More Clarity About www.afaithfulword.org

Cal · 09-21-2012, 10:57 AM

In 2006, in response to threats to its power base in the Local Church movement founded by the deceased Christian leader Witness Lee, The Living Stream Ministry, via their public-relations arm DCP, published the website www.afaithfulword.org. This website, which is still online, contains publications intended to discredit and defame anyone who took exception to LSM’s claim of sole authority to issue publications, authoritative or otherwise, for the movement.

This website should be required reading for any Christian seeking to understand how Christian movements go wrong and why it is so hard for those inside the movement to see the errors. It is a classic example of how to use equivocation to deceive oneself and others.

Equivocation

This essential error of equivocation--the confusion of one thing for another (whether intentionally or mistakenly) leading to false conclusions--is one the movement commits over and over. Examples include but are not limited to:

Confusing Witness Lee’s ministry with the word of God and the leading of God.
Confusing their movement with the Church and God’s purpose.
Confusing the defense of their brand with the defense of God's move.
Using the multiple meanings of “the Lord’s recovery” to further all the above confusion.

Here is a quote from the home page:

Finally, all the churches and saints everywhere must understand that the matter of one publication is not a matter of the common faith but something related to the one ministry in the Lord's recovery. The ministry is the sounding of the trumpet among us in the Lord's recovery, and there should be no uncertain sounding of this trumpet, as Brother Lee has mentioned on a number of occasions.

Note the mention above of "the Lord's recovery," the movement's term for itself, as if it were a thing of central resonance to God. “The Lord’s recovery”--the idea of God's specific working in end times to "recover the genuine church" embodied in unique movements--is neither defined nor even mentioned in the Bible. The LC movement tries to get some distance from the image of the woman giving birth to the man-child in Revelation 12 and other vague typology, but to base such a game-changing concept on such threadbare biblical evidence is folly in the first degree.

If you examine LSM’s thinking expressed in these writings, you see again and again that they imbue their movement with the same and sole authority as not only God’s Church, but also God’s very purpose. To them, to be in their movement is to be in God's Church and purpose, to be out is to be out of God's Church and purpose. But being in a movement has nothing to do with either!

Essentially the movement's error is to hijack the general characteristics of the Church and God’s purpose and make them the specific characteristics of them and them alone. This is an example of the work of equivocation.

To call this a catastrophic error is an understatement. LSM so glibly and matter-of-factly talks about “the Lord’s recovery” as if it were a real thing, an entity with the centrality of the Church itself, that they deceive not only themselves but also thousands of followers. This is an error squared. It is an error to believe there is such a thing as the Lord’s recovery embodied in one movement, and it is a further error to believe that they are it.

In reality, “the Lord’s recovery” is nothing more than what the movement started by Witness Lee calls itself. So when LSM calls for one publication in the Lord’s recovery (with requisite high-sounding appeals to “one trumpet sound”) it is actually saying nothing more than “we’re in charge of this brand and of how this brand publicizes itself.” But they want readers to think they are saying much more. They may well have rights to the brand, though even that is debatable. But even if they did, it wouldn't give them rights to any spiritual realities. Again, note the confusion in their minds expressed in equivocation.

All of the LC movement’s errors and the resilience of those errors spring from this primary error—of believing their subset of the Church is the unique representative of the whole Church and God’s purpose. In other words, of mistaking one thing for another.

To follow and understand the thinking and errors of this movement, especially those on www.afaithfulword.org, simply do the following: Whenever they say “the Lord’s recovery,” replace those words in your mind with “our movement,” remembering that in their minds they believe it to be much more than that, even though they have no rational biblical or spiritual ground on which to base that belief.

09-21-2012, 10:57 AM	#1
Cal Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: USA Posts: 4,333	More Clarity About www.afaithfulword.org In 2006, in response to threats to its power base in the Local Church movement founded by the deceased Christian leader Witness Lee, The Living Stream Ministry, via their public-relations arm DCP, published the website www.afaithfulword.org. This website, which is still online, contains publications intended to discredit and defame anyone who took exception to LSM’s claim of sole authority to issue publications, authoritative or otherwise, for the movement. This website should be required reading for any Christian seeking to understand how Christian movements go wrong and why it is so hard for those inside the movement to see the errors. It is a classic example of how to use equivocation to deceive oneself and others. Equivocation This essential error of equivocation--the confusion of one thing for another (whether intentionally or mistakenly) leading to false conclusions--is one the movement commits over and over. Examples include but are not limited to: Confusing Witness Lee’s ministry with the word of God and the leading of God. Confusing their movement with the Church and God’s purpose. Confusing the defense of their brand with the defense of God's move. Using the multiple meanings of “the Lord’s recovery” to further all the above confusion. Here is a quote from the home page: Finally, all the churches and saints everywhere must understand that the matter of one publication is not a matter of the common faith but something related to the one ministry in the Lord's recovery. The ministry is the sounding of the trumpet among us in the Lord's recovery, and there should be no uncertain sounding of this trumpet, as Brother Lee has mentioned on a number of occasions. Note the mention above of "the Lord's recovery," the movement's term for itself, as if it were a thing of central resonance to God. “The Lord’s recovery”--the idea of God's specific working in end times to "recover the genuine church" embodied in unique movements--is neither defined nor even mentioned in the Bible. The LC movement tries to get some distance from the image of the woman giving birth to the man-child in Revelation 12 and other vague typology, but to base such a game-changing concept on such threadbare biblical evidence is folly in the first degree. If you examine LSM’s thinking expressed in these writings, you see again and again that they imbue their movement with the same and sole authority as not only God’s Church, but also God’s very purpose. To them, to be in their movement is to be in God's Church and purpose, to be out is to be out of God's Church and purpose. But being in a movement has nothing to do with either! Essentially the movement's error is to hijack the general characteristics of the Church and God’s purpose and make them the specific characteristics of them and them alone. This is an example of the work of equivocation. To call this a catastrophic error is an understatement. LSM so glibly and matter-of-factly talks about “the Lord’s recovery” as if it were a real thing, an entity with the centrality of the Church itself, that they deceive not only themselves but also thousands of followers. This is an error squared. It is an error to believe there is such a thing as the Lord’s recovery embodied in one movement, and it is a further error to believe that they are it. In reality, “the Lord’s recovery” is nothing more than what the movement started by Witness Lee calls itself. So when LSM calls for one publication in the Lord’s recovery (with requisite high-sounding appeals to “one trumpet sound”) it is actually saying nothing more than “we’re in charge of this brand and of how this brand publicizes itself.” But they want readers to think they are saying much more. They may well have rights to the brand, though even that is debatable. But even if they did, it wouldn't give them rights to any spiritual realities. Again, note the confusion in their minds expressed in equivocation. All of the LC movement’s errors and the resilience of those errors spring from this primary error—of believing their subset of the Church is the unique representative of the whole Church and God’s purpose. In other words, of mistaking one thing for another. To follow and understand the thinking and errors of this movement, especially those on www.afaithfulword.org, simply do the following: Whenever they say “the Lord’s recovery,” replace those words in your mind with “our movement,” remembering that in their minds they believe it to be much more than that, even though they have no rational biblical or spiritual ground on which to base that belief.