[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Our "Unregistered" and nameless guest has taken the time to put together the best article yet for dismantling the LC stronghold teaching of the "Ground of Oneness."

Originally Posted by Ohio

It is well worth the read. It appears to rise almost to the level of a Tomes or a Myer.

Yes it is! I copied and pasted it to my own computer so I could re-read and get into it more fully.

I asked an elder a while back about the accusation that the LC's only read WL and WN (since the LC’s publicly deny it but internally we all know what's up). He balked at the accusation and I read to him a list I put together of how pretty much every tiny movement within the LC's are linked to WN/WL in some way (this list isn’t the point of this post, but I have to include it):

1. 7 feasts: initiated by and spoken by WL, and the speaking to this day continues to be re-shared ministry originally spoken by WL more than 20 years after his death. There are no other Christian gatherings or conferences to which the saints are encouraged to go (aside from local conferences, the contents of which are also from WN/WL).

2. The only publishing company that the churches buy books from is LSM - the publisher of WN and WL. There are many other Christian publishing companies out there, none of which the LC’s have an account with, order from, mention, or speak from.

3. The only books the churches sell in their bookrooms are WN/WL.

4. The Bible that is read/pushed/sold is overflowing with commentary by WL. In the versions without WL's footnotes, the translation of the Word itself is that of WL (or of editorial staff that he headed up).

5. The hymnal the LC’s use contains hundreds of songs written by or collected by WL.

6. The reading material the entire church "gets into" and is expected to purchase for every week are WN/WL's books excerpted in HWMR form. Saints are expected to read from these every single morning and speak from them every weekend. No other non-Lee/Nee books are mentioned, propagated, or read from.

7. When saints travel to visit another church, a common practice is to find out ahead of time what that locality is "is in that week" (meaning what HWMR [published by LSM, and which contain WN/WL] they are going through). We don't even need to refer to the fact that it is a Lee/Nee book that the church is "in" - the practice is so prevalent that it would be ludicrously redundant to say so.

8. When saints travel to visit another church, the only churches they travel to visit are those who also read WN/WL only. I do understand this line delves into the topic of the church (what is a genuine church) and the ground, but for the sake of the statement we can replace "church" with "Christian gathering". The only other Christian gatherings that saints will travel to visit are those gatherings of Christians who also have the "rainbow bookshelves" in their homes and in their meeting hall bookrooms.

9. We even have a term, "rainbow bookshelves", for those prominent and widespread collections of only WN/WL's books found in, I would say, the majority of saints’ homes. There is not any such similar term for collections of any other author/publisher’s books, indicating their comparative lack of their existence among the LCs.

10. The LC’s have and support multiple entities around the world dedicated to distributing only WN/WL’s books and literature (BfA, BfC, Let His Word Run, Rhema, etc). The LC’s do not donate to, receive reports from, or join alongside any other non-Lee/Nee literature distributing entities.

11. The LC’s donate to DCP, an entity whose stated purpose is to defend/confirm the ministry of WN/WL, and whose articles and books are reviewed by LSM - the publisher of WN/WL’s books - before being made public.

12. There are many full-time trainings throughout the world where the college graduates are, from a young age, encouraged to go after college. These trainings were established by brother Lee, and the entire two-year reading curriculum is composed of Lee and Nee's books.

13. When saints do not know the answer to something or feel a portion of the Bible needs clarification, they "see what the ministry has to say" (i.e. refer to what brother Lee or Nee said concerning the matter or Bible portion). Again, this is so prevalent that we don't even need to specify which ministry...."the ministry" automatically means that of brother Lee's or Nee's. If we ever dealt with any other person's writings, we would need to specify which "ministry" or books, but we do not.

14. Any affiliated local church that does not follow the ministry of brother Lee or Nee as described above is in for a rough time to say the least.....in practice that is an overarching qualification to be part of "the local churches." Any who do not follow WN/WL’s ministry in this way are quarantined and excluded from fellowship, even though they are still genuine Christians who believe and follow every item of the common faith - the basis of our fellowship with any believer.

His response delved into putting down non-LC Christian groups and in the course of the conversation he said, “Well, I haven’t seen any other Christian group put such an emphasis on oneness as we do.” I said, “Well, wouldn’t you agree that that our ‘oneness’ is a kind of internal oneness, to the exclusion of other Christians?” He responded that he had met with many other church leaders over the years and that (said with a denigrating tone), “Leader X doesn’t even know the name of Leader Y in the next church down the street in most of those other places!”. At the time I had to move on to other issues, but if I could have stayed the course I would have said, “Yes, while it is true that the saints as a whole do know many of each other’s names, often across cities, states, and even countries, this alone is not a test of oneness, and frankly I would gladly give up the knowledge of the saints names in the next city over if I could get some genuine help from the saints in my own city!” Other non-LC churches often have gatherings or conferences that are targeted to groups of struggling believers, e.g. recovering addicts, young men, young women, singles, married couples, families, older believers, etc. Whereas in the LC, I was very, very, acutely, aware in a daily way that my struggles and needs as a person in one of those kind of groups were not even acknowledged, brought up, spoken to, helped, or given encouragement to. If we have “oneness” but are dying not receiving the help we need, what is the point of that kind of oneness? I would rather go somewhere else that doesn’t have “the oneness” (as defined by the LC’s) if they can render some actual help to me as a struggling believer!