"Isaac vs Ishmael"

@sonship said
@divegeester

"A plethora" of stuff none of which you can be conversant on yourself to state as a case of bad teaching.

Dr. Melton's article I will take another look at. By the way he was one of the expert witnesses ON BEHALF of defending Witness Lee in a liable law suit which Lee won.

That's an unusual source for your "plethora" of proofs of unbiblical ...[text shortened]... rches) would side with YOU on that
unbiblical teaching?

None of them would for a second.

@divegeester

Devastating !

Part of my study of the Local Church involved the reading of most of the published writings of Witness Lee and the lengthy depositions of Neil T. Duddy and Brooks Alexander (of SCP). The experience proved among the more painful of my Christian life. As I began to check the quotes of Witness Lee used in Duddy’s book, I found that The God-Men had consistently taken sentences from Lee’s writings and, by placing them in a foreign context, made them to say just the opposite of what Lee intended. This was done while ignoring the plain teachings and affirmations concerning the great truths of the Christian faith found throughout Lee’s writings. I also took note of the ludicrous attempt to equate the Local Church’s practice of pray-reading with the use of mantras in Eastern religions. They bear no resemblance whatsoever.

From the massive amount of material presented at that trial, only a small, though representative, portion could be mentioned in the enclosed paper. However, in light of that material, I can but conclude that we in the evangelical Christian community have done the Local Church a great wrong and should set about immediately to try and undo as much of the damage as we can. We should begin with our public renunciation of The God-Men and our withdrawal from use of all the articles and pamphlets which we have written based upon it. We can also begin anew to consider the teachings of the Local Church. I personally have been unable to find a single point upon which it deviates on any essential doctrine of the Christian faith, though it has a number of differences on matters all of us would consider nonessential, i.e., doctrinal concerns upon which Christians can disagree without reading each other out of the Christian community, in particular, ecclesiology and piety.

@divegeester said
Did you read the content of the two links I posted?

Third time of asking.

I had been led to believe that the Local Church was quite orthodox, having derived most of its doctrine directly from the Plymouth Brethren, whose orthodoxy none doubted. It seemed to differ only in its advocacy of the principle of “one church to a local community,” a few distinctive (but nonetheless acceptable) pietistic practices (pray-reading Scripture), and its use of some archaic jargon, which had been previously used in the theology of the Greek Church fathers, in its God-talk (i.e., mingling).

Second, in order to properly evaluate Witness Lee’s thought, one must understand the nature of his writings. Lee is not a systematic theologian. He is above all a teacher who speaks extemporaneously to public audiences from prepared notes. His books and other writings consist almost entirely of typed and edited transcripts of his lectures. As such, they resemble homiletical and devotional material. Lee has never written a theological treatise, beyond brief pamphlets to state a position on a particular issue, nor has a systematic theologian as yet appeared in the Local Church, which has only been in America approximately twenty years. The most systematic presentations of his thought can be found in such works as Gospel Outlines [5] and the four volume Outlines for Training, [6] neither of which unfortunately had appeared before Duddy completed his book. These, however, merely state what is apparent from a reading of a selection of Lee’s books. The basic affirmations which Lee makes and which are taught broadly throughout the Local Church reappear regularly in his books and other Local Church literature.

Divegeester,
OK I am reading the Wiki article now. And it brings back some memories.

For one I forgot what an authoritarian Jack Sparks was, author of "The Mindbenders". The irony of complaining about anyone's authoritarian and not noticing Jack Sparks.

Jack Sparks, a former statistics professor at Penn State and Crusade staff member, soon became the dominant figure in CWLF.[11][12] Throughout the early 1970s Sparks and Braun, who knew each other through CCC, gave talks at CWLF gatherings against Witness Lee and the local churches to stem the loss of members to the (local) church in Berkeley.[13][14][15][16] Braun, who had a bitter split with Gene Edwards and left his group, joined with Sparks and five other former Crusade leaders to establish the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO) with themselves as apostles. In 1979 six of the original seven NCAO apostles appointed themselves bishops of the newly formed Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC).[17][18][19]

Responding to the strong demand for countercult publications after the Jonestown tragedy of November 1978, second editions of both books were published.[39][40] Before and after each edition of either book was published, members of the local churches wrote letters of protest to the authors and publishers and attempts were made to contact them both personally and by phone. Nelson alone received approximately three hundred responses.[41] InterVarsity Press, the publisher of the second edition of The God-Men, received a response including over five hundred pages of supporting documentation refuting the book's charges.[42]

Essentially the Jones Town tragedy with "The People's Temple" caused some cult fighters their golden opportunity to ride the wave of fear of out of mainline religious groups to get rid of everybody they didn't like. Deprogrammers and cult fighters became heroes. It was like a golden age of hounding groups they had a bone to pick with for any reason.

Kind of like. "While we're at it, let's put Witness Lee this Chinese guy and this local church thing out of business too, along with Scientology, Hari Krishna, and Sun Moon."

[my bolding below]

The Mindbenders and The God-Men accused the local churches not just of theological error but of sociological deviance, including practicing authoritarianism, thought reform, isolation of members, deceptive recruiting, use of fear and humiliation to control members, and financial malfeasance.[43][44] Following publication, members of the local churches became objects of harassment, physical assault, and attempted deprogrammings. In addition, members were dismissed from jobs and family relationships were damaged.[45] In China the Three-Self Patriotic Movement commissioned two men to write a book to provide justification for a nationwide persecution against the local churches.[46][47][48] The authors relied on The God-Men and its accusations in their writing.[49][50] Over two thousand local church members were arrested, many were given extended sentences, and some were even executed. [51]

On the day the court was to schedule the trial, SCP's attorneys, in anticipation of a judgment against SCP, announced that their client had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[61] Neither Duddy nor representatives of Schwengeler-Verlag made an appearance. The court granted the plaintiffs’ petition for permission to present their evidence despite the SCP bankruptcy and the other defendants’ default. The local churches retained six experts to testify on their behalf.[62] During the proceedings Judge Leon Seyranian questioned the witnesses and experts in the absence of defense counsel. At the end of those proceedings, he stated that he was satisfied that the evidence presented was sufficient to decide the case without cross examination.[63] After reviewing the conduct of the court proceedings in his decision, Judge Seyranian declared:

Accordingly, the Court finds that the manuscript by Neil. T. Duddy entitled The God-Men (Exhibit 1) disseminated (published) in the United States, the book Die Sonderlehre des Witness Lee und Seiner Ortsgemeinde published by Schwengeler-Verlag (Exhibit 3) disseminated (published) in Europe, and the book The God-Men, An Inquiry Into Witness Lee and the Local Church by Neil T. Duddy and the SCP published by Inter-Varsity Press (Exhibit 5) disseminated (published) in the United States and England, are in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous. [64]

The court awarded damages in the amount of $11.9 million, which at the time was the largest final libel award in American history.[65] Only a small fraction of the judgment was ever paid. SCP later claimed that the only reason they lost the litigation was that a protracted discovery process had drained their financial resources.[66] However, a recent publication has challenged the veracity of this claim using SCP's own financial reports.[67]

Divegeester,

Did you read the article ??

This last part is a bit more recent matters.

In late 2009 CRI dedicated an issue of Christian Research Journal to present the findings of a six-year primary research project examining the teachings and practices of the local churches.[88] Hank Hanegraaff, representing CRI, an early critic of Witness Lee and the local churches, wrote, “The result of our primary research is encapsulated in the following three words: ‘We were wrong!’”[89] The issue contained a seven-part article by Elliot Miller reassessing the local churches and responding to the 2007 open letter. The issue included two statements by Hank Hanegraaff and an article by Gretchen Passantino in which she explained why she reversed her earlier critical opinion.

In early January 2010 Norman Geisler authored a rebuttal, co-signed by Ron Rhodes, in which they made numerous accusations against both CRI and the local churches.[90] In late spring of the same year Hank Hanegraaff wrote an article titled “Discernment in an Age of Information Overload,” in which he outlined principles for performing discernment ministry using the article by Geisler and Rhodes and the 2007 “open letter” as examples of how not to do apologetics.[91] In July 2010 Defense & Confirmation Project (DCP) began publishing a series of fourteen articles responding in detail to Geisler and Rhodes’ statement.[92] These articles and related materials were subsequently published in a series of books titled Brothers, Hear Our Defense.[93]

Editing:
I should have written above - [see bolding]

Dr. Melton writes a lot to vindicate WL and the local churches against the liable of the defaming book "The Godmen". Peculiarities in expressions he does find did not cause him to agree with the defamatory book published to attempt to brand the local churches as cult.

Divegeester, the next time you recommend some important criticisms of a group you'd do well to read it more carefully yourself. It's not good enough to merely appear informed. You need to read what you're pointing out more thoroughly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/dr-j-gordon-melton-an-open-letter-concerning-the-local-church-witness-lee-and-the-god-men-controversy/

@sonship said
I have not looked into Wiki 's article yet.

@sonship said
Divegeester, the next time you recommend some important criticisms of a group you'd do well to read it more carefully yourself. It's not good enough to merely appear informed. You need to read what you're pointing out more thoroughly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/dr-j-gordon-melton-an-open-letter-concerning-the-local-church-witness-lee-and-the-god-men-controversy/

@divegeester

I did much re-reading of them. And I asked you -

Is there something in this Wiki article that you wish me to pay particular attention to Divegeester ?

Deification
In his later ministry, Witness Lee used the term deification to refer to the process of God’s organic salvation. He said:

In the second to the fifth centuries, the church fathers found three high mysteries in the Bible: (1) the Triune God, the Divine Trinity, the highest mystery; (2) the person of Christ; and (3) the deification of man—that man could become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.[94]

The last of these statements echoes Athanasius’ aphorism, “αυτος γαρ ενηνθρωπησεν, ινα ημεις θεοποιηθωμεν" (“For He was made man in order that we might be made God&rdquo😉.[95] The subject of deification in various Christian traditions has been the subject of much recent study.[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106] Two messages by Witness Lee on this subject have been reprinted in LSM journal Affirmation & Critique (A&C).[107][108] In addition, A&C has devoted the majority of three issues to the subject.[109][110][111]

Some Lutheran and Reformed Christians reject the teaching of deification, some of these due to their rejection of Christian perfection. Others, however, offer support to the language and doctrine of deification.[112][99][96

Mingling
Witness Lee's view of God's organic salvation is related to his understanding of Christology, specifically, the relationship between the divine and human natures in Christ. Witness Lee cited the example of the meal offering in Leviticus which is composed of oil mingled with fine flour (Lev. 2:5), a type that other Bible teachers, including the Plymouth Brethren, also understood to refer to the dual nature of Christ, that is, His divinity and His humanity.[126][127][128] Lee explained his use of the word mingling as follows:

But in Him both the divine essence and the human essence remain and are distinguishable. These essences are mingled in Him as one person without the producing of a third nature. As the God-man He possesses two natures, and in Him each nature is distinguishable.[129]

Critics claimed that mingling of necessity involved the producing of a third nature, which is known in history as the Eutychian heresy.[130] However, Witness Lee stated that his use of the term mingle was consistent with dictionary definitions (e.g., “to bring or combine together or with something else so that the components remain distinguishable in the combination”[131]). He also pointed out that the Eutychian heresy was rejected at the Council of Chalcedon.[132][133] More recent articles in A&C have addressed this controversy.[134][135][136]

@divegeester

Like the other cults are you discouraged from read content which levels criticism at your organisation?

If it’s not that, then why haven’t you looked at the content of the two links I posted?

Like the other cults are you discouraged from read content which levels criticism at your organisation?

Like the other cults are you discouraged from read content which levels criticism at your organisation?

Counterpoint
An Invitation
We recognize that some of our readers may wish to engage in a constructive dialogue in response to our affirmation and critique. We invite, therefore, reasonable, article length responses to our presentations (3000 words or less). We welcome, and will provide space for, articles that present alternative scholarly views on the issues we have addressed. These will appear in an occasional department called “Counterpoint.” While we reserve our editorial privilege to accept or reject submissions, the submissions we print will bear their original content. Submissions to “Counterpoint” will be accepted if they are thoughtful and delivered in a proper spirit. Only signed contributions will be accepted. Needless to say, we will offer our further comments on the points raised by these guest authors. On matters of great import we welcome an ongoing exchange in print.

Submissions can be sent to Affirmation & Critique via e-mail: affirm@lsm.org. Please send as a PDF and as an electronic Word document in order to facilitate its review and its formatting and typesetting, should it be accepted for inclusion in this journal. Submissions will not be returned and must not have appeared previously in print. Upon selection for inclusion, the author(s) will be notified.

@sonship said
@divegeester
What there in Wiki did you want to draw to my attention?