[ZNPaaneah]

Witness Lee condemned religion as “degraded”.

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).

I define religion as a "looking after orphans and widows in their tribulation by being joined to Jesus as the vine in obedience to the Lord's command to love your neighbor as yourself”. I get this definition by combing the only use of the term “pure religion” in the New Testament with Jesus’ commands to us.

Vain religion is another New Testament term and I define it as any organized form of worship that teaches you to love your neighbor as yourself but that doesn’t practice it. Basically it is a shell of “pure religion” having the appearance but not the reality.

For example, in the movie “Spotlight” which focuses on how the Pedophile priests in the Catholic church were first exposed it shows many charity events taking place in the city that were run by the Catholics. In those events were many of the key people who ultimately did know about the scandal but were able to ignore it thinking the good they were doing outweighed this evil. That is “vain religion”. They had the pretense of loving their neighbor without actually giving a hand to those that were truly suffering.

Extending this example you can see that the work these reporters did could be viewed as looking after orphans and widows in their tribulation in obedience to the Lord’s command to love your neighbor as yourself. The decision to do this was made by a Jew and many of the reporters were “backslidden catholics”.

Once again, I would argue that the church in the New Testament is defined by its actions, not its doctrines. Calling yourself the one true proper church who alone stands on the ground against degraded Christianity, etc., etc. does not make it so. Yes, you can argue that the corruption within the Catholic church demonstrates that they are demonic, but by that same logic the corruption within the Lord’s Recovery Church also demonstrates that they are demonic. You can argue that protestantism has a name that they are alive but are dead. But by the same logic you can say the same of the LRC church.

So then we are stuck with two key verses on this. Jesus said to "judge not lest you be judged" but in the same sentence told us not to cast our pearls before swine. Now unless this was referring to some strange practice akin to the LRC's burnings, where the Jews would cast their Jewelry into a pig farm this word implies judging people as pigs and dogs. So it is not as simple as "don't judge". Likewise, in Corinthians Paul says that a spiritual man judges all things and is judged of no one. That seems to defy Jesus word.

How to reconcile this? Well, Jesus was a spiritual man. When Jesus was crucified He judged all things. How? By judging Himself. Judge not lest you be judged does not prohibit judging yourself. If a spiritual man judges himself then he is not judged by any man, but rather by himself.

So then how can I know a pure religion from a vain one? In the pure religion you will see the mark of the cross, the members will be judging themselves, their flesh, their worldliness, their sin. In the vain religion they will be judging all other men other than themselves.