Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
On this forum Witness Lee's disparaging remarks concerning Christianity have been quoted and rebuked repeatedly. Therefore it is only fair and reasonable that those of us who have taken issue with Witness Lee on this point respond to this question. What say ye?
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ZNPaaneah, to get to the heart of the matter, we should consider these questions:
What is Christianity?
Christianity is a religion comprising 20,000+ denominations.
Did God start Christianity? No, men did. Men start religions, God started His church. Good reference here is "Christ versus Religion - by Witness Lee".
What does degradation mean?
Degradation basically means not normal. Watchman Nee wrote what is a normal church in his normal church life books. In recent times, some have published books explaining how Christianity is essentially pagan ("Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola Author and George Barna").
A degraded system -referring mostly to the organized hierarchical church.
clergy/laity distinctions, cathedrals, idols etc.
Does a church have to build a cathedral and have a priest to be degraded? No - any church which has one church leader and no functioning members is essentially degraded. A degraded church could be a non-denominational house church.
Degradation means loss of function. If your body's arm stops working you could say the arm is degraded, it cannot function as an arm. The same with the body of Christ.
Degraded Christianity locked up the Bible for hundreds of years, and was released through Luther and others.
Degradation is caused by not accepting Christ's Headship.
Lee holds a view that the church become degraded from the second century.
Is it true?
History would say yes. The degraded system was in place for hundreds of years soon after Constantine made Christianity a state religion.
Is Christianity degraded today?
If we believe that Roman Catholicism at least, is part of Christianity, the answer is an obvious yes.
What does the Bible say?
Judaism is Satanic (Rev. 2:9-10. )
Catholicism is demonic (Rev. 2:24-28)
Protestantism is dead and Christless (Rev. 3:1-5, 20-21).
We cannot find a genuine church in any sort of "ism".