Local Churches, Watchman Nee, Witness Lee

[Ernie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Chu ... troversies

I never knew about any of this. Has anyone had personal experience in any of these groups? Was/is there legitimate concern about the Local Churches?

[Neto]

I would draw a heavy black line between Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. WL was a 'student' of WN, but carried some ideas to extremes, and developed other permutations of MN's teachings. I have read, and largely agree with Nee's writings. (We used to call WL "Witless Lee".)

Regarding the "Local Church", I have had a couple of friends who were involved, in two different cities. (As you probably know, they endorse the idea that there should be only one church in each city or locality.) The guy I had known the longest, and also prior to his involvement in the 'Local Church' was from Chicago. We had been friends at the Bible Institute where we were both freshmen, and he later came to visit me at the school where I attended after that. I'll have to explain more later (if you are interested), but to sum up the heresy of that Chicago Local Church, they denied the deity of both Jesus and The Father. In their view (as explained by my friend) only the Holy Spirit is purely God. I met the other guy through another Bible college friend (from the 2nd school), and I didn't know him as well, only meeting him once when they came to visit me at my parent's home after I had graduated. I questioned him on his congregation's stance on this & other doctrines, and as far as I could tell, they were not involved in any heresy. So it seems that there is (or at least was. All of these experiences are from the mid to late 70's) a good deal of variation from one city to another - as Max always says, YMMV ('your mileage may vary'). As the article you linked to stated about someone they mentioned, I too was 'looking for the New Testament church', so maybe I had a target on my back, because I was also approached by Jesus Only people, and also knew someone in The Children of God.

[Judas Maccabeus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Chu ... troversies

I never knew about any of this. Has anyone had personal experience in any of these groups? Was/is there legitimate concern about the Local Churches?

Absolutely. Of note, they have a history of sueing their critics.

I have had a fair amount of contact with them, anyone who works with Chinese has. They have significant doctrinal issues. You are unlikely to see much online critical of them. Of significance, they had a split a few years ago. They are definitely an OTVC group, would you like to call me this pm? If so, pm me and I will give you my #.

J.M,

[Ernie]

OTVC?

[Ernie]

Another article...
https://www.gotquestions.org/Witness-Le ... hurch.html

[Judas Maccabeus]

OTVC?

One true visible church

J.M.

[Josh]

They are a typical OTC type of group with the added twist that they have a history of filing lawsuits. The Wikipedia article is extremely slanted in a pro-Witness Lee direction, having been edited by an LC person.

Watchman Nee’s books seemed pretty good to me, but I can’t endorse the conclusions his followers came to.

[Neto]

In searching for some specific statement of doctrine from the Local Church in Chicago, the following article appeared.

https://culteducation.com/group/1030-th ... sider.html

(I don't know what this indicates, but there are several typographical errors in this article. As an aside, I noted that the spokesman from Fuller Theological Seminary is a Loewen, which is a Russian Mennonite name.)

I want to give more of a date to the comments I made in my previous post, because as I stated there, the doctrinal error I noted in the Chicago congregation did not seem to be present in the group from another city. (Where, I have unfortunately forgotten.)

Re: Chicago Local Church. This was a friend of mine from Grace Bible Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, where we both were Freshmen in the school year 1974-75. We both left the school after that year, I went to St. Paul Bible College (now Crown College), of the C. & M. A. (Christian & Missionary Alliance), and I'm thinking that he did not continue his education at that time. We kept in touch through letters over the years, and he came to visit me at SPBC my last semester, the Fall semester of 1978. I do not recall if I had already been urging him to leave that group through letters, but we had a long conversation one night, going on until about 2:00 in the morning. He told me that the classification of the Local Church as a cult was a misunderstanding, and although I do not remember now what all he told me, but as we got closer to that hour he had me convinced. But then he told me "Yeah, I was taken aback at first, too, because when I walked into the meeting place the very first time, they were all chanting 'Jesus is watermelon'." He explained that this was OK, because since Jesus is everything that is good, and watermelon is good, therefore 'Jesus is watermelon'. Then at some point he told me that only the Holy Spirit is fully God, because Jesus ascended into heaven in a physical body and sat down at the right hand of God, so we know that Jesus has a body, and the Father must be a physical being as well, because he has a right side, hands, a front side, etc. And God is SPIRIT. So, their thinking went, only the Holy Spirit qualifies as true Deity. [I recall that I had written a paper in Freshman college titled "Jesus in the Old Testament" (or maybe it was a paper on the Trinity for Theology I or II), in which I had stated the common position that says that 'no heresy has ever doubted the deity of the Father'. First time for everything?]
I don't know how many of you who were adults before the era of email, but a friend who is a guy, and writes letters regularly is rather rare. John & I wrote back & forth a lot, and he was 'on fire', and often asked me how he could pray for me. But I became reluctant to tell him anything, because if my Savior and my Father were not 'God' to him, where, I asked myself, did his prayers go? So I stopped writing him all together.
The other case took place sometime after I finished my college work (December 1978), and probably sometime between 1979 Fall Semester and Christmas of 1980. This was a friend of a guy who had also been at SPBC, possibly just my last semester there. I keep thinking that the friend of his that he brought along to my folks' place (I had never met him before) was from the Local Church in Philadelphia, but I'm not at all sure. I just know that from talking with him, the heresy that was in the Chicago congregation did not seem to be in the one he came from.
But doctrinal positions can & do change, so I have no idea if the problems in the Chicago group are still there, or not. But as one of the persons quoted in the above article says, false doctrines should be publicly repudiated, and if it is a case of misunderstandings born out of language or cultural differences, then it is also important to say what we DO NOT believe, to clear up questions.

[joshuabgood]

Another article...
https://www.gotquestions.org/Witness-Le ... hurch.html

Seems like a balanced treatment to me.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Another article...
https://www.gotquestions.org/Witness-Le ... hurch.html

Seems like a balanced treatment to me.

Yep, and fully approved by the LCs lawyers. If you want a treatment that is not, see if you can get your hands on a copy of “The God Men” by Neal Duffy.

J.M.