Through a glass darkly

Brent Barber or no Brent Barber -

Christian Research Institute flags "yellow journalism" in so-called cult fighting.

Several short videos -

YouTube?list=PL793DA547CA28A410&t=63

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/cri-videos/

The author of "Encyclopedia of American Religions"
Dr. J. Gordon Melton's Open Letter

Summary -

After the end of The God-Men case (Lee v. Duddy) in 1985, Dr. J. Gordon Melton, one of the expert witnesses in the case, wrote and published An Open Letter Concerning the Local Church, Witness Lee and The God-Men Controversy. Dr. Melton demonstrated conclusively that The God-Men had misrepresented Witness Lee teaching and recommended that it, and any other writing based on it, be discarded.

Conclusions and Recommendations
As a result of Dr. Melton’s review, he offered the following conclusions and recommendations:

…I can but conclude that we in the evangelical Christian community have done the Local Church a great wrong and should set about immediately to try and undo as much of the damage as we can. We should begin with our public renunciation of The God-Men and our withdrawal from use of all the articles and pamphlets which we have written based upon it.

and

In light of the manner in which this book treated Lee, I can only suggest that The God-Men, and the other attacks upon the Local Church derived from it, be discarded…

We believe that any fair-minded person who reads Dr. Melton’s critique will agree with his conclusion, so with his permission, we reproduce the entire text of his Open Letter here.

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/j-gordon-meltons-open-letter-concerning-the-god-men/

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Why do most Christians here not rally round when their faith is being misrepresented?

'Witness Lee has essentially inserted the Chinese culture into the Christian faith. Of course this is not done transparently. This is what makes a full comprehension of the LC exceedingly difficult. Everything is done through a glass darkly, yet deliberately and deceptively. What ...[text shortened]... of Lee's man-worship cult and free their faith from his tyranny.'

Brent Barber - Former LC member

When is our faith not being misrepresented?

This is strange. I am not sure which we have -

An Atheist pushing forward Christians to denounce other Christians in the local churches

OR

A Christian pushing forward an Atheist to help him denounce other Christians in the local churches.

How come the mysterious Dariusz hasn't the fortitude to come out and discuss his diatribes?

@sonship said
This is strange. I am not sure which we have -

An Atheist pushing forward Christians to denounce other Christians in the local churches

OR

A Christian pushing forward an Atheist to help him denounce other Christians in the local churches.

How come the mysterious Dariusz hasn't the fortitude to come out and discuss his diatribes?

It is Lee who has it in for Christians.

'The group leader insists that those who do not follow him and live obsessively fixated to his ministry and movement will suffer a thousand years of "outer darkness" of anguish, suffering and horror. This was the punishment for Christians! All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

(Source already provided).

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

'The group leader insists that those who do not follow him and live obsessively fixated to his ministry and movement will suffer a thousand years of "outer darkness" of anguish, suffering and horror. This was the punishment for Christians! All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

You're an atheist hanging around a Spirituality Forum making sure that your "There is No God" position gets represented.

And you say Witness Lee has it in for Christians ??

Nope. Lee's frankness was his FAITHFULNESS. And the apostles of the New Testament were also faithful. Besides God's judgment at His own house takes into account how much His child was AWARE of His will.

Luke 12:46,47 shows discipline according to the knowledge of the Father's will the son HAD.

New American Standard Bible
"And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

But to the one who believed and taught the world that there is no God, like you, Atheist Ghost, what will there be ?

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

'The group leader insists that those who do not follow him and live obsessively fixated to his ministry and movement will suffer a thousand years of "outer darkness" of anguish, suffering and horror. This was the punishment for Christians! All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

You're ...[text shortened]... ho believed and taught the world that there is no God, like you, Atheist Ghost, what will there be ?

How about explaining why it doesn't bother you when an ex-member of your movement says, ''All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

@whodey said
IF they equate Christ as a mere angel it is a cult using my definition.

A cult to me is replacing God with anything or anyone. JW's seem to want to focus all their attention on Jesus, which is Biblical, and then ignore God? You can't have it both ways.

You've got this the wrong way 'round.

They agree that Jesus is the Son of God, but they aren't so convinced of his deity. God the Father is their big deal, and Jesus takes a back seat.

@suzianne said
If you had love for your neighbor, you would not pursue a "screw 'em, I'm tired of paying for them" mentality. Not to mention the "I'll vote for the guy most like me, who will lower our taxes and treat those not like me as poorly as possible" mentality.

Every day, you show far more hate than love for your fellow man.

So for the record, me not wanting to give money to the state in the hopes of some of that money trickling down to those in need equates me as not caring for the poor?

Tell me, how much money and personal time have I personally given to the poor Suzy? You say you don't know? The hell you say!

Giving to the poor in the name of God is a blessing to both the giver and those that receive. Those that give do so in loving memory of Christ with the love that he has given to them for the poor. It is an act of worship. And those that receive tend to have gratitude for that gift and often recognize God as the source of that giving which can lead to them coming to God themselves. In fact, most of our hospitals, schools, universities, etc., were all started by the church.

Conversely, when it comes to the state, the state collects taxes that everyone, and I do mean everyone, tries to get out of paying. They hire accountants, lawyers, IRS preparers, all in an attempt to pay the least amount possible legally. However, I'm sure you are the exception to that rule by overpaying every year, right Suzy? Then that money they begrudgingly pay gets thrown into the Swamp where I heard that as little as 9 cents on the dollar, if that, goes to those in need. And those that get that money do not feel gratitude for that money because legally it belongs to them. This creates an attitude of entitlement where gratitude is completely gone. In fact, whatever money they are getting is never enough. They always clamor for the state to take more away from others so that they may have more. Meanwhile, the "poor" in the US live like kings compared to the poor in say Haiti.

But that is YOUR mentality Suzy. You have replaced the love of Christ of the love of the state. You would rather cling to the ideology of the Left regarding such things as abortion and divorce standard Christian teachings regarding it as being murder. You would gladly sacrifice the most helpless and innocent of those among us to the sacrificial gods of the abortion industry, all in the name of saving a buck or two as you promote the billion dollar abortion industry that is free from oversight. You would rather whine about voting people into office that say they will force you through taxes to give more money to the poor, hoping they will actually use that money the way they say they will, than praising religious conservative people for getting off their arse and rolling up their sleeves and directly helping the poor that they observe. In fact, you maliciously slander them instead and refuse to acknowledge that those of faith are mostly conservative, and most who give their personal time and money to the poor are not Left wingers like yourself.

Left wing ideology is your god.

@suzianne said
You've got this the wrong way 'round.

They agree that Jesus is the Son of God, but they aren't so convinced of his deity. God the Father is their big deal, and Jesus takes a back seat.

Their ideology is a theological train wreck. JW's acknowledge that Jesus created us, but divorce the notion that he is our God?

Jesus was the focus of his disciples of old and of today. In fact, he is openly worshiped, something angels in the Bible forbade others from doing because it is not proper. To be anything other than God in the flesh is absurd and idolatry.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

How about explaining why it doesn't bother you when an ex-member of your movement says, ''All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

I would not say nothing this person says bothers me. But his experience is not my experience. And I am not going to pretend that his experience is my experience for one second.

And I don't need his help to tell me what my experience has been.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

''All Christians not in Lee's group were destined, under his teachings, to suffer this fate.'

[ my bolding ]

Briefly. Lee says the church in Sardis is a symbol of the Protestant Reformation

B. The Remaining Things Being about to Die

In verse 2 the Lord says to “establish the things which remain, which were about to die.” “The things which remain” are the things lost and restored by the Reformation, such as justification by faith and the open Bible. Though these things were restored, they “were about to die.” Hence, the Protestant Church needs revivals to keep things alive. This is the actual situation of the Protestant churches.

C. Having No Work Completed
The Lord also said, “I have not found your works completed before My God.” Nothing begun in the Reformation has ever been completed. Therefore, the church in Philadelphia is needed for the completion. In the eyes of God, there are no complete works in the so-called reformed churches. Do not think that justification by faith is completed among them. If you have the inner sight, you will see that the justification by faith recovered by Martin Luther was quite shallow, for Luther did not touch justification very much in the way of life, but mainly in the way of doctrine, in a superficial way. We thank the Lord for this great servant of God, but he was not perfect. None of the work under his hand was completed. The things recovered in the days of Luther have been dying and are still about to die. This is why so many Protestant churches have frequent revivals.

The crucial point about the fifth church is that it is dead and dying. While it has a name that it is living, actually it is dead. Many of us can testify that when we were saved, we were quite living. But after getting into a denominational church, we were put into the refrigerator and, after a few months, we cooled down and died. The reformed churches are deadening. I was raised in a so-called Protestant church and I know that there is absolutely no life there. In nearly every way, it is filled with death.

Now, what about the overcomers who come out of the Protestant Reformation move?

B. Walking with the Lord in White
Speaking of these who have not defiled their garments, the Lord says that “they shall walk with Me in white for they are worthy” (v. 4). White not only signifies purity, but also approvedness. White garments here signify the walk and living which are unspotted by death and which will be approved by the Lord. It is a qualification for walking with the Lord, especially in the coming kingdom.

VI. THE PROMISE TO THE OVERCOMER
If you read the context of Revelation 2 and 3, you will see that every time the Lord gives a promise in these seven epistles, strictly speaking it refers to the coming kingdom. It never refers to eternity, to our eternal destiny. Rather, it refers to our future in the coming kingdom. This is the basic and governing principle in understanding all the promises in these seven epistles. In verse 4 the Lord promises that the living ones, those who have not defiled their garments, will walk with Him in white. When will this be? In the wedding day of Christ which will last for a thousand years. To walk with the Lord in white means to walk with Him during these thousand years. In principle, this must also be applied to our walk with the Lord today.

In verse 5 the Lord says, “He who overcomes, he shall be clothed in white garments, and I will by no means erase his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” To overcome here means to overcome the deadness of the Protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism. The whole of verse 5 is the Lord’s promise to the overcomers. It will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom after He comes back.

Above "In verse 4 the Lord says, “But you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments.” Garments in the Bible signify what we are in our walk and living. To defile the garments means particularly to stain them with deadness. Death is more defiling before God than sin (Lev. 11:24-25; Num. 6:6, 7, 9). In this verse, the defilement denotes anything of the death nature. The defilement in Sardis was not the defilement of sin; it was the defilement of death.

From https://www.ministrybooks.org/books.cfm?n

In the following portion Witness Lee admits that in the meetings of the local churches it is possible that the deadness associated with Protestantism is present.

In other words - You can leave Christianity deadness but Christianity deadness is not so willing to leave you.

Sometimes we taste the flavor of Sardis in the bread-breaking meeting; the hymn singing and prayer are not strong, and nothing is complete. Sometimes we taste the flavor of Sardis in the fellowship meetings; the testimonies and even the announcements are weak. The church in Sardis does not have idols, the teaching of the Nicolaitans, fornication, or the deep things of Satan, but whatever it has is weak. Sardis has everything, but everything is weak. Sardis has the table meeting, the prayer meeting, the message meeting, and the gospel meeting, but they are all weak. Everything is weak, lacking in life, vitality, freshness, and light; this is Sardis.
...

We cannot merely hold to the so-called ground, way, or truth; we must be living, fresh, and strong. We should not focus on whether or not our actions are right, because they may be full of death. Rather, we should enliven others and make them strong inwardly. May the Lord have mercy on us and make us those who are living; these are the overcomers in Sardis.

https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=044ED6EAFD

Ghost wants to portray Lee as teaching AUTOMATIC overcoming just because you meet in a local church or read Lee's ministry.

@sonship

You are merely evidencing the inconsistencies of Witness Lee, as attested to in the testimonials provided.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

You are merely evidencing the inconsistencies of Witness Lee, as attested to in the testimonials provided.

What naivete possess you that you expect ONLY nice things to be written about a move of the Holy Spirit to challenge traditional organizational Christianity?

As of old when Jesus walked the earth.
"From that time many of His disciples went back to what they left behind and no longer walked with Him.