Afternoon Lee-ite
(Sorry, sometimes I just can’t resist the puns.)
I haven’t blogged much in the past few months because, quite frankly, I haven’t had much to say. I posted some political stuff but then decided that it wasn’t really where I wanted to go. I don’t care much for the blogs that post every day just for the sake of having something in print every day. So… I just took a break.
I still had people finding the blog, usually through a Google search. Looking for Titus Chu? You were bound to run across The Pardoner’s Tale. David Hyles catch your fancy? Same thing. Plenty of views but no comments. Until this morning, when I got an interesting comment on my post “The Joy Of Sects” by a guy running a blog titled Liite Buddhism. That’s Lee-ite, for those of you who can’t read all of those I’s. He took offense at what I had to say; this is what he posted:
I spent twelve long years in the LSM cult, and I would like to say politely that you shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about.The problem with the Local Church group -- properly called "Liites" (the followers of Chang-Shou Li) -- is not that they have novel doctrines, but far worse. The problem is twofold.
(1) Their central doctrine is a version of the dharma wheel of Buddhism, which they call "mingling." To them, God wants to terminate man's soul and replace it with himself. The believer, thus annihilated of the self, the "I," is then reabsorbed into God, ie. nirvana. None of this is remotely Christian. Indeed, since this involves the destruction of the soul, rather than its salvation in the Christian sense, this is anti-Christian.
(2) So keeping in line with the central anti-soul doctrine, Liite doctrine and ritual center around man being wholly evil. That is, your nature and everything about you is evil and must be suppressed. Your needs and opinions are "fallen" and must be annihilated. As one can imagine, this can produce psychological duress together with the high-stress activity of five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year.
The Local Church is aware of the resultant mental breakdowns; they normally lead to intervention by the victim's family from outside the organization and departure from the group. The Local Church then describes the breakdowns in reverse: as what happens when a member leaves. This is callous to say the least, but the intent seems to be to scare members away from leaving.
I fear that you may have already made up your mind from innocence. But I hate to see someone to take a position on a group that causes people so much mental harm. People DO matter.
You’re right, my friend, people DO matter. You matter, I matter, even the Liites matter (and for the record, please drop the incessant use of Li as Witness Lee’s surname; it is much easier on the eyes). Regardless of how I feel about the current regime in Living Stream Ministry, I feel like they deserved to be treated fairly, which is why I try to be objective even though I am not currently a member.
“I spent twelve long years in the LSM cult, and I would like to say politely that you shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about.” Well my friend, I have spent 22 years in fellowship with brothers from the churches in Elyria, Lorain and Cleveland, so I think I do know something about what I am talking about.
“The problem with the Local Church group -- properly called "Liites" (the followers of Chang-Shou Li) -- is not that they have novel doctrines, but far worse. The problem is twofold.” We will get to the twofold in a minute. Since the founder’s name is Witness Lee, the followers would properly be called “Lee-ites”, if you insisted on referring to them in that way. I prefer the term “brothers” or simply “Christians”. But that’s just me.
(1) Their central doctrine is a version of the dharma wheel of Buddhism, which they call "mingling." To them, God wants to terminate man's soul and replace it with himself. The believer, thus annihilated of the self, the "I," is then reabsorbed into God, ie. nirvana. None of this is remotely Christian. Indeed, since this involves the destruction of the soul, rather than its salvation in the Christian sense, this is anti-Christian.
Brother, you must not have been paying close attention to all of those conferences and trainings you attended, because if you did you would know that “mingling” is not about terminating man’s soul but, umm, mingling man’s soul with the Holy Spirit. Surely you must have heard the term “mingled spirit.” What did you think that it meant?
It isn’t about termination, but transformation.
(2) So keeping in line with the central anti-soul doctrine, Liite doctrine and ritual center around man being wholly evil. That is, your nature and everything about you is evil and must be suppressed. Your needs and opinions are "fallen" and must be annihilated. As one can imagine, this can produce psychological duress together with the high-stress activity of five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year.
Seeing as how the central doctrine isn’t anti-soul but renewed, regenerated, transformed soul, there isn’t much more I can do with this sentence. I don’t doubt that some Local Church leaders, perhaps the ones this particular person was in contact with, were harsh towards those who expressed opinions that they felt needed to be annihilated. I would suggest that the problem is not only with the leaders, but with the followers who let that kind of crap continue.
Five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year. Yeah, I will agree that five meetings a week can be a bit much. Some people derive a lot of enjoyment out of meeting that often. More power to them. Others would rather meet less. Let each person be convinced in his own mind.
As far as the trainings go, I used to love the trainings. Then again, I never went to every meeting of the ten days.
The Local Church is aware of the resultant mental breakdowns; they normally lead to intervention by the victim's family from outside the organization and departure from the group. The Local Church then describes the breakdowns in reverse: as what happens when a member leaves. This is callous to say the least, but the intent seems to be to scare members away from leaving.
And there is no way to deal with that sentence either. Is the Local Church aware of breakdowns? There is no way to prove or disprove that claim without someone’s testimony, something you won’t find on the author’s blog. His testimony is there- true. I would be more comfortable dealing with his claims is there was some more meat. And this is why I can’t take his claims of the “Liites” being a dangerous cult seriously. He provides no quotes from Witness Lee materials, or other sources. Just his word. If he says Witness Lee is dangerous, it must be true. He throws around loaded phrases like “dangerous cult” and “Liite Buddhism” without any kind of documentation.
Let’s look at a post of his entitled “History”. He claims that it is proven that Witness Lee was not an associate of Watchman Nee, but he provides no quotes, no documentation of this. Meanwhile, a popular biography of Watchman Nee, Against The Tide, makes the claim:
Sure sounds like they knew each other, from a source that isn’t even in cahoots with Living Stream Ministry.
Here is an interesting, and upon first glance, damning statement from the History post:
By 1961, Lee was left with only a single Vineyard Fellowship in Los Angeles, California, who were willing to allow Lee to continue speaking among them. Lee continued to live off the charity of its members. By 1962, Lee attempted a take over of the host Vineyard Fellowship in Los Angeles, just as he had done in Taiwan.
One problem with that, brother. The Vineyard Christian Fellowship didn’t even exist until the early seventies.
A house on several acres on prime urban real estate on Ball Road in Anaheim California was built and donated to Lee, valued at 4 million dollars at the time, where he lived with his fourth wife.
You’re going to have to do better than that. I can only find statements to the effect that he was married twice, and that’s because his first wife had died.
I’m sorry, I can't deal with this blogger anymore. Don’t write me and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about when you can’t prove anything you are charging on your own blog.
I haven’t blogged much in the past few months because, quite frankly, I haven’t had much to say. I posted some political stuff but then decided that it wasn’t really where I wanted to go. I don’t care much for the blogs that post every day just for the sake of having something in print every day. So… I just took a break.
I still had people finding the blog, usually through a Google search. Looking for Titus Chu? You were bound to run across The Pardoner’s Tale. David Hyles catch your fancy? Same thing. Plenty of views but no comments. Until this morning, when I got an interesting comment on my post “The Joy Of Sects” by a guy running a blog titled Liite Buddhism. That’s Lee-ite, for those of you who can’t read all of those I’s. He took offense at what I had to say; this is what he posted:
I spent twelve long years in the LSM cult, and I would like to say politely that you shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about.The problem with the Local Church group -- properly called "Liites" (the followers of Chang-Shou Li) -- is not that they have novel doctrines, but far worse. The problem is twofold.
(1) Their central doctrine is a version of the dharma wheel of Buddhism, which they call "mingling." To them, God wants to terminate man's soul and replace it with himself. The believer, thus annihilated of the self, the "I," is then reabsorbed into God, ie. nirvana. None of this is remotely Christian. Indeed, since this involves the destruction of the soul, rather than its salvation in the Christian sense, this is anti-Christian.
(2) So keeping in line with the central anti-soul doctrine, Liite doctrine and ritual center around man being wholly evil. That is, your nature and everything about you is evil and must be suppressed. Your needs and opinions are "fallen" and must be annihilated. As one can imagine, this can produce psychological duress together with the high-stress activity of five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year.
The Local Church is aware of the resultant mental breakdowns; they normally lead to intervention by the victim's family from outside the organization and departure from the group. The Local Church then describes the breakdowns in reverse: as what happens when a member leaves. This is callous to say the least, but the intent seems to be to scare members away from leaving.
I fear that you may have already made up your mind from innocence. But I hate to see someone to take a position on a group that causes people so much mental harm. People DO matter.
You’re right, my friend, people DO matter. You matter, I matter, even the Liites matter (and for the record, please drop the incessant use of Li as Witness Lee’s surname; it is much easier on the eyes). Regardless of how I feel about the current regime in Living Stream Ministry, I feel like they deserved to be treated fairly, which is why I try to be objective even though I am not currently a member.
“I spent twelve long years in the LSM cult, and I would like to say politely that you shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about.” Well my friend, I have spent 22 years in fellowship with brothers from the churches in Elyria, Lorain and Cleveland, so I think I do know something about what I am talking about.
“The problem with the Local Church group -- properly called "Liites" (the followers of Chang-Shou Li) -- is not that they have novel doctrines, but far worse. The problem is twofold.” We will get to the twofold in a minute. Since the founder’s name is Witness Lee, the followers would properly be called “Lee-ites”, if you insisted on referring to them in that way. I prefer the term “brothers” or simply “Christians”. But that’s just me.
(1) Their central doctrine is a version of the dharma wheel of Buddhism, which they call "mingling." To them, God wants to terminate man's soul and replace it with himself. The believer, thus annihilated of the self, the "I," is then reabsorbed into God, ie. nirvana. None of this is remotely Christian. Indeed, since this involves the destruction of the soul, rather than its salvation in the Christian sense, this is anti-Christian.
Brother, you must not have been paying close attention to all of those conferences and trainings you attended, because if you did you would know that “mingling” is not about terminating man’s soul but, umm, mingling man’s soul with the Holy Spirit. Surely you must have heard the term “mingled spirit.” What did you think that it meant?
This is the Triune God dispensing Himself into the tripartite man. Man is of
three parts the human spirit, the human soul, and the human body. As believers
our spirit has been regenerated, and our soul with its leading part, the mind,
is now under renewing which is our transformation. The day will come when our
body will be transfigured, conformed to the body of His glory. This will be the
redemption of our body. Our regeneration has already been accomplished, our
transformation is an ongoing process, and our transfiguration, the redemption of
our body, will be accomplished at Christ’s coming back. This all-inclusive One
as the consummation of the Triune God is working the Triune God into our three
parts into our spirit, into our soul, and into our body. This is the Triune God
working Himself into the tripartite man by His divine dispensing. (Witness Lee,
God’s New Testament Economy, 134-135)
It isn’t about termination, but transformation.
(2) So keeping in line with the central anti-soul doctrine, Liite doctrine and ritual center around man being wholly evil. That is, your nature and everything about you is evil and must be suppressed. Your needs and opinions are "fallen" and must be annihilated. As one can imagine, this can produce psychological duress together with the high-stress activity of five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year.
Seeing as how the central doctrine isn’t anti-soul but renewed, regenerated, transformed soul, there isn’t much more I can do with this sentence. I don’t doubt that some Local Church leaders, perhaps the ones this particular person was in contact with, were harsh towards those who expressed opinions that they felt needed to be annihilated. I would suggest that the problem is not only with the leaders, but with the followers who let that kind of crap continue.
Five long meetings a week and two ten-day training camps a year. Yeah, I will agree that five meetings a week can be a bit much. Some people derive a lot of enjoyment out of meeting that often. More power to them. Others would rather meet less. Let each person be convinced in his own mind.
As far as the trainings go, I used to love the trainings. Then again, I never went to every meeting of the ten days.
The Local Church is aware of the resultant mental breakdowns; they normally lead to intervention by the victim's family from outside the organization and departure from the group. The Local Church then describes the breakdowns in reverse: as what happens when a member leaves. This is callous to say the least, but the intent seems to be to scare members away from leaving.
And there is no way to deal with that sentence either. Is the Local Church aware of breakdowns? There is no way to prove or disprove that claim without someone’s testimony, something you won’t find on the author’s blog. His testimony is there- true. I would be more comfortable dealing with his claims is there was some more meat. And this is why I can’t take his claims of the “Liites” being a dangerous cult seriously. He provides no quotes from Witness Lee materials, or other sources. Just his word. If he says Witness Lee is dangerous, it must be true. He throws around loaded phrases like “dangerous cult” and “Liite Buddhism” without any kind of documentation.
Let’s look at a post of his entitled “History”. He claims that it is proven that Witness Lee was not an associate of Watchman Nee, but he provides no quotes, no documentation of this. Meanwhile, a popular biography of Watchman Nee, Against The Tide, makes the claim:
At the Shantung Resort of Chefoo he met also for the first time Witness Lee. A
native of that city, Lee came of Buddhist parents and had been converted in 1925
at the age of 20. Since 1927 he had received Watchman’s magazine and was himself
developing fast a gift of preaching and Bible exposition. Future circumstances
were to bring the two men very close together at a critical period. (pg 144)
Sure sounds like they knew each other, from a source that isn’t even in cahoots with Living Stream Ministry.
Here is an interesting, and upon first glance, damning statement from the History post:
By 1961, Lee was left with only a single Vineyard Fellowship in Los Angeles, California, who were willing to allow Lee to continue speaking among them. Lee continued to live off the charity of its members. By 1962, Lee attempted a take over of the host Vineyard Fellowship in Los Angeles, just as he had done in Taiwan.
One problem with that, brother. The Vineyard Christian Fellowship didn’t even exist until the early seventies.
A house on several acres on prime urban real estate on Ball Road in Anaheim California was built and donated to Lee, valued at 4 million dollars at the time, where he lived with his fourth wife.
You’re going to have to do better than that. I can only find statements to the effect that he was married twice, and that’s because his first wife had died.
I’m sorry, I can't deal with this blogger anymore. Don’t write me and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about when you can’t prove anything you are charging on your own blog.
posted by The Man at 6:35 PM
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