The Speciality, Generality, and Practicality of the Church Life

[OBW]

Since SonstoGlory mentioned this book in another thread, I thought I would look into it. I am not trying to rain on anyone's consideration of what is good about Lee's teachings. But I also am not sure that just letting everyone think that what they once thought was necessarily true is really beneficial for them or anyone else. He (and others) will have to decide whether they still want to hold to what they already think. But to withhold this alternative view just because of feelings seems to put emotions over truth, or at least the search for truth.

I don’t think we should litter that other thread with a discussion of this book, so I started a new one. It may not ever really go anywhere, but I thought it would be worthwhile to at least start through a look at one of Lee’s books in 2019 rather than just point back at previous threads that are as much as 10 years old or more, or not even on this forum (going back to the old Berean forum).

(Caveat: This post is long. If you don't like long posts, read it in pieces, or just ingore this thread. I wanted to get certain things out as a start, so this is what it is.)

The Speciality, Generality, and Practicality of the Church Life was from messages Lee gave in 1971 — about 1-1/2 years before I heard of the LC. It begins with some statements concerning the faith. According to Lee, the faith is “composed of the beliefs concerning the Bible, God, Christ, the work of Christ, salvation, and the church.”

The Bible. He starts with three sentences concerning the Bible. Only two points:

Divinely inspired word-by-word. (“The genuine Christians do not have any doubt about this point.”)

Infallible. No qualifier(s). Not “infallible in matters of faith.” Or “infallible on the points which it is addressing” and not to side issues like alleged facts of science.

God. God is uniquely one but triune. Some believe that the Father, Son, and Spirit are separate persons and this is tritheism (never quite says it here). He uses the “spirit, soul, and body” analogy — generally understood as a poor analogy, at best.

Christ. Lee starts making more not-quite accurate statements, such as “the very God in eternity,” claims “with” the Father, is “called the Father” (referring to Isaiah). When he says “[e]ven while He was in the flesh on the earth, the Father was with Him” he is not suggesting that the Father is always there. He is taking it right up to the never-quite-stated “they are just one.” Then quickly moves on to say that as the sender and giver of the Spirit, as the last Adam he “became the life-giving Spirit.” Not just “spirit” — the essence of God as stated in John 4 — but the third of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. He even references John 4:24 to say that the triune God is “Spirit.” But “Spirit” is the name of one of the Three while “spirit” is the common nature or essence of the Three.

Now I said earlier that he “quickly moves on” to his next point. This whole section is one of his pep-talk speeches. The purpose is to make a whole lot of statements that will immediately garner a bunch of “amens.” Why? Because in the LC it is never enough to hear something true. You have to assert an enthusiastic “amen” in response. So when we can hardly get one “amen” out before he has made another such statement requiring yet another “amen,” we begin to turn off the question filter than is nagging us with that quiet “what did he just say?” as we drown it all out. If you read through his litany of attributes, you will see that it is more like a list of things to say “amen” about. Not saying that most of them are not meaningful. But the way some of them are stated are somewhat LC-speak for something that is not entirely orthodox. Yet Lee is in the middle of saying what it is what ALL GENIUNE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE.

(Let me take a moment to say that I have noted the first chapter of other of Lee’s books having these kinds of pep-talks. A litany of truths that often are not necessary, followed by the one truly questionable statement that is simply ignored in a now feverish chorus of amens. And the hook is set. You have accepted the questionable so moving on with that as a “given” is easier. I first saw this when starting through The Economy of God several years ago. And it kept popping up in others. Nee had a different approach. He would just make some bold declaration and say it was a fact. And say it enough times that unless you just outright rejected it, you would start to follow along. After all, he was accepted to be the smartest person in almost any room, so he must know what he is talking about. Then he went on as if it was settled truth. Authority and Submission begins with the declaration that where the word “power” is used, it is equivalent to “authority.” He even quoted some scripture using the change, including the ending of the Lord’s prayer. It is true that His is the authority. But it didn’t say that. And the fact that the word “power” is there does not make the claimed equivalency with authority as if stated there.

I can be generous and suggest that Lee is just trying to get his listeners/readers to understand what he believes to be true. Or I can be less generous and suggest that Lee is trying to get his listeners/readers to dismiss the obvious and follow something for which there is no real substance. I will let you decide how malicious Lee may or may not have been. But either way, the effect is the same.)

These pep talks are designed to get you tracking with him (Lee) so that once he is through, you have enthusiastically agreed with things that you might not really believe if given the time to consider and study. When the fervor of the pep-talk dies down, and even when you go home for the evening, you might find some of those questions arising. But since you were so enthusiastic to say “amen” at the time, and all those people who can’t be all wrong were also enthusiastically saying “amen,” then it must be true.

I think that this is one of the reasons that the charges against Titus Chu included the fact that he taught study of the Bible through careful reading of the scripture, and commentaries, and after that come to see that it matches the “ministry’s” teachings. They insisted that you should be taught to first be filled with the ministry, and only after that to begin to check it against the Bible and commentaries. That way the tendency to believe what you read first would come to play and any discrepancies would be passed off as the error of others, or even your own lack of ability to read the word in the Bible correctly.

In the subsection “Concerning Christ,” paragraph 8, he says, “[t]hus, in Him all the attributes of God become our virtues.” Now I will be the first to agree that much of the attributes of God are attributed (or imputed) to us. But imputation is more like a title given than fact of character. It is not a statement of practical fact. If they were actually our virtues, then we would live-out those virtues in this world, not just in some imputed, spiritual way. But they are the attributes of the one in whom we have believed and in whose likeness we are growing. We have not automatically become anything. (It is to our benefit that God sees us that way, but he also set out a course of obedience to practice those things, not just claim that we own them without outward proof.) At this point, you might say “of course, and Lee didn’t really mean it that way.” But I am not so sure.

We could continue to pick our way through the items of the faith, and we could do that if it is of interest to anyone. But it is probably a good time to stop and think about what we have gleaned from just this little bit.

This section is designed to declare that the LCs are holding to the core tenets of the Christian faith along with all “genuine Christians.” It includes all that we read above, plus much on the work of Christ, salvation, and the church (including the statement that the body of Christ is “locally one — one city, one church.” (There is a reference given (Rev 1:11) but neither this verse, nor any other, states as a matter of faith or doctrine that there is one church in any single city.)

But since not all Christians agree on all the litany of things Lee spoke (and others distilled into the book), such as Christ becoming the Spirit or there only being one church (assembly) per city (and presumably all the other “boundary of the church” rules would apply), then what is a good, Lee-following LCer supposed to think? Maybe that all those so-called Christians that are not in the LC are NOT genuine Christians. That there is something flawed in their spiritual situation that tarnishes their claim to being a Christ-follower.

We are about 3/5ths of the way through the first chapter and the questions are piling up. The next main section is “THE SPECIALITY OF THE CHURCH LIFE.” The first two sentences following that header are:

These are the six main items of the proper Christian faith. All real Christians do not have any disputations about these items.

Lee is generous after that. He acknowledges that many do not agree with the one city – one church rule, but admits that they are saved, though lacking in “the proper church life.”

So what are the core tenets of the faith? It seems that the earliest statements of faith distilled it to the following:

• Belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit

• The death, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension of Christ

• The holiness of the Church and the communion of saints

• Christ's second coming, the Day of Judgement and salvation of the faithful

I’m sure that there are other versions with slight variations. But first, what is missing? The Bible.

The Bible. It is probably safe to assume that the finality of what is now the Christian Bible did not exist at the time of the earliest statements of faith. But even if it did, it is noteworthy as to what the Bible does NOT say about itself. It never claims to be:

• Absolutely authoritative

• Verbally inspired (word-for-word)

• Without any kind of error

The main point with all of these is that the Bible makes almost no claims about itself. It does say that it is inspired by God, but without defining how detailed the inspiration was. It is “profitable for teaching . . .,” not “your absolutely complete and inerrant compendium for all teaching . . . .”

There are other things that could be said. If you need some examples, the OT has places where there are statements concerning things like “digging brass.” Brass is not dug up like iron or copper. It is the combination of other metals that may be dug up separately. The OT makes claims concerning the complete annihilation of certain enemies, yet they seem to still be around afterward making things tough for the Israelites. Some annihilation.

The second paragraph in the section “THE SPECIALITY OF THE CHURCH LIFE,” starts with the following”

The faith is the speciality of the church life. This is something very specific, very special. Concerning these points of our Christian faith there should be no argument. If we are going to fight for something, we have to fight for this.

Out of context, this sounds absolutely right. But when you consider some of the things that have been claimed to be part of the factual base of the things we are to fight for (and have no argument over) are a littering of things like those I have pointed out above. Ground of the church. Christ “becoming” the Spirit. We as Christians simply having Christ’s virtues. There are more, or if you go elsewhere in this book, or in others, you will find that Lee defines some of the more agreeable things in ways that would not be agreeable if stated in that manner in this section.

So . . . comments? Agreements? Disagreements? Want to continue? Want to treat it as “nothing to see here . . . move along”?