[aron]

Originally Posted by A.M.Casci

The "Jesus People" movement was at its peak, and I enjoyed the informal atmosphere of sitting on the floor, singing, and studying the Bible. I attended different churches but felt that they were dead and had abandoned Jesus. Like many my age, I was rebellious and distrusted any organization run by comfortable, middle-class adults. Zealous for Jesus, I could not understand why others were not as enthusiastic. This attitude, combined with my lack of a Biblical foundation, left me wide open to false doctrine.

Here is the LSM version of what happened, from the "Local Church Controversies" website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies

The local churches and the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee have been the subject of controversy in two major areas over the past fifty years. To a large extent these controversies stem from the rapid increase and spread of the local churches in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s they became a target of opposition of fledgling countercult ministries. Unsupported criticisms of anti-social behaviors led to three libel litigations. In addition, some criticized the teaching of Witness Lee on the nature of God, God’s full salvation, and the church.

By the 1960s the writings of Watchman Nee had become popular among evangelicals, including many in Campus Crusade for Christ. In 1968 Campus Crusade’s national field director Jon Braun, who had read Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Church Life, and all of the regional directors under him left Campus Crusade seeking the New Testament church. A short time later Braun joined a group led by Gene Edwards, a former Southern Baptist evangelist. Edwards had met with the local churches briefly before leaving to carry out his own interpretation of what the church should be.

In 1969 Campus Crusade launched what became Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) at UC-Berkeley as an attempt to reach the young people in the counterculture. Jack Sparks, a former statistics professor at Penn State and Crusade staff member, soon became the dominant figure in CWLF. Throughout the early 1970s Sparks and Braun, who knew each other through CCC, gave talks at CWLF gatherings against Witness Lee and the local churches to stem the loss of members to the (local) church in Berkeley. Braun, who had a bitter split with Gene Edwards and left his group, joined with Sparks and five other former Crusade leaders to establish the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO) with themselves as apostles. In 1979 six of the original seven NCAO apostles appointed themselves bishops of the newly formed Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC).

In 1974 three CWLF members founded a subsidiary countercult ministry, Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP). In early 1975 Sparks asked a young CWLF staff member, Alan Wallerstedt, to prepare a manuscript critiquing the teaching and practices of the local churches. Later that year Sparks tried to convert CWLF into a church and bring it under the authority of the NCAO. The large majority of members would not go along and CWLF split. Wallerstedt followed Sparks but completed the manuscript he had been commissioned to write for SCP. Thus, both the NCAO and SCP had copies of Wallerstedt’s manuscript.

In the summer of 1976 Peter Gillquist, the presiding NCAO apostle, became the head of the new books division at Thomas Nelson Publishers (Nelson), a respected Bible publisher. The first book Gillquist commissioned was The Mindbenders by Jack Sparks. Sparks was listed as the putative author but the chapter on the local churches was written by Braun, who, although he had never met with the local churches, blamed Watchman Nee and Witness Lee for his negative experience with Gene Edwards. Meanwhile, SCP was independently developing Wallerstedt’s manuscript into a book titled The God-Men. First editions of both The Mindbenders and The God-Men were published in 1977.

Responding to the strong demand for countercult publications after the Jonestown tragedy of November 1978, second editions of both books were published. Before and after each edition of either book was published, members of the local churches wrote letters of protest to the authors and publishers and attempts were made to contact them both personally and by phone. Nelson alone received approximately three hundred responses. InterVarsity Press, the publisher of the second edition of The God-Men, received a response including over five hundred pages of supporting documentation refuting the book’s charges.

The Mindbenders and The God-Men accused the local churches not just of theological error but of sociological deviance, including practicing authoritarianism, thought reform, isolation of members, deceptive recruiting, use of fear and humiliation to control members, and financial malfeasance. Following publication, members of the local churches became objects of harassment, physical assault, and attempted deprogrammings. In addition, members were dismissed from jobs and family relationships were damaged. In China the Three-Self Patriotic Movement commissioned two men to write a book to provide justification for a nationwide persecution against the local churches. The authors relied on The God-Men and its accusations in their writing. Over two thousand local church members were arrested, many were given extended sentences, and some were even executed.

Now, LSM clearly portrays Sparks et al as the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, and this may ring at least somewhat true, but why was the Gang even shooting at all? I find LSM's admission to be rather telling. They say, "Responding to the strong demand for countercult publications after the Jonestown tragedy of November 1978", these works were birthed into the public consciousness. Witness Lee & Co became the cousins of Jim Jones and the People's Temple, according to reputable Christian presses like Thomas Nelson Publishers.

So, according to LSM, Witness Lee became popular because of the "rich ministry" which met the need of the age, but then came under attack because of the Jonestown tragedy? I would say, rather, that WL's ministry became popular for the same reason it eventually became a target of the countercult folks: because he offered something new and different. Look at Casci's comments at the top. The young people wanted something new. You can see it in their songs: "It may be with us you'll find a better way" (from: We love the Church life). This way was new, and different, therefore (to the young mind) must be better. Eventually when things got weird and people started drinking poisoned kool-aid out in the jungle, "new and different" was suspect in the public's eyes. The cultural pendulum now swung the other way. In the '60s WL & company made hay out of being new and different, but in the '70s those differences became suspect, and rightly so.

The Mindbenders and The God-Men accused the local churches not just of theological error but of sociological deviance, including practicing authoritarianism, thought reform, isolation of members...

According to Casci, in the 1960s "sociological deviance" had its appeals. The adults were old and tired and square. Where was Jesus? He was sitting on a floor, in a circle, singing folk songs. But 10 or 12 years later when the cultural pendulum had swung back, and people became alarmed, and no longer thought mind control was a harmless fringe event, the Mind Benders and God-Men books now had some ammo. Whether or not they did a good job is irrelevant. LSM tries to have it both ways: that WL became popular because his ministry met the timely need, then it became unpopular because of wrong associations with cultish activity. No, it became popular because it deviated from the norm, and eventually it was publicly punished because it deviated from the norm.