@ghost-of-a-duke saidYes you directed me to the post you wrote, as an answer to a question I put to you.
Kelly, it is these misunderstandings by yourself that have led me to step back from communicating with you. My recent interactions in this thread have been with sonship and have merely circumnavigated around you.
If a post was meant for you it would be posted as a reply.
'Read above' was me directing you to the post I had already made to sonship.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidSonship,
If a post was meant for you it would be posted as a reply
On your church’s website, in the statement of beliefs section, it states that a person MUST accept the trinity doctrine in order to be saved.
Do you agree with what your church has published in this regard, yes or no?
@ghost-of-a-duke saidWhat about this do you find bonkers?
This really is a bonkers extract from Witness Lee's Living Stream Ministry:
"In the New Testament God came to regenerate man with Himself as life. John 1:12 says, 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.' When we become children of God, we have God's life and nature. Since goats beget ...[text shortened]... regenerated people of God have the life of God and also the nature of God. This is really precious."
Please if you are not up to answering, don't play misdirect again, just say I am not going to answer your question instead pulling that crap you did the first time I asked.
Church members no longer being able to question the accepted beliefs of their leaders is a strong indicator off that church being a cult.
I have asked sonship a simple question maybe a dozen times in this thread (and the very same question dozens of other times elsewhere without reply from him) about his perspective of a clearly erroneous doctrine presented by his church, and he refuses to clarify his position on this simple matter.
It is my genuine opinion that the Local Church group is a cult and sonship cannot contradict any of their teachings.
Furthermore, a few years ago a strange thing happened in this forum whereby a new poster suddenly began directing supportive feedback type comments to sonship during a debate regarding his church’s doctrines. It was most odd, as though sonship’s posts were being reviewed. I wasn’t the only poster to notice this occurrence and it has stuck with me ever since.
@kellyjay saidI answered that question in my reply to Sonship and directed you to that reply to avoid unnecessary repetition. If that is beyond your understanding, fine.
What about this do you find bonkers?
Please if you are not up to answering, don't play misdirect again, just say I am not going to answer your question instead pulling that crap you did the first time I asked.
Here it is again:
'This is at best an unfortunate interpretation of scripture. At worst, it's heracy. Yet, it's another example of the aberrant nature of some of Witness Lee's teachings.
The birth of cows and goats can hardly be compared to the mystery of spiritual rebirth. As I recall from Genesis 1, man's body was formed of the dust of the ground, not physically born of God. The only way I can see for Witness Lee's analogy to hold up would be for the man Jesus to marry a human female and procreate, thus producing "children of God." Ridiculous!'
@ghost-of-a-duke saidYou must be born again, and it is mandatory, a requirement that we become new creatures in Christ, born of the Spirit of God, one of the most fundamental features of the Christian faith. It is even the test to know if we are walking in the faith is that if Christ is in us, without the Spirit of God we do not belong to God. You are fixated on the natural man, not the Spirit of God. The need for redemption is clear, nothing in the natural man is going to please God and can never please God; it is impossible.
I answered that question in my reply to Sonship and directed you to that reply to avoid unnecessary repetition. If that is beyond your understanding, fine.
Here it is again:
'This is at best an unfortunate interpretation of scripture. At worst, it's heracy. Yet, it's another example of the aberrant nature of some of Witness Lee's teachings.
The birth of cows ...[text shortened]... the man Jesus to marry a human female and procreate, thus producing "children of God." Ridiculous!'
His point is very valid, He is speaking to God redeeming, and even more than that, as Jesus points out once we are right with God, we have been adopted into God’s Kingdom as family, telling us when we pray we are to call God, Father. This is not something man could do on his own; it is an act of God, not an act of man. God saving us isn’t so we can be better people even though that will happen, but we will become family in His Kingdom; this is God’s doing, not ours.
@sonship
Is Witness Lee infallible to you?
'Clearly the reason those in the Local Church are upset by such analysis is because in actuality they DO believe that Lee's teaching is infallible. This is a papal concept borrowed by them from Roman Catholicism. Not a single thesis from WITHIN the Local Church has ever been produced to challenge Lee on any point of his teaching that has not resulted in a full scale character attack on its authors. Instead of addressing the issues raised, Lee and his underlings used the ad hominem method of argumentation i.e. attack the person while avoiding the issues. In the mind of an audience unfamilair with these type of tactics, the discrediting of the person produces the desired result of indirectly discrediting the issues they have raised. The person is thus branded a leper, poisoned, heretical, worldly, divisive, ambitious for position or any other label that inflames the imagination among the ill informed. Now whatever that "negative" person wrote or said is automatically suspect. All this for what? To protect the myth that Lee's teaching is infallible. If this is not truth I challenge anyone in the Local Church to publically announce in writing ten things that they disagree with in Lee's teaching. If it is fallible there must be at least ten!'
(Source already provided).
@ghost-of-a-duke saidNo man is, I have already said when we put any man above all others that is the sin of idolatry. I'm not speaking to the man Witness Less, but to that portion of text you belittled.
@sonship
Is Witness Lee infallible to you?
'Clearly the reason those in the Local Church are upset by such analysis is because in actuality they DO believe that Lee's teaching is infallible. This is a papal concept borrowed by them from Roman Catholicism. Not a single thesis from WITHIN the Local Church has ever been produced to challenge Lee on any point of his ...[text shortened]... with in Lee's teaching. If it is fallible there must be at least ten!'
(Source already provided).
@kellyjay saidOnce again my response is directed to Sonship. Why are you repeatedly failing to see this?!
No man is, I have already said when we put any man above all others that is the sin of idolatry. I'm not speaking to the man Witness Less, but to that portion of text you belittled.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidI keep forgetting you make up the rules for posting on points and questions on a public board, my bad!
Once again my response is directed to Sonship. Why are you repeatedly failing to see this?!
@kellyjay saidAre you weighing the option of saying something about Ghost of a Duke's family and then going into a huffy boycott as a protest against Ghost of a Duke for being the person you said the thing about his family to?
I keep forgetting you make up the rules for posting on points and questions on a public board, my bad!
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'Clearly the reason those in the Local Church are upset by such analysis is because in actuality they DO believe that Lee's teaching is infallible.
No it isn't. In fact I could show you instances when Witness Lee changed his mind about something.
Strawman arguments and false alarms.
This is a papal concept borrowed by them from Roman Catholicism.
We do not regard any human being as infallible save Jesus Christ. So you are false alarming AND erecting a strawman argument.
Not a single thesis from WITHIN the Local Church has ever been produced to challenge Lee on any point of his teaching that has not resulted in a full scale character attack on its authors.
That is a strawman argument along the same line as:
"All families must have internal strife, nasty conflicts, shouting matches, cross exchange of words made punblic to all, OR it is a phony family."
Paul and Barnabus were both apostles sent out by the church in Antioch. Much latter the two had a sharp contention between them. They disagreed over whethter John Mark should be allowed to accompany them a second time on a journey when he had found it too tought to stick it out the first time.
Barnabus could no longer work with Paul and departed to labor independently. The church in Antioch, however, seems to have sided with Paul and sent him forward again with new partner. We hear more about what Paul accomplished in the Lord. We hear nothing much else about Barnabus.
The point is that a sharp disagreement did not stop the Holy Spirit from continuing to bless the labors of Paul. It never says who was right or who was wrong. It just records that Paul seems to have continued peacefully to serve the local churches.
Not that Barnabus didn't. But the history left us more continues to cover God's working through Paul.
Instead of addressing the issues raised, Lee and his underlings used the ad hominem method of argumentation i.e. attack the person while avoiding the issues.
In this thread, I don't think any major point raised has been "avoided".
If some matters have not YET been addressed, they will probably get around to being addressed.
To protect the myth that Lee's teaching is infallible. If this is not truth I challenge anyone in the Local Church to publically announce in writing ten things that they disagree with in Lee's teaching.
Why is it mandatory that churches MUST list ten things they disagree with a servant of God?
This is like saying a couple has a mandatory duty to list ten things they disagree with each other about or they are not a valid marriage.
And no man do we regard as infallible except the Son of God.
I met with the local churches for many years. And I know Witness Lee, to my recollection interpreted Colossians 2:15 as God stripping off Christ enemies as He ascended to heaven. Latter he seemed to me to speak more of it meaning God stripping off Christ's enemies as He was being crucified.
Either way, our hearts are warmed up and drawn to Christ.
Also in the exposition of the book of James formerly Witness Lee said James refered to the law of life as Paul refers in Romans 8. Latter he changed his mind and said so. He decided that James. whenever he mentions the law, was speaking of the Mosiac law which he appreciated to the uttermost.
An infallible man doesn't admit to changing his mind.
And Lee said no message of his could ever be more important then the word of God as pure Scripture.
If it is fallible there must be at least ten!'
It is not mandatory that such disputes alone prove that a servant of God is not regarded as infallible.
This is kind of like me saying a couple had to list ten things in which one slapped the other OR they are not a legitimate marriage.
And now that Witness Lee has died in 1997, and the Lord's recovery still proceeds, they critics will soon have to find someone else to blame.
@sonship
'Of course to examine these theological positions under the light of scripture reveals the man Witness Lee to be a false teacher; a wolf in sheep's clothing killing and destroying the flock. I know. Most everyone I knew growing up with had their lives completely destroyed by their experience in his "Local Church." There is complete turnover - and this is one of the ways the group keeps alive; by finding fresh converts who know nothing of the madness and destruction that went on before. They never hear about it because those people have all left!
It is really an isolated vacuum of personal power, a cult personality whereby the identity and self hood of the member melts and fuses into that of the leader. Imagine a bicycle wheel with a hub and concentric spokes. This is the social organization and orientation of the group. All energies are directed at the leader who has replaced God in the mind of the follower.
One would think that a group which made such distinctly delineated boundaries of inclusion and exclusion would possess at least some solidarity, brotherhood and support. But I can assure you the place is as cold and loveless as Tieneman square. It is a militant rigid cult that preaches fear, idolatry and the complete loss of self.'
(Source already provided).
@Sonship,
On your church’s website, in the statement of beliefs section, it states that a person MUST accept the trinity doctrine in order to be saved.
Do you agree with what your church has published in this regard, yes or no?