Quote:
Originally Posted by kumbaya
I didn't say it shouldn't be run by church members and your point that it's biblical to be run by church members doesn't apply at all. The issue we were discussing was the name being CoC instead of their real name of who employs them. The LC employs full-timers to work on campus and run CoC- there are no other Christian groups involved. They've been legitimately criticized by mainstream Christianity for being "deceitful" in their recruiting tactics- with one of the ways being the issue of using a different name. You can look that up yourself! They've been criticized for it and it is true, that cults also recruit this way. It's not a great way to be viewed- doing the same thing cults do and excluding your name from a group thats undoubtedly run by them.
Anyways, I never said that local church members running the group was wrong- I have no issue with that. To my knowledge- no one does. We were talking about their two names and I didn't even say that was unbiblical- just a bad practice! There are a lot of things in life that you aren't going to be able to straightforwardly pin point to Scripture for a clear answer. I don't think the Bible addresses this issue but you can try to say it's biblical all you want for local church members to run a campus ministry but you're totally off subject. Intentionally, perhaps? Or maybe just not great at debating...not sure. I'm happy to keep this up though.
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We cannot really separate the matter of names from the matter of denominations versus the local church because this is what is causing the confusion.
You may see the local church as any member from any denomination participating. I disagree. If a presbyterian participates, it is the presbyterian church, not the local church, participating. If a student asks that person "which church should I go to", that presbyterian may say "you can come to mine if you like". So a student would be "recruited" to presbyterianism. Very unlikely that the presbyterian volunteer would suggest a student go to a Catholic church I think. Thus proving they are not about "building up the Body" but evangelicalism.
Clearly, the group which represents evangelicalism is only a part of the body (what about pentecostals and Catholics etc?).
The only group which represents the local church as a whole is Christians on campus. For this reason it is valid for them to be named as simply Christians. The moment the name "evangelical" or "Witness Lee" is added to the name, it becomes a denominational group.
In the minds of the local church members, there is no such thing as "the church of Witness Lee", or "the Local Church" (in capital letters), and "Living Stream Ministry" is the ministry and not the church. So by not naming the group as anything other than "Christians on campus" they are
being true to their beliefs and
therefore the claims of deception are unfounded. I do not believe that the local church members believe themselves to be part of a denomination called "the church of Witness Lee". For this reason you
cannot claim deception.
What is more like deception, is individuals who attend a certain denomination of their choice every Sunday, pretending to be "just Christians" or "just evangelical Christians" on campus. The leader may be presbyterian, the lead missionary may be a baptist, and maybe another is a pentecostal. They do not reveal their true denominational affiliation to the students,
knowing well, that they are devoted to a denomination in their heart and on a Sunday. This is entirely different to the local churches, who do not believe they are a denomination of any kind. This confusion is evident when students are converted to "Christianity", only to be faced with the tough decision of "which church should I attend this Sunday", then, they realize that Christianity is really divided into many different groups.
Also, it may vary from campus to campus, but I think there are more volunteers from the local churches involved than full timers. It costs a lot of money to support full timers and it is better to get volunteers (including student volunteers) to devote their weekends of after work hours than full timers.