Cookie cutter web sites

[aron]

http://www.churchinmiddleborough.org/history/index.html

If you look at local church [sic] web sites, some are just shells, without information on the pages, like the "history of the Middleborough church" above. It looks like they were told to do this, and did it without much enthusiasm or effort. The clearinghouse web site "blended body" lists well over a hundred of them, most not touched in the decades since they were put up by LSM directives. Doesn't look local at all.

https://www.blendedbody.com/CIBwebsi...html/Links.htm

You can also find them individually by googling keywords in their bylines: "lovers of Jesus affiliated with the ministries of watchman nee witness lee" and there they are, leftovers from the initial push to get Witness Lee's name on the internet. Cookie cutter web sites, most of them long since given up. And didn't anyone blanch at the 'affiliated with' part? It's as local as a McDonalds franchise.

The church in XXXXX warmly welcomes you. We are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who have personally received Him as our Savior. He is the most excellent and enjoyable Person. We love Him and endeavor to give Him the first place in all things. We rejoice to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, born again of the Father’s divine life, and filled with the Holy Spirit.

We highly treasure the Holy Bible as God’s revelation of Himself and of His eternal purpose. We hold the common faith which is revealed in the Bible and is common to all genuine believers.

As is true of all believers in Christ, we are members of His one Body, the church. In order to practice the oneness of the Body with all the Christians in XXXXX, we meet as the church in XXXXX. We are in fellowship with over 2,000 local churches worldwide to express the one Body of Christ.

Any church that hasn't done anything on its website in 20+ years might want to think about the testimony that gives: indifference, apathy, ennui.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Any church that hasn't done anything on its website in 20+ years might want to think about the testimony that gives: indifference, apathy, ennui.

Adding to the above, if you look at the fact that there's dozens of websites, all created simultaneously, all with identical formats, very few currently being maintained, it starts to look like this wasn't a local effort at all, but was a push by Mothership (aka Book Publisher) to optimise search engine technology by backlinking disparate WL encomiums. In other words, a typical "flow" from Anaheim, taken up with resignation by the periphery, soon forgotten.

The most striking thing to me, however, wasn't that - it was the byline, "Lovers of Jesus, affiliated with the local churches, Watchman Nee, Witness Lee." Google those keywords and it results in a view of all the web addresses of "ChurchinXXX". I couldn't get over the "affiliated with" part of that... here was this religious group, founded on the supposed truth that all other Christian "DeNOMinations" had utterly failed to collectively represent God because they were "of" something besides God. Lutherans were "of" Luther, Methodists were "of" Wesley's method, etc. Right? Remember the oft-referenced teaching based on 1 Corinthians -- "I am of Paul" and "I am of Peter" is tantamount to degradation and spiritual ruin. Then, in 1999 or 2000, suddenly here's all these web sites touting that they're "affiliated with" Watchman Nee and Witness Lee...??? Huh??

And that's not even the most striking part, to me. It's the realization that follows that bizarre world, that in dozens of these churches, these cookie cutter websites were foisted on the natives, and nobody said, "Hey! 'Affiliated with'... what gives here?" The ministry reverses the entire narrative and utterly contradicts its founding principles, and nobody in the "local churches" says a peep. That's when I can only draw the conclusion that this is a very powerful system of mind control.

"We don't want to be 'of' anyone, but we're 'affiliated with' Watchman Nee and Witness Lee." How could leaders of assemblies of believers say this with a straight face, unless they're completely mentally programmed. They literally can't muster one independent thought. Otherwise a single hand would shoot up quickly in the audience - "Hey!!", and everyone would be like, "Yeah, what he said..." But no, it's collective mental oblivion. The whole group meekly submits to, "We're lovers of Jesus, affiliated with Witness Lee" even though it goes against everything they've been saying for 25 years.

[ACuriousFellow]

I remember checking out some of the Christians on Campus websites a week or two ago. I noticed that the college groups in San Antonio and Austin have the same paragraphs written for their beliefs and mission statements on the club websites. That's just two campuses, though. I haven't really done a deep dive on all their groups regarding that.

[aron]

Originally Posted by ACuriousFellow

I remember checking out some of the Christians on Campus websites a week or two ago. I noticed that the college groups in San Antonio and Austin have the same paragraphs written for their beliefs and mission statements on the club websites. That's just two campuses, though. I haven't really done a deep dive on all their groups regarding that.

I found a very telling footnote in the RecV, in Revelations 2 and 3. It said, "All local churches have to be exactly identical, with no differences". Now, that's frankly impossible. I'm not exactly the same as you, with no differences, nor is my local fellowship exactly the same as yours. It was a control move, through and through.

What was the biblical basis? That the candlesticks representing the seven churches in Asia were "exactly the same, with no differences"...?? Have you ever seen a hand-beaten pomegranate or calyx made out of gold? No flower is exactly the same, with no differences. No snowflake or star. In Exodus 25 it describes hand-beaten almond blossoms with petals on each candlestick... so why are the various Christian assemblies supposed to be identical in appearance? Witness Lee read whatever he wanted to in scripture, even if it made no sense, even if it was self-contradictory with previous readings and messages, even if it went against thousands of years of Christian thought and action. Why? Control. That was the single unwavering theme with Witness Lee's ministry, so-called, from start to finish.

Peter said, "We come to Him as living stones". Not dead bricks pressed out in some bible expositor's machinery. Everyone is unique. Deal with it.

[Nell]

These shadow web sites are actually "click bait" probably hosted, financed, and maintained (or not) by the publishing house for Witness Lee (deceased in 1998) and Watchman Nee (deceased in 1972). I would guess that not all franchise locations have in its membership someone with the webmaster skills necessary to maintain these sites, so the sites remain empty shells. Or, the sites are there to provide a street address only for anyone who might stumble onto the site. Regardless, the publishing house, for some reason, has not undertaken the task of maintaining its empty websites and remain little more than click bait.

If the publishing house ministry were everything it claims to be, why the facade? Is the Holy Spirit so impotent that it needs fake websites to deliver its message of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Nell

[ACuriousFellow]

Originally Posted by aron

I found a very telling footnote in the RecV, in Revelations 2 and 3. It said, "All local churches have to be exactly identical, with no differences". Now, that's frankly impossible. I'm not exactly the same as you, with no differences, nor is my local fellowship exactly the same as yours. It was a control move, through and through.

What was the biblical basis? That the candlesticks representing the seven churches in Asia were "exactly the same, with no differences"...?? Have you ever seen a hand-beaten pomegranate or calyx made out of gold? No flower is exactly the same, with no differences. No snowflake or star. In Exodus 25 it describes hand-beaten almond blossoms with petals on each candlestick... so why are the various Christian assemblies supposed to be identical in appearance? Witness Lee read whatever he wanted to in scripture, even if it made no sense, even if it was self-contradictory with previous readings and messages, even if it went against thousands of years of Christian thought and action. Why? Control. That was the single unwavering theme with Witness Lee's ministry, so-called, from start to finish.

Peter said, "We come to Him as living stones". Not dead bricks pressed out in some bible expositor's machinery. Everyone is unique. Deal with it.

Dude, I was looking through the Recovery footnotes in Revelations and found something that blew my mind.

(Footnote on "Nicolaitans," Revelations 2:6, Recovery Version of the Bible by Witness Lee, published by Living Stream Ministry)

"The Greek word is composed of two words, one meaning conquer or be victorious over and another meaning common people, secular people, or laity. Thus, it means conquering the common people, being victorious over the laity. Nicolaitans,, then, must refer to a group of people who esteem themselves higher than common believers. This was undoubtedly the hierarchy adopted and established by Catholicism and Protestantism. The Lord hates the works, the behavior, of these Nicolaitans, and we must hate what the Lord hates."

(Some words have been bolded for emphasis.)

What an incredible irony I have stumbled across in Lee's footnotes.

Originally Posted by ACuriousFellow

Dude, I was looking through the Recovery footnotes in Revelations and found something that blew my mind.

(Footnote on "Nicolaitans," Revelations 2:6, Recovery Version of the Bible by Witness Lee, published by Living Stream Ministry)

"The Greek word is composed of two words, one meaning conquer or be victorious over and another meaning common people, secular people, or laity. Thus, it means conquering the common people, being victorious over the laity. Nicolaitans,, then, must refer to a group of people who esteem themselves higher than common believers. This was undoubtedly the hierarchy adopted and established by Catholicism and Protestantism. The Lord hates the works, the behavior, of these Nicolaitans, and we must hate what the Lord hates."

(Some words have been bolded for emphasis.)

What an incredible irony I have stumbled across in Lee's footnotes.

This a an old communist trick that been used before:
“Accuse everyone and all outsiders of doing something that you are guilty of”. Witness Lee and the blended are very masterful and precise on this issue. They don’t even have a conscience to get out of their own way! It’s tragic.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

And that's not even the most striking part, to me. It's the realization that follows that bizarre world, that in dozens of these churches, these cookie cutter websites were foisted on the natives, and nobody said, "Hey! 'Affiliated with'... what gives here?" The ministry reverses the entire narrative and utterly contradicts its founding principles, and nobody in the "local churches" says a peep. That's when I can only draw the conclusion that this is a very powerful system of mind control.

"We don't want to be 'of' anyone, but we're 'affiliated with' Watchman Nee and Witness Lee." How could leaders of assemblies of believers say this with a straight face, unless they're completely mentally programmed. They literally can't muster one independent thought. Otherwise a single hand would shoot up quickly in the audience - "Hey!!", and everyone would be like, "Yeah, what he said..." But no, it's collective mental oblivion. The whole group meekly submits to, "We're lovers of Jesus, affiliated with Witness Lee" even though it goes against everything they've been saying for 25 years.

I had to laugh at your comments, aron. It was basically just our regularly scheduled programming!

Blatant in-your-face hypocrisy had merely become our normal "Recovery" way of life. When the Lord Jesus - God manifested in the flesh - literally blasted the Jewish leaders in their faces for their hypocrisy in Matt 23, it had no affect on them either. They crucified their long-awaited Messiah just a few days later.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by CrownHer

This a an old communist trick that been used before:
“Accuse everyone and all outsiders of doing something that you are guilty of”. Witness Lee and the blended are very masterful and precise on this issue. They don’t even have a conscience to get out of their own way! It’s tragic.

Yes, they have mastered Romans 2.1 and made a science out of it.

These religious leaders have become, in essence, identical to our modern day politicians.

LSM has become merely what they condemn others for doing, whether the others were guilty or not, and usually they were not.

[aron]

There is an article on Watchman Nee in the magazine "Church History", which seems to be a fairly mainstream scholarly publication (American Society of Church History/Cambridge U. Press). The author is Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, who teaches history at Pace University.

Originally Posted by J T-H Lee

Other features that distinguished Watchman Nee from other Protestant denominations were his antagonism towards denominational affiliation and his emphasis on the church as a local entity. To WN, the most vivid expression of Christian community was the local church (difang jiaohui) or local assembly (difang juhuisuo). He saw a local church or an assembly as "a spiritual body" composed of a group of Christians who were called out of this world—a concept derived from his interpretation of the Book of Acts in the New Testament. Strongly in favor of autonomous and independent local churches, he maintained that there should be "one church in one locality."

WN's idea of local assembly was based on a rejection of existing extra-local affiliations, but once shed of Western ties, he then turned completely around with his "Jerusalem Principle", and later WL did the same in the U.S. between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, and this change was codified in the bylines of the 1999 web sites. Stepping back and looking at the shifting narrative arc over time, it looks like an impromptu theology of convenience.

[Ohio]

Definitely agree with aron here.

Both WN and WL began their ministries “Strongly in favor of autonomous and independent local churches.” During this period, their ministries were blessed because the Bible endorses this.

Later on, however, in order to hide personal ethical and business failures, both WN and WL completely changed their ecclesiastical teaching schemes preferring the many benefits of centralized ministerial control. Both of them definitely changed over time from the Antioch Principle of Apostle Paul to the Jerusalem Principle of the Judaizers.

Hence, historians and biographers are often confused. Without a long-term historical study, one might think that both WN and WL continued their initial church stance throughout their ministry. In fact, their followers often claimed that both WN/WL remained true to their earlier convictions. The facts of history, however, thoroughly refute this claim.

Hi all,
I run into some other similar to Recovery group called, “The Restored Church of God”. Their Pastor General is David C. Pack, and his teachings as in recovery are touted to be unknown by all except his little group. Maybe I’m off on couple things here, but that’s what I have come across.

https://rcg.org/home.html

https://youtu.be/j4iaA51ctSQ

What’s up with all these people like Lee and this guy wanting such a title and followers?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Texas

I run into some other similar to Recovery group called, “The Restored Church of God”. Their Pastor General is David C. Pack...What’s up with all these people like Lee and this guy wanting such a title and followers?

I read their website once. I did a couple of google searches on "restored church" and "recovered church" and "true church" and found a bunch of such claimant, actually. (but by definition there can't be more than one 'true' or 'proper church', to use Witness Lee's terms.) Another such group was called Geftakys Assembly.

Originally Posted by Geftakys Assembly site

The Story...

Adults who came into the Geftakys Assembly did not see it coming. They invested heart and soul in a ministry with a serious vision. They gave it their all, believing that they were serving the Lord.

Their children, the second generation, were a different story entirely. They were powerless in the cultic system.

Everyone was devastated when the corruption came to light and the ministry fell apart. The damages and losses of being in such a group are immense.

This is how the story played out in the Geftakys Assembly ministry that began in 1970 in Orange County, California.

People are drawn in initially by the seriousness of the mission and the supposed simplicity of purpose of these "restored" or "recovered" groups. Everything seems so clear, so simple. Eventually they find out there's more going on than first meets the eye. And children born inside the group have got no choice: they're indoctrinated from birth in a typically autocratic system with a Big Boss (aka Prophet, Apostle) who runs everyone's lives, often in fine detail.

https://www.geftakysassembly.com/

[aron]

Originally Posted by Unreg

Proverbs 11:14 “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” My realization that the people of LC, have abandoned this basic principles, and besides LSM and their lies, there is no counsel! There is no multitude, it’s ether Witness and LSM, or else! The safety net has been removed.

I wanted to bring some quotes over and address them on this thread, because they may pertain directly to my premise that the cookie cutter web sites put out by LSM point directly to the problem at hand, and may also suggest a resolution, as well.

Originally Posted by Recovering

Some unfortunately begin to rationalize things that bother their conscience, and without realizing it they begin to practice patterns of spiritual abuse. Others end up processing the inner conflict with a lot of mental gymnastics and thought-stopping calling on the Lord. I've seen it go both ways.

Here's an exercise for current members of the local churches: go to Google and type "lovers Jesus affiliated with local churches"... my search produced the web sites started in 1999/2000 at the behest of LSM. The first page came up: Dallas, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Hilo, Burnaby, Alexandria, and so forth. All say, "Lovers of Jesus affiliated with local churches, Watchman Nee, Witness Lee."

My question is, What does 'affiliated with' mean, here? And, how is it fundamentally different from what Paul noted disapprovingly in I Corinthians 1:12 and 3:4? What if the church in Corinth had put out a website saying, "A local church, the church in Corinth, enjoys Christ and recommends the ministry of Paul"? How is that recommendation different from, "I am of Paul" or, "I follow Paul"?

The current regime requires a reflexive, conditioned response in order to survive. When faced with such obvious conceptual difficulties, either one calls "Ohhhh Looooord..." repeatedly to stop their mind, or says, "That's not God's economy", or "I only care for enjoyment" or "I just love Jesus", or one shuts down and gets angry. I've seen this, and even done it myself.

Originally Posted by That Guy Over There

In these situations, he was not so gentle anymore. I still remember when he tried to teach me of a particular doctrine early on. I told him that while I thought it was an interesting theory, I didn't believe the scripture he presented sufficiently supported the doctrine to the point where we should say it was absolute truth like they did in The Recovery. He became quite angry with me because I could not "see the truth" in the scriptures. It was very scary for me, and it was not the first time he would lay it into me for questioning the Recovery or the decisions of the elders.

The solution is to keep pointing them to their own words, gently but persistently asking them to fit their own words together. How can local churches be affiliated with an extra-local ministry? By definition, "local" and "affiliated with" don't match. Unless, you can show me how?

Or, ask, if we're to hold Paul's word that women are not permitted to teach, how can we promote Mary McDonough as supposedly recovering the three parts of man, along with dispositional intrinsic sanctification, and sell her book on LSM's website? Either women are not permitted to teach, or they are... we can't hold two contradictory positions. Either some idea must reconcile them, or one of them must be given up. For that matter, Watchman Nee's supposed magnum opus, the Spiritual Man, was largely copied from Jessie Penn-Lewis... why did he slavishly copy a woman's writing to the point of plagiarism, if his church forbade women to teach? The facts require a question, and the question requires an answer.

One of the blended brothers is famously supportive of higher education. But again, here's his own position: "A university is first and foremost a community of scholars teaching, learning, and pursuing scholarly inquiries that spring from human curiosity." Human curiosity cannot be forever quenched by getting angry, or repetitive calling or reciting mantras with clenched fists. Curiosity is there, it's part of what makes us. Gerald Chan affirms this, and openly promotes this. Let's remind him and his peers.

http://www.geraldchan.net/2016/07/14...-july-14-2016/

Another encouraging quote: "Times have changed. New knowledge is now being produced at a breakneck speed and is readily accessible to anyone with connection to the Internet. A learned person can no longer be defined merely as one who is in possession of knowledge, or perhaps more accurately, and somewhat derogatorily, one who is in possession of information. Today, whether a person can be considered a learned person hinges on what he does with the knowledge he has. A beautiful mind is not beautiful by virtue of its storage capacity, nor even what has been stored in it. A beautiful mind is a mind with beautiful ideas."

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/fe...-remarks-chan/

Now, you are either threatened by knowledge, and the creation of new ideas, or you're not. And here we have a current benefactor of the LSM on record, that a mind full of ideas is beautiful. He says that he's not threatened by them, and welcomes them. I agree: let's read widely, think deeply as we can, come up with ideas, put them out for examination, discussion, and friendly debate.

Some who are currently stuck may get mad, some may recoil with fear, some may shut down, others may close their eyes and begin to chant, rocking back and forth, fists clenched. Still others will ignore any non-trivial questions, hoping that it goes away. But the information is there, the questions are there, and the creation of new ideas is waiting. So it's good for the local churches that the web sites are also there, as they have critical information about what happened.

[Nell]

While reading this topic, I recalled a newspaper article from the Dallas Morning News in 1995. The speaker here is Jerry McGill, a Local Church elder at the time in Dallas, but had "served" in other locations. The LC was attempting to purchase land in Spring Park and were getting pushback from the locals.

"Council member Lee Smith, who lives in SpringPark, said he and other homeowners are concerned that the church might be affiliated with other churches around the country, including Austin and Arlington, whose members profess to follow a Chinese spiritual leader named Witness Lee.

"Everything I've read shows these churches could be cultish, and the people here are very concerned about that," Mr. Smith said.

Mr. McGill said that he is aware of the organization, which sometimes is called The Local Church and is named after the cities where services are held. But Mr. McGill said The Church in Richardson does not have any "official ties with any church."
"We have no central headquarters . . . no organizational leader or ties to anything," he said. "We're an independent,Bible-believing church with no affiliation . . . just like a lot of churches in Garland."

No mention of the "unofficial" ties. Nothing is on paper, so it's OK to lie through his teeth.

My question has always been: What's wrong with being "affiliated" with Witness Lee? Is there a problem following a Chinese spiritual leader...so much so that you're willing to compromise your integrity?

If you know him, why not just say so? How 'bout "as Christians we have received much spiritual help and guidance from Lee..."

But for Jerry McGill, lying was the only option.

Like I said...1995. This deceptive "affiliation" has been going on for a long time.

Nell

[aron]

Originally Posted by Nell

My question has always been: What's wrong with being "affiliated" with Witness Lee? Is there a problem following a Chinese spiritual leader...so much so that you're willing to compromise your integrity?

To your first question: what's wrong with being affiliated, is that both WN & WL established local churches as a supposedly biblical alternative to such practices. To hear them tell it, any affiliation was to say, "I am of Peter" or "I am of Paul" which had been rejected.

But in fact they were affiliated, which they kept deflecting and hiding, like Mr McGill to the Dallas Morning News in 1995. As Nell pointed out, "To follow [this] Chinese spiritual leader, you must be willing to compromise your integrity". Same as the ethical issues that the Casteel letter raised, where LSM-affiliated campus recruiters would say, "We're just Christians who love the Lord Jesus" and use a KJV. Then at subsequent meetings, one might carefully put out the RecV, saying, "We use various texts" then begin to praise the 'light' in RecV footnotes. The whole thing smacks of disingenuousness, unless someone can explain otherwise.

To use a variant on my earlier question: With such a background, how could LSM instruct all the U.S. local churches in the late 1990s to put out web sites openly declaring and promoting their affiliation with Witness Lee? Don't you think at some point someone is going to ask what is going on? How can this group so openly contradict itself and not expect someone to ask about it, and, following Gerald Chan's lead, to come up with explanations, as Nell and I have done here?

Or the LSM's reliance on Mary McDonough and WN on Jessie Penn-Lewis. If you so baldly contradict yourself on women teaching in church, don't you think someone will eventually question that? How long can we ignore the obvious - forever?

If anyone can propose how this is all some misunderstanding, and all these seemingly disjointed positions fit together holistically and without ethical compromise, and without forcing dissociative compartmentalization by church members, please do so. Until then, my hypothesis is that WL brazenly spun fabulous stories, the more fantastical the better, and it worked when he ran the only printing press in town. Then the internet happened along.

[Nell]

By asking “What’s wrong with being ‘affiliated’ with Witness Lee”, that was not a literal question. I certainly know what’s wrong from the literal sense.

I was asking “What are you hiding?” You’ve been associated…affiliated…a follower of…for years…yet you deny. What are you hiding, or, are you hiding something?

Sorry I wasn’t clear.

Nell