alwayscurious, welcome to the forum!
I’m also a church kid myself, although older than you. All of your questions are very reasonable, normal, and common among church kids. I know many church kids who have expressed the exact same sentiment you did in point 4. I’m at work right now so I only have time to respond to your point 5, but will try to get to others later on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alwayscurious
5. We say we are not a denomination, but come on, are we not? maybe not nominally, but in terms of practice and having LSM material everywhere..... are we not? I am perplexed and at my knees trying to understand for many months now....
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You can get off your knees and be secure in the knowledge that you are seeing the situation accurately. You are not illogically perplexed by something normal, but are clearly seeing a perplexing situation.
Let me give an example, using the local church’s very ministry. Witness Lee calls other churches, groups, denominations, etc, “spiritual fornicators” because they “take a name other than Christ”.
But what are those names? They are descriptors of that group or of what’s actually going on in that group. The Lutheran church calls itself that because they follow what Luther said. The Methodist church calls itself that because they follow the methods of Wesley. The Baptist church calls itself that because they hold to immersive baptism that tightly. The church that goes by “Pepperidge Church” calls itself that because it is located on Pepperidge Lane, etc.... Names describe what’s going on.
Okay. Let’s say you have two people, both of whom are sleeping around. One of them admits they are sleeping around and recognizes he is an adulterer. The other who is sleeping around refuses to recognize that he’s an adulterer.
Does the refusal to recognize the reality mean that the second one is no longer an adulterer, and absolved of his actions? Of course not! We all know this. He is still an adulterer even though he doesn’t call himself one.
All right.....so here we have one set of Christians following Luther. One set following Wesley. And one set following Witness Lee.
Does the local church refusal to admit their own behavior and call themselves what they are mean they don’t do the very thing they look down on everyone else for? Of course not.
And the kicker is that the local church devotion to Witness Lee reasonably outstrips most other groups, to the extent that no one in the LC can publish any Christian material in their own personal lives without permission, or without pushback if they do so. As you mentioned, the SSOT materials are of Lee, the weekly HWMR is of Lee, the seven annual feasts are of Lee’s materials and teachings alone, the FTTA is almost totally Lee’s materials, and on and on and on. His name is brought up reverently by the co-workers all the time, when there are problems in the church the leadership runs to “the ministry” (to see what Lee had to say on the topic), and if you don’t hold to Lee’s ministry as THE ministry “that solves all our problems” (yes, that has been taught) then you are not “absolute for the Lord”. Lee’s ministry is the measure by which new ones off college campuses are rated......how open to the ministry they are. Denominations are nowhere NEAR as bad as that, as far as “taking a name”.
On the “cult” spectrum, the local church is at the very least a personality cult, if not a theological and sociological one too. Witness Lee is, through his very “minister of the age” doctrine, quite literally a mediator between God and the members of the local church, even if they teach a personal relationship with God at the same time. New revelations, esoteric doctrines, “the up-to-date speaking” of God comes through Witness Lee. And somehow it still manages to come through Witness Lee even after his death 24 years ago.
Look at that – in the local church, God apparently speaks through a dead man.......whereas a healthy church (which you can find in Christianity) holds to the speaking of the only man who died and rose again.
Yes, the breakdown of the word 'denomination' has to do with name only, but the definition of a denomination is simply "a recognized autonomous branch of the Christian church", or "a distinct religious body within Christianity identified by traits such as a name, organization, and doctrine". The local church can't get away from what it really is.
So does the fact that the local churches don't call themselves what they are - the Witness Lee local church movement - mean they aren't that thing? Nope. They are, as you've rightly noticed, a denomination, and much worse than a denomination, based on their practices.
I want to make one more observation about this and then I'll stop. What this all means is that the common behavior of most, if not all, of the members in the local church is to deny what is plainly evident. To do and act a certain way while denying all along they are acting or doing it. To look down on other people for doing lesser versions of what they are doing themselves, but absolve themselves of it. And this is how it is taught. This isn't a mistake, but the actual teaching within the church. And it produces what is called "cognitive dissonance" within the saints. Where you are holding or doing two contradictory beliefs at the same time. Claiming you are not a denomination around Witness Lee while being pickled in only Witness Lee. And you have to deny reality within yourself somewhere in order to do that. Does it make any sense that Jesus, who is truth and reality, would design the church to operate on a denial of reality?
So yes, no church is perfect, but there are many churches are out there who are imperfect in much healthier ways than the local church.
Trapped