Local Church of Witness Lee

[outdeep]

I didn't think I would hear about the Local Church of Witness Lee - especially since Mr. Lee has passed away.  During the 1970's, early 1980's the Assembly came into conflict with them because they had strong campus ministry and in many respects were similar to us though I think Witness Lee's doctrine and practices was much more haywire than the Assembly. 

I came across this article in World Magazine that tells me that they are alive and well and still sueing anyone who gets in their way.

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12349 (Registration required)


Without apology

Protests follow Hank Hanegraaff’s support for lawsuit against apologists | Edward E. Plowman

Some religion watchers who specialize in cults have had a falling out among themselves over The Local Church (TLC), aka Living Stream Ministry and The Lord's Recovery.

TLC was founded by the late Witness Lee, a disciple of revered Chinese Christian leader Watchman Nee.

Lee migrated from China and Taiwan to California, where he developed exclusivist notions about church structure and a sometimes radical approach to evangelism. He also promoted unusual views of the Trinity and other doctrines. These teachings earned TLC a "cult" label from some apologists.

Evangelical authors/apologists John Ankerberg and John Weldon included a short entry about TLC in their Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions (Harvest House, 1999). TLC leaders fired back with a $136 million libel lawsuit in Texas against the authors and publisher. They contended that TLC's mere inclusion in the book tarnished them with the same brush used to paint the misdeeds and heretical teachings of some other groups.

A Texas appeals court dismissed the suit last January. The court said being labeled a cult isn't actionable because it involves religious beliefs open to individual interpretations, out of bounds for court determination. As for the grounds for the suit, the court said the book nowhere accused TLC of the alleged criminal misconduct mentioned in the book's introduction.

TLC has since appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Surprisingly, TLC got a recent boost from anti-cult apologist and broadcaster ("Bible Answer Man") Hank Hanegraaff. He heads the Christian Research Institute (CRI), a Southern California--based apologetics ministry founded by the late Walter Martin, an opponent of TLC. Hanegraaff filed an amicus brief with the Texas high court in support of the appeal. He said TLC is Christian in theological essentials and not a cult. He warned that the decision interferes with First Amendment and other rights.

Gretchen Passantino, another well-known apologist and writer who formerly worked for CRI, filed a similar brief.

Storms of protests by other cult watchers came down on Hanegraaff and Passantino. They asked why Hanegraaff would want to risk having a court intervene in matters of doctrine, and why he is supporting a lawsuit against an evangelical publisher and two Christian apologists. Apologetics scholar and seminary dean Norman Geisler said he was "shocked" by Hanegraaff's "unwise and unfounded" action.

Hanegraaff posted an explanation of his move on the CRI website (equip.org/free/psl001.pdf). He expanded on the reasoning in his brief, contending that the decision was a "significant legal mistake" that sets a lower standard of accountability for religious publishers, and poses adverse implications for Christians living under repressive regimes.

He alleged the Enroth-Weldon book went "outside the bounds of both responsible theological analysis and responsible public accusation by using the term cult as a pretext for otherwise legally libelous language."

Apologist Don Venoit of Midwest Christian Outreach told WORLD that longstanding "personality issues" also figure in the dispute. But, he added, the legal issues indeed are serious, and what Hanegraaff advocates could harm apologetics and other publishing endeavors.

CRI officials did not return a call seeking further comment.

Copyright © 2006 WORLD Magazine
October 28, 2006, Vol. 21, No. 41

[Oscar]

Dave,

First of all, I don't think there is any question that the Local Church teaches Modalism.  This idea, that there is one god who manifests himself in three forms, was rejected very early on by orthodox Christians.  It was known as Sabellianism in the Eastern church, after one of its main teachers, Sabellius.  He was excommunicated around 190AD.

It was known as Patripassianism in the western church.  If God is a unitary being, then the manifestation called the Father had to become the one called the Son, and so the Father died on the Cross.

The dispute here seems to be over whether or not it is a good idea for an evangelical to support a heretical group in court.  Hanegraff seems to think so because of possible legal precedents harmful to Christians being established.  For my money however, Norman Geisler is so far superior to Hanegraff intellectually that I would be inclined to agree with him.

The Passantinos were/are good people, (Bob is now with the Lord), but frequently take positions in disagreement with other cult researchers.  Seems to me that there are some contrarian tendencies involved here.

For what its worth,

Tom Maddux

[outdeep]

What seems odd about Hanegraaff’s stand is that his founder, Dr. Walter Martin, is the one who popularized the use of the word "cult" to refer to merely unorthodox teaching and belief when the more-specific word "heretical" would probably have been better suited.

To suddenly worry about the precident of tying "cult" to a belief system seems a bit late in coming and, quite frankly, CRI is probably the last organization who should protest this practice.

[Joe Sperling]

I do have to say that many years ago (appx. 1984) I phoned CRI about the Assembly. At that time they only had a folder on the Assembly and not much more information. But back then they were careful to state, and did so on the telephone, that the Assembly was not a "cult" but an "aberrant Christian Group". They continued to use this title for many years thereafter. I am not sure what classification for which they put the Local Church, but I would bet they called them "aberrant" also rather than a "cult".

I am just stating this in fairness to Hank Hanegraaf and his staff.

--Joe

[outdeep]

That is true Joe.  In the book "THe New Cults" by the Passentinos (and forward by Martin) the Local Church was sent to an appendix and if I recall they were pretty careful about their wording that "they don't quite make it into the main body of the book but we need to mention them anyway".

Of course, at that time (as apprently now) the Local Church had a history of sueing the socks off anyone who used the "C" word about them.

-Dave

[Joe Sperling]

The first person I remember "exposing" the Local Church as an actual "cult" was Jack Sparks in his book "THE MINDBENDERS" published in 1977.  I believe he wound up getting sued by them at that time, and they bought advertising space in the Orange County Register for several weeks once to refute that book, or a letter or column which was published "exposing" them.

I wandered into one of their meetings once, not knowing who they were. I was invited to attend by a co-worker and went to this huge green building (I believe it was in Van Nuys, Ca. but don't remember for sure). They did a lot of singing, then a brother got up and talked about El Shaddai for about 15 minutes. The speaker said that God was like a "Divine Udder" (his interpretation of El Shaddai). For the next 1/2 hour there was "testimony" where people shouted stuff like "It's utterly divine to be under the Divine Udder!!!" and other such "humorous" rhetoric. It was all very emotional though. I left with the most ominous feeling inside. This was during a brief haitus away from the Assembly. it should have served as a warning, or helped me make a correlation, but unfortunately I wound up back in the Assembly anyway.


--Joe

[outdeep]

The Mind Benders was the first book to devote a chapter to TLC.  Later a book called The God-Men came out.  This book by Spiritual Counterfeit projects in Bekerly devoted a whole book to them.  They got sued.  Since they didn't have any money to defend themselves, they dropped the book.  And, yes, there was the typical full page ads in major public and University newspapers.

Finally, there was the appendix in CRI's The New Cults.  They got away with it because they dropped the "cult" thing.

At the risk of ranting on, below is something I wrote to someone about The Local Church.   We were quite similar to them in terms of the view of the church, the belief that we were recovering the lost pattern of the book of Acts and the strong shepherding structure.  On the other hand, we had better clarity about the triunity of God and the basic "how to get saved" portion of the gospel. 

Gretchen Passentino told a group of us one time.  If you got involved with the Assembly, you might have some messed-up ideas about how to grow in the Lord but you would most-likely understand the basic gospel of salvation (justification by faith) fine.  On the other hand, if you got involved with groups like the local church, you would have some very confused ideas on just how one was saved.


I was interested in this version of international briefs because it had an article about a group that I was very familiar with in California but never thought I would hear about again:  The Local Church of Witness Lee.  They had very strong campus ministries when I was in college and they would refer to themselves as “Christian Students”.  In 1964, Witness Lee presented a seminar called “The Economy of God” which taught that God the Father became God the Son who today is the life-giving spirit.  As Jesus was a mingled entity between God and Man, so also the church becomes a corporate God-Man mingling with this life-giving spirit.  In technique, “mingling” came down to their practice of “pray-reading” passages in the Bible, a very odd Eastern-like processing of the Biblical text.  I once read in their bookstore a children’s song book that rewrote the popular child song “Jesus Loves Me” as “God is processed this I know for the Bible tells me so.”  I know the word “cult” should not be tossed around lightly, but it does seem to me that there are areas about this group that such a word might fit.  Maybe “heresy” might work better if one doesn’t like the word “cult”.

In the early days, they were quite divisive.  They would join up with an established Christian group such as Campus Crusade or InterVarsity.  Soon, some “issue” would arise and there would be a split and the Local Church would take off with half the members.  I personally remember one of my group’s campus outreach which the Local church crashed in order to pass out their literature.

I know probably most of you couldn’t care less, but hearing about this group brought back lots of memories of my college days.  If nothing else, I highly recommend that your son or daughter DO NOT get involved with this group if they happen to go to college in California.  What makes groups like this hard to pin down is that they call themselves Christians and use Christian language but their meaning is so much different.

[Mark C.]

  Re. CRI, etc.----

  My recollection of how CRI has responded, under Hank's leadership, in the past is not a good one.  CRI had a falling out with some of his own staff ( most notably Paul Cardin and Ron Rhodes) about the same time that Ronald Enroth came out with his second book on churches that abuse ("Recovering From Churches That Abuse") and there were those who decided to disassociate themselves from Hank.

  The first book Enroth wrote was very favorably received by CRI, and Enroth even appeared on the Bible Answer Man program and discussed his views (a current member of the Assembly at the time even called up to attack Enroth's view of the Assembly).  A very positive review of his book was presented in the CRI official magazine.

  However, when Enroth came out with the second book he mentioned a group he described as being abusive that some of CRI leadership had a relationship with.  CRI was not critical of Enroth's methods until it came to the point where his writing touched home, so to speak.  Those who can't accept honest critcism lose all respect, in my opinion, especially as CRI had positively received Enroth's first book.  Both of these books used the same kind of criteria in what constitutes abuse among so called Christian groups.

  I remember a very negative piece of writing from a man named Beckwith whom CRI had purposely found to attack Enroth's work (Enroth was not allowed to respond in the magazine to this obvious attempt to invalidate the entire premise that Enroth sets forth in these books).  Beckwith's article tried to shift the blame from leadership of abusive churches to those being abused; going so far as suggesting those complaining of being mistreated were similar to Judas Iscariot in their reactions!!!

 I wrote this Beckwith guy via email and did receive one response in which he basically claimed I was just attacking him personally and refused to enter into a meaningful dialogue.  He refused to respond after my second response to him.  I met Elliot Miller (the editor of the CRI magazine) once up in Ojai, as he spoke at the church I was attending.  I talked to him about the Assembly and Enroth and received a rather stony reaction; I could tell he had a problem with Enroth and didn't really want to talk about it.

  I say all this to point out that even so called "cult watching groups" can take on the same kind of attitudes that Jesus Christ would utterly condemn as being "unrighteous."  All churches and Christian ministries have the potential to become defensive just like a "cult like group" can.  How?  By being unable to accept criticism and developing self protective dishonest practices to cover-up and defend their ministry, church, etc.

  The Bible does not make the kind of definitions that "Cult Watchers" have come up with anyway; where we assign to a church a "healthy, aberrant, or cult" name based on some kind of supposedly biblical criteria.  Evil is evil and right is right and Christians do not get a pass for not honestly making these distinctions and doing what God wants!

  I remember a call to the Bible Answer Man after all of the above turmoil at CRI and Hank H. was hosting the program alone.  The Caller was a woman from Las Vegas who had been badly abused by the church leadership of a group she was attending.  The leadership, as I remember the call, basically told her she would go to hell if she did not continue submitting to the pastor and stay faithful to the ministry.  She was a miserable emotional wreck and was trapped between fear of hell and her unwillingness to submit to the severe control that this pastor had over her!

  I will never forget the answers provided by Hank:  He didn't tell her immediately to leave the church and that this Pastor's claims were out-of-line; nor did he take the time to explain what a healthy relationship based on grace should mean.  No, he left her with a kind of vague response on what a "healthy church" should look like--- and all of his advice could easily have led to the woman getting involved in the same kind of abusive church situation.  Hank would have been better off not saying anything at all, and you could tell at the end of the conversation the woman was still very depressed and her burden only made heavier!!!

  It appears now that Hank wants to continue to defend these kind of abusive groups at the expense of those trapped within them.  Jesus came to set the prisoners free and had very strong words for those who abuse his "little ones" under the cloak of biblical authority.  Jesus did not make the kind of distinction between "cult and abberant church" that would allow certain kinds of abusive churches to continue to hurt his people.

  It should be the responsibility of those who truly desire to shepherd God's people to be more concerned for members of these damaging groups than for the protection of their own ministry and those of their friends.  Such cowardice sounds a whole lot more like "the Hirelings'" of John 10 and makes them more a part of the problem than the solution.

                                                                       God Bless,  Mark C.

       

 

[Joe Sperling]

Don--

I'm not sure whether "abberant" is the correct word to use either. But the Assembly was very orthodox when it came to the church teachings about God, Jesus Christ, salvation, etc. but very unorthodox regarding "sanctification" and how that is accomplished, and the strict hold on members that the Assembly had through both teachings and method of discipline. The Assembly was very much "cult-like" when it came to control over the members, the use of fear and manipulation, and the exclusivity that existed there.

I asked George once after a meeting "Did you mean that their is only one TRUE gathering of the saints in each city?" George said "yes"--that there was only ONE TRUE church gathering brought together by God in each city. In effect saying that all other churches or gatherings of "Christians" were not according to "God's Pattern" and therefore not a REAL representation of what HE WANTS. He didn't say they were "unsaved", but that they were representing far less than what God wanted. That if it were God's will for their life, they would be in the Assembly, not in some other church, thus implying that the Assembly is "God's highest" with all else being far below representing what God "REALLY WANTS". This is very much "cult-like" to say the least.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines "Aberrant" as "not usual, not normal"---I don't know if that defines the Assembly correctly or not---the Assembly was more "cult-like" than abberant in my opinion.

--Joe

[Joe Sperling]

Don---

I'm not really sure what you mean by "The Brethren". Do you mean "The Church of the Brethren"? I am referring to the "Assembly" founded by George Geftakys and the teachings found there. When I refer to sanctification I am referring to the strong teaching on the dependence on "us", and what we can "do" for sanctification, rather than what Jesus has already "done" on the cross.

The main thrust of Assembly teaching was to be "an overcomer" with emphasis on "us" and what we had to "do" as Christians to be sanctified. I have mentioned in posts before that George altered Romans 8:30 to match HIS teaching, so that sanctification and glorification were no longer in past tense as the verse clearly teaches(this is past tense in God's eyes because he sees all as "done" already, having cried "IT IS FINISHED" on the cross). We do have a responsibility as Christians, don't get me wrong. We can't live "any way we want". But if we live by GRACE we will WANT to live godly lives, not in fear, but in love for Jesus Christ. "Overcomer" theology actually causes the opposite---it causes fear of "missing out" and a constant striving to maintain good works in our own strength. It warps us into having a perception of God as being someone waiting for us to blow it somehow, rather than a Father who has provided us with ALL THINGS already, and whose greatest desire is for us to be blessed and succeed, and who loves us dearly.

Sanctification will not come through human effort, but by the Grace of God. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him". Did I receive Christ Jesus the Lord through my human striving and effort? Should I then walk "in him" in my own striving and human effort?

Don---I am just curious. You refer much in your post to "the brethren"--are you involved in an "assembly" now, and if so, do they refer to themselves as "brethren" now? Again, I'm just curious about it.

Thanks,Joe

[Don]

Don---

I'm not really sure what you mean by "The Brethren". Do you mean "The Church of the Brethren"? I am referring to the "Assembly" founded by George Geftakys and the teachings found there. When I refer to sanctification I am referring to the strong teaching on the dependence on "us", and what we can "do" for sanctification, rather than what Jesus has already "done" on the cross.

The main thrust of Assembly teaching was to be "an overcomer" with emphasis on "us" and what we had to "do" as Christians to be sanctified. I have mentioned in posts before that George altered Romans 8:30 to match HIS teaching, so that sanctification and glorification were no longer in past tense as the verse clearly teaches(this is past tense in God's eyes because he sees all as "done" already, having cried "IT IS FINISHED" on the cross). We do have a responsibility as Christians, don't get me wrong. We can't live "any way we want". But if we live by GRACE we will WANT to live godly lives, not in fear, but in love for Jesus Christ. "Overcomer" theology actually causes the opposite---it causes fear of "missing out" and a constant striving to maintain good works in our own strength. It warps us into having a perception of God as being someone waiting for us to blow it somehow, rather than a Father who has provided us with ALL THINGS already, and whose greatest desire is for us to be blessed and succeed, and who loves us dearly.

Sanctification will not come through human effort, but by the Grace of God. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him". Did I receive Christ Jesus the Lord through my human striving and effort? Should I then walk "in him" in my own striving and human effort?

Don---I am just curious. You refer much in your post to "the brethren"--are you involved in an "assembly" now, and if so, do they refer to themselves as "brethren" now? Again, I'm just curious about it.

Thanks,Joe

Joe
Sorry about the confusion.  You are correct, I am not a part of the group you are referring to.  It has been my mistake.  Aaaak, this is a bummer.     Other then my foolish mistake, I enjoyed your posts.

Don

[Joe Sperling]

Don----

Your post was not a "foolish mistake", and don't look at it as a "bummer" at all. In your post you were asking good questions, and my response about sanctification was based on my own observations and experiences in the Assembly. Whether you were a current member or not wasn't a huge deal---I was just curious (although I must say I was glad when you said you were not a member at the present time).

I hope you will continue to post, and to put forth your ideas, because that is a very healthy thing to do.

God bless you,  Joe

[marden]

Don,

I thought you asked good questions. The Assembly wasnt the only cult out there. please continue to ask questions and contribute here.

Jay

[marden]

Don--

I'm not sure whether "abberant" is the correct word to use either. But the Assembly was very orthodox when it came to the church teachings about God, Jesus Christ, salvation, etc. but very unorthodox regarding "sanctification" and how that is accomplished, and the strict hold on members that the Assembly had through both teachings and method of discipline. The Assembly was very much "cult-like" when it came to control over the members, the use of fear and manipulation, and the exclusivity that existed there.

"I asked George once after a meeting "Did you mean that their is only one TRUE gathering of the saints in each city?" George said "yes"--that there was only ONE TRUE church gathering brought together by God in each city. In effect saying that all other churches or gatherings of "Christians" were not according to "God's Pattern" and therefore not a REAL representation of what HE WANTS. He didn't say they were "unsaved", but that they were representing far less than what God wanted. That if it were God's will for their life, they would be in the Assembly, not in some other church, thus implying that the Assembly is "God's highest" with all else being far below representing what God "REALLY WANTS". This is very much "cult-like" to say the least.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines "Aberrant" as "not usual, not normal"---I don't know if that defines the Assembly correctly or not---the Assembly was more "cult-like" than abberant in my opinion."




My time in the assembly left me with the impression that the assembly was "The gathering", if you were not in the gathering you were "shunned", others were told you were such and such and that you were not walking with God. I would tend toward the "cult like"

[Don]

Jay and Joe,
Thanks for being graceous.  I will still be here.

Don