[UntoHim]

Sorry DistantStar, I'll do my best to not let this thread get hijacked like some of your others. You have brought up some very legitimate and pertinent concerns regarding the teachings and practices of the Local Church of Witness Lee.

Originally Posted by DistantStar

What would you choose?
This isolated better-than-other-denominations denomination (to be frank)

Good start! The Local Church is indeed a denomination. Over the years they have been rightly dubbed "The Local Church", "The Local Church of Witness Lee", "The Lord's recovery church" and numerous others. They have even filed lawsuits (against other Christians of course) using the name "Local Church".

with no interest in truth or reason,

Again, there is in fact, no interest in truth or reason apart from the teachings and practices established by Witness Lee. It starts with Lee. It ends with Lee. One need not look any further than a Local Church book room or the curriculum of the Local Church faux seminary, (Full-Time-Training) to understand that all truth and reason comes through the person and work of Witness Lee.

with little to no cooperation with other Churches,

NO COOPERATION. NONE. ZILCH. NADA. What part of "We stand outside of and apart from historical, organized, institutionalized Christianity" does anybody not understand? These people are serious about this. Witness Lee taught that "Christianity is christless". Period. End of discussion.

disturbingly with their own Bible version,

The actual translation of the Recovery Version New Testament is relatively good. It's actually very similar to the New American Standard Version. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not. I cannot comment on the Recovery Version Old Testament. I'm not a student of biblical Hebrew. Maybe others can comment on this. Of course the "disturbing" part is the copious amount of footnotes from the teachings of Witness Lee. Many of these footnotes contain the more "questionable" teachings of Lee. Actually, most of the footnotes are simply cliffsnotes of the "Life Studies" - the printed messages of Witness Lee during the various bi-annual trainings and conferences.

with only two "apologists" (Lee and Nee),

Glad you put "apologists" in parenthesis, because neither Nee nor Lee were anything close to a Christian apologist, except maybe for their own particular teachings and practices. For the reasons listed above, more than one legitimate, bonafide Christian apologist/scholar has intimated that the Local Church shows many of the traits of a personality cult.

with a history of controversiality?

Man, you have no idea! Of course anybody who bothers to hang around this joint for more than a minute or two can probably pick up on this one.

I'd like to hear some thoughts.

Well, such as they are...there they are.