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Old 01-23-2024, 05:17 PM   #33
ACuriousFellow
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Default Re: Open - Interactive Letter to The Co-Workers in The Lord's Recovery

Quote:
I can't agree with him, I don't think he's correct. He's actually conflating the genuine ground of oneness and the ground of the church. Those are two separate things.

-Jay
You are always free to disagree.

You made a statement that this YouTuber is conflating the doctrine of the “Ground of Oneness” and the doctrine of the “Ground of the Church” which is sometimes referred to as the “Ground of Locality.” To say that one can be conflated with the other in this particular case is like saying water and H2O can be conflated. They may have different names, but they are essentially the same thing. You don’t even have to just take my word for it. Let’s take a look at a primary source on the matter:

Quote:
Our Need to Meet on the Ground of Oneness

We all who are outside the “small circles” need to meet together, but on what ground should we meet? If we are clear concerning the truth, we will say that we should meet on the ground of oneness. The reason that we do not go to a Baptist or Presbyterian denomination is that they are on divisive grounds. We are meeting on the ground of the church, the ground of oneness, the local ground. We must consider what the local ground is. The bible reveals to us that the church takes the locality where it is as its boundary. The church in Kaohsiung takes the city of Kaohsiung as its boundary, and the church in Taipei takes the city of Taipei as its boundary. The local ground is the ground of oneness, the ground of the church. Although most Christians today have divided into many denominations, we do not want to be divided. We care to remain on the ground of oneness. Some may say, “You claim to be standing on the ground of oneness, but by doing this you divide yourself from all the other ‘churches.’” However, the responsibility of division is not with us but with them. We have always kept ourselves in the church as the “big circle” on the ground of oneness. It is others who are not willing to drop their names and leave the way of many “small circles.” Therefore, we have not divided from them; they have divided from us.

(The Transformation of Life and the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 10: The Ground of the Oneness of the Church as Our Way, pp. 351-352, from The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 3, published by Living Stream Ministry)
We have the ground of oneness, the ground of the church, and the ground of locality being presented by Lee himself, and it was done so quite explicitly. These three things have not been conflated by the YouTuber in question because they cannot be conflated. They are all different names for the same general concept of how a church should meet locally, placing emphasis primarily on how a church, an assembly of saints, names itself. As such, this particular point you made cannot readily discount how this YouTuber presented Lee’s teaching, for he rightly identified not only its name but its purpose and function. I’ll address your other statements at a later point in time, but I figured this was a good place to start.
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