GotQuestions and Norman Geisler on the Local Church

[DistantStar]

When I started seriously looking up the Local Church, I went to the best website I know of when it comes to general Christian questions, called gotquestions.org. I was particularly interested in this one:
https://www.gotquestions.org/Witness...al-church.html

From them I heard about the Christian Research Institute changing their stance to one in favour of the Local Church. I considered this a very impressive move and as such I've only viewed the Local Church as at best a very controversial - though still non-cultic - denomination.

Yet it seems the moderators of the site have received significant feedback, leading them to revise their first paragraph which now cautions Christians against visiting a Local Church.

As someone who has recently discovered the whole apologetics world, I have tremendous respect for Norman Geisler. Not only for his work, but also for the impact he had on both William Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias, both great apologists.

As such I was surprised to see a link on this gotquestions webpage to a refutation written by Norman Geisler in association with Ron Rhodes (whom I don't know).

I just wanted to bring this statement of theirs to the attention of those who have not seen it. It made me reevaluate my opinion of the LC. I'm no longer certain anymore about it being cult or not (whether they are orthodox or not). Not only do the authors question CRI's wisdom, but they go into some discussion on the LC view of the trinity.

This part is particularly enlightening:

To illustrate the absurdity of the LC position, one final citation from Witness Lee is necessary. He wrote: “Because the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all one with the Body of Christ, we may say that the Triune God is now the ‘four-in-one’ God. These four are the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Body. The Three of the Divine Trinity cannot be confused or separated, and the four-in-one also cannot be separated or confused.” (Lee, A Deeper Study, 203-204). No amount of hermeneutical gyrations can untangle this theological absurdity. Clearly, Lee does not hold the orthodox view of the Trinity which allows no creature or creatures to be one with the members of the Trinity in the same sense that the Body of Christ (the Church) is one with God. Defending such a view is both senseless and useless