no such thing as a cow giving birth to a donkey or a goat giving birth to a dog. God's heart's intent is to make us the same as He is that we may be exactly like Him not only in the inward image and the outward likeness but also in His life and nature. We the regenerated people of God have the life of God and also the nature of God. This is really precious."

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

What's "bonkers" about it, O athiest ?

Better yet, ask Dariusz to come out and let Dariusz explain what is "bonkers" about that paragraph.

This really is a bonkers extract from Witness Lee's Living Stream Ministry:

"In the New Testament God came to regenerate man with Himself as life. John 1:12 says, 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.' When we become children of God, we have God's life and nature. Since goats beget goats and cows beget cows, surely God begets gods. If cows begot cows and goats begot goats yet God begot human beings, this would indeed be something strange. That which is begotten must be the same as its begetter. There is no such thing as a cow giving birth to a donkey or a goat giving birth to a dog. God's heart's intent is to make us the same as He is that we may be exactly like Him not only in the inward image and the outward likeness but also in His life and nature. We the regenerated people of God have the life of God and also the nature of God. This is really precious."

@sonship said

This really is a bonkers extract from Witness Lee's Living Stream Ministry:

[quote] "In the New Testament God came to regenerate man with Himself as life. John 1:12 says, 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.' When we become children of God, we have God's life and nature. ...[text shortened]... e's your chance to shine big mouth Ghost of a Duke.

(Or will he now reach for his apathetic hat?)

@ghost-of-a-duke said
This really is a bonkers extract from Witness Lee's Living Stream Ministry:

"In the New Testament God came to regenerate man with Himself as life. John 1:12 says, 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.' When we become children of God, we have God's life and nature. Since goats beget ...[text shortened]... regenerated people of God have the life of God and also the nature of God. This is really precious."

@kellyjay said
What about this do you find bonkers?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
The chap himself explained:

This is at best an unfortunate interpretation of scripture. At worst, it's heracy. Yet, it's another example of the aberrant nature of some of Witness Lee's teachings.

The birth of cows and goats can hardly be compared to the mystery of spiritual rebirth. As I recall from Genesis 1, man's body was formed of the dust of the ground, not ...[text shortened]... eed to be a god? What do gods do that children don't do? What do gods have that children don't have?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Read above.

Brent Barber - Former Member
Posted 11/16/96

First I would like to offer a paradigm of social dynamics as they operate in the LC. The psychology of the member is shaped by the political structure. That is to say, the political defines the personal - an inversion of today's "identity politics." As in other fascist political regimes, a collective group-based identity is imposed and adopted through a clever maze of ideological self-dispossession. In order to achieve this, the independent individuality of the member must be deconstructed. This is done in many ways on many levels.

The most fundamental strategy is to undermine familial and social loyalties. This goes to the heart of your question about marriage and relationships. In the LC, one was persuaded that to be "absolute" and fully consecrated to Jesus, it was necessary to offer up as a sacrifice your most cherished and valuable heart treasures. Thus, it was desirable to publicly denounce friendships and even a spouse as mere "refuse" which must be counted loss in order to gain the Lord. Hereby, the essential bond between family and friends is severed in a cultic dedication, presumably to God.

In this state of isolation, the member is attached dogmatically and religiously to the supreme cult leader. He has replaced the social support mechanisms and essentially determines your own personality, attitudes and beliefs. A good historical example of this phenomena is Mao's China during the 50's : A highly conformative, deeply regimented, militant society dedicated to its dictatorship. It was this form of collaborative self-sabotage that enables fascism to thrive.

On a personal level, I would have to conclude that the most succinct thing that could be said about relationships within the LC was that they were cold. The deep and tragic irony was that everything had been sacrificed in order to attain a mystic "oneness" (read : homogony), yet this very social structure isolated and alienated each member from one another in its centrifugal and centripetal power scheme. Simply, everyone becomes other-directed in a mass form of mental surrender to a central leader. Therefore all other relationships were subjugated, tertiary and relegated to the periphery of social consciousness. If another member or spouse threatened that bond of total commitment, they could, and were, jettisoned like so much flotsam.

Thus it was not possible to form a close relationship with anyone since the turnover rate required that no emotional attachments be made. Since we were instructed to consider all former and non-members as defiled corpses which must be avoided (a perverse take on the vow of the Nazarite), one had to develop a stoic cauterized interpersonal style, not unlike what some describe growing up in multiple army bases. Indeed, perhaps a clue to the movement is its military organization. Similar to pledges sworn by those in the service, duty is demanded before all else. Thus, a cold prescriptive military determinism shackles and imprisons all other aspirations, dreams, loves and interests. A perfect marriage or friendship was one "given" over to the LC. That translated into no marriage or friendship, or merely the artificial form of one, whose core devotion had been supplanted by an ideological slavery.

I did witness a few individuals who were able to juggle a life outside the LC along with membership. These were never accepted into the inner circle of fellowship and were considered "lukewarm, worldly" and peripheral. Once again, it is a highly conformative fascist cult. You may feel I am being hyperbolic in these statements, but they are quite accurate. I spent my childhood and young adult life fully deceived by this man and his movement. I know of which I speak. There is an imperative in the LC cult literature that the "church life" BECOME your "daily life." That is, there must, finally, be no personal life apart from the "church" life. The political becomes the personal and all distinctions are obliterated.

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/Testimoniesoftruth.htm

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Now if we get into just trading testimonials your buddy FMF will whine that I am spamming the board with testimonials. Umm, you guys started it. I just can match each one of your sours ones with three positive ones, easily.

First this -

Now I am not at home at the moment. When I get home we'll examine the bonker-meter on a perfectly biblical paragraph by Witness Lee.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Brent Barber - Former Member
Posted 11/16/96

First I would like to offer a paradigm of social dynamics as they operate in the LC. The psychology of the member is shaped by the political structure. That is to say, the political defines the personal - an inversion of today's "identity politics." As in other fascist political regimes, a collective group-based identit ...[text shortened]... sonal and all distinctions are obliterated.

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/Testimoniesoftruth.htm

@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Testimony of Martha Ball (a portion)

I must have believed and received the Lord when I was a little girl after learning of Christ in Sunday school and daily vacation Bible schools held during the summers. But I got the assurance of my salvation when I was twenty-one years old. That surely was a memorable experience of joy and knowing. From that day I began to enjoy the reading of the Bible on my own and taking correspondence courses and reading Christian literature.

Later on I took a three year course at the Philadelphia School of the Bible. I am still grateful to the Lord for the teachings of the Brethren and other men of God, who so faithfully presented Christ as the Savior and Lord of all who would believe. Consequently, I felt to try to share all this good news with people in a foreign land. Therefore I went with the North Africa Mission to serve as a missionary nurse in North Africa for ten years in the countries of Algeria and Morocco.

I am just as grateful to the Lord for leading me to the writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, these two dear slaves of the Lord who sought the Lord, studied the Scriptures, and shared what they saw from the Bible concerning Christ and the church. How good to know we can know Christ not solely in a doctrinal way but in a way of experience and enjoyment which bring the growth in the divine life that the Lord so wants to see in all of His children. He does want us to mature. He said in 1 Timothy 2:4 that He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” He also said in John 17:3 that “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God....” Again I say this knowing is not a knowing of mere doctrine and creeds but a knowing that saves, brings in the joy of salvation, and enables us as believers to fulfill God's plan, which is that He could save us from sin and everything negative and then come into us to be our life so that we can live Him as the apostle Paul said, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).

Martha Ball
(Anaheim, USA)

I would like to share with you a little about who I am and my experience in the churches and ministry of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee.

I grew up in a Christian home where my parents were very active in various leadership roles in a fundamental denomination. Under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I prayed to receive the Lord when I was eight years old. I was baptized shortly thereafter and began an up-and-down walk with the Lord. In high school, I made some bad choices, being influenced by the world and some peers who were in spiritual darkness. This began in me a period of willful wandering away from the Lord, where I sought only to experience the pleasures of this world.

I found some worldly pleasures, but I also found so many problems to go along with them. My life became extremely complicated. I became more and more confused within and my outward circumstances were on a downhill slide that I could not reverse. One day, I got a wake up call that caused me to again begin to seek Him. I praise God that He had mercy on me. After this turn, I passed through several denominations and in each, found a little something more of the truth and sensed that the light was getting brighter within.

Eventually, in my hunger for fellowship and prayer with like-minded Christians, I came across some believers attending my college who really enjoyed praying together regularly, singing to the Lord (even when it wasn’t during a church meeting), reading the Word together, and fellowshipping deeply. Over a period of months, I began to feel more at home with these brothers in Christ than with the ones in my denomination. I learned that they met as the church in Dallas and eventually, I also began to meet with them regularly and lost the desire to meet at my old denomination. Among these believers, the ministry and riches of Christ were so wonderful! The light from the Lord was so amazing that I truly felt that I was being brought from darkness to light. I was both convicted of sin and brought to rest in the arms of my loving Heavenly Father. Even after all these years, this has continued to be my experience in the churches.

After all these years, I am still enjoying the riches of Christ and the rich ministry that has helped me to have a much better understanding of the Bible and know the God whom I love and serve. I pray the Lord will strengthen me to keep on seeking my dear Lord with all my heart and soul. I am a member of the Body of Christ, and one day I will be rejoicing together with all believers in oneness in the New Jerusalem as we praise and glorify our wonderful Savior King (Revelation 21:2, 9-10)!

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Now if we get into just trading testimonials your buddy FMF will whine that I am spamming the board with testimonials. Umm, you guys started it. I just can match each one of your sours ones with three positive ones, easily.

First this -

Now I am not at home at the moment. When I get home we'll examine the bonker-meter on a perfectly biblical paragraph by Witness Lee.