Melodyland and the Trinity

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ANSWERS TO THE BIBLE ANSWER MAN - CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

"This book is the republication of a series of articles first published in The Orange County Register on October 8 and 15, 1977. They were answers to an attack made by Walter Martin, who called himself “the Bible Answer Man.” Martin made this attack against Witness Lee and “the Local Church” in a lecture given at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California on October 2, 1977. The tape of that lecture, entitled Witness Lee and the Local Church, is still in circulation today. This book again publishes the answers to that tape."

"Before the events of 1977, those in the local churches had already made several attempts to correct the errors of the CRI authors. This was done both in person and in writing. In each case the response was confrontational arrogance that eliminated any true fellowship or even proper discussion. Thus, a pattern developed of attacking while ignoring the protests from the churches that what CRI circulated did not reflect what the churches really believed.

In early 1977 Walter Martin was publicly confronted by representatives of the local churches. They again insisted that the CRI statements did not reflect the churches’ beliefs and offered to discuss the problems with him. Martin issued an apology to Witness Lee and suspended all CRI writings concerning Witness Lee and “the Local Church” until such discussion could take place. Based upon that apology and the suspending of the tracts, Witness Lee met with Walter Martin in February 1977.

The two agreed to stop all publications until Martin could come to an adequate understanding of the true beliefs of the local churches, through mutual fellowship. Martin was offered complete cooperation for his research. That agreement was broken about a week later when one of Martin’s research associates resumed the attack upon the churches through letters from CRI. Witness Lee insisted that the agreement could be continued only if Martin dealt with the infractions. Martin answered in the old CRI mode—by renewing the attack. Of course, Martin ignored the fact that the research which he agreed should be done had, in fact, never been done.

Martin’s response to the canceled agreement was the source of the meeting at Melodyland and the tape that is still sold today by CRI. Martin admitted on the tape that he relied mainly upon his youthful assistants. He repeated their old accusations, which by then had already been refuted. He endorsed a book, The Mindbenders, that proved to be so blatantly biased and false that it was later retracted with apology by its publisher. Martin’s tape displayed a lack of understanding of the Bible, theology, and church history. At the same time, it was steeped in the sarcastic arrogance that was Martin’s trademark."

Dan Towle
Anaheim, California
March 1994