The Universal Bright Woman

7. Emphasizing special revelations that contradict Scripture versus loyalty to Scripture: Cults emphasize the special revelations of their leader that contradict the Scripture. [/quote]

Which part? Trinity again?

We believe in the Trinity. And this is what we in the church in Dipolog City hold that that Persons should not be confounded and the essence should not be divided. Jesus, the Son of God, the son of Man, a perfect man, is the second person of the Trinity, and a complete God not 1\3 of God. Not only they share the same essence, but they mutually indwell one another. A distinction without separateness.

You can't see the forest for the trees because you are looking the small parts of it. To say that Witness Lee teaches that God is one person is to say that according to His exposition of Matthew 28:19 "...In this verse, name is singular in number, yet the one name refers to three persons.... The name denotes the person, and the person is the reality of the name. The name of the Divine Trinity is the [sum total of the divine Being, equivalent to His person.]" What does that have to do with anything that other Christians say that God is a tri-personal being ( J. Fowler, N. Geisler, R. Rhodes and etc.) or the whole Godhead, is one person Cornelius Van Til)"?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of Dallas Theological Seminary:

…the Scriptures proceed in the presentation of the nature and character of God. He is a Person with those faculties and constituent elements which belong to personality.

Karl Barth:

The definition of a person—that is, a knowing, willing, acting I—can have the meaning only of a confession of the person of God declared in His revelation, of the One who loves and who as such (living in His own way) is the person.

Alvin Plantinga, a respected Protestant philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame:

If God is a living, conscious being who knows, wills, and acts—if, in a word, God is a person—then God is not a property or state of affairs or set or proposition or any other abstract object.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a respected evangelical scholar and minister at Westminster Chapel in London for almost thirty years:

The Bible says that God is a person and this is absolutely vital to any true sense of worship, and to our having a feeling of confidence about ourselves and about the world….

But there is a great deal of direct evidence for saying that God is a person. Have you noticed how the presence of God is always described in a personal way? Take the name of God that we have considered: ‘I am’, that is a personal statement, it is a person who can say, ‘I am,’ and God says that He speaks of Himself in this manner. Every single representative of God has declared that God is a person and not simply an unconscious force.

Billy Graham, in a section entitled "God Is a Person":

Not only is God a spirit, but He also is a person—that is, He has personality, just as we do. Every trait we attribute to ourselves can be attributed to God. A person feels, thinks, desires, and decides—and so does God. A person enters into relationships—and so does God. A person acts—and so does God. God feels; God thinks; God sympathizes; God forgives; God hopes; God decides; God acts; God judges—all because He is a person. If He weren’t why pray to Him or worship Him? God is not an impersonal force or power; He is a person—the most perfect person imaginable.

Furthermore, under the heading "The Only True God Is a Person," Rhodes wrote:

A person is a conscious being—someone who thinks, feels, and purposes, and carries those purposes into action. A person engages in active relationships with other people. You can talk to a person and get a response. You can share feelings and ideas with him. You can argue with him, love him, and even hate him.
Surely by this definition God must be understood as a person.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

One essence in three persons is a Trinitarian formulation. However, the term essence is something impersonal and abstract. Witness Lee is not objecting the Trinitarian formula but he wished to point out that God is used as "He" or "who" in the Bible. He doesn't deny that there are three persons in the Godhead who are eternally distinct yet inseparable. They share the same essence as one God and they mutually indwell one another.Distinction without separateness. Although he affirms that the Son is somehow called the Father, the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit, and that the Lord is the Spirit. He is affirming their perichorosis, coinherence and their economical operation! He is referring to the economical Trinity yet His essential being is preserved or and not jeopardize eternally. Additionally, this is a twofold truth. He doesn't say like a naive form of modalism that God is like a man who is a father, husband, and son. Neither does he teach the sophisticated form espoused by Sabellius that there are different of modes or stages of God in time. Without bothering to even mention that he fully balances himself in other portions of his work, and often in the same passage.

We don't believe in some of the non-Trinitarian heresies like modalism, tritheism, adoptionism, arianism, and partialism.

6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

Here we go again.

Take a look what Eliot Miller shared in this video

Shortcomings Of An Open Letter (5)
YouTube

Christians from other denominations, especially those who called themselves Catholic defenders who are my dear friends came to fellowship with me about the Bible. Did my parents or the elders forbid or want me to separate from them? You mistakenly badly!

My classmates asked what is my view toward other believers who are in the denominations. But, first they asked me what church do I belong. I replied, "Well, I belong to the same church to which you belong, the church where Martin Luther, Athanasius, John Nelson Darby and other genuine believers belong to. As long as you believe in the Lord and have received Him, and indwelt by the Spirit of God, you are part of the church of God regardless of where you meet or how you may otherwise identify yourselves. We meet on the basis of locality as the church in Dipolog City"

."The fact that there are “so many churches” shows that God’s enemy, Satan, brought in division to a certain extent… but there is only ONE CHURCH, the Universal Church as the Body of Christ, and all the believers in Christ are part of THE CHURCH!"


The Church in its universal aspect cannot be divided; it is impossible. Despite how many divisions with regard to the local aspect of the church there may be, there is still one undivided universal Church consisting of all believers. All divided, denominated groups of believers are part of the one Body of Christ, the one Church, no matter how they choose to practice. The universal Church does not depend in any way upon any type of practice, rather merely upon all believers sharing the same life of Christ which can never be divided.

Furthermore, despite how many divisions, groups, or denominations there are in a city, all of these believers are part of the one local church. It is impossible for there to be more than one local church in a city, and in fact there is not. Therefore, we should receive even he may differ in regardis to doctrine and practice.

Sometimes, if the saints are carelessly say something regarding the two aspects of the church — the universal church and the local church. That the universal church has been divided by God's enemy, Satan. What they are trying to say that Satan caused the division among many believers was the practicality of the Body of Christ (not mystically speaking of the universal church) which the Apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthian believers for divisions among them; “Is Christ divided?”

Do you really accused us, RJhinds, for being exclusist and elitist in that statment above?


Another, I just quote from the an-open-letter.org at the comment section:

With the matter of the church, there are two aspects. We can also say that in our practice of the church there should be two aspects — reality and practicality. In reality, the church is the one universal Body of Christ. This Body of Christ is the sphere of our fellowship and encompasses all genuine believers. We received whom the Lord has received us as fellow members of the Body of Christ and we pursue fellowship with them on that basis (Rom. 14:1-3; 15:7; Eph. 3:6; 1 Cor. 1:9). Further, according to the clear revelation of the New Testament, a local church encompasses all genuine believers in a given city (Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:11). However, in practicality (that is, in practice), only those who meet together and serve together in a city as a local expression of the one Body, not taking any name other than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rev. 3:8), can be considered to be in the local church in that city. In Truth Lessons, Level 3, Volume 4, Witness Lee wrote:

Furthermore, in practicality, the believers are in the church in the locality where they live. The church has two aspects: the universal and the local aspects. The universal aspect refers to the constitution, nature, and content of the church; the local aspect refers to the expression and the practicality of the church. Without the local churches, the universal church has no practicality and actuality.”– (A quote from a brother)

As we are clear on this matter. We can conclude that the mystical Body of Christ or the universal church includes all genuine believers in all cities or places regardless of both time and space. What is true to the universal church is also true in a local church which encompasses all the believers in that city, regardless how believers scattered among themselves in various denominations and sects. Yes, the universal church cannot be divided. Then this universal Church is expressed in many local churches. However, in practicality, the local church consists of those believers who stand together on the proper ground as the manifestation of the one unique Body of Christ in time and space. Thus, the practicality of the Body of Christ on earth is the aggregate of all the local churches.

The universal church is composed of all the believers in Christ. Thus, all genuine Christians, regardless of denominational affiliations or doctrinal persuasions, are members of the one true church of God and are considered members of the local church in the city where they reside, even if they do not meet according to the local church model exemplified in the New Testament. However, the institutions that define themselves according to natural distinctions or personal preferences cannot properly be considered legitimate local expressions of the universal church, which has no such distinctions and is not divided along natural or preferential lines (1 Cor. 1:10-13; Gal. 3:26-28; Col. 3:10-11). As there is one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father of all (Eph. 4:4-6), so there is one model ordained by God for the practical expression of the one Body (v. 4). To practice the church life according to that model is to drop our choice and pick up God’s choice (cf. Deut. 12:5, 11) — Tony Espinosa

6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

Our Practice and Attitude Toward Other Christians in Christianity

•The Brethren were raised up over the past one hundred years. We are not the Brethren. We are neither the exclusive Brethren nor the open Brethren. (Lesson for New Believers, chapter 18)

•We receive all believers, regardless of their views. As long as they are saved, we are willing to receive them. However, we cannot accept any believer who meets the conditions for removal from fellowship.

•What is your attitude toward other Christians?

We would like to make it emphatically clear that we neither believe nor teach that one must be in a local church in order to be a genuine Christian. We recognize that in the Roman Catholic Church, in the denominations, and in the independent groups there are many genuine blood-washed, Spirit-regenerated believers in Christ, and we receive them as our brothers and sisters in the Lord. All who have saving faith in the Lord Jesus are welcome to all our meetings, especially the Lord’s table, where we testify of the oneness of the Body of Christ. Although we must, for conscience’ sake, stand apart from organized religion, we do not stand apart from our brothers and sisters in Christ. In faithfulness to the Lord, we stand on the unique ground of the church for the sake of the Lord’s testimony. But we do not take this stand with a narrow, exclusive, or sectarian spirit. On the contrary, we take our stand on behalf of the whole Body; we receive all believers even as the Lord has received us. (Beliefs and Practices of the local churches)

•We are willing to fellowship with all the brothers and sisters in the Lord, regardless of the sects they are in, even if they are in the Roman Catholic Church. We are willing to have fellowship with them, but we absolutely do not want to have a part in the denominations to which they belong. Brothers and sisters as individuals are one thing, but the denominations and sects that they are in are another. We must differentiate between the two. Sometimes when we forsake the denominations and sects, we forsake the brothers and sisters who are in them. At other times we do just the opposite. As we receive the brothers and sisters from the denominations, the denominations to which they belong are also brought with them. This is because we have not differentiated between individuals and organizations. (Lessons for New Believers, chapter 18)

•The church includes all those who share the common faith that saves us, the one faith spoken of in Ephesians 4:5. This faith is held in common by all who are saved (2 Pet. 1:1). This faith causes the believers to be one and does not divide them. Any creed or system of teaching that goes beyond the common faith divides the believers. Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 6

•“we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who was incarnated as a man, died on the cross for our sins, and resurrected from the dead, we are all redeemed, justified, regenerated and saved. And we all have the divine life within us. Therefore, we are all of one Body.”Witness Lee, The Practical Expression of the Church (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1970), 98.

•We believe that there are millions of genuinely saved ones outside the local churches. We believe that in all manner of Christian groups, in the various sects and denominations, there is a large number of genuine blood-washed, Spirit-regenerated believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. All these saved ones are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we would receive them as the Lord has received us. (The Truth Concerning Exclusivism)

•We need to see what a local church is. First, a local church is all the genuine believers in a locality....Many believers are not meeting on the proper ground of locality, but they are all still members of the local churches. We should not become a sect by considering that we are special and that those who are not meeting with us are inferior. All the believers are our dear brothers and sisters. We should never use the term local church with capital letters to separate ourselves from other believers. Whenever believers gather simply as believers, that is a gathering of the local church in that city. There is no organizational requirement for a group to be part of a local church. (The Importance of Living Christ by Walking According to the Spirit, Witness Lee)

•In recent years people have often questioned us, asking, “Why do you say that only you are the church, but others are not?” We tell them, “No Christians would be so foolish as to say that only they are the church, but others are not. It is foolish for anyone to say this, and it is naive and simple for anyone to believe this kind of saying. We acknowledge that those in various sects and denominations, even those in the Roman Catholic Church, are in the church as long as they are saved. We have never said that only we are the church. However, we would say this: Our feeling is that we are standing on the ground of the church. This we have said; we have not only said this, but we have strongly emphasized this.” ( The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Witness Lee)

6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

Continiue

•From the very beginning we realized that despite the divisions, organizations, and traditions, there were a great number of genuine Christians scattered in these divisions. We saw that the Lord’s Body comprises all these genuine believers. Even in the Catholic Church we saw a number of genuine believers, and we also considered them as members of the church and as our dear brothers and sisters. On the one hand, we began to meet by ourselves and we fully realized that the dear, genuine believers who were scattered in the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations were our brothers. We recognized them and we loved them. We realized that the Lord’s Body as the church of God did not only comprise us but also all the genuine believers, of which we were a small part. Witness Lee, Elders’ Training, Book 4: Other Crucial Matters Concerning the Practice of the Lord’s Recovery (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry,1985), pp. 123-124.

•This unique oneness should be the ground on which we are being built. We should not be sectarian; we should not be exclusive. We must be all-inclusive, open and loving to all the dear saints. As long as they are Christians, they are our brothers. Our brothers have been scattered to many denominations. In spite of this, we still love them. We should not have an attitude or spirit of fighting, opposing, or debating. That is wrong. We should always hold a spirit and an attitude of loving all Christians. As long as they bear the name Christian and believe in the Lord Jesus, they are our brothers and sisters. In the local churches we do not have any wall. We have no fence. We consider all the dear Christians as our brothers.
When we say that this is wrong and that we all must be one, others say that we are narrow and exclusive. But in all these years, it has been proved who is narrow and exclusive. The church in the locality is not narrow. It includes all the believers in that locality. The only thing in which you may say that the church on the proper ground is narrow is that it will not take anything divisive. We will accept all kinds of Christians as long as they are saved. We will accept those who are sprinkled as well as those who are immersed. Would those who say that we are narrow receive such?
What does it mean to be narrow and exclusive? Most people simply do not know what they mean when they speak thus. To be narrow means to disregard the proper ground of unity. If we are on the proper ground, we can never be narrow, for the ground of unity is common to all the people of the Lord. (The Practical Expression of the Church, pp. 84-85)

•Some say that we in the Lord's recovery are narrow. However, we are willing to receive all kinds of Christians. We receive those who practice immersion and those who practice sprinkling. Who then are the narrow ones-those in the Lord's recovery or those who accept into their fellowship only those who meet special requirements related to doctrine or practice?...
The Lord can testify on our behalf that in our practice of the church life we have been general, receiving all different kinds of believers. For instance, we do not stop the saints from speaking in tongues, but neither do we insist on tongues-speaking. Nevertheless, we have been accused of narrowness. Actually it is those in the denominations who are narrow, for they do not receive all different kinds of Christians.... (Life-study of Romans, pp. 620-621)

•Today there are many different backgrounds of the saints…. But regardless of the background, if they are saved, they all have the same faith, for they all believe in the same Lord Jesus Christ. They all have been redeemed by the same blood; therefore, they all have the same life within. We all are one in this all-comprehensive faith.

Fellowship is based upon this oneness. We have fellowship with one another because we all have the same divine life, we all have the same Lord, and we all have the same redemption.( The Practical Expression of the Church)

•Some brothers have said that only the saints meeting with us are the local church. This kind of speaking is too much. We should say only that the believers meeting with us are a part of the local church. Although according to the ground, principle, and nature there is no question that we are the local church, according to quantity we are only a part of the local church. For example, the local church in Taipei, in principle, includes all the believers in Taipei; however, because of the division of the church, many believers are segregated in denominations. They have departed from the ground of the local church and left us, the minority, to stand on the ground of the local church. Hence, in reality we are only part of the local church in Taipei. If all the believers would return to the local ground, the church in Taipei would include all the believers in the local church. ( Lessons for New Believers, chapter 18)

• Today there are saved ones in every sect and denomination, including the Catholic Church. We acknowledge that they are our brothers and sisters and are members of the Body of Christ, yet they have lost the ground of the church and no longer stand on the ground of the church. They can be compared to family members who have left home and have gone to other places. ( Lessons for New Believers, chapter 18)
• God receives people according to His Son. As long as a person receives His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as his personal Savior, regardless of the concepts he holds regarding all other things, God receives him immediately. Since God receives people in this way, we too must receive people in the same way.

God’s receiving is based upon Christ’s receiving, and Christ’s receiving is in accordance with our faith in Him. Who-ever believes in Him, He will receive. Whoever receives Him, He will never reject. He said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Since coming to Him, believing in Him, receiving Him, is the only condition for Christ’s receiving, so we must receive people upon the same basis with nothing added. As long as anyone believes in Christ our Lord, as long as he receives Him as his personal Savior, we must receive him with nothing else required. (The Practical Expression of the Church pages 66 and 67)

• We may be quite different from other Christians in background and in many other things. They may not believe in the partial rapture, and we may be for it. But regardless in which kind of rapture we believe, as long as we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who was incarnated as a man, died on the cross for our sins, and resurrected from the dead, we are all redeemed, justified, regenerated, and saved. And we all have the divine life within us. Therefore, we are all of one Body. It is based upon this that we have fellowship with one another. . (The Practical Expression of the Church)

• We should receive people according to God's receiving, not being more narrow than God, thereby demonstrating and maintaining the oneness of the Body of Christ. Furthermore, we should receive people according to the Son of God, according to God, not according to doctrine or practice, thus maintaining a condition of absolute peace, smoothness, and order, without any deviation and discord, in the fellowship of the Body of Christ to the glory of God (Rom. 14:3; 15:7)... (The Experience of God's Organic Salvation Equaling Reigning in Christ's Life, p. 68)

Our Testimony

As we have stated in the past and shall continue to testify in the future, we do not agree with denominations. According to the Scriptures, denominations are divisions in the Body of Christ. However, this need not keep us from having fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the denominations. In the book cited above (p.104) Witness Lee says:

• Regardless of whether others are in the divisions or not, we must recognize that they are our brothers. This does not mean that we go along with their divisions. No, we cannot do this, but we must love all the saints… They all have the same divine life as we… In redemption and in life we are all the same.

We do not believe that one must be in a local church in order to be eternally saved. It is our testimony before God, before man, and before all the principalities and powers that we recognize all genuinely saved ones as our brothers and sisters in Christ and that our hearts are open to them. Our testimony, then, is expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul: “Therefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7). (The Truth Concerning Exclusivism)

• More than thirty-five years ago in Shanghai, a brother with a Bible in his hand was taking the street car to go to a meeting. Another believer on the street was distributing tracts to the passengers, and when he saw the brother with his Bible he said, “Oh, you must be a brother!” The brother answered that he was indeed a brother. Then he asked him, “To what church do you belong?” The brother answered: “I belong to the same church to which you belong, the same church to which the apostle Paul, the apostle Peter, the apostle John, and Martin Luther belonged, and the same church to which all believers belong.” When he heard that, he said, “That would be wonderful!” ( The Ground of the Church)

Originally posted by RJHinds

6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

RJhinds, are we really have an elite spirit? With all those quotes I provided? Answer with humility.

We reject denominationalism, the organization, the system but not people (genuine believers) who are in the denominations.

Unberean mind again!

Originally posted by RJHinds

6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

THE TEACHING OF WATCHMAN NEE AND WITNESS LEE ON THE PROPER STANDING OF A LOCAL CHURCH

This is the last video released from the Christian Research Institute in their research on Witness Lee and the Local Churches regarding the shortcomings of an open letter.

YouTube

In this particular video, Elliot Miller explains the teaching of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee concerning the proper standing of a local church. Something he says of Witness Lee and the Local Churches that is noteworthy is:

I was believing a lot of second hand information about their behavior and their claims that I was getting from other researchers instead of going to the source itself and confirming these things. But really, you know, what you have to understand here is that the underlying concern behind their teaching on localism, which is the belief that there’s one church in one city, is a desire to see unity in the Body of Christ and a desire to accept all believers as Christians.


Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man, starts off by saying:

Again, we’re talking about a movement that was originally founded by Watchman Nee, and then his protege Witness Lee helped spread this movement around the globe literally. In China today they are reproducing disciple-makers on a scale that is fairly unprecedented. When you look at this movement many people will say, “Look they call themselves THE Local Churches.” Therefore, if you go into a particular locality – if you go to Charlotte, North Carolina or Los Angeles, California they say there’s only one church, they believe in localism, and therefore it seems to us that they’re calling themselves the only church – is that really what they’re saying?

To which Elliot Miller responds:

No it’s not. And I have to say that, unlike most counter-cult researchers on this particular point, I understood them way back in the seventies because I had read Watchman Nee’s book, The Normal Christian Church Life, and I understood what the teaching was all about. It’s just that I misunderstood how the Local Churches were applying Watchman Nee and I thought they were taking him in ways that actually I now know that they were not. In other words, I was believing a lot of second hand information about their behavior and their claims that I was getting from other researchers instead of going to the source itself and confirming these things. But really, you know, what you have to understand here is that the underlying concern behind their teaching on localism, which is the belief that there’s one church in one city, is a desire to see unity in the Body of Christ and a desire to accept all believers as Christians. It’s not a desire to create a point of division where they are the true church and you’re not in it, or to renounce you as a genuine believer, but they’re simply thinking deeply about the matter and they’re asking, “What is the basis for unity?” Watchman Nee in his writings and Witness Lee in his came to the conclusion that the only proper basis for division among Christians is distance. In other words, in the city of Nanjing they cannot for practical reasons worship with Christians in the city of Shanghai. So there have to be two different churches there because they’re divided by space, you see. But any other division other than denying essentials, which they would certainly agree would be a reason for division – you don’t meet with people that deny Jesus Christ, that deny the gospel – but if we affirm essentials and if we’re in the same locality, why are we not in fellowship, why are we not together? And so they said therefore there’s only one church in one city. When God looks down on a city, such as Charlotte, does He go “Oh, there’s my people, the United Presbyterians. And then there’s the Presbyterian Church of America and there’s the Southern Baptists and there’s the American Baptists and there’s the Assemblies of God…I’ve got so many churches in this city.” No, God doesn’t see our divisions, our distinctions that we have created for theological or aesthetic, or whatever our reasons are for creating you know, personality reasons. In fact, scripture defines such things as carnal. You say you are of Paul, you say you are of Apollos, are you not carnal? I think like mere men, you know, was Paul’s rebuke to the Corinthians who divided over personalities. And so what they’re saying is, God looks down and sees one people and in a city there’s one church. That has been misinterpreted to mean that they are claiming to be the true church. Actually they believe all the believers in a city are members of that church. But they believe that we should meet on that basis of locality and that’s where the controversy enters in. A lot of people would say, “No there are good reasons for Presbyterians to meet because they have certain beliefs about covenant in God’s sovereignty that unite them and they can agree and serve God and accomplish things. So there’s different perspectives about these issues. Certainly I’m not saying that the Local Church group has all the answers or that the denominations are wrong. It’s a very complicated issue. But the fact is that they have a right to that opinion. It’s not a cultic belief, it’s a particular take on the basis for the local church. Which we all have to come up with one position or another. They come up with a pretty Biblically solid one. They can make a pretty solid Biblical case for it. It’s not heresy. It’s not saying that you’re not a Christian or you’re not in the church of Jesus Christ. They fully accept you. You go into their meetings, they will serve communion to you if you confess Jesus as your Savior. They’re not denying your salvation, they’re not denying your Christian standing, nor are they denying the Holy Spirit is working in your life and using you. So there’s been a lot of misunderstanding about their beliefs on this subject.

Originally posted by RJHinds

5. Crossing biblical boundaries of behavior versus walking in purity and financial integrity: Cults cross biblical boundaries of behavior especially in immorality and finances. False teachers can be detected by their covetousness and immorality (2 Peter 2:3-18).

You must be joking?

Originally posted by RJHinds
6. Separation from the church versus a culture of honor towards the church: Cults separate from the wider church and operate with an elite spirit, believing that they alone have a special status with God. They have a polarized mentality of “us versus them.” They criticize the larger body of Christ and often claim to be the only ones truly saved. They view all other ministry and denominations as being in error.

Exclusive, elite or inclusive? Sorry again RJhind, you don't read well

Originally posted by RJHinds
I don't know anything about those books. However, if they get you as screwed up as you seem to be on the Great Tribulation and the rapture, they perhaps you should burn them.

Any problem with that? So what's the case if we differ our understanding concerning rapture? Do you also call a cult if the Catholic Church held the belief concerning purgatory and whatsoever? Even Norman Geisler calls her an occult. I don't care if we have differences in non-essentials. As long as I love the Lord and read in His word, walking in my Christian life, meeting with other Christians, receiving other Christians and not denying the essentials of the Christian faith at least I and Sonship are not for traditional Christianity. I am satisfied with that!

Originally posted by sonship
Thankyou brother Kevin.

The church in Dunn Loring greets the church in Dipolog City.

[b] "In Spirit - on the ground!" [/b]

Amen! Sonship

Originally posted by RJHinds

2. Dishonoring the family unit versus insisting on the biblical priority of the family unit: Children are taught to be more loyal to the leaders than to their parents. Women are taught to be more loyal to the leaders than to their husbands, and husbands are taught to accept this as normal behavior.

Woo woo wait the minute? Seriously? Leaders or Christ Himself? There is no record in my locality that elders should forced the young people to be loyal to them. Elders are just fellow slaves of Christ. I always heard this brother, an elder, obey your parents in the Lord. He often quotes Ephesians 6:1 to us. Regardless our parents sometimes don't want us to attend the meetings. "We do not disobeyed them even they are wrong but to pray instead," the brother said.

Originally posted by RJHinds


3. Isolating members and penalizing them for leaving versus helping them to do God’s will: Cults isolate their people from their families, the church and society. They reject any who leave and warn them, saying that they will be judged by God or will lose God’s best if they leave. People are taught to make lifelong commitments to the group. Some groups teach that their members must get permission before joining another ministry.

nahh,, this is what happens in the Exclusive brethren.

Permission?
Wrong, we fellowship this to them, not asking permission.

Originally posted by Kevin Lee Poracan
Oppose critical thing? Are you referring people who have a wrong conclusions. The so-called counter-cult movement who made faulty statements or presupposition and giving misinformation and misrepresenting publicly to the innocents about the local churches

Stop reading the traditional writings you err greatly and one-sided mind. I do value the w ...[text shortened]... st Prophesied in the Old Testament by James Reetzke; and Earth's Earliest Stages by G.H. Pember

I no longer attend cult meetings if I can help it.

Originally posted by Kevin Lee Poracan
Our Practice and Attitude Toward Other Christians in Christianity

•The Brethren were raised up over the past one hundred years. We are not the Brethren. We are neither the exclusive Brethren nor the open Brethren. (Lesson for New Believers, chapter 18)

•We receive all believers, regardless of their views. As long as they are saved, we are wil ...[text shortened]... ut we have strongly emphasized this.” ( The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Witness Lee)

Thanks Kevin.

This matches my experience over decades and matches the testimonies of hundreds of personal experiences given here.

www.localchurches.org

under "Contact Us" for many churches in the US.

Don't let this guy try to wear you out.
Thank God for the many personal stories on the web of saints' experiences in the church life.

By RJHind's qualifications the church in Corinth, the church in Philippi, with other churches under Paul's ministry, were also a cult.

RJHinds is a good boy for supplying a lot of free advertizing.