I decided to do a little digging to get a better understanding of what happened when Lee came to the U.S. along with his interaction with Stephen Kaung. I found an interesting article titled "The Ecclesiology of Witness Lee" written by a Norweigian scholar, Geir Lie. It is in a Norwegian journal, but the article itself is in English. It gives some of interesting insight regarding the TAS and Nee groups which were in the U.S. before the church in Lost Angeles formed. Here is the link:
http://ifphc.org/DigitalPublications...C/2007_6-1.pdf
The article indicates that Stephen Kaung arrived in the U.S. in 1952 and joined a group in New York City who were associated with the ministry of TAS. Obviously, he would have brought some “Nee influence” with him. There is also mention of a similar group on the west coast, the Westmoreland Chapel in Los Angeles. This group was associated with the ministry of TAS. Apparently, they even had a man come from Honor Oak to help lead the group. Stephen Kaung is said to have recommended the group to Chinese immigrants who arrived on the west coast.
Of course, John Ingalls and Samuel Chang were also at the Westmoreland Chapel. Samuel Chang would have been a connection to Nee (I think he arrived around 1958?). The article mentions a third group in San Francisco that had been initiated specifically by Lee, and was supposedly already meeting as the church in San Francisco as early as 1958.
What I find interesting is that in the beginnings of the local church movement in the U.S. can be traced back to Kaung, not Lee. Lee came into the picture a bit later. The article gives an interesting description of what Lee came in and did at the Westmoreland Chapel:
Quote:
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During the mid 50s, when Austin-Sparks visited them, he was asked whether he had somebody in the Honor Oak fellowship who could lead them on ‘in the Lord’. He then sent them Charles John Bacon Harrison (1901-67), a former Anglican vicar. The latter left London in 1957 and found his place among Westmoreland Chapel’s leading ‘brothers’. Several Chinese families attended the assembly from 1957 to 1962 but “they never fully merged into the identity of Westmorland Chapel.” Lee left Taiwan permanently and moved to the city of Los Angeles in 1962. He also introduced himself to the church, but as he insisted that Harrison should proclaim the assembly to be ‘The Church in Los Angeles’ thereby signifying that he could not recognize the legitimacy of other Christian assemblies within the city, a schism was inevitable. Shortly thereafter several of the church members - not only the Chinese – left Westmoreland Chapel and established ‘The Church in Los Angeles’.
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This description of what happened
indicates that Lee came in and caused a church split by convincing those most sympathetic to Nee’s local church views that they needed to meet “on the ground”.
How sad is that?
The article also indicates that the group Kaung was with was left alone by Lee until the 70’s. Here is what the article describes what happened in New York City:
Quote:
Lee and Kaung had collaborated in the Far East. Their relationship was severed around 1970, though. Although Kaung speaks approvingly of Nee’s ecclesiology (as it is expressed in the latter’s book The Normal Christian Church Life) he now considers Lee to having become too extreme and exclusive.
In contradistinction to Lee, Kaung had maintained good relations with various church fellowships, and around 1970 he moved from New York City to Washington D.C where he ministered among his fellow-believers until 1976. The tension between him and Lee was just about to surface, and in 1973 Lee had sent 16 people (led by Bill Mallon) to New York City to live there. The former ‘Austin-Sparks fellowship’ was now formally connected to Witness Lee’s network. Some of Lee’s followers relocated to Washington D.C., but the attempt to take over the church there also did not succeed. Therefore, there are now two groups there, one with connections to Kaung and another with connections to Lee. In 1976 Kaung himself moved to Richmond, Virginia. He leads Christian Fellowship Publishers which translates and publishes Watchman Nee’s books in English.
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The impression I get after reading the article is that wherever Lee went or sent his workers, he caused a split or some problem. Those who were in the U.S. who followed the ministries of TAS or Nee must have been targets for him to try to promote his “ground of the church” teaching. I’m assume these groups were perfectly content before he came along. As LC history shows, Lee himself didn’t stay true to Nee’s ecclesiology. As such, those who were attempting to follow Nee’s teachings probably didn’t even see it coming. They assumed because he was a respected coworker of Nee that his teaching and example could be trusted.
I find Lee’s legacy to be tragic. When you really think about it, he thought he was “recovering” something, yet as he was out doing his thing, he was really causing problems and tension between members of various groups all for the sake of “the ground”.