“Local Church ‘Cult’ Label has stuck”—says LSM Star turned Academic

[UntoHim]

“Local Church ‘Cult’ Label has stuck”—says LSM Star turned Academic
Nigel Tomes

Who is Teresa Zimmerman-Liu?
You don’t know her by name, but Teresa Zimmerman-Liu was a shining star of the Local Church in the 1980s. In that era many Local Church members made the pilgrimage to Taiwan to participate in the “great act in church history,” carried out by means of door-knocking and bathtub baptizing, to “gospelize, truthize, and churchize Taiwan.”1 While participating in Taiwan’s Full-Time Training (FTT), many native English-speakers faced the challenge of operating in a foreign language and culture. It was there that Teresa Zimmerman-Liu emerged as a shining star. Here was a young girl, a Caucasian college-graduate who seemed fully fluent in2 Mandarin Chinese. Even more striking, she married into a traditional Chinese family. A number of Caucasian brothers returned from Taiwan with Taiwanese wives, but the incidence of Taiwanese brothers marrying a Caucasian wife was much lower. Perhaps she was blissfully ignorant of her celebrity status, but all this made Teresa Zimmerman-Liu a star in the FTT and the wider Local Church community. In the ensuing decades her linguistic talents proved a valuable asset on both sides of the Pacific; she was employed by Witness Lee and his associates (the soon-to-be “blended brothers”) in Taipei, Taiwan and Anaheim, CA. During that era, Teresa Zimmerman-Liu’s unique abilities, position and celebrity-status gave her privileged access to the upper echelons of the Local Church community, including Witness Lee’s family.3

All this is reflected in her Blog biography which reads:4 “My name is Teresa Zimmerman-Liu. I was born and raised in a typical white family in the good old US of A. I love studying languages, and after graduating from Georgetown University [BS Languages (Spanish Lit.)] I went to Taiwan to learn Chinese. There I married into a traditional Chinese family. Since 1983 I have been a Chinese-English translator, ESL teacher, and facilitator of cross-cultural communication...” Plus her published papers recount that,5 “The author was a member of Local Church congregations in Taiwan and the United States from 1978-2008 and a translator for Witness Lee in his publishing companies in Taiwan and California from 1983-2001. The author was also the eldest daughter-in-law in a multigenerational Hakka Chinese household in Taiwan and the United States from 1986-2010.” Clearly she is no stranger to the inner workings of the Local Church. Plus her work among immigrants and refugees from mainland China arriving in the US6 provides insights into Local Church affiliates in China. Having married into a traditional Chinese family, Teresa Zimmerman-Liu has been immersed not only in the Chinese language, but also its culture at both the family and society levels. She is uniquely qualified to address issues such as the impact of Chinese culture on US Local Churches.

From Local Church Star to Secular Scholar
After 30-years in the Local Church (1978-2008) Teresa Zimmerman-Liu’s life entered a new phase in 2008/9. Armed with a formidable linguistic skill-set and a wealth of life-experience she entered the academic sphere where her endeavors have begun to yield rich rewards. In 2009-12 she earned an MA in Asian Studies (Chinese Studies, Asian Lit), from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). From there Teresa Zimmerman-Liu has gone on to seek a Ph.D. in sociology with an emphasis in Chinese culture and religion at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).7 She expects to complete her doctoral studies in 2018. Already she has an impressive list of peer-reviewed publications in academic journals. Zimmerman-Liu’s writings are of particular interest due to their focus on Witness Lee and the Local Churches. They have intriguing titles invoking Local Church themes; like, “The Divine & Mystical Realm...” and “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’...”. Yet these are social science studies, not spiritual publications. They convey no hint of hostility or resentment; on the contrary she expresses appreciation for Witness Lee and offers a sympathetic view of the Local Church. Her latest publication (co-authored with Dr. Teresa Wright of CSULB) is entitled, "What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious Cult in the United States and the People's Republic of China: Witness Lee and the Local Churches." It appeared in the Journal of Church and State on April 9, 2015.

Academic publications of this caliber must contain innovative elements extending the body of knowledge in their particular field. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu’s latest paper does this by reporting “previously unreported interviews, conducted by the authors, with U.S. leaders of the Local Churches’ Living Stream Ministry” and by capitalizing on the author’s experiences as a Local Church ‘insider.’ Appealing to her insider insights,8 “The paper is further informed by the co-author’s experience as a member of various Local Church congregations in the U.S. and Taiwan from 1978-2008, and her work as a translator for Local Church leader Witness Lee in his publication companies in Taipei and Anaheim, California during the 1980s and 1990s, and for church members who sought refuge in the U.S. from persecution in China during the early 2000s.”

This piece reviews the valuable insights offered by Teresa Zimmerman-Liu (& Teresa Wright) in this paper and her other publications. First we summarize (in our words) two valuable observations made by the author(s).

1. Witness Lee’s Local Churches have been labeled a ‘cult’ in North America and in mainland China where it is stigmatized as the “Shouter sect.” Despite multiple lawsuits, the expenditure of millions of dollars, and LSM’s denials, Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright conclude that the Local Church’s cult’ label has stuck in both the East and the West. In the foreseeable future, the prospects of change are remote.

2. Watchman Nee’s “Little Flock” churches in the Far East were an “indigenized”9 version of Christianity, “contextualized”10 to Chinese culture and values. This Chinese incarnation of Christianity was further developed by Witness Lee in Taiwan. Despite their claims to have “recovered” the original, culture-free form of the New Testament Church in all its pristine purity, T. Zimmerman-Liu contends that Watchman Nee’s “Little Flock” church and Witness Lee’s “Local Church” each represent “a Chinese interpretation of Christianity,” a “Sinicized version of Christianity.”11 These developments in the Far East “created a form of Protestantism that is very different from its Western counterparts.” Hence, on his arrival in the West, “Witness Lee brought Chinese Christianity to the United States in the 1960s.”12 This assessment directly contradicts Local Church’s official “party line” about recovering the original biblical pattern;13 nevertheless it rings true. This insight explains why LSM’s Local Church has proved attractive to Asian (particularly Chinese) immigrants to North America and their descendents. It also provides a rationale for the Local Church’s failure to attract significant numbers of “typical North Americans” (a Local Church euphemism for Caucasians). Simply put, despite its name, LSM’s “Local Church” is not local in the context of the Western world. Rather than indigenizing the Local Church, “contextualizing” it to western culture and values, Witness Lee presented and LSM currently propagates an imported version of Asian (Chinese) Christianity, miss-matched with 21st century North America. The Local Church is in many ways (which Zimmerman-Liu identifies) an ethnic, Oriental expression of the Christian faith. It was re-imported to China in the 1970s.

Here we briefly review, and comment upon, T. Zimmerman-Liu’s & T. Wright’s presentation of the first point. The second point will be the topic of a subsequent piece.

Local Church branded a Religious Cult in US & China
The abstract of Zimmerman-Liu & Wright’s "What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious Cult in the United States and the People's Republic of China: Witness Lee and the Local Churches," states that:
“This paper focuses on the conflict surrounding a controversial religious group—known by its members as the ‘Local Churches,’ but called by its critics the ‘Shouters’—that...moved between China and the US. The paper examines how the categorization of the Local Churches [as a ‘cult’] has been shaped...in these two countries. It finds that in China, such categorization has occurred from the top-down, wherein the central government has played a key role in defining which religious groups are aberrant by placing them on a list of ‘evil religious cults.’ In the US, in contrast, [the ‘cult’] categorization has emanated from the bottom-up, as social groups and lobbyists have worked to shape public opinion, and to influence the way in which courts and legislative bodies regulate religions...”

The Making of a Cult in the US
T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright review the process by which the Local Church was labelled a ‘cult’ in the US. They write,14 “In 1962, [Witness] Lee immigrated to the United States and began to speak widely, preaching his and [Watchman] Nee’s version of Christianity in heavily-accented English, which was often difficult for average Americans to understand. Nonetheless, in the late 1960s, the Local Church movement began to take off in the U.S., especially in California. In the 1970s, when American evangelical Christians encountered Local Churches under the ministry of Witness Lee, they were put off by the unfamiliar doctrinal terminology used by Lee and by the strong Chinese influence that was evident even in Western congregations. As Local Church members proselytized on American campuses, they came into conflict with mainstream evangelical groups, such as Inter-varsity. Eventually, these campus conflicts raised questions within the anti-cult movement. During the mid to late 1970s, two research organizations of the anti-cult movement—the Christian Research Institute (CRI) of Charlotte, NC and the Spiritual Counterfeit Project (SCP) of Berkeley, CA —researched and published ‘highly critical evaluations’ of the Local Churches. These reports did not call the Local Churches a cult, but were cited in later publications that did...The conflict between the Local Churches and the anti-cult movement worsened after the publication of 2 books on cults: The Mind Benders, by Jack Sparks & The God-Men, by the SCP staff.’’

“A Chinese Interpretation of Christianity”
The authors acknowledge that in the 1960s Witness Lee began “preaching his and [Watchman] Nee’s version of Christianity” in the US. Earlier they state that Watchman “Nee did not change the Christian message; rather, he contextualized Christianity to his time and place”—i.e. China in the 1930s.15 Hence what W. Lee brought to the US, the authors identify (accurately I believe) as “a Chinese interpretation of Christianity.”16 This is seen as a factor contributing to the ‘cult’ label being affixed to the Local Church. That may be so, but I would emphasize that Witness Lee vehemently rejected the notion that he brought “a Chinese interpretation of Christianity” to the US. On the contrary, he asserted “I know that I came from China, but my teaching is not Chinese...[it] is just a quotation of the Holy Word.”17 He always claimed that he and W. Nee recovered the original version of Christianity in its pristine purity. Hence he wrote, “What was there at [the Apostle Paul’s] time was the original and recovered church...With us the Lord's recovery began in mainland China 72 years ago. Today there are mainly three kinds of churches...Catholic..., Protestant ...and the original & recovered church. We must choose the original & recovered church because it is genuine.”18 The Local Church, both in the East and West, W. Lee asserted, was “the original & recovered church,” which corresponds in all its essential features, to “what was there at [the Apostle Paul’s] time.” My point is that the authors’ characterization of the Local Church as a “Chinese interpretation of Christianity” contradicts Witness Lee’s own view of the Local Church as the recovery of the original New Testament pattern. If T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright are essentially correct (and I think they are) this seriously undermines the validity of Witness Lee’s Local Church model in the West.

LSM’s Litigious Actions
The authors review the saga of LSM’s litigation against the two books--The Mind Benders, by Jack Sparks and The God-Men, by SCP staff--and their subsequent (unsuccessful) litigation against Harvest House regarding the Encyclopedia of Cults & New Religions by John Ankerberg & John Weldon. All this is familiar ground for most Local Church members. The authors then state that19 “it appears that the main reason the Local Churches were labeled a cult was because they were too ‘Chinese’ for mainstream evangelical Protestants in 1970s America.”20 As support they quote, CRI’s Elliott Miller saying “the [Local Church’s] distinctively Chinese approach to the universal truths of Christianity has contributed significantly to their being misunderstood and mislabeled as a cult in the West.” Again I point out that the argument--“we were misunderstood due to our ‘distinctively Chinese approach to...Christianity’”--is inconsistent with the Local Church’s own raison d’être.

Not an Innocent Victim
I agree with these authors’ observations; the Local Church does have a distinctively Chinese approach to Christian truth & practice which aroused cult suspicions. However that is only half the story. Zimmerman-Liu & Wright appear overly sympathetic to Witness Lee. They fail to note that, from the beginning Witness Lee adopted an adversarial approach to US Christianity. He thoroughly denounced all expressions of the Christian faith in the West. Witness Lee declared,21 “All of Christianity is deformed...and is also degraded.” He asserted that “Today the so-called churches in Christianity are Babylon.”22 The Roman Catholic Church was denigrated as “the Great Prostitute,” the Protestant denominations as “prostitutes.” W. Lee alleged that since the “Mother of the Prostitutes” is the apostate [Roman Catholic] church, the prostitutes, her daughters, should be all the different sects and groups in Christianity...The pure church life has no evil transmitted from the apostate church...[and] overcome[s]...all the degradations of degraded Christendom.”23 In his view, only W. Lee’s Local Church has the “pure church life;” only his “recovered church” is free of heresy & tradition. W. Lee proclaimed “The deviation from the Word to heresies and the exaltation of so many names...are the most striking signs of degraded Christianity. The return to the pure Word from all heresies & traditions & the exaltation of the Lord’s name...are the most inspiring testimony in the recovered church”24 --his Local Church. He stigmatized others as “heretical.” “Reformed theology...is the worst,” he pronounced, “The views of many...[Reformed] theologians are altogether heretical.”25 Such vociferous denunciations were staples in Witness Lee’s messages.

Clearly Witness Lee was no innocent victim when it came to denunciation and accusation. He chose conflict over conciliation. He denounced other Christian groups as heretical, apostate, deformed and degraded, etc. Are we surprised that some grew tired of “turning the other cheek” in the face of W. Lee’s repeated accusations? I think it is fair to say that Witness Lee “gave as good as he got.” By ignoring Jesus’ ‘golden rule’ (Mt. 7:12; Lk. 6:31), W. Lee reaped what he had sown. It seems reasonable to conclude that Witness Lee ought to share some responsibility for the Local Church’s ‘cult’ label. An acknowledgment of this, “other side of the story,” by the authors would (in my opinion) provide a more balanced view of the genesis of the Local Church’s cult label.

US Local Church’s ‘Cult’ Label Irreversible
The authors report that LSM’s leaders regard the Local Church’s cult label as irreversible. They say26 “Living Stream Ministry (LSM) leaders state that earlier publications that disparage the Local Churches as a dangerous cult have influenced public opinion in a way that has been impossible to revise, even with successful lawsuits and public statements by former detractors recanting their prior criticisms of the group.” Appealing to an Asian-style metaphor, “LSM leaders liken the effect of these earlier criticisms as ‘opening a feather pillow in the wind;’ even if one succeeds in mending the tear in the pillow, the feathers can never be retrieved and stuffed back in. These leaders assert that they must go ‘person by person, campus by campus’ to clear their group’s name. And, they claim that whenever they are successful in attracting college students as followers, campus Inter-varsity representatives seek out those students and inform them that the Local Churches are a cult.”27 (Interview with LSM leaders, Anaheim, CA, Oct. 16, 2013) This is a candid admission of impotence by LSM’s leaders, divulged to a (former) ‘insider.’ Such statements are rarely heard from the LSM-conference podium.

“Most Americans familiar with the group view it as a cult.”
The authors observe that in the US the Local Church is still widely perceived as a cult. They attribute this enduring stigma to some commentators who “have continued to categorize the group as a cult and have worked to maintain this perception of the group within the general public. According to LSM leaders, the latter have been quite successful in this regard; most Americans who are familiar with the group view it as a cult.”28 They also conclude that “the case of the Local Churches demonstrates the relative impotence of legal judgments and academic research in influencing grassroots opinions about religious groups...The label of ‘cult’ frequently ‘scares off’ people from joining the group. Despite court rulings and public statements by former detractors declaring that the group is benign...members of the Local Churches are often viewed askance by their non-member friends and relatives. Moreover, there is really nothing more that the group can do to change grassroots opinion; the cult label appears to be very ‘sticky’ in the minds of the American public.”29

These are important conclusions; the authors’ observation concerning the “relative impotence of legal judgments...in influencing grassroots opinions” about the Local Church is significant. It implies that despite the millions of dollars and countless person-hours expended by LSM’s Defense & Confirmation Project (DCP) in litigation against Christian publishers, DCP has proved to be a “black hole” sucking the saints’ money “down the drain.” The only observable benefit was (perhaps) a temporary boost to the morale of LSM’s Local Church faithful. Given the inability of legal judgments to resolve the ‘cult’ issue, the authors conclude that “for the foreseeable future, the Local Churches will most likely continue to bear the cult label... In America, this is due to grassroots efforts on the part of individuals and groups who view the group as a dangerous threat, and who have succeeded in popularizing this conception.”30

The ‘chilling effect’ of LSM’s Litigation
T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright observe that LSM’s litigation had little impact on the perception of the Local Church as a ‘cult.’ This does not mean, however, that it had no effects. The authors fail to point out that LSM’s litigious practices have had a chilling effect on Christian publishing. In the wake of LSM’s multiple lawsuits against publishers they deem critical of Witness Lee & the Local Church, few publishers are willing to take the risk; hence they remain silent. These considerations also affect Internet publishing.31 The net effect is to “tilt the playing field in LSM’s favor”—critics “vacate the field,” leaving LSM free to present its own case.

“Nothing more...the Group can do to change...the Cult Label”
The authors contend that “there is really nothing more that the group can do to change grassroots opinion” regarding the Local Church’s “cult label.” Yet surely this is too fatalistic. The fact is the Local Church exhibits traits associated with cults, including Christian cults. Ironically after the publication of the “God-Men,” the “Mind-benders” and spin-off publications, the Local Church evolved towards the cult-profile. Over the ensuing decades Witness Lee was accorded virtual supernatural status by Local Church members. He could not err--“Even when he’s wrong, he’s right,” declared his ardent supporters. He had the “Midas touch,” hence LSM’s Recovery Version (replete with W. Lee’s footnotes) was popularly called, “the gold bar.”32 His teaching was on par with the Bible itself—“the ‘inspired Word’ of Scripture was canonized in 397 AD; the ‘interpreted Word’ (Witness Lee’s Recovery Version footnotes) in 1997.” These, and other adulations, were heaped upon W. Lee at LSM trainings; he did not decisively repudiate such veneration. Plus a “one publication” edict was issued—only LSM’s publications of W. Lee’s writings were approved for Local Church use.33 Aren’t these the traits of a cult?

These developments gradually impacted US Local Churches. Church members can be warm and zealous, but they are also ‘weird’ and unintelligible. LSM’s Local Churches subsist in a theological backwater, in self-imposed isolation from the wider Christian community. For over 50 years the “saints in the Lord’s Recovery,” attended trainings & conferences, listened to messages, read writings, and memorized & recited the teachings of one man—“Brother Witness Lee, the Minister of the Age.” They have their own distinctive terminology and practices—they “prophesy based on HWMR,” “PSRP LSM’s outlines,” attend “blending conferences” and “seven annual feasts conducted by the blended brothers,” participate in the FTTA and the ITERO, promote LSM’s Recovery Version via BFA and listen to Life-study Radio broadcasts. These terms and practices are foreign, and hence suspect, to most evangelical Christians. Conversely most Local Church members are ignorant of what is happening in the wider Christian community; they inhabit ‘a different universe.’

“If it Walks and Quacks like a Duck...”
Having little incentive for thorough investigation, most people apply the “litmus test”--“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” On this basis they conclude the Local Church is a ‘cult.’ The authors’ assertion that “there is really nothing more that the group can do to change grassroots opinion [regarding] the cult label” is patently false. If LSM’s Local Church is serious about debunking the ‘cult label’ in the US, they ought to work at changing the teachings & practices mentioned above. However, all indications are that LSM’s Local Churches are not serious; 50-years of dogmatic teaching defining their way as the only valid, biblical way have “painted them into a corner.” They have too much vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Take LSM’s “one publication” edict for example. W. Lee’s initial response to the ‘cult’ moniker was to call a “writers’ conference,” encouraging a variety of writings.34 Only later was his ‘one publication’ edict enacted, reasserting control. LSM’s “blended brothers” could reverse those steps, but that would mean relinquishing control. The ‘cult’ epithet will remain affixed to LSM’s US Local Churches, not because “there is nothing more that the group can do,” but, rather, because they are unwilling to make the necessary adjustments in teachings and practices.

The Making of a Cult in mainland China

Another major section of Zimmerman-Liu & Wright’s paper deals with the “Making of a Cult in the PRC [the Peoples’ Republic of China].” In contrast to the ‘bottom up,” grass roots origin of the Local Church’s cult label in the US, “In China, the Local Churches were categorized as a cult via a top-down process, wherein the central government played a key role in defining the group as aberrant by placing it on a list of ‘evil religious cults’,” branded as “the Shouters,” T. Zimmerman-Liu and T. Wright report.35 They explain that after Chairman Mao’s death, “members of Local Church congregations outside China traveled to the mainland to seek out congregations that had gone underground during the Mao Era. According to Xi Lian, ‘the bagfuls of Bibles and Shouters’ tracts (as well as occasional stacks of cash) that Li Changshou’s (aka Witness Lee’s) messengers brought were limited in amount. However, in the early 1980s, they represented spiritual, and material, fortunes to those underground church leaders who linked up with the overseas brethren’.”36

Let’s pause to ask, what did “Witness Lee’s messengers” bring to China? If asked, they would probably respond, “God’s up-to-date recovery in the form of W. Lee’s ministry.” How do Zimmerman-Liu and Wright perceive it? Tracing from the start, they say,37 “Watchman Nee localized Western Protestant teachings to match the cultural context of China in the early 20th century [as W. Nee’s ‘Little Flock churches’]. In the 1960s, the group and its teachings flowed back to the West in its [Eastern] indigenized form, where it [now as W. Lee’s ‘Local Church’] challenged mainstream American Protestant groups. In the late 1970s, the Local Churches reappeared in China during the post-Mao Era.” The “Local Churches [which] reappeared in China” were a “hybrid” introduced by LSM’s operatives. It was W. Nee’s indigenized Chinese version of Christianity, as it had evolved under W. Lee’s leadership during its passage via Taiwan to the USA; this “hybrid” version of (which Zimmerman-Liu & Wright identify as) “Chinese Christianity”38 was imported into China by “Witness Lee’s messengers.”

As a result of these efforts, “Local Church membership expanded quickly and dramatically, particularly in [China’s] inland areas.”39 Moreover, Zimmerman-Liu & Wright report that40 “Academics, church leaders, and CCP [China’s Communist Party] documents all agree that by 1983, the Chinese government was alarmed at the rapid growth and influence of the Local Churches throughout China. According to LSM leaders, the government’s decision to take action against the group was sparked by events in Dongyang county, Zhejiang province, in early 1982. In the account of LSM leaders, around that time, overseas Local Church leaders sent two representatives to Dongyang in order to set up a local congregation there. However, Dongyang’s Christians did not welcome their arrival. Shortly thereafter, local TSPM [Three-Self Patriotic Movement] and CCP [China’s Communist Party] leaders broke up the newly established Local Church congregation. Concurrently, a similar chain of events occurred in Dongwu county. These events brought the Local Churches to the attention of central government leaders.” We note here that, “According to LSM leaders,” this unforeseen chain of events was precipitated by “overseas Local Church leaders [who] sent 2 representatives to Dongyang in order to set up a local congregation” i.e., a Witness Lee-affiliated Local Church, while in mainland China.41

In response the government commissioned a “document [which] drew heavily on the accounts of the Local Churches found in The God-Men and The Mind Benders. Using this critical report as its justification, the CCP branded the Local Churches/Shouters as a ‘cult.’ Indeed, the Local Churches head the list of ‘seven cults identified in the documents issued by General Office of the Central Committee of CCP and by the General Office of the State’.”42 Note that T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright state unequivocally that, in China, “Local Churches,” are called “Shouters” by critics.43 But LSM contests this epithet’s application to the Local Church.

Origins of the Local Church’s “Shouters” Label
China-observer, P. de Vigo explains the likely source of the “Shouters” moniker; he says,44 “The ‘Shouters’ are so called because of their practice of shouting Bible verses and ‘Jesus is Lord’ in a mantra-like fashion.” US Local Church members from the 1970s should be able to identify this as an apt description of enthusiastic “pray-reading” and “calling on the Lord.”

Calvin College Professor Daniel Bays provides additional insights into the origin of the epithet, “Shouters.” He writes,45 “The ‘Local Church’ which is sometimes called by its adherents ‘churches in the Lord’s recovery,’ is a movement derived from the ideas of Watchman Nee. The Little Flock remnants in China which had survived [the Mao years] linked up around 1980 with missionary representatives of the Local Church movement based outside China. The result was a spectrum of groups, to greater or lesser degrees standing in the traditions of [Watchman] Nee’s old movement, mixed with the newer doctrines of Witness Lee. In the 1980s, some of the groups, especially those in Zhenjiang province, engaged in loud verbal behaviors during worship, and were dubbed ‘the shouters’ (huhan pai). Several cases of violent disruption among Protestants were associated with their activities in the 1980s. These elements, rightly or wrongly, were denounced by the government...as sectarian and illegitimate, and have been persecuted on and off ever since. In the early 2000s, ‘the shouters’ were still on the list of ‘evil cults’ pursued by the authorities.” One only has to recall the enthusiastic “calling on the Lord” in the Recovery’s early years in the US to deduce what those “loud verbal behaviors” might be.

These facts are supported by other scholars. For example, Fenggang Yang’s monograph on “Religion in China: Survival & Revival under Communist Rule” presents a “Partial List of Indigenous, Christianity-related Sectarian or Cultic Groups that had spread across Provincial Borders and were banned by the Chinese Government”46 The first line item is “Shouters; Chinese name: Huhan pai; Founder/Key Leader: Witness Lee (Li Changshou); Origin: U.S.A.; Year founded/spread: 1960s-1970s; Year banned: 1983.” Evidently the group derogatively labelled “the Shouters (callers, or yellers)” is the Local Church founded by Witness Lee (Li Changshou). Despite LSM’s protestations, this does not appear to be a case of mistaken identity.

A more detailed narrative of the origin of the “Shouters” epithet is offered by the University of Birmingham’s Professor Allan Anderson & Research Director, Edmond Tang. They write,47 “Sometimes also translated as ‘Shouters’, the ‘Yellers’ are a group that gained a widespread following in China in the late 1980s, the first to be criticised by the China Christian Council and then condemned by the government as an ‘evil cult’ in 1983. They are a group under the leadership of Li Changshou (Witness Lee) that broke away from another independent group, the Little Flock, sometimes called the Assembly Hall, founded by Watchman Nee in the 1920s. In 1949 Li took some of the Little Flock to Taiwan where he took charge of the Assembly halls there and in south-east Asia. In 1962 he established the church in the USA. In 1967 he started the movement of ‘yelling’ [‘calling’]—a form of public, emotional repentance for sin with loud confession—and his followers took on that name. When China opened up in the late 1970s the group established itself along the south-eastern coast of China and spread to a number of provinces.” This account may not be 100% accurate, nevertheless it plausibly links the name “Yellers,” or “Shouters” with the “calling on the Lord,” practiced enthusiastically by the US Local Churches in the 1970s. It would be unsurprising if something similar happened in China during that era.

Anderson and Tang continue by saying,48 “Under the influence of Li, followers of the sect consider all other Christian churches as heretical and in China this exclusive stand led to violent attacks on other Christian groups and attempts to take over churches and meeting points. They were also sent out in teams of two or three to other churches where they denounced [government-approved] Three-Self churches as ‘whores’ and threatened to bring down ‘Jericho’ with their shouts. These extreme actions led to many divisions in the Christian communities and violent clashes. In 1983 the Chinese government banned the group, and many leaders were sentenced to long period in prison. However, the ban did not stop them from spreading underground.” Before dismissing this account out of hand this author asks readers to consider whether it is plausible. The Local Church certainly views itself as the only biblically-valid church in each city; Witness Lee was not averse to describing other churches as “heretical,” and “whores.” Plus this author recalls49 in the early 1970s the Church in Chicago’s young people attending Founders’ Week celebrations at Moody Bible Institute [MBI] in order to disrupt and denounce it, while marching around like the ancient siege of Jericho. Based on his own experience this author finds Anderson & Tang’s account of similar (& more drastic) events in China, credible. The difference was that the Chicago Local Church’s “youthful indiscretions” at MBI were met with Christian tolerance and a minor “black mark” on the church’s reputation. In China, the CCP felt threatened by the spread of a competing “ideology,” emanating from a Chinese Christian group headquartered in the US, with historical links to Taiwan, the base of China’s nemesis, the Nationalist KMT. China’s rulers reacted strongly with a “strike hard” campaign against Witness Lee’s Local Church, labelling it “the Shouters’ sect.”

LSM’s Disingenuous Denial
Against this background, the “Statement by Living Stream Ministry Regarding Aberrant Religious Groups in China” on an LSM-affiliated website, using Living Stream Ministry letterhead, is perplexing.50 Disassociating themselves from religious splinter groups, like "Eastern Lightning" and the "All Mighty God Sect," LSM asserts “the so‐called ‘Shouters,’ [was] a designation given by the Chinese government to various groups in the early 1980s. Historically, the local churches in China have sometimes been wrongly identified by this term [i.e., ‘Shouters,’] in official government documents and press accounts, as have many other genuine Christian groups. Living Stream Ministry and the more than 4000 local churches it supports around the globe have no connection or linkage, formally or informally, to either ‘The Shouters’ or the groups that are currently the focus of the government crackdown, namely ‘Lightning from the East’ and the ‘All Mighty God Sect’."

Firstly, T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright state that Local Church leaders concur with academics, church leaders, and CCP [China’s Communist Party] that the original designation of the Local Church/ Shouters as an “evil religious cult” was precipitated by the actions of Local Church operatives in China. The epithet, “Shouters” was first applied to Local Churches founded by Witness Lee (Li Changshou) in China. Local Church leaders may consider this moniker disparaging, however, it is misleading of LSM to claim that “the local churches in China have sometimes been wrongly identified by this term [i.e., ‘Shouters,’]...”51 Given the historical record, in what sense have Local Churches been “wrongly identified”? The term may have been applied more broadly, but it is clear that the Local Church was the original target. Ironically LSM’s own website contains a testimony by David Aikman, former Beijing bureau chief for Time, and author of Jesus in Beijing, which says,52 “As a long-time observer and reporter on the Christian church in China, I have been familiar with the persecution suffered in China by members of the Local Church, sometimes labeled by the pejorative term, ‘Shouters’.” While the term is pejorative, Mr. Aikman acknowledges a link or connection identifying the Local Church as the “Shouters.”

Second, it is disingenuous of LSM to assert that “Living Stream Ministry and the...local churches it supports ...have no connection or linkage, formally or informally, to...‘The Shouters’.” LSM might wish (for obvious reasons) to disassociate itself from the “Eastern Lightning” and the ‘All Mighty God Sect’. However, to claim that LSM and its Local Churches have “no connection or linkage” even “informally, to...‘The Shouters’,” is patently false. On this point the academic integrity of scholars like T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright puts LSM and its affiliated Local Churches to shame! LSM’s prevarication might be expected from politicians; it is unworthy of any Christian organization. When the Apostle Paul was accused of belonging to “the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5), he did not deny any connection or linkage. Rather he confessed that “according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship God” (Acts 24:14). Why isn’t LSM as forthright? Certainly observers with knowledge of China’s Christian scene won’t be persuaded by LSM’s disingenuous denial. Whom is LSM seeking to convince? Could this denial be aimed at LSM-faithful who blindly accept any statement from their leaders?

LSM’s Abortive Attempts to rescind the Local Church’s ‘Cult’ Label
Zimmerman-Liu & Wright report on LSM’s attempts to have the Local Church’s ‘cult’ label rescinded in China. They state that53 “LSM leaders report that since 2005, they have traveled to mainland China (particularly Shanghai) roughly twice a year to meet with local officials in charge of dealing with the ‘Shouters’.” They found that Chinese officials at lower levels of government bureaucracy54 “do not have the power to remove the group from China’s cult list.” Plus LSM’s efforts to establish rapport with government officials were stymied because55 “every five years there has been a wholesale leadership change across all levels of government, such that Local Church leaders have had to establish relationships with new political officials.” Based on these experiences LSM’s56 “church leaders believe that in order to clear the group’s name, they will have to find a backer on the Central Committee of the CCP [China’s Communist Party], who might able to persuade the other Committee members to remove the group from the list. Until such time, in China, the group will be subject to the vicissitudes of CCP policy, and its members will live under constant threat of arrest and imprisonment.”

Since the Local Church’s ‘cult’ label originated at the very top of China’s power structure it makes sense that change must emanate from the top, from China’s Central Committee. However, the chances of that happening are remote. Local officials might derive some benefit in cordial relations with LSM’s representatives—e.g. help establishing their family members in the US. However, the power, wealth &/or influence of China’s Central Committee members dwarf any tangible benefits that LSM could offer. Nothing short of a miracle (including the miracle of conversion) would provide LSM with a backer on China’s Central Committee. Based on such considerations, Zimmerman-Liu & Wright conclude that “To the disappointment of the Local Churches, the CCP is unlikely to change its mind any time soon...[so] its members in China will continue live under constant threat of repression...”57 The bottom line is that the Local Church is stuck with the ‘cult’ label in China also. The strenuous (but unsuccessful) efforts by Local Church leaders to rescind this designation is evidence of its substantial effect—in persecution and hardship for Local Churches in China and attenuating their growth.

The underlying causes differ, yet the net result is the same—the authors conclude that “For the foreseeable future, the Local Churches will most likely continue to bear the cult label both in China and the U.S.”58 This statement represents the “bottom line” conclusion of Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright’s article. It is well researched, adequately documented and cogently argued. This valuable contribution should focus more attention on the “influential yet controversial religious group”59 which is Witness Lee’s Local Church. Hopefully it will spark further academic research into the Local Church’s history, teachings and practices.

This paper should constitute one chapter in Teresa Zimmerman-Liu’s PhD thesis. Together with her other articles on Witness Lee and the Local Churches, this should form the basis of a book on this topic. I for one would warmly welcome such a publication from someone who is eminently qualified to write it. I also applaud Teresa Zimmerman-Liu’s courage in entering the academic arena and writing on this subject. As a former member of the Local Church she risks being denigrated before the Christian community to which she belonged for 30-years. One can foresee ominous statements being uttered for the LSM podium about not emulating Esau by “selling one’s birthright in the Lord’s Recovery for the ‘pottage’ (red bean soup) of academic acclaim.” Plus members are routinely warned that leaving LSM’s Local Church is detrimental to their Christian life.60

Are there any implications for non-LSM local churches, such as those on the “Great Lakes area” of North America? I would suggest that there are. Zimmerman-Liu & Wright report that Local Church leaders concede that “most Americans who are familiar with the group view it as a cult.” They conclude that the Local Churches will continue to be stigmatized by the ‘cult’ label for the foreseeable future. In the US it is claimed that “there is really nothing more that the group can do to change grassroots opinion [regarding] the cult label.” We reject LSM’s claims of impotence. The ‘cult’ stigma remains, not because LSM is unable to do anything, but because they are unwilling to make the necessary adjustments in teachings and practices. LSM’s local churches exhibit traits commonly associated with cults, hence they are often taken to be such. The cult stigma has seriously compromised the Local Church ‘brand’ in both the East and the West, and it is not going away anytime soon. That being so, non-LSM local churches ought to differentiate themselves more clearly from their LSM-counterparts if they wish to avoid “guilt by association.” A similar phenomenon occurred among the Plymouth Brethren. The “Open Brethren” (George Muller’s branch) suffered due to peoples’ inability to distinguish them from the “Exclusive” branch led by James Taylor Sr. & then James Taylor Jr. Both branches were “tarred with the same brush” due to the Exclusives’ scandals. An equivalent situation pertains to LSM & non-LSM local churches in North America. Advocates of maintaining the status quo within non-LSM local churches in order to preserve “our distinct heritage” or “our unique commitment from the Lord,” ought to be reminded that the cult stigma is part of “our distinct heritage.” Do they really want to preserve that?

Nigel Tomes,
Toronto, CANADA
July, 2015

Notes: Thanks to those commenting on earlier drafts. The author alone is responsible for the contents of this piece. The views expressed here are solely the author’s and should not be attributed to any believers, elders, co-workers or churches he is associated with.
1. W. Lee, Economy of God & the Mystery of the Transmission of the Divine Trinity, Chap. 10, Sect. 5. For more on this episode of Local Church history see my, History, Not Hagiography – The Recovery’s "Great Leap Forward" "The God-Ordained Way" (April, 2008). The author spent 40-days in Taiwan’s FTT in the Fall of 1987.
2. We say, “seemed fully fluent in Mandarin Chinese,” because this statement is based on observing (from afar) her interactions with other Mandarin Chinese-speakers. The present author claims no facility whatsoever in the language.
3. Another paper recounts “the author’s observation of Local Church leader Witness Lee using guanxi skills in California in 1996,” during interactions with her parents-in-law. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group” [unpublished working paper]
4. Blogger’s profile: https://www.blogger.com/profile/12831169405732892599 at blog entitled: “East Meets West: Memoirs of a White Chinese Daughter-in-Law” http://wwwwhitechinese.blogspot.ca/ The most recent post on this blog is dated Oct., 2013. Part of T. Zimmerman-Liu’s role as an “ESL teacher” was her involvement in Watchman Nee Memorial School in San Gabriel, CA as Principal (Jan. 1995- Dec. 2005), K-12 Teacher (1995-2006), ESL Tutor (1997-2008) Founded, managed, & taught all grades at K-12 home-school co-op with an ESL tutoring service. According to its website: “The Watchman Nee Memorial School is a private school that serves 10 students in grades 4-10. It is coed (school has male & female students) and is Christian (no specific denomination) in orientation.”
5. This biographical information appears in Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 4 (emphasis added), Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, Working Paper]
6. See the earlier paper by T. Wright & T. Zimmerman-Liu “Atheist Political Activists Turned Protestants: Religious Conversion Among Chinese Dissidents,” Journal of Church and State, (Advance Access November 20, 2013)
7. We note that Teresa Zimmerman-Liu was awarded the prestigious UCSD Frieda Daum Urey*Fellowship to support her graduate studies & research.
8. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 3 The quotes in the present piece are from the version “Prepared for delivery at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association Seattle, WA, April 17-19, 2014.” This paper is available on line at: http://wpsa.research.pdx.edu/papers/...14%20paper.pdf The final, published version appears in the Journal of Church & State, Advance Access May 5, 2015 Our quotations from T. Zimmerman-Liu & T. Wright’s papers fall within the parameters of “fair use” for review purposes.
9. The authors state that “The Local Churches’ founder—Watchman Nee—localized Western Protestant teachings to match the cultural context of China in the early twentieth century. In the 1960s, the group and its teachings flowed back to the West in its indigenized form, where it challenged mainstream American Protestant groups...” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name?...” p. 2]
10. Watchman “Nee did not change the Christian message; rather, he contextualized Christianity to his time and place.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name?...” p. 12] Zimmerman-Liu has another published paper devoted specifically to this topic. She explains: “This paper analyzes the writings of Watchman Nee and other Local Church members to show how [Watchman] Nee contextualized the message of Western missionaries to China...” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “The Divine & Mystical Realm: Removing Chinese Christianity from the Fixed Structures of Mission Church & Clergy,” Social Sciences & Missions, vol. 27 (2-3) 2014, pp. 239-266 (emphasis added)]
11. T. Zimmerman-Liu’s other paper seeks to “describe in detail how an indigenous Chinese Protestant group—the Local Churches—reconstituted guanxi during the twentieth century. It will show how in the process of redefining guanxi to make its members committed Christians, the Local Churches also Sinicized Christianity.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 1 (emphasis added), Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, Working Paper] She also asserts that, “The Local Church founders further sought to emphasize the elements of scriptural and historical Christianity that would most appeal to their audience of Republican-era (1911-1949) Chinese people.” [T. Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’...” p. 2 (emphasis added)] Again she says, “The Local Churches reconstituted guanxi relationships among their members, and they also Sinicized their version of Christianity.” [T. Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’...” p. 3 (emphasis added)]
12. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu says, “when Witness Lee brought Chinese Christianity to the United States in the 1960s, his church’s ‘distinctively Chinese approach to the universal truths of Christianity…contributed greatly to their being misunderstood and mislabeled as a cult in the West’ (Miller 2009:31).” Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 28 (emphasis added), Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, Working Paper] The quote is from Elliot Miller, "Addressing the Open Letter's Concerns: On the Nature of Humanity." Journal of the Christian Research Institute (2009) p. 31.
13. Consider for e.g. Witness Lee’s assertion: “I know that I came from China, but my teaching is not Chinese, nor is it something of man. My teaching is just a quotation of the Holy Word. If you honor His Word, you surely would appreciate this kind of teaching.” [W. Lee, Concerning the Lord's Recovery, Chap. 4, Sect. 6]
14. “In 1962, Lee immigrated to the United States and began to speak widely, preaching his and [Watchman] Nee’s version of Christianity in heavily-accented English, which was often difficult for average Americans to understand. Nonetheless, in the late 1960s, the Local Church movement began to take off in the U.S., especially in California...In the 1970s, when American evangelical Christians encountered Local Churches under the ministry of Witness Lee, they were put off by the unfamiliar doctrinal terminology used by Lee and by the strong Chinese influence that was evident even in Western congregations.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 13 (emphasis added)]
15. Watchman “Nee did not change the Christian message; rather, he contextualized Christianity to his time and place.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 12]
16. T. Zimmerman-Liu states that “When Witness Lee brought Chinese Christianity to the United States in the 1960s, his church’s ‘distinctively Chinese approach to the universal truths of Christianity … contributed greatly to their being misunderstood and mislabeled as a cult in the West’. (Miller 2009:31)” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 28 (emphasis added), Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, Working Paper. The quote is from Elliot Miller, "Addressing the Open Letter's Concerns: On the Nature of Humanity." Journal of the Christian Research Institute (2009) p. 31]
17. W. Lee, Concerning the Lord's Recovery, Chap. 4, Sect. 6
18. W. Lee, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, & Esther, Chap. 26, Sect. 1
19. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 17
20. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 12
21. Witness Lee, God-ordained Way to Practice the NT Economy, Chap. 3, Sect. 1
22. Witness Lee, Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, Chap. 4, Sect. 3
23. Witness Lee, Conclusion of the NT, (Msgs. 221-239), Chap. 6, Sect. 5
24. Witness Lee, Conclusion of the NT, (Msgs. 221-239), Chap. 18, Sect. 1 (emphasis added)
25. Witness Lee, Economy of God & the Mystery of the Transmission of the Divine Trinity, Chap. 11, Sect. 3 (emphasis added)
26. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 18 (emphasis added)
27. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 18
28. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 23
29. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 25 (emphasis added)
30. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee & the Local Churches,” p. 26 (emphasis added) The quote, in context refers to both the USA & China; it says: “For the foreseeable future, the Local Churches will most likely continue to bear the cult label both in China and the U.S. In America, this is due to grassroots efforts on the part of individuals and groups who view the group as a dangerous threat, and who have succeeded in popularizing this conception...” The authors’ observations about China are reviewed below.
31. This statement is made based upon the author’s interactions with publishers of Christian websites who are familiar with LSM, Witness Lee & the Local Church.
32. W. Lee used the terms on multiple occasions. For e.g., he said, “Some saints in Taiwan began to call our Recovery Version “the gold bar” because of the precious, valuable truths it contains. On this basis, I would say that we all need to preach “the gold bar gospel” and teach “the gold bar truths”.” [W. Lee, The Way to Practice the Lord's Present Move, Chap. 6, Sect. 2] “We dispense the truths embodied in the “gold bar,” the Recovery Version. We have no other merchandise! If we would be like this, the entire earth will be taken! It breaks my heart to see some practicing to have another ministry, using the material of the ministry.” [W. Lee, Elders' Training, Book 8: The Life-Pulse of the Lord's Present Move, Chap. 8, Sect. 3] Notice the emphasis on W. Lee’s ‘gold bar’ to the exclusion of others’ materials. “All the elders should promote the reading of the Recovery Version, the “gold bar,” in the homes plus all the Life-studies and other publications by the Living Stream Ministry.” [W. Lee, Elders' Training, Book 8: The Life-Pulse of the Lord's Present Move, Chap. 5, Sect. 5]
33. Witness Lee issued the ‘one publication edict’ at an “Elders’ Training.” He told the assembled elders: “It bothers me that some brothers among us still put out publications. According to my truthful observation there is no new light or life supply there. They may contain some biblical doctrines, but any point of life or light has been adopted from the publications of Living Stream Ministry. There is nearly no item of life or light that has not been covered by our publications. Based upon this fact, what is the need for these brothers to put out their publications? ...By putting out your own publication, you waste your time and money. You waste the money given by the saints, and you waste their time in reading what you publish. Where is the food, the life supply, and the real enlightenment in the other publications among us? Be assured that there is definitely at least one major revelation in every Living Stream Ministry publication...Our sounding must be one, so we must be restricted in one publication.” [W. Lee, Remaining in the Unique NT Ministry of God's Economy under the Proper Leadership in His Move, Chap. 1, Sect. 12] This established a precedent for LSM’s “blended brothers”—W. Lee’s presumed successors--to re-issue a ‘one publication edict’ against Titus Chu (Cleveland, OH) & Yu-Lan Dong (Brazil) in 2006, with their subsequent, ‘quarantine.’
34. W. Lee acknowledges these events when he says: “My intention in calling a writers' conference was to encourage you to write something...” [W. Lee, Elders' Training, Book 8: The Life-Pulse of the Lord's Present Move, Chap. 11, Sect. 2] A major causal factor behind W. Lee’s “one publication” policy in the mid-1980s was to counter the influence of Bill Freeman in the NW (Seattle). Later in 2006/7 LSM’s “blended brothers” invoked W. Lee’s “one publication” edict as a precedent to counter Titus Chu (Cleveland) in the US Great Lakes area & Yu-Lan Dong (Brazil) in S. America. In both cases, the concern for control trumped discrediting the “cult” label. In 2006/7 LSM’s “blended brothers” could have invoked W. Lee’s “writers’ conference” as an historical precedent; they invoked his “one publication” edict instead.
35. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 2
36. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 20 The source quoted by them is Xi Lian, Redeemed by Fire, p. 217. Dr. G. Wright Doyle observes that “Lian Xi’s book, Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China will provoke not a little consternation among Local Church leaders in the U.S., who have recently succeeded in having the label of “cult” withdrawn by leading evangelical spokesmen. If Lian is accurate, however, the Shouters’ designation as a cult by the Chinese government might have some merit – a possibility that will be angrily denied by Li Changshou’s [Witness Lee’s] disciples, who have not been shy about taking critics to court, claiming that this label will cause needless suffering to their brothers and sisters in China.” [Dr. G. Wright Doyle’s review of Lian Xi’s book, Redeemed by Fire (Aug. 3, 2010) http://www.globalchinacenter.org/ana...e-churches.php (emphasis added)]
37. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 2
38. Note that T. Zimmermna-Liu says elsewhere that “The adaptations made by Local Church Protestantism to conform to the cultural scripts of guanxi networks created a form of Protestantism that is very different from its Western counterparts. In fact, when Witness Lee brought Chinese Christianity to the United States in the 1960s, his church’s ‘distinctively Chinese approach to the universal truths of Christianity…contributed greatly to their being misunderstood and mis-labeled as a cult in the West’.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 29 (emphasis added)]
39. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 20
40. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 21
41. We note that Zimmerman-Liu & Wright’s (peer-reviewed) account attributes the source of precipitating events to the actions of “overseas Local Church leaders [who] sent two representatives to Dongyang in order to set up a local congregation” This contradicts the account in the Wikipedia entry “The Shouters” which states that “On February 14–16 [1982], two representatives of the TSPM [Three-Self Patriotic Movement—government approved agency] had visited Dongyang to set up a TSPM chapter there.” In this Wikipedia account “the TSPM” was seeking to establish “a TSPM chapter,” rather than “Local Church leaders” trying to establishing a “Local Church congregation” (as Zimmerman-Liu & Wright assert). This Wikipedia entry appears to suffer the problem of multiple, conflicting entries on a controversial issue and the lack of “quality control.” I find Zimmerman-Liu & Wright’s account more credible.
42. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 21
43. Zimmerman-Liu & Wright state (without further qualification) that “The group under study here is known by its members as the “Local Churches,” but is called by its critics the ‘Shouters’.” Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 2 Note that, in contrast to LSM (see below), these authors do not contest the label’s application.
44. Peregrine de Vigo, “Chinese Cults, Sects, and Heresies,” China Source, March 13, 2015 http://www.chinasource.org/resource-...s-and-heresies The entry begins: “Shouters” (呼喊派*hūhǎnpài)
Other Names:*Local Church or Local Assembly (地方教会*dìfāngjiàohuì); The Lord’s Recovery
Leader/Founder: Li Changshou [Witness Lee] (李常受 1905-1997)
Background:*Li [W. Lee] comes from a Baptist background with later Brethren influence and was a close companion of Watchman Nee for some time before they separated in 1949 when Li left mainland China for Taiwan., He later moved to the United States in 1962. A prolific writer, he oversaw a new translation of the New Testament, called the*Recovery Version. His major work is*Life-study of the Bible, a 25,000 page tome commenting on every book of the Bible. In the PRC [Peoples’ Republic of China] the group is commonly referred to as the “Shouters,” and in the U.S. they are known as the Local Church.” (emphasis added) We note that the author gives an accurate description of W. Lee & the Local Church. He also links “the Shouters” unambiguously with the “Local Church,” “Lord’s Recovery” and Li Changshou [Witness Lee]
45. Daniel Bays, “Local Church (and ‘shouters’)” in*Edward L. Davis (ed.) Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture (emphasis added) The same Encyclopedia also has an entry on the “Little Flock” by Jason Kindropp which says: “Led by the charismatic Ni Tuoshen (Watchman Nee, 1903–72), the Little Flock organized a nationwide network of highly associational assemblies...Li Changshou (Witness Lee), migrated to Taiwan, where he established a splinter group, the Local Church [see Local Church (and ‘shouters’)] based in part on Little Flock traditions and in part on Li’s own subjective doctrines. He migrated to Anaheim Ca., where the church’s global headquarters remain today. Local Church missionaries returned to the mainland after 1978, primarily targeting Little Flock congregations. Although the state quickly banned the Local Church, dubbing it the 'shouter sect' (huhan pai) after its charismatic worship practices, the group expanded rapidly, attracting over 200,000 by the mid 1980s.” [Jason Kindropp, “Little Flock” in Edward L. Davis (ed.) Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, pp. 477-8 (emphasis added)]
46. Fenggang Yang, “Religion in China: Survival & Revival under Communist Rule” presents a “Partial List of Indigenous, Christianity-related Sectarian or Cultic Groups that had spread across Provincial Borders and were banned by the Chinese Government,” Table 5.2, pp. 103-5
47. Allan Anderson & Edmond Tang, “Grassroots Christianity in China,” in Chapter 7, “Independency in Africa & Asia” in Hugh McLeod (ed.) The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 9, World Christianities: c. 1914-2000, p. 121 We note that the (anonymous multi-author) Wikipedia entry on “The Shouters” names an “Edmond Tang” (whom we assume is the same person) among a group whom it asserts are “sympathetic to the TSPM’s viewpoint.”
48. Allan Anderson & Edmond Tang, “Grassroots Christianity in China” in Chapter 7, “Independency in Africa & Asia” in Hugh McLeod (ed.) The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 9, World Christianities: c. 1914-2000, p. 121
49. According to this author’s recollection this incident happened in late 1972 or in 1973. The author had just moved into a “Brothers’ House” operated by one of the Church in Chicago’s elders—James [‘Jim’] D. Reetzke & his wife, Bette. The other church elders at that time were John Ulicki & John Little. William (Bill) Barker moved to Chicago later.
50. The “Statement by Living Stream Ministry Regarding Aberrant Religious Groups in China” appears with LSM-letterhead on the LSM-linked website: http://www.contendingforthefaith.org..._China_en.html
The body of the statement says:
“Recently stories have begun to surface in the West regarding problems the Chinese government is having with some splinter religious groups in Western China. At least one of these groups, "Lightning from the East," has been linked in government reports to the so‐called "Shouters," a designation given by the Chinese government to various groups in the early 1980s. Historically, the local churches in China have sometimes been wrongly identified by this term in official government documents and press accounts, as have many other genuine Christian groups. Living Stream Ministry and the more than 4000 local churches it supports around the globe have no connection or linkage, formally or informally, to either "The Shouters" or the groups that are currently the focus of the government crackdown, namely "Lightning from the East" and the "All Mighty God Sect." Members of genuine local churches, like those who utilize the ministry materials put out by Living Stream Ministry, are proper, law‐abiding citizens and condemn the extreme and anti‐Christian teachings of these aberrant groups.” (emphasis added)
51. The South China Morning Post, (Hong Kong) reported that “A 2012 raid on a Bible study group in rural Henan province has resulted in the jailing of 7 participants for being members of an "evil cult"...” “The local public security bureau...says its officers raided an illegal gathering of an evil cult & seized nearly 800 copies of Morning Revival,*The Collected Works of Watchman Nee*and the Recovery Version of the Bible. The Domestic Security and Anti-terrorism Team at the Public Security Bureau...identifies those 3 titles as being materials used by "evil cult" The Shouters.” The Recovery Version - that used in Daying - is a study Bible translated by the Living Stream Ministry with aids, such as footnotes, charts & maps, produced by Lee. A non-profit corporation founded in 1965 by Lee, Living Stream Ministry, which is based in California, in the US, also publishes the works of Watchman Nee. Morning Revival is a series of pamphlets dedicated to morning worship & study printed by the ministry. In 1995, the government branded The Shouters and its derivatives, which include the Church of Almighty God, or Eastern Lightning, an evil cult. Further "strike-hard" campaigns were launched, in 1996, 2001 and 2010. [“Shouted Down,” Post Magazine, South China Morning Post, (Hong Kong) 7 July, 2013 http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-m.../shouted-down] Notice that, according to this press report, China’s Public Security Bureau identified LSM’s publications – [Holy Word for] Morning Revival,*The Collected Works of Watchman Nee*& the Recovery Version of the Bible—as materials used by "evil cult" The Shouters. Again this was not a case of “mistaken identity.”
52. http://an-open-letter.org/testimonies/ This website is LSM’s response to the publication by 60 Evangelical Christian Scholars’ of an “Open Letter,” dated January 9, 2007 www.open-letter.org
53. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 23
54. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 24 The quote, in context, reads “LSM leaders state that most high-placed government officials are aware that the ‘cult’ label has no basis in fact, but the Chinese officials in question do not have the power to remove the group from China’s cult list. In 2009, the LSM leaders thought they had things worked out with Chinese officials to remove the group’s cult status, but in 2010, there was a change in SARA leadership and they had to begin all over again.” (italics indicates quote in the main text)
55. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” pp. 23-24
56. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 24
57. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 26
58. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee and the Local Churches,” p. 26
59. Teresa Zimmerman-Liu & Teresa Wright, “What is in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the U.S. and the PRC: Witness Lee & the Local Churches,” p. 1
60. Take for e.g. the following quote: “What is the Lord's recovery? Strictly speaking, the Lord's recovery is the Lord's reserving ‘seven thousand’ for His name. Because we have adopted this attitude and taken this ground, our actions and behavior have been a cause for some misunderstanding by others. We are misunderstood by society and by our relatives and friends. We do not follow tradition, and we do not even follow religion. Religion is going downward, while the recovery is going upward. Within three to five years after the Lord's recovery came to the United States, Christianity began to oppose us.” [W. Lee, Crucial Words of Leading in the Lord's Recovery, Book 1: The Vision & Definite Steps for the Practice of the New Way, Chap. 7, Sect. 2 (emphasis added)] LSM’s “blended brothers” have spelled out the implications—leaving “the recovery” results in “going downward,” instead of “going upward.” As a further e.g. W. Lee said: “The vision of the church is our safeguard and balance. As long as we stand with the church, we are safe. If we stay away from the church, we are in danger of damaging the church... Today in the Lord's recovery, the Lord desires to show us the ultimate goal of His purpose—the church life.” [W. Lee, The History of the Church and the Local Churches, Chap. 1, Sect. 5 (emphasis added)]

[Freedom]

Nigel brings out some excellent points, especially regarding the "cult" label of the LC. I would agree with him that: 1)The "cult" label is partly self-induced, 2)It's not going away, 3) The inability of the LC to fit the American culture, makes it unappealing and even suspicious to Americans.

I grew up in the LC, and over time I became aware of the "cult" label. It never concerned me too much, because before a certain point in time, I had felt that my experiences were mostly positive. I was thus able to buy into the narrative that problem was simply "opposers" who were out to slander the LC.

As I began to question things in the LC more, I came to the realization that there were lots of practices that were unnecessary and even a bit bizarre. For example, I could never figure out why anyone would want to pray-read outlines. I finally had to admit to myself that the LC wasn't for everyone. Over time, as I was subjected to various practices and situations that were borderline abusive, I realize that it's no wonder there are some people who think the LC is a cult. Not only that, but I realized that if the LC really didn't want such a label, the first thing they could do would be to try to be a bit more "normal" in many respects.

As much as the LC has tried to get rid of the cult label, it has stuck. This is despite lawsuits and CRI's endorsement of W. Lee and the LC. Back when the CRI "We Were Wrong" journal came out, there was a "new one" in the LC I'm from who the brothers had been trying to take care of. He had read some things about the LC, and started having some questions about what he was really involved with. The brothers gave him the CRI journal to read in an attempt to salvage the situation. It had no effect and he eventually left.

The situation made me realize that people's perception of the LC wasn't really so much related to what is said about the LC, rather it comes out of their interactions with the LC. The CRI can go on all day long about how "orthodox" the LC is, but at the end of the day, if they've even managed to convince anyone, it doesn't mean anyone new is going to join or think it's a relevant group to be involved with.

[awareness]

Can we now be done with sensitivities toward calling the local church a cult?

[TLFisher]

I'm curious if Teresa Zimmerman-Liu is the same sister whose husband went to work on Grace Gardens (end 1994/beginning 1995). The Teresa I knew is fluent in Chinese and Spanish.
If this is the same sister, their Bellevue home was turned into a brother's house after they relocated to Anaheim.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by awareness

Can we now be done with sensitivities toward calling the local church a cult?

Is it worth the risk?

To me, the whole reason the LC doesn't like the c-word is because they don't have the ability to influence public perception on a broad scale in a positive way. They might have a few newcomers here and there who have a positive impression of the group, but it seems to stop there. Why isn't Lee's The Economy of God a best-seller like The Purpose Driven Life? The public has already spoken. Lee is irrelevant and generally viewed in a negative light.

When lawsuits or soliciting the help of the CRI are the primary means by which they are seeking to change the public's perception of the group, it demonstrates there is something fundamentally wrong.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Freedom

When lawsuits or soliciting the help of the CRI are the primary means by which they are seeking to change the public's perception of the group, it demonstrates there is something fundamentally wrong.

The lawsuits are self defeating. They actually prove they are a cult.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Is it worth the risk?

To me, the whole reason the LC doesn't like the c-word is because they don't have the ability to influence public perception on a broad scale in a positive way. They might have a few newcomers here and there who have a positive impression of the group, but it seems to stop there. Why isn't Lee's The Economy of God a best-seller like The Purpose Driven Life? The public has already spoken. Lee is irrelevant and generally viewed in a negative light.

It's that that LSM/Lc don't have the ability, but they don't want to. Lee's ministry is the golden egg the drives LSM. If they were to execute their ability to influence public perception, several things might happen;
A. Lee's ministry is not so unique as the Blendeds have striven to present.
B. Veils may be ripped away from the local churches exposing the real situation.
When you have two former Nee co-workers in Witness Lee and Stephen Kaung, why is Witness Lee identified with cult and Stephen Kaung is not?

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Freedom

When lawsuits or soliciting the help of CRI are the primary means by which they are seeking to change the public's perception of the group, it demonstrates there is something fundamentally wrong.

I was a little surprised to find that at this last bi-annual Training (1st week of July) they were still distributing the pamphlet entitled "Voices of Confirmation Concerning Watchman Nee, Witness Lee & the Local Churches".

This pamphlet was produced about 5 years ago. (and the endorsements contained within it are even older) Is this the most recent "confirmation" that LSM/DCP can come up with? Let's face it, that weak, decidedly uninformed "endorsement" from a pathetically compromised Hank Hanegraaff et al over at CRI is getting stale...really, really stale. (woo who, oh Haaannnnk...where ya been? Haven't heard anything from you about Witness Lee/The Local Church in years.) How long before CRI produces a "We were Wrong about being Wrong" retraction-of-their-retraction?

And the "endorsement" by Fuller Theological Seminary is even less informed then the one from CRI (which I would have thought to be impossible!). Any true evangelical, orthodox academic with a basic, or even cursory, knowledge of what Witness Lee actually taught and what is actually practiced in the Local Church would never come to the conclusion "that the teachings and practices of the local churches and its members represent the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith in every essential aspect". It is painfully obvious that instead of actually doing some substantial, objective research, the brothers over at Fuller let the LSM/DCP brothers dictate to them their version of "the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith", and somehow convince them that they are actually speaking the same language.

As for the "Evangelical Voices Speak" section, well the fact that J. Gordon Melton is the one leading the parade tells any objective observer that anything that these people speak about the Local Church/LSM should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a dump truck. Besides, since when does "The Lord's Recovery", "God's Move on Earth" and "The one Ministry for the Age" need the endorsements of people with fancy, schmansy acronyms after their names? There is one guy in there with a white clerical collar! (I think Witness Lee must of been rolling in his beautiful Grace Terrace grave)

Originally Posted by Nigel Tomes

Advocates of maintaining the status quo within non-LSM local churches in order to preserve “our distinct heritage” or “our unique commitment from the Lord,” ought to be reminded that the cult stigma is part of “our distinct heritage.” Do they really want to preserve that?

Yeah, what he say!

--

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tomes

I would suggest that there are. Zimmerman-Liu & Wright report that Local Church leaders concede that “most Americans who are familiar with the group view it as a cult.” They conclude that the Local Churches will continue to be stigmatized by the ‘cult’ label for the foreseeable future. In the US it is claimed that “there is really nothing more that the group can do to change grassroots opinion [regarding] the cult label.” We reject LSM’s claims of impotence. The ‘cult’ stigma remains, not because LSM is unable to do anything, but because they are unwilling to make the necessary adjustments in teachings and practices.

I would agree with Nigel's assessments. Especially pertaining to the portion I have bolded. It's not that the cult label is irreversible, rather an unwillingness to do what is necessary to reverse the cult label.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tomes

Advocates of maintaining the status quo within non-LSM local churches in order to preserve “our distinct heritage” or “our unique commitment from the Lord,” ought to be reminded that the cult stigma is part of “our distinct heritage.” Do they really want to preserve that?

"Our distinct heritage." "Our unique commitment from the Lord."

In other words, we can't live without being special.

Their unique committedness is only to themselves. I've never seen a group of people, and this includes the Kardashians, more utterly self-absorbed that the LCM. Their self-appreciation and self-aggrandizement is beyond the pale. It's a spectacular display, like fireworks spelling out their names for all to see, again and again...

If we are to be committed to any uniqueness, any distinction, it should be the uniqueness of our God and his Christ. The LCM once got this, or at least they seemed to. But now, it's all about them and their glory, not God's.

So close, yet so far. Yet... not really that close any more. Just a sad "distinction."

[Cal]

So what's the story with this gal? Is she still a LCMer?

[SpeakersCorner]

Nigel's article seems to be taking a different, and more interesting tack than simply name-calling a despised group. It seems to me, in my quick perusal, that he is issuing a call to those of us still in an LC environment but no longer associated with the LSM to separate ourselves further from them, perhaps even to denounce them.

As a person who has borne the shame of the cult label as well as the repudiation of the LSM, this seems like a great idea. "No, no, officer, it's not me ... It's THEM! Get them! They're a CULT! "[Hands in pockets, whistling while he slips off into the night.]

But this seems an admission of weakness to me. I hate that there are some in this world who think I'm in a cult (and some quite close to home), but I refuse to exonerate myself by flinging that vile term upon others.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Nigel's article seems to be taking a different, and more interesting tack than simply name-calling a despised group. It seems to me, in my quick perusal, that he is issuing a call to those of us still in an LC environment but no longer associated with the LSM to separate ourselves further from them, perhaps even to denounce them.

As a person who has borne the shame of the cult label as well as the repudiation of the LSM, this seems like a great idea. "No, no, officer, it's not me ... It's THEM! Get them! They're a CULT! "[Hands in pockets, whistling while he slips off into the night.]

But this seems an admission of weakness to me. I hate that there are some in this world who think I'm in a cult (and some quite close to home), but I refuse to exonerate myself by flinging that vile term upon others.

Take heart bro SpeakersCorner, early Christianity was considered a cult.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

But this seems an admission of weakness to me. I hate that there are some in this world who think I'm in a cult (and some quite close to home), but I refuse to exonerate myself by flinging that vile term upon others.

Originally Posted by awareness

Take heart bro SpeakersCorner, early Christianity was considered a cult.

It's different when one pulls a "Judas" on those he once loved and served with.

There's a world of difference, at least to me, between identifying incidents of unrighteousness in LC leaders and hurling cult-stones at any and all who once participated in the program.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Nigel's article seems to be taking a different, and more interesting tack than simply name-calling a despised group. It seems to me, in my quick perusal, that he is issuing a call to those of us still in an LC environment but no longer associated with the LSM to separate ourselves further from them, perhaps even to denounce them.

Thanks for popping back in SpeakersCorner, your thoughts and input are always appreciated!

I definitely don't see Nigel or anyone else calling for folks in your position to denounce the Local Church/LSM, rather they are merely pointing out that the main way to deter outsiders from labeling them as a cult is to stop teaching and practicing in a cultic manner. After all, it's not like other Christians just call them a cult because they don't like the way they dress. The questionable teachings and practices have been the main source of concern for decades. And instead of dealing with issues and concerns, Witness Lee and his followers have continually turned to petty name calling and even taking the matter up with the worldly courts of law (a direct, flagrant violation of 1 Cor 6) , which simply raises further questions and concerns. It's a vicious cycle that has been repeating itself for all these years, and the cheap endorsement from some discredited "apologist", or pulling the wool over the eyes of some liberal academics is not going to make any appreciable difference in how the overall Christian public views them.

Speaker, I would be very interested in you expounding upon what you mean by "an Local Church environment". Do you and the brothers and sisters in your fellowship still use the Recovery Version with the footnotes and the messages of Witness Lee has your main source of teaching? Do you still consider your fellowship as the only genuine Church in your city? Inquiring minds want to know!

Thanks again for stopping by my dear brother. Don't make yourself so scarce!

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

I definitely don't see Nigel or anyone else calling for folks in your position to denounce the Local Church/LSM, rather they are merely pointing out that the main way to deter outsiders from labeling them as a cult is to stop teaching and practicing in a cultic manner. After all, it's not like other Christians just call them a cult because they don't like the way they dress. The questionable teachings and practices have been the main source of concern for decades. And instead of dealing with issues and concerns, Witness Lee and his followers have continually turned to petty name calling and even taking the matter up with the worldly courts of law (a direct, flagrant violation of 1 Cor 6) , which simply raises further questions and concerns.

As I see, Nigel was commenting on a sister's article which is directly related to the local churches. I suspect Nigel had been in the local church culture for around 40 years? So he would know very well about the cult label. What is being done the shirk the label?
As I understand prior to the Great Lakes Area turmoil, many localities opted to the chagrin of LSM not to participate in the lawsuit against Harvest House. That's one way. Another is how to you present yourself as a locality? Is it as a ministry church or as a church general in nature to all those in your community?
For example: http://churchintoronto.com/

Only by your speaking in content and actions through receiving is the cult label going to have a hope to change. My personal opinion is a corporate repentance is in order. Specifically regarding lawsuits and quarantines.

As I see from Nigel's article, it's not that LSM is unable to do anything regarding the cult stigma, it's because they won't do anything in regard to their teachings and practices.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

After all, it's not like other Christians just call them a cult because they don't like the way they dress. The questionable teachings and practices have been the main source of concern for decades. And instead of dealing with issues and concerns, Witness Lee and his followers have continually turned to petty name calling and even taking the matter up with the worldly courts of law (a direct, flagrant violation of 1 Cor 6) , which simply raises further questions and concerns. It's a vicious cycle that has been repeating itself for all these years, and the cheap endorsement from some discredited "apologist", or pulling the wool over the eyes of some liberal academics is not going to make any appreciable difference in how the overall Christian public views them.

The Church of Scientology is a big group that comes to mind in who also like lawsuits. They are known as probably the most litigious religious group around. Obviously they are considered a cult. So when you see a group like the LC doing the same thing, I'm sure it makes everyone wonder. What is there to hide? What do they need to protect so much?

[SpeakersCorner]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Speaker, I would be very interested in you expounding upon what you mean by "an Local Church environment". Do you and the brothers and sisters in your fellowship still use the Recovery Version with the footnotes and the messages of Witness Lee has your main source of teaching? Do you still consider your fellowship as the only genuine Church in your city? Inquiring minds want to know!

UntoHim,

Thanks for asking. Here's a thumbnail sketch of who we are in my locality.

We are still a "local church" because we do believe all the believers in a community are one body, one church despite the walls erected around them (including our own). Time and tears have helped us to see this reality. So how are we different from other assemblies in our town? Well, besides the style of meetings, teaching, etc. (the minor things) the only real difference is that we have made a conscious decision not to divide ourselves by name. I myself have struggled mightily with this and I do believe I've come out the other side of the tunnel on it. It's a big deal simply not to take a name. The "Church in ___" is not our name, despite the fact that we are registered as such. By standing naked in name, we are declaring, "Lord, we have no strength to be one with others but we do have the strength and the vision to say this is our hope and calling."

I know that will seem ridiculous to some of you, but it is a big point to me. It is simply a contract we signed with God to stand for oneness despite our inability to back up that stand.

As for the particulars in questions you asked, we do not use the Recovery Version as our standard. A few still bring it to the meetings, but it is rarely what we read from. That said, I myself do refer to it when I prepare to speak in meetings (which I do from time to time) just to see what Witness Lee had to say about matters. I find I usually not only agree with his take, I cherish it. But not always. I recall at Lee's memorial service one of the soon-to-be Blended Brothers stood in front and declared, "In 397 (or whenever it was) the Bible was canonized and in 1997 the interpretation of it was as well." That statement marked the day I realized these guys have gone off the deep end.

Witness Lee is not the main source of our teaching, at least not directly. But those of us who have been around (some since 1969's famous Erie Conference) cannot and do not desire to purge ourselves of the truth we found over the years in the (I hate to use this word) "Recovery." It's in us till we die. So indirectly, Lee influences us still. But we seldom read anything in the meeting from him. I must hasten to add, however, that in recent days, we are becoming less afraid to use his name. I think maybe the half-life of his toxicity is about up.

Our particular locality has long been an outlier among the churches. We never really bought into a lot of the strange practices that evolved in the churches. We used to pray-read in meetings, but not aggressively. We never did the mandatory calling on the Lord in the meetings. One travelling brother who came through once told me after the meeting in which he spoke, "Get the saints to make some noise!" I guess, compared to other assemblies, we were the Quakers.

So there's a little view as to where we are. I think if you came to one of our meetings, you would recognize us as a "local church" but certainly not a typical one.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Nigel's article seems to be taking a different, and more interesting tack than simply name-calling a despised group. It seems to me, in my quick perusal, that he is issuing a call to those of us still in an LC environment but no longer associated with the LSM to separate ourselves further from them, perhaps even to denounce them.

As a person who has borne the shame of the cult label as well as the repudiation of the LSM, this seems like a great idea. "No, no, officer, it's not me ... It's THEM! Get them! They're a CULT! "[Hands in pockets, whistling while he slips off into the night.]

But this seems an admission of weakness to me. I hate that there are some in this world who think I'm in a cult (and some quite close to home), but I refuse to exonerate myself by flinging that vile term upon others.

That's a kind of cynical view of it. And you can't be so naive to not understand why the LCM is considered cultic, nor to continue to ascribe those reasons to the "blindness of Christianity."

If you believe the LCM was cultic, then you owe it to your members and message to separate yourself publicly from the cultic root. If that means denouncing LSM them what's the problem? Were you ever squeamish about denouncing Christianity?

At some point you have to admit to yourself that the LCM is and always has been unhealthily cultic. In fact, the case can be made that all the LCM's problems are due to its cultic tendencies (lording it over saints, being different for the sake of being different ("our distinct heritage"), living in a bubble, building walls, making enemies, lacking accountability, etc.) It's not just a matter of denouncing these things and those that will not repent from them. It's a matter of taking steps so that they don't appear in your church.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Igzy

That's a kind of cynical view of it. And you can't be so naive to not understand why the LCM is considered cultic, nor to continue to ascribe those reasons to the "blindness of Christianity."

If you believe the LCM was cultic, then you owe it to your members and message to separate yourself publicly from the cultic root. If that means denouncing LSM them what's the problem? Were you ever squeamish about denouncing Christianity?

At some point you have to admit to yourself that the LCM is and always has been unhealthily cultic. In fact, the case can be made that all the LCM's problems are due to its cultic tendencies (lording it over saints, being different for the sake of being different ("our distinct heritage"), living in a bubble, building walls, making enemies, lacking accountability, etc. It's not just a matter of denouncing these things and those that will not repent from them. It's a matter taking steps so that they don't appear in your church.

Take away deputy authority and they wouldn't be a cult. I doubt the non-LSM locality SpeakersCorner attends has that sort of problem. Unless they are pushing Lee and Nee books they're just guilty by association, and possibly by name.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Igzy

So what's the story with this gal? Is she still a LCMer?

“The author was a member of Local Church congregations in Taiwan and the United States from 1978-2008 and a translator for Witness Lee in his publishing companies in Taiwan and California from 1983-2001. The author was also the eldest daughter-in-law in a multigenerational Hakka Chinese household in Taiwan and the United States from 1986-2010.”

"The authors report that LSM’s leaders regard the Local Church’s cult label as irreversible. They say26 “Living Stream Ministry (LSM) leaders state that earlier publications that disparage the Local Churches as a dangerous cult have influenced public opinion in a way that has been impossible to revise, even with successful lawsuits and public statements by former detractors recanting their prior criticisms of the group.” Appealing to an Asian-style metaphor, “LSM leaders liken the effect of these earlier criticisms as ‘opening a feather pillow in the wind;’ even if one succeeds in mending the tear in the pillow, the feathers can never be retrieved and stuffed back in. These leaders assert that they must go ‘person by person, campus by campus’ to clear their group’s name. And, they claim that whenever they are successful in attracting college students as followers, campus Inter-varsity representatives seek out those students and inform them that the Local Churches are a cult.”27 (Interview with LSM leaders, Anaheim, CA, Oct. 16, 2013) This is a candid admission of impotence by LSM’s leaders, divulged to a (former) ‘insider.’ Such statements are rarely heard from the LSM-conference podium."

Obviously, if Teresa did stop meeting in 2008 and was able to interview LSM leaders in 2013 indicates at the very least a perception having left on good terms.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tomes

Watchman Nee’s “Little Flock” churches in the Far East were an “indigenized” version of Christianity, “contextualized” to Chinese culture and values. This Chinese incarnation of Christianity was further developed by Witness Lee in Taiwan. Despite their claims to have “recovered” the original, culture-free form of the New Testament Church in all its pristine purity, T. Zimmerman-Liu contends that Watchman Nee’s “Little Flock” church and Witness Lee’s “Local Church” each represent “a Chinese interpretation of Christianity,” a “Sinicized version of Christianity.” (see footnote 11) These developments in the Far East “created a form of Protestantism that is very different from its Western counterparts.” Hence, on his arrival in the West, “Witness Lee brought Chinese Christianity to the United States in the 1960s.” This assessment directly contradicts Local Church’s official “party line” about recovering the original biblical pattern; nevertheless it rings true. This insight explains why LSM’s Local Church has proved attractive to Asian (particularly Chinese) immigrants to North America and their descendents. It also provides a rationale for the Local Church’s failure to attract significant numbers of “typical North Americans” (a Local Church euphemism for Caucasians). Simply put, despite its name, LSM’s “Local Church” is not local in the context of the Western world. Rather than indigenizing the Local Church, “contextualizing” it to western culture and values, Witness Lee presented and LSM currently propagates an imported version of Asian (Chinese) Christianity, miss-matched with 21st century North America. The Local Church is in many ways (which Zimmerman-Liu identifies) an ethnic, Oriental expression of the Christian faith.

11. T. Zimmerman-Liu’s other paper seeks to “describe in detail how an indigenous Chinese Protestant group—the Local Churches—reconstituted guanxi during the twentieth century. It will show how in the process of redefining guanxi to make its members committed Christians, the Local Churches also Sinicized Christianity.” [Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’: The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a 20th Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group,” p. 1 (emphasis added), Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, Working Paper] She also asserts that, “The Local Church founders further sought to emphasize the elements of scriptural and historical Christianity that would most appeal to their audience of Republican-era (1911-1949) Chinese people.” [T. Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’...” p. 2 (emphasis added)] Again she says, “The Local Churches reconstituted guanxi relationships among their members, and they also Sinicized their version of Christianity.” [T. Zimmerman-Liu, “From ‘Children of the Devil’ to ‘Sons of God’...” p. 3 (emphasis added)]

Two points: first that I tried to make some of this explicit in the thread "The Asian Mind and the Western Mind", and elsewhere. It would be fun if someone like Zimmerman-Liu would come on this forum and mix it up with the hoi palloi, but it would probably be a bad career move, if she is trying to be seen as a serious scholar and an academic.

Nonetheless, I can say, "Yeah, that's what I was talking about!"

Secondly, in her footnote (11) she says that the LC leaders tried to redefine quanxi for the Christian polity. That would be an interesting read, no? Maybe someone can post that paper. I bet that would be a hot cake. Seriously, that paper should see the light of day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi

[Ohio]

.........................

My edit feature is acting up just like my car.

[Ohio]

“The Local Churches reconstituted guanxi relationships among their members, and they also Sinicized their version of Christianity.”

Can someone translate these concepts for an American layman like me? I'm understanding guanxi as manipulation, and Sinicized as Chinese culture.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by aron

Two points: first that I tried to make some of this explicit in the thread "The Asian Mind and the Western Mind", and elsewhere. It would be fun if someone like Zimmerman-Liu would come on this forum and mix it up with the hoi palloi, but it would probably be a bad career move, if she is trying to be seen as a serious scholar and an academic.

Talking about the Asian mind, an interesting subject of debate to discuss using Asian culture utilized with a Biblical spin (covering Noah).

[aron]

Originally Posted by Terry

Talking about the Asian mind, an interesting subject of debate to discuss using Asian culture utilized with a Biblical spin (covering Noah).

Exactly. Guanxi, with a Bible verse or two, becomes "covering Noah". We cannot let the Oracle lose face. Right?

From Wikipedia: "Reciprocal favors are the key factor to maintaining one’s guanxi web, failure to reciprocate is considered an unforgivable offense." I don't think it's too much to wonder, if the blood of Christ can even overcome cultural dictates, here. These social expectations are deeply ingrained and not questioned. They are implicit in the system itself.

How much of the lens of culture dictated what was 'normal' in Watchman Nee's supposedly normal Christian Church life? None? Was he really that good? Even that he was so good a scholar as to produce a scheme without flaw is a culturally derived notion.

And so on. The idea that engineering, or ordering society to further the harmonious operation of the whole didn't take off in the bourgeois German or French societies but with the Russians and Chinese. And when the Russian variant imploded (and with it the Czech, [East] German, Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, etc etc) the Chinese model still soldiered on. Why? Perhaps partly because the harmonious function of the Mother Ship was as intrinsic as breathing in the Eastern mind, as necessary as "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Western one.

So Nee & Lee took Paul's idea of setting things in order in the church into the Asian mind, and then exported it as the new universal norm. When Nee said, "Line up with the person in front of you" and when Lee said, "All local churches should be exactly identical" this was culture speaking through religion. Occasionally, when they can't find a Bible verse, they just give you the maxim: "The age of Spiritual Giants is over. It is now the age of the Small Potatoes." Why - because the harmonious functioning of the Mother Ship dictates that it be so.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Occasionally, when they can't find a Bible verse, they just give you the maxim: "The age of Spiritual Giants is over. It is now the age of the Small Potatoes." Why - because the harmonious functioning of the Mother Ship dictates that it be so.

But how does this look in the USA? When the True Believer Caucasians like BP, RG, MP, KR, RK, and EM pursue the building of the Mothership and dismiss things like basic human rights, respect, due process, and objective truth, it looks cultic.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

But how does this look in the USA? When the True Believer Caucasians like BP, RG, MP, KR, RK, and EM pursue the building of the Mothership and dismiss things like basic human rights, respect, due process, and objective truth, it looks cultic.

I understand Witness Lee and his 'collectivism-groupthink" but for the life of me don't understand that of BP, RG, MP, KR, and RK.