One Church - One City - Biblical?

[NewManLiving]

This drivel is getting nauseous. The local church of Witness Lee is a denomination. I gave you the litmus test in another post Evangelical, which you did not address. LSM does not accept all true believers who do not accept the so-called Oracle - meaning WITNESS LEE. You are NOT free as you say to fellowship outside the confining parameters of their dogma. LSM is completely divisive in shoving WL down everyone's throat and shunning those who choose not to accept this. LSM churches are a sect. Anyone can see this except the mentally ill or spiritually deceived. Even the unbeliever knows it's a sect at the very least and at most it is a cult. The fact remains that diehard LSMERS are of WITNESS LEE !

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by NewManLiving

This drivel is getting nauseous. The local church of Witness Lee is a denomination. I gave you the litmus test in another post Evangelical, which you did not address. LSM does not accept all true believers who do not accept the so-called Oracle - meaning WITNESS LEE. You are NOT free as you say to fellowship outside the confining parameters of their dogma. LSM is completely divisive in shoving WL down everyone's throat and shunning those who choose not to accept this. LSM churches are a sect. Anyone can see this except the mentally ill or spiritually deceived. Even the unbeliever knows it's a sect at the very least and at most it is a cult. The fact remains that diehard LSMERS are of WITNESS LEE !

NewManLiving I think you are overstating things. The fact is that the local churches do accept all true believers even ones who do not accept Witness Lee. Anyone is free to fellowship wherever they like. There is no one checking about where we fellowship and with whom. I cannot say the same of every local church, every local church is autonomous.

I did not think your litmus test to be much of a test. You wanted me to read something not written by Witness Lee in the meeting to see if it upsets people. But then where does your litmus test end? Suppose I read CS Lewis and people are okay with that. Then would you require me to keep on reading books by different people, until I find where their tolerance level is at? I would not read the Quran in your church because I'm sure people would not like that.

Anyway I think you should show me some sort of prescriptive command (as Nell called it) from the Bible (or even a descriptive text), that says we cannot read things written by one person in the meetings.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

I cannot say the same of every local church, every local church is autonomous.
Anyway I think you should show me some sort of prescriptive command (as Nell called it) from the Bible (or even a descriptive text), that says we cannot read things written by one person in the meetings.

I guess you missed those meetings with Witness Lee where he abolished the thought of any LC autonomy, and set the limits for the elders at certain important decisions like setting the time to start the prayer meeting.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I guess you missed those meetings with Witness Lee where he abolished the thought of any LC autonomy, and set the limits for the elders at certain important decisions like setting the time to start the prayer meeting.

Witness Lee's RecV footnotes in Revelation are clear: each local church is supposed to be "exactly identical", with "no differences whatever". Did the apostle John write that? No, but Lee sussed that out of the problems of the seven Asian churches. To Lee, the real problem was that they weren't exactly identical.

He said the lampstands (in heaven) were identical. Have you ever seen a calyx? They are flowers. Is any flower identical? Or a pomegranate? Is any snowflake identical? Any cloud?

How about "coming to Him, as living stones"? Any living stones absolutely identical, with no differences whatsoever? No? Okay, then what about man-made objects like, oh I dunno, bricks? Like, for instance, to be used for building up a nice, tall tower in Babel?

We were told to be "Witness Lee tape recorders" - don't think, just repeat what the Great Man said. Don't stand out. Be identical; be a grey, shapeless, proletarian mass. "Small potatoes" we called ourselves. "Oh, I'm just a little brother in the local churches". Then the arguably penultimate step was the "One Trumpet" and "One Publication" edict - unless you have the "mark", i.e. the imprimateur of a certain publishing house in southern California, then you can't buy or sell in the local churches. Sounded positively 'beastly' to me.