[OBW]

Evangelical,

And on this trip down memory lane, it is relevant that I ask about something else.

A few posts back I asked concerning the use of a preferred name to cure differences in opinion about doctrines. Let me restate the question and give some background:

Prior to the 1900s, there was no such thing as the local churches. No one had stated or presumed that "church in [city]" was a prescribed format for the name of all assemblies of the church. Then during the 1900s, Nee came along and created this prescription. While he makes reference to scripture, it is the lack of significant mention of any other naming that he concludes that it is a prescribed format for names. Later, when confronted with the fact of the references to churches that were in houses where no reference to city was made, he dismisses it as being in contradiction to the city-church rule and therefore could not mean that the city-church rule was not correct.

(This is classic begging the question. Have an answer and dismiss evidence against it by reference to the answer. This allows anyone to create the answer they want and simply ignore evidence against it without discussion and is one of the logical errors in argument (analysis of alleged facts to arrive at truth).)

So far, you have continued to restate Nee's (and Lee's) statements on this subject as if they are simply true and need no support. Because they have been said to be true by Nee and Lee, there is no question that it is true. It is irrelevant that the scripture does not actually say it.

So when you read 1 Corinthians, you presume that the problem is that they were following certain teachers. If you read the words Paul uses, it is not about the teachers. It is about the dividing over the teachers.

No matter your rhetoric, you are a follower of Lee. I can safely declare that to be fact because your group's history is now full of declarations from the hallowed halls of Anaheim and the LSM that assemblies that decided to stop their standing orders with the LSM and use its materials sparingly were declared persona non grata and expelled from fellowship with the groups that continued to read primarily Lee and secondarily the scripture.

First question. Can you seriously argue that this does not establish that you are quite willing and actively dividing from anyone, no matter what name they use, that does not openly and willingly focus almost exclusively on the teachings of Witness Lee?

Second question. No matter how you choose to answer the first question, can you seriously say that a name cures the division that you are practicing? Can you declare that a church with the name "Luther" anywhere in it is simply following Luther to the exclusion of others? Or that one that has the word "Bible" in it but no reference to any person is somehow divided more so than one that rejects even those of the same fellowship that simply reduce their intake of the teachings of the preferred teacher, Witness Lee?