Hey friends,
I had spoken to my pastor about this recently on Christmas Day. He basically told me the history of the Chinese Church. When a lot of the foreign missionaries were kicked out of China, there was a lack of training in theology and practice. Therefore, even though the Holy Spirit moved in their midst, certain strange practices were developed within different churches in China. Now, of course, that does not make some of those churches heretical, since I believe that God is gracious and would understand. In other words, there are true Christians in these churches, but they were on their own. Many of the pastors and Christians in China didn't know who to go to, or even who to trust because of the Communists in power. There could be spies posing as Christians.
With regards to the Local Church/Lord's Recovery movement, even though the CRI came out in defense of it, my pastor still believes it's a cult because he feels that a church that calls itself the only true church vs. everyone else basically suggests that everyone else is going to hell. Because to suggest that the Body at large has committed apostasy/spiritual fornication equals damnation. Basically my pastor finds that arrogant. He said it is impossible to simply gather every Christian into One City Church. Church in San Diego, Church in New York, Church in Washington D.C., Church in Calgary, Church in Toronto, Church in London, etc. You can't do that because of the population size within a city. He even said that in the Early Church, believers gathered in multiple places within one city. This was especially true when Christians were undergoing heavy persecution. They were scattered all over the place. Therefore, though the LC may have good intentions to pursue unity through Locality, it's based on poor scholarship.
Does anyone else on this website have any other thoughts on this? I would love to hear from you all!
- M.L.