After I posted my first message on this subject a minister in the IA who has been a good friend of mine for many years wrote to me to tell me he respectfully disagreed with my posts.
At first my reaction to his email was admittedly emotional and filled with bitterness and anger. Why? As trivial as it sounds, I was angry with him because I saw that while many others posted very kind things about me on Facebook--some who agreed with me, some who did not, but all who respected me for expressing my opinion--there was one sister had posted something very unconstructive and disparaging. And of all the comments, that's the one that he clicked "Like" on. What hurt the most was that despite our long and deep friendship, he didn't even reach out to me first to hear my side of the story.
As silly and irrational as it sounds, I felt an utter sense of betrayal. I felt I'd "lost" another brother to the IA.
But to this brother's great credit, his response to my highly emotional email was one of kindness and gentleness. And from there, the relationship we'd built up over the years as brothers took over. I apologized to him for my tone. He apologized to me, telling me he didn't mean any offense by what he did on Facebook. And because of our years of friendship and the amazing love he and his family have shown me over the years I accepted his apology.
He went on to say that he'd been in the very WDC meeting where the evidence against YM Yang was brought against him and it was pretty damning. He said a lot of tears were shed during the meeting as the evidence mounted.
Like I said in an earlier post, despite hearing this something still seemed completely incongruous to me. As I said, my own experiences in hearing Pr. Yang's sermons were that I was uplifted and inspired not just in hearing what he had to say but because his sermons encouraged me to further explore the truth on my own, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, I had heard speculation from some supporters of YM Yang that the "evidence" against him was pulled selectively and out of context, and worse, because the "evidence" was never made public no one could see it for themselves except for those who had been in that one closed-door meeting. I had a difficult time believing those accusations as well. The IA and the WDC are made up of some of the most faithful servants of God I know. Could there be a conspiracy so vast that they're all "in on it"? That also seemed completely incongruous.
So I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Specifically, I asked my friend and brother to find me the exact audio recordings of Pr. Yang that were cited as "heresy" in that meeting. I wanted to hear them for myself in their original, unedited form. If Pr. Yang's accusers were truly cherry-picking selected words and twisting them out of context I wanted to hear it for myself. And on the other hand, if Pr. Yang's defenders were simply conspiracy theorists and the evidence against Pr. Yang had indeed been completely fair and objective, I wanted to know that too. Either way, I could put all of this behind me once and for all.
This brother did one better and found the series of documents that a minister in Singapore had compiled and presented to the Singapore Board of Ministers. Evidently, these were the very same documents that were presented in the WDC meeting that the IA used as the basis for excommunication.
While there were multiple documents, the one that I focused on was the one that spoke of the alleged heresy against the Holy Spirit, as that seemed to be the "smoking gun" that ultimately led to the vote to excommunicate and the thing I hear most people cite as the most egregious offense.
Just as he shared these documents with me out of love and a genuine concern for me to see the whole truth for myself, I'd like to share it with you in its original, unedited form with the same spirit.
Document 1
Document 2 (this is the document that addresses the evidence of heresy against the Holy Spirit, which I'll be providing my commentary on)
As Paul wrote in the book of Ephesians, "everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light". Different people will read these and come up with different conclusions. But whatever the conclusions, in the spirit of Paul's words let's air them in the open, taking away all the personal histories, all the insults, all the hurt feelings, all the emotion, and look at these matters honestly and objectively, using Scripture and the Holy Spirit as our only guides.
I've never met the minister who created this report personally, but I have no reason to suspect that he did his analysis with anything but pure motives and a heart that genuinely wanted to help the church. But I have to admit, as I went through them there were some things I read that struck me as odd.
While not an easy task, I decided once and for all to try to get to the bottom of it. I read his entire analysis carefully and with an open mind. I even tracked down and listened to the original audio recordings where the "evidence" was collected from, not just the 1-2 minutes cited within the analysis but in some cases many minutes before and after them just so I knew I was listening to what was being said in full context. And I tried to do it all as objectively as I could. I didn't accept what either side said simply because "I liked them" or "I disliked them". I looked through Scripture. I prayed.
For those of you who scoff at me and say, "how can this uncircumcised Philistine who doesn't come to church put himself on the same spiritual level as ministers who pray for hours every day and study Scripture day and night?", don't worry, that's not what I'm doing at all. All I am doing is sharing what I received.
In the next 10 blog entries, I will post, in its entirety, the contents of this document with the analysis of this minister, along with my own commentary after each of his points. As this minister did, I will try to be as objective and respectful as I can be in my own analysis. And where they're available, I'll link to the original audio file so you can hear for yourself. My only advice if you do try to do this is to do so with an open mind. If you're on a fishing expedition to try to find "proof" that Pr. Yang is either a saint or a sinner because of selfish or self-centered reasons on your own part, you'll just be wasting your time and everyone else's. On the other hand, if you go through this exercise with a humble and prayerful heart, God will lead you into all truth and our church will be all the better for it.
As for what to do with this information, I'll wrap up these series of posts with some thoughts on that. But I just have one request. If you're on the "pro-YM" side, please don't use my words as "ammunition" to attack those whom you disagree with. And if you're on the "anti-YM" side, please don't instantly pass judgment on me as someone who's somehow in the tank for YM and his supporters in a way that compromises my objectivity. To all, please read with an open mind and a prayerful heart, and give me a little credit that I'm conducting this analysis as fairly and honestly as I possibly can.
And to everyone, regardless of what your conclusions are, please kneel down and pray and ask God for wisdom, unity, and love to prevail in the church and for us to somehow start a process of reconciliation and healing.
No comments:
Post a Comment