After a Sunday service in November 2009, I was asked if the teachings of Witness Lee and the ‘Local Church’ were Biblical. I had shared an article from GotQuestions.org which then basically stated “As wildly unbiblical as their teachings are, their practices are no less distorted.”
The same article now states: “many have approached us and expressed disappointment that we tend to agree with CRI’s assessment of the Local Church movement. There are many people, some of them formally involved in the Local Church, who are absolutely convinced that the Local Church is a cult, or at least a non-biblical and non-evangelical movement. The more we research the Local Church, however, the more we run into widely divergent views of the movement. As a result, we have decided to leave our Local Church article as it currently is. However, due to the major concerns many people have about the Local Church, we strongly advise you to use the utmost caution and discernment before visiting or joining the Local Church movement.
Witness Lee was the protégé of his predecessor, Watchman Nee, a well-known missionary in China. The Local Church movement was founded in China by Nee and brought to America in 1962 by Witness Lee. Thus began a long and strange saga of charges, counter-charges, lawsuits, strife, and misunderstandings between the Local Church movement and the evangelical community that has left much wreckage in its wake, and has yet to be fully resolved. Foremost in the controversy is whether the LC is a legitimate movement within Christianity or a cult. Statements made by Lee over the years have caused his organization to be described as a cult by such counter-cult organizations as the Christian Research Institute—under both founder Walter Martin and current president Hank Hanegraaff—and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project. However, a 50-page series of articles in a 2009 edition of the CRI Journal has come out strongly in favor of Lee’s teachings and the Local Church movement.”
Recon Center is not a counter-cult organization. I posted the original article four years ago to serve as a warning to those I pastor. It was not my intention to hurt or harm another brother in Christ.
As I write this in September 2013, apart from some requests and challenges to take the article offline by Witness Lee’s supporters and even by some of his ex-church members, neither I nor anyone I pastor have had any interaction or encounter with this group. From this I gather that this article on Witness Lee and the ‘Local Church’ is no longer relevant to us as a church and subsequently have removed it from this website.
If you are interested in reading the current article in Gotquestions.org, here is the link: http://www.gotquestions.org/Witness-Lee-local-church.html