The little known, yet controversial
Local Church of
Witness Lee, has filed a $130 million dollar lawsuit against Harvest House Publishers. This was done in cooperation and under the direction of
Living Stream Ministry – a Lee family publishing house. The subject of this suit is the inclusion of the Local Church in the "
Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions". However, it should be noted that several Local Churches have opted out of the lawsuit. These include congregations in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Newton, New York City and several others. Their refusal to participate has caused political infighting among the Local Church leadership, as many pro lawsuit leaders consider “oneness” with the Living Stream Ministry as a defacto tenet of their faith. Those who refuse to express such oneness with the Lee family and the employees of their publishing house, are considered: "out of the flow", "not one with the New Testament ministry", "rebellious against God's one government on the earth" and other equally bizarre notions.
In spite of what seems obvious to many, representatives of the Local Church refuse to admit they are a
cult. Not unlike the
Church of Scientology, they aggressively attempt to sue their critics into silence. However, regardless of their
litigious tactics, many third party objective observers have separately and independently concluded that the Local Church is indeed a cult. Several of these observers are well respected scholars and experts on cult issues. Furthermore, these studies confirm the observation and experience of many who have left the Local Church, and openly admit that what they left was clearly not an evangelical church but a heterodox cultic group.
When challenged about their litigious actions, the Local Church has attempted to justify their suing of
Christians by making unsound arguments to support their position. According to outside observers, these attempts only serve to confirm that they are a cult, as cults have a tendency to
selectively use and massage the Scriptures in order to conveniently match their predetermined purposes. This practice among the Local Church leadership is well known and was endorsed by their founder, the late Witness Lee. However, they do not limit this practice to the Bible but extend it to other writings. For example, in order to support his
heretical teaching that man is becoming God, Lee went so far as to lift, completely out of context, a short quote by the Greek father, Athanasius, found in his essay "On the Incarnation". This quote has been co-opted by the Local Church and is now used in Living Stream Ministry literature in the "Lee context", not the "Athanasius context", as it was originally intended.
As indicated above, this same sort of practice is now being used to justify their suing of Christian authors who call into question their teachings and practices. Recent Local Church verbal teaching and written literature, such as a Newsletter published by the Church in San Antonio dated January 31, 2003, specifically instructs their members that 1 Corinthians 6:6-8 does not apply to their lawsuit. Rather, Paul appealing to Caesar is applicable. This, of course, is a twisting of the Scriptures to justify their litigious attitude and actions. In 1 Corinthians Paul is referring to civil lawsuits among Christians. In the instance of appealing to Caesar it was a capital case, not a civil case, and his accusers were Jewish not Christian. By appealing to Caesar, Paul was even not suing another party. In an attempt to save his life, not his reputation, he appealed to Caesar and at the end of the day still lost his life at the hand of the despot Nero.
Quite clearly, the entire appeal-to-Caesar narrative [not direct teaching] has absolutely nothing to do with filing a civil libel lawsuit, as the Local Church has done. In the instance of the Local Church lawsuit it is a civil case against Christians – exactly what the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, is directly teaching against in
1 Corinthians
. Thus, the Local Church leadership engaged in this lawsuit are publicly and willfully disobeying the teachings of the faithful and genuine apostles, as given to us by the
Holy Spirit in the divinely inspired Scriptures. They are also encouraging innocent members of the Local Churches to join them in their overt disobedience.
In addition to suing Harvest House Publishers, the Local Church has sued, or threatened to sue,
Light of Truth Ministries - an apologetic website critiquing the Local Church. Although the Local Church claims they are open to honest debate and critique, they continually threatened and harassed Light of Truth Ministries from its inception and aggressively tried to have it shut down. This was done, even though on the website, Local Church members were welcome to post their views and rebuttals in an open forum. In fact, Jim Moran of Light of Truth Ministries linked readers to Local Church sources so inquirers could find the exact materials he was critiquing.
From their attitude and actions it is clearly evident that the Local Church is not at all interested in honest debate and critique. They only wish to silence those who disagree with their false teachings and practices. Dissenting insiders are branded by them as "rebellious poisonous lepers" and publicly maligned. Of course, most just leave and are better off for doing so. Dissenting outsiders are simply sued into silence.
Perhaps these strong-arm antics will give the Local Church leadership and their followers some sort of temporary psychological satisfaction. However, ultimately it appears the evangelical church will not be bullied into accepting them as orthodox and non-cultic. Living Stream Ministry books can hardly be found on any Christian store bookshelves and the Local Church membership in the United States has remained stagnant for 25 years. Furthermore, most of the Western Europe and West Africa local churches have officially disassociated themselves from the Living Stream Ministry, as have many in the Far East, and several in America. It is quite probable that this trend will continue.
In spite of Local Church attempts at silencing their critics, hopefully other websites and materials will be forthcoming. This is especially important for our young college students, who need an online resource about this group, so they do not blindly join it without exercising due diligence. Naturally, this particular article is being sent to Christian leaders and all major evangelical student groups across America and abroad.
This article was submitted to
Apologetics Index by
Christians Concerned for Truth (E-mail:
cc4truth@yahoo.com. It is posted on this web site as a statement of opinion, and is thus protected by the free speech laws of the
Netherlands (home of Apologetics Index).
The publishers of Apologetics Index consider the
Local Church to be, theologically, a
cult of Christianity.
Those associated with the Local Church or any of its entities, as well as their legal representatives, are advised to study this site's
disclaimer.
