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Recognition
The Encycolpedia of American Religions
FIFTH EDITION
J. Gordon Melton
Gale Research Inc. • Book Tower • Detroit, Michigan 48226
Copyright © 1996 by Gale Research Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The (Local) Church movement was founded by Ni Shutsu, known today as Watchman Nee (1903-1972), in China in the early 1920s. Watchman Nee was the product of nineteenth-century Christian missions in China. He attended an Anglican school in Fuchow and was converted under a Methodist evangelist, Miss Dora Yu. She introduced him to an independent missionary, Margaret E. Barber, who in turn introduced him to the writings of John Nelson Darby, one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren. After his conversion, Nee began to use the name To Shen (Watchman) and in 1922 entered the ministry. For the next five years he served as a member, and then a leader, of an informal band of young Christians. As this movement grew and spread, they were hesitant to “denominate” themselves with a particular designation, thus others called them by various names such as “The Little Flock,” or “The Assembly Hall,” and most recently “The Local Church.” Between 1922 and 1952 (when the Chinese Revolution prevented any further spread of Nee’s church), more than 200 churches were founded by Nee. He wrote and published approximately 50 books, most on ecclesiology, the Holy Spirit, and the Christian life. He also founded two periodicals, The Christian and then The Present Truth.
Nee first heard of the Plymouth Brethren soon after beginning his movement and in the late 1920s came into contact with the Plymouth Brethren (Exclusive: Taylor Brethren). At their request, Nee visited England in 1933 and for a while considered establishing fellowship between his movement and the Brethren. However, after he returned to China, trouble developed. The Brethren rejected Nee’s allowing women to speak in meetings, his relaxation of the requirements for baptism, and a variety of Nee’s opinions on minor points of eschatology. Most importantly, Nee had “fellowshipped” with Theodore Austin-Sparks, head of the Witness and Testimony Literature Trust and leader of a ministry at a small meeting hall at Honor Oak, outside of London. Nee’s refusal to disavow Austin-Sparks became grounds for his disfellowshipping by the Taylor Brethren. After the break with the Brethren, he turned his full attention to the development of the movement in China. He authored a number of books, among the most important being The Spiritual Man (1929) and The Normal Christian Church Life (1938).
During World War II, Nee took a secular job in order not to become a burden to the church. He returned to full-time ministry work after the war. At that time he donated some industrial properties to the church, a practice that became an example to others. By the time of the Chinese Revolution, the church had become entangled with “capitalism,” thus leading to the arrest of Nee (1952) and the suppression of the movement. Nee died in prison, where he lived the last twenty years of his life.
Even before the war, Nee’s movement had spread beyond China. After the war the movement continued to spread to Hong Kong, the Philippines, and throughout Chinese communities in Southern Asia. Most importantly, after the war, Nee sent his longterm associate, Witness Lee to Taiwan to lead the movement there. After the revolution, Taiwan became the center of the movement and Lee its titular head.
Roots of the Local Church in the United States can be seen as early as 1952 when Stephen Kuang, a co-worker of Watchman Nee’s, came to the America and began to fellowship with a small number of Christians related to the ministry of Austin-Sparks who met together in New York City. In 1960, Bakht Singh, leader of some 200 similar congregations in India, came to the United States and preached at the New York fellowship. Then in 1962, Witness Lee moved to Los Angeles and founded the Stream Ministry (later renamed the Living Stream Ministry). His role as Nee’s successor quickly made him the focus of the church in America, and over the years his work earned him the respect of the church. His writings are given the same authority as those of Nee, whom the majority of the present membership never knew. (In more recent years, Stephen Kuang no longer works together with Witness Lee or the local churches.)
Nee and Lee accepted the basic fundamentalist and dispensational doctrinal position which affirms belief in the authority of the Bible, the Trinity, the redemption in Christ, the Virgin Birth, and the Second Coming of Christ. From the Brethren, the movement also inherited the basis for what became its unique ecclesiology. There is a strong nondenominational stance and a refusal to cooperate with denominational bodies or even recognize denominational structures. Nee’s basic innovative insight, derived from his study of the New Testament, concerned the relative importance of the local church. Nee taught that geography was the only basis upon which separate groups of Christians could organize. There was, he believed, only one church per city, and all Christians were to meet under its aegis. Christians were not to gather around denominational or sectarian differences. Typically, a congregation would be called “the Church in Los Angeles” or “the Church in Chicago.” Each local church was autonomous and under the leadership of elders drawn from the its membership. Certain members, who felt called, could become co-workers, teachers who developed a ministry that served many congregations. Such co-workers were supported directly by those individuals and congregations who benefited from them, though such coworkers had no official role in administering the affairs of the congregations. However, they have assumed the apostolic role of guiding the movement’s growth, teaching and establishing standards of belief and conduct, training local leaders, and mediating local disputes. The coworkers, both in the United States and abroad, recognize and respect Witness Lee as the prominent and leading coworker among the local churches. They carry out the ministry under his general guidance. The Living Stream Ministry of Anaheim, California, is the publisher for the ministry and coordinates other practical affairs, such as training sessions.
Prominent in the churches understanding of dispensations is the idea of recovery (or restoration). After the first century, they believe, biblical faith and apostolic practice were lost. A recovery began with Martin Luther and the Reformation and continued through such movements as the Wesleyan revival and the Brethren. The most recent stage of the recovery is through the Local Churches which are calling the Church Universal to unity and which have rediscovered the experience of the enjoyment of life in Christ. The latter is experienced in a variety of “new” pietistic practices such as “pray reading.” Pray reading is a devotional practice of praying by using the words of scripture. This practice is followed by individual believers in private prayer as well as by congregations in group prayer. Pray-reading is integrated into the spirited worship of the Local Churches, which, except fer the absence of speaking-in-tongues, is reminiscent of Pentecostalism.
Membership: In 1988 the Local Church reported 13,050 members in 150 churches in the United States and 1,305 members in 10 congregations in Canada. There is no clergy in the traditional sense, but there were approximately 100 fulltime workers in the United States and 15 in Canada. Worldwide membership was approximately 152,000 with congregations in Latin America (300), nine countries of Europe (35), four countries in Africa (25), eleven countries in east Asia (450), and Australia and New Zealand (25).
Periodicals: Voice, c/o Living Stream Ministry, Box 2121, Anaheim, CA 92804.
Remarks: As the Local Churches grew in the United States, the movement came under extreme criticism by other evangelical Christians. Several books and pamphlets appeared accusing it and its leader Witness Lee of deviating from accepted standards of orthodoxy, particularly in the use of the concept of "mingling" in describing the relationship of God and humanity in Christ and the church. Lee and prominent church members protested their innocence. One volume, devoted entirely to Lee and the Local Church, The God-Men by Neil T. Duddy and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, went far beyond doctrinal matters suggesting among other observations, that Lee’s teachings had led to great harm of those associated with the church and that some of the leaders had mishandled funds.
The harm done by two of the anti-Local Church writings, The Mind Benders by Jack Sparks, and The God-Men, led to lawsuits by Lee and others accusing the authors of libel. The first suit against The Mind Benders led to the withdrawal of the book and a payment and apology from the publisher. An uncontested hearing against The God-Men resulted in an $11.9 million judgment against its authors and publisher. Subsequently other publishers of anti-local Church material announced their withdrawal of such material.
Among the major apologists of the Local Church in the period of the greatest controversy was William T. Freeman, founder of Northwest Christian Publications of Seattle, Washington. Recently, however, he has withdrawn from the fellowship of the Local Church, dissolved his publishing concern, and relocated in Arizona.
Sources: The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Churches. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1978; Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Church Life. Washington, DC: International Students Press, 1969; Angus I. Kinnear, Against the Tide. Ft. Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1973; Dana Roberts, Understanding Watchman Nee. Plainfield, NJ: Haven Books, 1980; Witness Lee, How to Meet. Taipei, Taiwan: Gospel Book Room 1970; Witness Lee, The Practical Expression of the Church. Los Angeles: Stream Publishers, 1970; Witness Lee, Gospel Outlines. Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1980.
Controversial and polemical works include: William T. Freeman, In Defense of the Truth. Seattle, WA: Northwest Christian Publications, 1981; Neil T. Duddy and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, The God-Men. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981; J. Gordon Melton, An Open Letter Concerning the Local Church, Witness Lee and the God-Men Controversy. Santa Barbara, CA: Institute for the Study of American Religion, 1985; Jack Sparks, The Mind Benders. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1977; Gene Ford, Who Is the Real Mindbender? Anaheim, CA: The Author, 1977.
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Dr. J. Gordon Melton is a foremost authority on religions in America. Dr. Melton is the Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and Visiting Scholar at the University of California — Santa Barbara. The Institute is the largest research facility in the United States engaged in scholarly research on the many different religious groups in North America. He is the author of over twelve book on American religious groups including the Encyclopedia of American Religions (3 vols, 1979-1996), the standard reference work in its field. Among his other books are: The Dictionary of Religious Bodies in the United States (1978); The Cult Experience (1982); The Old Catholic Sourcebook (1983); Why Cults Succeed When Churches Fail (1985); The Biographical Dictionary of Sects and Cults Leaders (1985); and the Encyclopedia Handbook of the Cults (1985).
Dr. Melton is also an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, and a member of its Northern Illinois Conference. He holds a Ph.D. in the History and Literature of Religion from Northwestern University (1975) and a Master of Divinity in Church History from Garret Evangelical Theological Seminary (1968). Versed in Methodist history, he served on the editorial board and wrote a number of articles for the Encyclopedia of World Methodism.
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