In Mind over Mania, Doug and Wendy Duncan, billed as experts specializing in recovery from mind control, seek to establish the allegation that all eight criteria of Robert Jay Lifton’s Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China are active in the teachings and practices of TMM.¹ In reality, the anecdotal evidence they provide clearly fails to establish the outrageous “brainwashing” allegations. Moreover, many of the arguments proffered against TMM could just as easily be used to establish historic Christianity as a thought reform cult. Equally significant is the fact that cult mind control as a sociological model has been utterly discredited. If brainwashing techniques did not work in the 20th century reeducation camps of communist China, it is sophistry to suppose it to be effectively employed in the ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of A Lifetime) weekend retreat of TMM’s Honor Academy.

Furthermore, while it is viscerally arresting to watch sensationalistic images of teenagers gagging on organic worms, it should be noted that footage hyped ad nauseum by the MSNBC promotion machine was recorded during the heyday of NBC’s Fear Factor, a TV program that elevated consumption of worms to veritable cult status. Nonetheless, Teen Mania leadership readily acknowledges that such practices were unwise and thus have rescinded them. As well, participants were clearly warned that the ESOAL event was designed to be physically and mentally challenging and were free to end their participation at will.

Finally, on a personal note, I have been acquainted with Ron Luce and TMM for over twenty years. I have found Ron to be a passionate father, husband, and ministry leader. Indeed, I still remember how impressed I was upon initially meeting one of his daughters. Since then I have recognized him to be thoughtful, teachable, and thoroughly committed to the essentials of historic Christianity. While I strongly disagree with Ron on various secondary matters, I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on the doctrines that form the line of demarcation between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the cults. It is likewise noteworthy that TMM is a member in good standing with the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability (ECFA) and operates under the oversight of a credible board of directors, which includes Paul Nelson, former director of ECFA.²

—Hank Hanegraaff

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute, host of the Bible Answer Man

broadcast, and author of many bestselling books, including Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century.

notes

1 The following are Lifton’s eight criteria of thought reform as presented in Mind over Mania:

Milieu Control. Control of information and communication from without and within the group environment

resulting in isolation.

Mystical Manipulation. The claim of divine authority or spiritual advancement that allows the leader to

reinterpret events as he wishes.

Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and group members are constantly exhorted to

strive for perfection.

The Cult of Confession. Serious sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either privately to a personal

monitor or publicly to the group at large.

The “Sacred Science.” The doctrine of the group is considered to be the ultimate truth, beyond all questioning

or dispute.

Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside

world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members’

thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.

Doctrine over Person. The personal experiences of the group members are subordinated to the Truth held by

the group.

Dispensing of Existence. Those outside the group are unspiritual, worldly, satanic, “unconscious,” and they

must be converted to the ideas of the group or they will be lost.

2 See http://www.ecfa.org, http://www.teenmania.com/finances/, and http://www.teenmania.com/staff/.

What New Testament critic Bart Ehrman categorizes as one of his “favorite apparent discrepancies” in the Bible would be relatively easy for him to resolve were he not hopelessly lost in a wooden literal labyrinth of his own making. In his book, Jesus Interrupted, he cites the problem as follows:

In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord where are you going?” A few verses later Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going” (John 14:5). And then, a few minutes later, at the same meal, Jesus upbraids his disciples, saying, “Now I am going to the one who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” (John 16:5).

That leaves only two possibilities according to Ehrman: “Either Jesus had a very short attention span or there is something strange going on with the sources for these chapters.”¹

First, it is instructive to note that were I to take Bart in the woodenly literal sense that he takes the Bible, I would be doing him a grave injustice. As such, it would hardly be fair to suppose that he really thinks it possible that “Jesus had a very short attention span.” Anyone who reads his book in context knows full well that Ehrman is convinced that John-who he characterizes as a “lower-class, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking peasant”²-did not write the gospel attributed to him and that the sources that were cobbled together to create the text were decidedly unreliable.

Furthermore, we must be careful not to fall for historical revisionists who, like Ehrman, would have us believe on the basis of Acts 4:13 that John was illiterate and therefore could not have written the fourth gospel. John may have been “unlettered” in the sense that he was not educated beyond the primary schooling available to boys at that time, but he was clearly not illiterate. Not only is it an uncharitable stretch to demean John as illiterate from the standpoint of his formal education, but this characterization neglects the immediate and overall context of the Book of Acts, where the “unlearned” apostles continually astonished the Jewish teachers of the Law with their knowledge and wisdom in much the same way as Jesus himself had-though He, too, was without the prerequisite rabbinic training demanded by Ehrman. Moreover, following the resurrection of the Master Teacher, there is every indication that the apostles devoted themselves to the study and ministry of the Word of God.³ An entire adult lifetime of such study can easily account for John’s ability to produce an astonishingly sophisticated and subtly nuanced literary masterpiece.

Finally, allow me to underscore what is painfully obvious to anyone who engages Bart’s so-called “problems with the Bible.”⁴ Professor Ehrman, it seems, is wholly incapable of comprehending the subtlety of sophisticated literary nuances. Instead, he is bent on forcing the text through a fundamentalist filter. Peter and Jesus obviously utter the words, “where are you going?” with decidedly different drifts. As the venerable New Testament scholar R. C. H. Lenski has well said, “Peter’s question in 13:36 was…only a selfish exclamation which would not hear of Jesus’ going away alone. And the assertion of Thomas in 14:5 was nothing but an expression of discouragement and dullness of mind….So here Jesus is leaving, his going to his Sender means so much to the disciples, and yet none of them requests one word of this precious information.”⁵ Put another way, while the disciples focused on mean earthly vanities, Christ intended to elevate their gaze to eternal verities.

Was Jesus a dummy with a painfully short attention span, as per Professor Ehrman? Or is Professor Ehrman hopelessly lost in a wooden literal labyrinth of his own making? You be the judge.

-Hank Hanegraaff

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast heard daily throughout the United States and Canada. For a list of stations airing the Bible Answer Man, or to listen online, log on to Equip.org.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

NOTES

1. Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them) (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 9.

2. Ibid., 106.

3. See Acts 6:2-4.

4. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted, 6.

5. R.C.H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001 [originally published 1943]), 1078-79.

Concerns raised in the Open Letter besides the LC’s history of initiating lawsuits with evangelical Christians include the LC’s teachings on the nature of God, the nature of humanity, and the legitimacy of evangelical churches and denominations. Concerning such teachings the letter states, “Because the following statements by Witness Lee appear to contradict or compromise essential doctrines of the Christian faith, we respectfully call on the leadership of Living Stream Ministry and the ‘local churches’ to disavow and cease to publish these and similar declarations.”

The Open Letter proceeds to provide excerpts from Witness Lee’s allegedly unorthodox teachings while providing no explanation as to why such statements are unorthodox, perhaps assuming that any theologically literate reader could clearly see the heresy in the statements themselves. As we shall soon see, this was a serious mistake both on the part of those who drafted the letter and on the part of those who signed it, many of whom likely did little more research on the LC than to read the quotations the drafters provided them.

The Open Letter’s brief and succinct format makes it easy to reproduce its full statement of concerns here. Rather than reproducing it all at once, I will reproduce it one section at a time and interact with the material in each section before reproducing the material in the next.

The Open Letter’s first series of controversial quotations from LC materials begins with the heading “On the Nature of God” and contains the following statements by Witness Lee:

“The Son is called the Father; so the Son must be the Father. We must realize this fact. There are some who say that He is called the Father, but He is not really the Father. But how could He be called the Father and yet not be the Father? … In the place where no man can approach Him (I Tim. 6:16), God is the Father. When He comes forth to manifest Himself, He is the Son. So, a Son is given, yet His name is called ‘The everlasting Father.’ This very Son who has been given to us is the very Father.”

Witness Lee, The All-Inclusive Spirit of Christ (Los Angeles: The Stream Publishers, 1969), pp. 4-5

” … the entire Godhead, the Triune God, became flesh.”

Witness Lee, God‘s New Testament Economy (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1986), p. 230

“The traditional explanation of the Trinity is grossly inadequate and borders on tritheism. When the Spirit of God is joined with us, God is not left behind, nor does Christ remain on the throne. This is the impression Christianity gives. They think of the Father as one person, sending the Son, another person, to accomplish redemption, after which the Son sends the Spirit, yet another person. The Spirit, in traditional thinking, comes into the believers, while the Father and Son are left on the throne. When believers pray, they are taught to bow before the Father and pray in the name of the Son. To split the Godhead into these separate Persons is not the revelation of the Bible …. “

Witness Lee, Life Messages

(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1979), p. 164

“THE SON IS THE FATHER, AND THE SON IS ALSO THE SPIRIT …. and the Lord Jesus who is the Son is also the Eternal Father. Our Lord is the Son, and He is also the Father. Hallelujah!”

Witness Lee, Concerning the Triune God

(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1973), pp. 18–19

“Therefore, it is clear: The Lord Jesus is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and He is the very God. He is also the Lord. He is the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the Mighty God, and the Lord.”

Witness Lee, The Clear Scriptural

Revelation Concerning the Triune God

www.contendingforthefaith.org/responses/booklets/triune.html

“The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not three separate persons or three Gods; they are one God, one reality, one person.”

Witness Lee, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man

(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1970), p. 48

To twenty-first century Western Christians, these statements at face value are understandably disturbing. They seem clearly to be teaching modalism. No wonder some evangelical leaders with little background on the LC simply read them and then said, “Show me where to sign.” However, as equally disturbing as it may be to evangelicals familiar with CRl’s longstanding commitment to historic orthodoxy, I must nonetheless say that, taken in context, there is nothing unorthodox about the above statements. It is not that I am saying that modalism is orthodox. CRI considers modalism, such as is taught by the United Pentecostal Church, heretical just as much now as we ever did. No, what I am saying is that the above statements by Witness Lee are not teaching modalism. At one time we thought they did, but that was because we, like so many others in the countercult movement, never carefully studied the entire body of LC teachings in order to understand the context of these teachings and what concerns were driving them.

What, then, does Lee mean when he teaches that the Son is both the Father and the Spirit? How can such teaching be squared with orthodoxy? The biblical bases cited in LC literature for their identification of the persons of the Trinity with each other will be explained in detail shortly, but to state them succinctly, they are (1) the activity of the three persons in the economic Trinity and (2) the coinherence of the three persons in the essential Trinity. The purpose for their emphasis on this identification of the three persons is to provide a corrective to what they view as rampant tritheism in the West. Before further clarifying the LC’s frequent seemingly unorthodox affirmations on the Trinity, however, we must first establish that they have frequently made soundly orthodox affirmations on the Trinity.

The LC’s Orthodox Affirmations on the Trinity

Even some LC critics will acknowledge that at many places in their writings they seem to be affirming the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.¹ Consider, for example, these unambiguous Trinitarian formulations, made by Lee himself:

The three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—are all from eternity to eternity, being equally eternal, without beginning and without ending, and existing at the same time.²

We may say that the Triune God has three persons but only one essence; the persons should not be confused and the essence should not be divided; the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three in person, but they are one in essence.³

We were aware at CRI that Lee made such statements and we therefore classified the LC’s theology as aberrant rather than heretical, according to the theological definition of aberrant that we have adhered to for decades. Aberrant theology will affirm orthodoxy but then will add to those confessions of orthodoxy further affirmations that contradict, compromise, or undermine them. We simply concluded that the LC believed they lived in a world where two contradictory propositions could be true at the same time and in the same sense.

However, long before we entered into dialogue with the LC this manner of dismissing their clear affirmations of orthodox theology in the very area where we have charged them with being unorthodox did not sit comfortably with me. I for one knew of no other group classified as modalistic that made similar detailed confessions of Trinitarian orthodoxy. The thought crossed my mind more than once that perhaps we were missing something in the LC’s teachings that would clarify this seemingly blatant contradiction. Indeed, we at CRI were missing something, and so were virtually all of our colleagues in the countercult community!

“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”

You may remember the catch phrase coined by Bill Clinton’s political strategist James Carville in the 1992 presidential race to keep the campaign on message: “It’s the economy, stupid.” In a different sense the same rebuke might well be addressed to those of us who missed a distinction frequently made in LC literature between the essential Trinity (also called the ontological Trinity or the immanent Trinity) and the economic Trinity. These terms refer to a distinction that is widely made in orthodox theology; one that we at CRI have always embraced and taught. It is a distinction between the eternal nature and interrelationship of the three divine persons and the temporal (i.e., time-related and situated) roles that they assume in their relationship with creation.⁴

Long before I ever considered that it might help explain the LC’s modalistic-sounding teachings, I recognized that when the economic Trinity is described in the Bible or by orthodox theology it often sounds like modalism; it isn’t, however, because behind it all lies belief in the eternal nature and unchanging relationship of the three persons in the ontological Trinity. Modalists, however, confuse the biblical distinction between the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity, conflate the two concepts into one, and thus assign the characteristics of the economic Trinity to the ontological Trinity.

Lee could not have made it clearer where he stood on this issue, if only we critics had been thorough enough in our research of, and dialogue with, the LC to notice. He carefully explained the essential/economic distinction in many places and explicitly contrasted the LC’s view of the Trinity with modalism:

What is the error in Modalism? Modalism teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not all eternal and do not all exist at the same time. Rather, modalism claims that the Father ended with the Son’s coming and that the Son ceased with the Spirit’s coming. The modalists say that the Three of the Godhead exist respectively in three consecutive stages. They do not believe in the coexistence and coinherence of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Unlike them, we believe in the coexistence and coinherence of the Three of the Godhead; that is, we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all exist essentially at the same time and under the same conditions. However, in the divine economy, the Three work and are manifested respectively in three consecutive stages. Yet even in Their economical works and manifestations the Three still remain essentially in Their coexistence and coinherence.5

Lee here does not address the fact that there are two forms of modalism: chronological and functional, and the latter view does not deny that God can function in more than one of the three modes or roles at the same point in history. However, the distinction he does make between the essential Trinity and the economic Trinity would not be made by a functional modalist any more than it would be made by a chronological modalist.

Furthermore, it is clear from Lee’s overall teaching on the Trinity that he viewed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three distinct centers of consciousness and volition, or “I’s,” eternally involved in loving subject-object relationship. For example, commenting on John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”), he wrote that “although the Father and the Son are one, between them there is still a distinction of I and the Father. We must not disregard this point, because if we do we would become modalists.”6 Elsewhere, when astutely writing about how eternity would have no existence independent of the Triune God, Lee writes,

In eternity past when the Father and Son were fellowshipping, when the Father loved the Son, and whenthe Son was foreordained by the Triune God, the Spirit was also there because He is the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of the ages.

Acts 2:23 says that Christ was delivered up by the determined counsel of [the Triune] God …. Among thethree of the Godhead, there was a council, and by this council a determined counsel was made ….

…. Thus in eternity past the Triune God was there fellowshipping, loving, foreordaining, working, and choosing.⁷

Chris Wilde, director of media and communications for LSM, makes an observation that our independent research has found to be entirely true: “Nearly all criticisms of Witness Lee’s teachings related to the Trinity are the product of selectively excerpting portions of his writing that emphasize the economical operation of the Triune God, without bothering to even mention that he fully balances himself in other portions of his work, and often in the same passage. “⁸

Lee does identify the Son with the Father and the Spirit, but not in the wholesale manner of the modalists:

In God’s plan, God’s administrative arrangement, God’s economy, the Father takes the first step, the Son takes the second step, and the Spirit takes the third step. The Father purposed, the Son accomplished, and the Spirit applies what the Son accomplished according to the Father’s purpose …. After this [the Father's] plan was made, the Son came to accomplish this plan, but He did this with the Father and by the Spirit (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18,20; 12:28). Now that the Son has accomplished all that the Father has planned, the Spirit comes in the third step to apply all that He accomplished, but He does this as the Son and with the Father (John 14:26; 15:26; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17). In this way, while the divine economy is being carried out, the divine existence of the Divine Trinity, His eternal coexistence and coinherence, remains intact and is not jeopardized.⁹

Lee further clarifies, contra the modalists (who were also called Patripassionists because of their implied belief that the Father [patri] suffered [passion] on the cross), that

in the second step of God’s economy, the step of accomplishment, the Son did all the works. We cannot say the Father did the accomplishing work with the Son and by the Spirit. Neither can we say that the Spirit accomplished the Father’s plan as the Son, with the Father. We can only say that the Son did all the works to accomplish the Father’s plan with the Father and by the Spirit. Also, we cannot say that the Father became flesh and that the Father lived on this earth in the flesh. Furthermore, we cannot say that the Father went to the cross and died for our redemption, and we cannot say the blood shed on the cross is the blood of Jesus the Father. We must say that the blood was shed by Jesus the Son of God (1 John 1:7). We can neither say that the Father died on the cross nor can we say that the Father resurrected from the dead. ¹⁰

It is therefore the case that much of the LC’s identification of the Son with the Father and the Spirit is stated in the context of the operations of the economic Trinity, and is based on a similar identification that is made in Scripture. Examples are replete throughout the Gospels, particularly in the Gospel of John.

John chapter 14, for example, makes it clear that while each of the three persons in the Trinity has specific roles in the work of salvation, they never perform those functions apart from the active presence and involvement of the other two. To know Jesus is to know the Father (v.9). The Father was entirely involved in both the words Jesus spoke and the works He did (v. 10). After Jesus ascends to heaven both He and the Father will be active in answering the disciples’ requests prayed in Jesus’ name (vv. 13-14; d .

John 15:16). Likewise, when Jesus speaks of sending “another comforter” there is both the clear succession of the Son by the Spirit in the role of teaching and leading the disciples and the clear active presence of the Son in the Spirit’s work (v.18: “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you”), just as previously the Spirit was actively present in the work of the Son (v. 17: “you know Him because He [presently-in the ministry of Christ] abides with you”).

Some interpret Jesus’ promise to come to His disciples as referring to His resurrection appearances or to the Second Coming. Even if one of these interpretations was granted, it would not overthrow the argument I am making from John 14 for the close identification of the three persons, since such identification permeates the chapter. However, the context seems to suggest that Jesus is referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is the topic in the verse immediately preceding this statement, and when in v. 22 Judas (not Iscariot) asks Jesus how He will disclose Himself to the disciples and not to the world (referencing Jesus’ statement in v. 19 that “after a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me”), Jesus does not explain this in terms of His resurrection appearances but rather clarifies that He and the Father will come to whoever loves Him and keeps His word and “make our abode with him”-an indwelling that can only be understood as identical to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

We see then that while in the Gospels the work of the economic Trinity is identified with one person or the other, such identification is never meant to exclude the involvement of the other two in the same work, and sometimes one or both of the other two are specifically identified with that work (with the exception of such unique roles as the Father sending the Son, the Son dying for our sins, and the Spirit glorifying Christ).

In the epistles we also frequently see this identification of one divine person with the other’s distinctive roles. The following quotation from a paper the LC prepared for Fuller Theological Seminary cites several of these Pauline texts, explains their importance in LC theology, and quotes extensively from both Witness Lee and respected theologians to explain the biblical warrant for such identification of the persons:

A key focus of our ministry is the believers’ experience of Christ, and it is in this experiential sense that we interpret verses like 1 Corinthians 15:45 ["The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit"] and 2 Corinthians 3:17 ["And the Lord is the Spirit"]. We understand that in resurrection Christ comes to the believers and works out the full activity of God’s complete salvation in and through the life-giving Spirit. Because of this, we find in the New Testament Epistles a strong identification of Christ with the Spirit, again not to the elimination of their distinctions in the Divine Trinity but according to their coinherent existence and operation in the believers ….

…. Adept readers of historical theology know that Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, and a list of other solidly orthodox teachers can be read aberrantly, but that in their writings there are also the balancing portions that validate their orthodoxy. Witness Lee too has his balancing portions, which are rarely seen in published “proofs” of his alleged heterodoxy. Here we wish to offer two exemplary portions that show something of his full view on Christ and the Spirit:

This very Christ is now the Lord in the heavens and at the same time the Spirit within us. “Now the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). As Lord, He is in the heavens. As the Spirit, He is within us. As the One in the heavens, He is exercising His rulership, headship, and priesthood …. Whatever He carries out as Lord, He applies to us as the Spirit. (The Heavenly Ministry of Christ, 69-70)

Some who read this word concerning the Spirit as another Comforter and the Spirit as Christ’s breath

may ask, “Don’t you believe that Christ and the Spirit are distinct? Don’t you believe that Christ and the Spirit are two?” Yes, I believe that, as viewed from one aspect, the outward, objective aspect, Christ and the Spirit are two. However, as viewed from another aspect, the inward, subjective aspect, the Spirit, the second Comforter, is the breath of Christ, the first Comforter. Thus, from the perspective of the inward aspect, Christ and the Spirit are one. (The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John, 588)

Without too much analysis, one can see that Witness Lee held to the notion that Christ and the Spirit are distinct; however, echoing the New Testament Epistles, he understood and taught that in our Christian experience, which, as opposed to theological systematization, was the great focus of his ministry, the resurrected Christ is often identified with the life-giving Spirit. As this is one of the topics that has drawn the greatest amount of criticism concerning Witness Lee’s teaching, we feel that it is important to add a few quotations from others on the subject. Witness Lee’s teaching on this subject may be considered non-traditional or even controversial, but he is certainly not alone in the conclusions he has drawn. At least one notable contemporary scholar worth mention is James D. G. Dunn, who addresses some of the same scriptural passages that Witness Lee has given frequent attention to:

…. Paul identifies the exalted Jesus with the Spirit-not with a spiritual being … or a spiritual dimension or sphere … , but with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit …. Immanent christology is for Paul pneumatology; in the believer’s experience there is no distinction between Christ and Spirit. This does not mean of course that Paul makes no distinction between Christ and Spirit. (The Christ and the Spirit, vol. 1, Christ logy [Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans,1998], 164-165)

W. H. Griffith Thomas, the noted theologian from a generation ago and one whom Witness Lee frequently quoted regarding the Trinity, also makes reference to the twofoldness of this divine truth, while offering a remarkably clear and succinct summary of the identification of Christ and the Spirit:

It is essential to preserve with care both sides of this truth. Christ and the Spirit are different yet the same, the same yet different. Perhaps the best expression we can give is that while their Personalities are never identical, their presence always is. (The Holy Spirit [Grand Rapids, MI:

Kregel, 1986; reprint of The Holy Spirit of God, 4th ed., Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1913], 144) It is clear from these quotations as well as from the entirety of the ministry of Witness Lee that it is in the realm of the believers’ experience of Christ-and not in God’s immanent existence-that the identification between Christ and the Spirit obtains. H. B. Swete confirms this same thought:

The Spirit in its working was found to be in effect the equivalent of Jesus Christ … where the possession of the Spirit of Christ is clearly regarded as tantamount to an indwelling of Christ Himself …. “the Lord the Spirit,” (i.e. Christ in the power of His glorified life) are viewed as being in practice the same. (The Holy Spirit in the New Testament [London; New York: Macmillan, 1912], 306)¹¹

We have seen that Scripture clearly identifies the three persons of the Trinity with each other in many manifestations of the economic Trinity. This biblical fact does not seem to be fully appreciated by many evangelical critics of the LC. Beyond this, in the doctrine of coinherence (more commonly termed interpenetration by theologians) there is an ontological grounding in the Trinity for such economic identification of the three persons that seems to be equally missed by many evangelicals. Once understood, this truth could go a long way toward correcting a problem that the LC has accurately noted in the Western church today. We will proceed to the doctrine of coinherence presently, but first more needs to be said about this problem.

Turning the Trinitarian Tables: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Witness Lee

As we have seen among the quotations supplied in the Open Letter to the LC, Witness Lee has already stated the problem: “The Spirit, in traditional thinking, comes into the believers, while the Father and Son are left on the throne. When believers pray, they are taught to bow before the Father and pray in the name of the Son. To split the Godhead into these separate Persons is not the revelation of the Bible …. “

To be sure, Lee should have stated his concern more carefully. There is nothing wrong with believers being taught to pray to the Father in the name of the Son, something Jesus Himself encouraged (John 16:23), and Lee was not opposed to this, for he himself taught it.¹²

From even the limited material provided in the Open Letter it should be evident, however, that Lee’s real concern was tritheism, which makes it ironic that the Open Letter includes this quotation as evidence of Lee’s unorthodox teaching. Do the drafters and signers of the Open Letter really want to say that when the Spirit comes into believers the Father and Son are left on the throne? Do they really contend that splitting the Godhead into three separate persons is the revelation of the Bible? If so, then conscientious Christians should be concerned about their beliefs on the Trinity.

To better clarify the LC’s position it should be noted that they believe in a principle that theologian Robert Govett called “the twofoldness of Divine Truth,” in which God’s revelation characteristically has two sides to it, and it is important to embrace and teach both sides fully.¹³ This explains why Lee often failed to follow radical and controversial statements with seemingly appropriate qualifications: he did not want to diminish the fullness and force of one aspect of biblical truth (e .g., the oneness of God) by too quickly balancing it with the opposing aspect (e.g., the threeness of God), and so he would often do so at another time.

The LC certainly could have and should have taken greater care to explain the nuances of their controversial teachings to leery Westerners, but it can nonetheless be demonstrated that they have not contradicted themselves as their critics suppose. They have consistently affirmed that the three persons of the Godhead are eternally distinct from one another while consistently denying that they are ever separate from one another.

If this observation seems to be making a distinction without a difference, further thought should be given to the matter. Even if the English dictionary defined the two terms in an identical manner, the important question would remain: how do the “local churches” define the terms? However, the American Heritage Dictionary agrees with the LC that there are significant differences of meaning in the adjectival use of the two terms:

1. The first (and only applicable to this usage) definition that the AHD gives for distinct is, “Readily distinguishable from all others; discrete.”

2. For separate the AHD’s first two definitions are both relevant: (a) “Set or kept apart; disunited”; (b) “Existing as an independent entity.”

A careful effort to understand LC writings on their own terms is bound to discover that the strong modalistic sounding language often found therein is a reaction to, and an attempt to correct, the tritheistic tendencies that Lee and his compatriots believed they were encountering in the West. Indeed, some Western theologians have made the same observation about modern evangelicalism,¹⁴ and the very fact that the distinction between separate and distinct is not recognized even by theologians and countercult apologists involved with the Open Letter would seem to corroborate this concern.

Of course, the vast majority of Western Christians are not full-blown tritheists (believing that the Trinity is composed of three separate gods). However, many of them do seem inconsistently to hold beliefs about God that imply tritheism.

In keeping with his belief in the twofoldness of Divine Truth, Lee taught that “in order to hold a biblical truth properly, we must hold both sides of it. The pure revelation of the Triune God in the Bible occupies a central position in between the extremes of modalism and tritheism.”¹⁵ As far as Lee was concerned, the LC was maintaining that balance but much of evangelicalism was not. This, the LC would argue, is a factor in the outcry against their teaching: tritheists are more likely to construe sound Trinitarianism as modalism just as much as modalists are more likely to construe sound Trinitarianism as tritheism.

Now, at this point both the LC and their critics should step back and take a deep breath. Both sides need to recognize that leaning toward an extreme and embracing it are not the same thing. Orthodox Christians would surely agree with Lee that we need to find the proper balance between modalism and tritheism; it’s just a question of determining where that balance lies, and that has been a tricky proposition throughout church history. Within historic orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy leans more toward tritheism and Roman Catholicism leans more toward modalism, but virtually no one accuses either camp of heresy on the Trinity. In the same sense, an argument could be made that the LC leans toward modalism, but an argument that they are modalists simply cannot be sustained.

What about Lee’s declarations that the Son is the Father and the Spirit? Many critics have taken this as a dead giveaway that he was a modalist. Because many people understandably respond this way, CRI has advised the LC against making such declarations. It is important for a group’s teachings to be clearly understood. But even if the LC ignores our advice, truth still matters, and when Lee affirmed the existence of three eternally distinct persons in the Godhead he was stating his true belief. Furthermore, when he affirmed that the Trinity is one person he was not engaging in boldfaced self-contradiction. He was rather attempting to safeguard LC theology from the implication of separateness of being (tritheism) that the word person at least potentially carries.

As we’ve seen, Lee did explicitly teach that the Trinity consists of three distinct persons, but in other places he can be found expressing reservations about the use of that term.¹⁶ For example:

Actually, to use the designation “three Persons” to explain the Father, Son, and Spirit is also not quite satisfactory because “three Persons” really means three persons. Therefore, Griffith Thomas (famous for his exposition on the book of Romans) in his book The Principles of Theology wrote in this wise concerning the Trinity of the Godhead: “The term ‘Person’ is also sometimes objected to. Like all human language, it is liable to be accused of inadequacy and even positive error. It certainly must not be pressed too far, or it will lead to Tritheism.”¹⁷

We dare not say that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three persons, nor do we dare say that they are not, because this is truly a mystery. ¹⁸

It seems that we in the countercult community can learn something from Lee on this point. In our efforts to define the Trinity in a manner that could be easily assimilated by the masses and would quickly rule out the errors of Arianism (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses) and modalism (e.g., United Pentecostal Church), we have perhaps relied too heavily on succinct definitions of the Trinity such as “one God in three persons” or “three persons in one nature.”

To assume that this is all we need to say about the Trinity seems simplistic. Where else in the entire realm of human experience do we encounter persons who are not simultaneously separate entities from all other persons? If we supply lay Christians with nothing more than such simple formulas, should we be surprised if they become tritheistic in at least some of their thinking? Should we be greatly surprised if some of them move on to embrace the full-blown tritheism of such teachers as Finis Dake, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn?

The Bible does not present the Trinity in such simplistic terms. There is an element of mystery in its depiction of the Godhead that can be as difficult to sort out as the Trinitarian teachings of Witness Lee! For example, evangelical countercult apologists will often correctly argue with Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Bible identifies Jesus with Jehovah, and Jehovah (or Yahweh) is the personal name of God. How many of them stop and wrestle with the fact that the Bible applies one personal name to all three persons of the Trinity?¹⁹ Furthermore, the Bible (and we Christians, following the Bible) often uses the singular personal pronoun “He” to refer to the triune God and not merely to one person in the Trinity.²⁰ There is clearly a sense biblically in which the three persons of the Trinity share a singular personal identity: Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God, who we appropriately refer to as “He” or “Him.” To affirm this is not to confuse the eternal and economic distinctions that exist between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is rather to safeguard the equally important biblical truth that they comprise one eternal Being, a truth that describing them as three separate persons compromises. Those of us who have used the word separate to distinguish the persons of the Trinity owe a debt of gratitude to Witness Lee for pointing this out.

Lee’s thinking was very close to that of the late Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til on this point, and although Van Til has been criticized for his view, no one that I am aware of has charged him with heresy. Theology blogger Phil Gons writes:

Avoiding modalism and tritheism is as challenging as steering clear of legalism and antinomianism. Errors in formulating a biblical doctrine of the Trinity stem from the desire to say too much. Perhaps Van Til’s approach is best. He leaves the tension unresolved and maintains the full mystery of the Trinity by arguing that God is both one person and three persons, though in different senses. Van Til is combating the notion that “God” is some kind of attribute that the three persons of the Trinity share in common. [John] Frame’s defense of Van Til on this point is quite insightful. Van Til’s formulation helpfully preserves us from the tendency toward either modalism or tritheism. God is one and God is three, but in different senses (and thus not contradictorily). In precisely what ways He is one and three, we cannot and should not say.²¹

The Little-Known but Entirely Biblical Doctrine of Coinherence

As previously suggested, the best antidote to a tritheistic tendency is to understand the important biblical doctrine of coinherence. The reason the three persons of the Trinity can never be separated is that their oneness of nature involves more than merely sharing the same attributes (as humans share attributes); it involves existing as one entity and therefore interpenetrating one another.

In their paper presented to Fuller the LC make their position on coinherence, and their justification for it, quite clear:

While we adamantly maintain that the three persons of the Divine Trinity exist eternally and are eternally distinct, we also recognize that in every manifest and distinct action of each all three operate inseparably (yet still distinctly) …. Witness Lee relied heavily on the notion [of coinherence] to explain how the Bible sometimes identifies one distinct hypostasis [person] of the Trinity with another:

…. The term coinhere applied to the Triune God means that the three-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit–exist within one another. First of all, this is based upon the word spoken by the Lord Jesus in the Gospels …. Besides John 14:10, the same utterance is found in 14:20; 10:38; and 17:21,23. These five verses all refer to the fact that the Son and the Father exist within one another at the same time. These verses are crucial to our understanding of the mystery of the Divine Trinity’s being three and also one. (The Revelation and Vision of God, 33-35)

John 14:10 perhaps best captures the fine nuances of the manifest action and inseparable operations that we see in the Trinity: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works.” Because the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son-that is, because the Father and the Son coinhere—what is manifestly and distinctly the Son’s action (“the words that I say to you”) is likewise the Father’s operation (“the Father who abides in Me does His works”). An allusion to the similar inseparable operations of the three in the distinct action of the Spirit can be found in John 16:13-15 ….

Because of this marvelous reality of the coinherence of the three in the Trinity, we believe that frequently the Bible identifies the hypostases with one another, sometimes to the chagrin of less-nuanced systematic theologies. But not all systematicians have been dull to this reality in God:

This oneness of essence explains the fact that, while Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as respects their personality, are distinct subsistences, there is an intercommunion of persons and an immanence of one divine person in another which permits the peculiar work of one to be ascribed … to either of the other, and the manifestation of one to be recognized in the manifestation of the other. The Scripture representations of this intercommunion prevent us from conceiving of the distinctions called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as involving separation between them. This intercommunion also explains the designation of Christ as “the Spirit,” and of the Spirit as “the Spirit of Christ,” as 1 Corinthians 15:45: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit,” 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit …. ” The persons of the Holy Trinity are not separable individuals. Each involves the others; the coming of each is the coming of the others. Thus, the coming of the Spirit must have involved the coming of the Son. (A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, [Old Tappan, N.].: Revell, 1960, c1907], 332-33)

Similarly, we understand that because of co inherence in the Trinity the Son given to us comes to us bearing in His every action the inseparable operation of the Eternal Father and thus can be called, as Isaiah predicts, the Eternal Father. We do not need to relegate Isaiah’s prophecy to an Old Testament metaphor, nor should we neuter the passage of its full Christian significance, for as Christians we hold this verse as an inspired prophecy of the incarnate Christ. Rather, we wish to afford the passage its full textual force, understanding that the Son who came to us in incarnation was in the Father and that His works were as well the operations of the Eternal Father.²²

At this point Lee’s statement, quoted in the Open Letter, that ” … the entire Godhead, the Triune God, became flesh” can be better understood. The drafters of the Open Letter apparently would have us believe that Lee was teaching an expanded, Triune version of Patripassionism and denying that the Son was uniquely incarnate, despite his express teaching, reproduced above, that only the Son became flesh, did the works of the “second step” of God’s economy, died on the cross, and rose from the dead. Notice, however, that the quotation the Open Letter provides is not even a complete sentence. This fact is significant because by only reproducing eight words out of a 240-word paragraph the drafters deprive the reader of the point Lee was actually making. The context of the paragraph is clearly and exclusively the coinherence of the Trinity, and it is in this sense and this sense only that Lee wrote those eight words: because of their unity of being, no person of the Trinity goes anywhere or does anything apart from the presence and involvement of the other two persons. When an author is indicted on the basis of an incomplete sentence it should raise a red flag for any discerning reader; in this case, further research bears out that the author was indeed taken out of context.

I believe that sufficient evidence has been provided to exonerate the LC from charges of heresy, aberration, duplicity, and self-contradiction as regards the Trinity. Just as we at CRI admitted that we had wrongly charged the LC with modalism, I am confident that other evangelical critics of the LC who are fair minded and open to correction will reach a similar conclusion. Because truth matters irrespective of personal histories, the fact that the LC has at times responded contentiously to such egregiously false charges does not make the charges themselves any less egregious and false and should not affect the conclusions evangelicals reach on this matter.²³ As we shall shortly see, a careful contextual reading of LC literature forces the exact same conclusions on the other alleged theological errors identified in the Open Letter.

notes

1 For example, see abuGian, “The Teachings of Witness Lee of the ‘Local Church’ (Church of Recovery),” The Bereans Apologetics Research Ministry, http://www.thebereans.netfarmwlee.shrml; “To All Zealous ‘Witness lee-Teaching’ Followers regarding the ‘Triune God’ Doctrine,” Biblocaliry, http://www3.telus.netltrbrooksfTeachingsofLC3.htmj also note the comments of Calvin Beisner in Colin Hansen, “Cult Watchers Reconsider: Former Detractors of Nee and Lee Now Endorse ‘Local Churches,’” Bold Bible Teaching, http://www.boldbibleteaching.ner/warchmanneeandwitness.htmi.

2 Witness Lee, The Revelation and Vision of God (Anaheim: Liv ing Stream Ministry, 2000),32-33.

3 Ibid., 19.

4 By relationship I refer co every aspect of the Triune God’s acciv ity as creacor, preserver, judge, and redeemer of the world.

5 Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, Messages 1-20 (Anaheim: Living Stream

Ministry, 1997), 20.

6 Lee, Revelation and Vision, 34.

7 Witness Lee, Living in and with the Divine Trinity (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1990), 9-10.

8 Chris Wilde, “Presentation of Some of the Teachings of Witness Lee concerning Several Key Doctrinal Issues” (draft of a paper prepared for Fuller Seminary, October 2005), 2.

9 Witness Lee, The Crucial Points of the Major Items of the Lord’s Recovery Today (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1993), 10.

10 Witness Lee, Elders’ Training, Book 3: The Way to Carry Out the Vision (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1985), 69.

11 A Statement concerning the Teachings of Living Stream Ministry Prepared for Fuller Theological Seminary, January 20, 2007,12-14. (This document is posted at http://www.lctestimony.orglStatementOfreachings.pdf.)

12 Witness Lee, Lessons on Prayer (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1981), 239-47.

13 Wilde, 1. See Roben Govett, The Twofoldness of Divine Truth, 5th ed. (Haysville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Company. 2003).

14 See, e.g., Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 248; Phil Gons, “Are You a Practical Modalist?” PhiIGons.com, Thoughts on Theology and Technology, Janua ry 19, 2009,

http://philgons.com/2008/0 1lare-you-a-practical-modalist/; and Rev. James Hastings, M.A., ed., The Expository Times, vol. 7: Occober 1895- September 1896 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, n.d.), 153.

15 Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, Messages 1-20, 29.

16 It is noteworthy that Karl Barth, whose theology was centered in the Trinity and who rejected modalism, nonetheless had a similar concern about the use of the term person as that expressed by Lee. On this see Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority Volume 5: God Who Stands and Stays Part One (Wheaton, lL: Crossway Books, 1982 ), 184.

17 Witness Lee, The Truth co1tceming the Trinity (Anaheim: Living St ream Ministry, 1976, 1994),32.

18 Lee, Revelation and Vision, 21.

19 Proof texts abound, but compare Isaiah 44:24 with John 1:3 and Genesis 1:2. Lf Yahweh alone created the universe, then the Son and the Holy Spirit, who with the Father were agents in creation, must also be Yahweh.

20 See, among a Bible full of examples, Deuteronomy 4:35- 39.

21 Gons, previously cited.

22 A Statement Concerning the Teachings of Living Stream Ministry, 9-11.

23 Indeed, the LC’s mo re aggressive response to charges of heresy and aberration than most groups may very well be explained by the fact that the charges are false. True heretics seem to live more comfortably with charges of heresy, perhaps because on some level they know the charge is true or, in any case, they don’t deeply ca re about being biblical and their concerns about such charges arise mo re from a public relations standpoint. Imagine, however, if your soundly orthodox church was being widely charged with heresy and cultism. The charge would be especially grievous because it is false and because you would be responding to it with evangelical sensibilities. Evangelicals therefore are well advised to view the LC’s past contentiousness in a different, more sympathetic light.

One of the earnest Chinese Christians who benefited from Nee’s publications was a young man named Li Changshou (1905-1997), who came to be called Witness Lee. Lee had been raised as a Southern Baptist¹ and personally accepted Christ as his Savior in 1925. Lee arranged for Nee to come and speak in 1933 to a church he had planted in his home town of Chefoo, and, desiring his ministry to be fully coordinated or “one” with Nee’s, he moved to Shanghai later that year.

In the following years Nee wrote many books and held regular conferences and trainings for church workers. Nee, Lee, and other workers planted churches up and down China and in Southeast Asia that numbered at least six hundred by the time of the Communist Revolution in 1949. A truly indigenous Chinese movement that came to be known by outsiders as the “Little Flock” (because they sang from aPlymouth Brethren hymnal called Hymns for the Little Flock), they emphasized an experiential knowledge of Christ, the consecrated life, and the recovery of the New Testament pattern for the local church.

Roots in the Plymouth Brethren

Many of the movement’s ideas, such as the plurality of elders as the collective “pastor” of the local church, the abolition of the clergy-laity distinction, and worship centered on the Lord’s Table, were derived from the Exclusive (Plymouth) Brethren, to which both Nee and Lee had ample exposure.

However, Nee considered the divisiveness he observed among the Brethren to be unbiblical, and so, seeking the New Testament ground for the unity of believers, he developed the concept that there should be only one church per city, autonomous from all other local churches, denominations, mission boards, and so forth. Although conceived for the purpose of unity, this has proved to be the most controversial element about the LC, for it is essentially anti-denominational and rejects the legitimacy of any church that meets on any other basis than locality-although the LC embraces all Christians as genuine children of God (see part 4).

When the Communists came into power, severe persecution was unleashed on the LC and Nee was imprisoned in 1952, where he died twenty years later. Nee sent Lee to Taiwan to help ensure that the movement, and the New Testament truths they had “recovered,” would survive.

In Taiwan the movement grew to sixty-five churches with twenty thousand participating “saints” (the LC’s preferred term for believers) by 1955.2 Lee assumed the mantle of leadership, although certain leaders and churches that were part of Nee’s “Little Flock” movement never “became one” with Lee as Lee had become one with Nee, and it was from some of these people that the charge of heresy was first raised against Lee.³

Lee Further Shapes the Movement

During this period Lee more fully developed several teachings that were present in Nee’s ministry, such as the mingling of God and man,⁴ Christ as the life-giving Spirit (which brought on the charge of modalism-see part 2), and the understanding of the church as the New Jerusalem, as well as devotional practices such as pray-reading and calling on the name of the Lord. All of these were presented as new revelations, not inthe sense of a new truth that goes beyond the Bible, but rather in the sense of a biblical truth that had been lost sight of but that the Spirit has uncovered and that the church has recovered.⁵ Hence, the movement often refers to itself as “the Lord’s recovery,” since they see themselves as part of a continuing restoration of biblical truth to the people of God that can be traced from the pre-Reformation period through the Protestant Reformation and all the way to the ministries of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.⁶

East Meets West

In 1958 Lee traveled to the United States and met with a group of believers in Los Angeles who were hungry to experience the New Testament church. Lee stayed in touch with them and in 1962 he moved to Los Angeles, believing that the Lord was directing him to spread the “recovery” into the United States.

By 1969 there were “local churches” in California, New York, and Texas, but most of the country was untouched by the movement. Lee began to teach that in the Book of Acts the church life was spread through migration, and so groups of LC members began moving to different parts of the country and establishing churches there. With the explosion of the Jesus movement in the 1970s many idealistic young people, as well as spiritually hungry older people, were seeking a greater experience of Christ and also of the New Testament church, and so the ranks of the LC swelled and they became a known quantity at least among Christians in many cities across the United States. Churches were also planted in Canada and on every continent.

Countercult ministry also came into its own in the 1970s, and, as previously noted, the LC did not escape its notice. Looking back on it as objectively as I can, I would have to say that people on both sides behaved badly. Countercult researchers did not make sufficient effort to understand the LC in their own cultural and theological contexts and so failed to assess properly the wide-ranging differences that would naturally exist between an indigenous Chinese Christian movement (even with many youthful American

converts) and typical American evangelicalism. Add to this Lee’s penchant for making controversial statements without immediately offering qualifications, and the stage was set for profound misunderstanding. LC members, for their part, were nothing short of militant in their response to public criticisms. The tactics and rhetoric of their more immature members reinforced the mistaken notion that they were cultic.

I remember how, after CRI founder Walter Martin had spoken publicly in Anaheim on the LC in October 1977 at a special meeting at Melodyland Christian Center (using research that had been provided him by young but talented cult researchers Bob and Gretchen Passantino, and relying heavily on their interpretation of the teachings of the LC), LC churches and members responded by taking out full-page ads in the Orange County Register contending for the orthodoxy of their beliefs and denouncing “The Bible Answer Man” (who at that time was Martin). I also remember how they overwhelmed the phone lines of the Bible Answer Man program, completely disrupting the show, in order to contend aggressively with Martin about their teachings.

Lee Meets Martin

Things could have turned out very differently. I have in my possession the transcript of a February 21, 1977 meeting between Walter Martin and Witness Lee. Lee had invited Martin to have lunch with him and his wife at their home, and Martin accepted. They had a long and frank discussion in which they got to know one another, discussed their beliefs, recognized each other as brothers in Christ who loved the Lord, and ultimately had very warm Christian fellowship. They concluded that they would follow up with more dialogue about LC teachings. Lee expressed openness to correction and Martin expressed openness to finding there was nothing to correct. They agreed that during this time both sides would cease and desist with the provocative antics.

I remember Martin returning to CRI enthused about the fellowship he’d had with ” brother Lee” and instructing us to withhold comment on the LC until the dialogue ran its course; but I also remember that the research staff was dismayed by this turn of events. We did not trust Lee and we feared that Martin might be taken in. Before long, people on both sides broke the conditions of the “truce” without the knowledge or consent of their respective leaders. Both Martin and Lee assumed the other was responsible for this breach of good faith and so the dialogue collapsed and the “war” resumed, fiercer than ever.

The LC Resorts to Litigation

The LC’s public battle with the countercult community in 1977 extended beyond CRI after two books were published. The Mind Benders was a Thomas Nelson book on cults that included one chapter on the LC. It was written by Jack Sparks, former leader of the Christian World Liberation Front in Berkeley, California, out of which the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) emerged. Having embraced a form of Eastern Orthodoxy and broken ties with SCP, Sparks was coming from a particular perspective and used the ancient creeds as well as the Bible to refute the cults. The book accused the LC of brainwashing and abusing their members. After a 1978 edition of the book inserted a chapter on Jim Jones’s People’s Temple immediately after the chapter on the LC, and all their attempts to resolve the matter apart from litigation were frustrated, the LC filed a lawsuit in 1981. A settlement agreement was reached in 1983 that resulted in a retraction being published in eighteen American newspapers. Nelson ceased distribution of the book and unsold copies were recalled.

The second book, The God-Men, written by the SCP staff, was not legally challenged by the LC in its 1977 version. But when a heavily revised 1979 German-language edition by Neil T. Duddy and the SCP was published by SchwengelerVerlag (published in English in 1981 by InterVarsity Press), the LC sued Duddy, SCP, and Schwengeler-Verlag. During the nearly five years of pretrial litigation, Duddy left the country and Schwengeler-Verlag never showed up for any of the legal proceedings. On the first day of trial SCP (apparently expecting to lose) declared bankruptcy based on their inability to pay the anticipated judgment, and so they did not show up at trial either.

Although SCP claims that the LC deliberately dragged the trial out so that SCP would be forced into bankruptcy and thus unable to make a defense, the information that came out against SCP in depositions and expert testimony makes it hard to imagine what kind of defense they could have mounted (see part 5). On January 26, 1985, the court ruled that The God-Men was “in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous” and awarded the plaintiffs $11,900,000 in damages, although due to the bankruptcy the plaintiffs only collected about $34,000.

After The God-Men trial was over, the conflict between the LC and the countercult community simmered down and remained at a low boil for many years. The LC’s growth in the United States slowed down significantly, partly due to the persistence of the “cult” label. The movement was rocked in the 1980s by a couple of internal controversies and splits,⁷ but there were enough committed members to weather these storms. In the meantime, growth picked up in the Far East, especially after the People’s Republic of China became somewhat more tolerant of unregistered religions in the early 1980s. A successful work was launched in the former Soviet Union, and the LC established training centers for their young people in approximately ten different countries. Witness Lee spent the remaining years of his life completing his Life-Study of the Bible series, revising his Recovery Version of the Bible, and creating new materials that clarified the movement’s governing vision⁸ and restructured their practice of the church life to conform it more closely to the New Testament pattern {e.g., as in 1 Cor. 14 ),⁹ which has had dynamic effects on their meetings. In 1997 Lee died. Observers in the countercult community wondered if the new generation of leadership would make any modifications or retractions in LC teachings.

A New Lawsuit and a Quest for Evangelical Understanding

On December 14, 2001, the LC, its publishing arm, Living Stream Ministry (LSM), and ninety-seven individual local churches filed suit against Harvest House Publishers and authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon over their 1999 book, Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions (ECNR). Many members of the countercult community were surprised not only that the LC was litigating again after Lee’s death and seventeen years after the God-Men verdict, but also that they were doing so over a one-and-one-half page entry in a 731-page encyclopedia. On January 5, 2006, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision that denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and ruled for the defendants, declaring that the Court had no business ruling on a “religious” dispute. The LC appealed this ruling to both the Texas Supreme Court in 2006 and the United States Supreme Court in 2007, but both courts decided not to review the case.

Simultaneous with the ECNR lawsuit, the LC was clearly making a concerted effort to build relationships with the larger evangelical community. In 2002 LSM was accepted into the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). They had already become members of the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) and the Evangelical Christian Credit Union (ECCU). They reached out not only to CRI but also to Fuller Theological Seminary, requesting dialogue and a thorough inquiry into the orthodoxy of their teachings. Fuller agreed to do so, with a favorable outcome for the LC.¹⁰ The LC also sought to establish contact with numerous theologians and Christian leaders who they believed were fair minded and might possibly become allies. They developed contacts in the mainstream Christian press, and the coverage they received from those periodicals became more favorable.¹¹

The “Open Letter” to the LC from Evangelical Leaders

Despite such progress, the LC continued to experience cynicism, suspicion, and outright rejection from some quarters. This perception became tangible on January 9, 2007, when a press release announced that “more than 60 evangelical Christian scholars and ministry leaders from seven nations have signed an unprecedented open letter (www.open-letter.org) asking the leadership of the ‘local churches’ and Living Stream Ministry to withdraw unorthodox statements by their founder, Witness Lee. The letter also calls on the movement’s leaders to renounce their decades-long practice of using lawsuits and threatened litigation to respond to criticism and settle disputes with Christian organizations and individuals. “12 Among the prominent leaders and scholars who signed the letter were some former CRI staff and former and current CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL contributors, including E. Calvin Beisner, James Bjornstad, Norman L. Geisler, H. Wayne House, Gordon R. Lewis, Ron Rhodes, and James R. White.

notes

1 It is important to note that neither Lee nor Nee came from a Buddhist background. The mystical leanings in their writings are not traceable to Eastern religions, as has been alleged, but to Western Christian inner life teachers such as Jessie Penn-Lewis, Andrew Murray, and Madame Guyon.

2 The Lord’s Recovery of Experiencing Christ and Practicing the Church Life in Oneness, History, “The Presenr Recovery- One City, One Church (A.D. 1937-Present),” 2, http://www. lordsrecovery.org/history/iv.html.

3 The first theological critic of Lee was James Chen, who had been appointed by Nee as one of two elders in Hong Kong. Interestingly, his charge was one that we have never heard in America, that Lee was teaching Arianism. He based this on the fact that Lee called the incarnate Christ a creature. Lee did indeed teach that Christ is a creature with respect to His humanity, but he also taught that, with respect to His deity, Christ is the Creator of the Universe. This pattern, in which Lee makes radical statements and balances them elsewhere in his teaching, only to have his critics seize on his radical statements without factoring in the balancing statements, has continued to the present day. In fact, this theme pretty well sums up the balance of this article, insofar as it deals with theology.

4 The LC has been careful to define mingling in a way that does not suggest a change in the essential nature of God or man. See the sidebar, “‘Mingling’-Was There Ever a Better Word?” Affirmation and Critique 1, 3 (July 1996), 31, 62.

5 “The Present Recovery- One City, One Church (A.D. 1937-Present),” 19.

6 For a thorough explanation of their beliefs in this regard, see the entire History section at the Web site, The Lord’s Recovery of Experiencing Christ and Practicing the Church Life, http://www. lordsrecovery.org/history/index.html.

7 Critics cite these controversies as corroboration that the LC is cultic, but in looking into these matters we have found corroboration only for the biblical doctrine of sin’s ongoing presence among believers (e.g., James 3:2; 1 John 1:8). In other words, the movement has not been immune to the carnal behaviors that have plagued and divided Christian works throughout church history. Perhaps in some future issue we can address these matters, but they go beyond our scope here, which is focused on the allegations contained in the “open letter” to the LC and LSM (see below).

8 See, e.g., Witness Lee’s series of eleven Elders’ Training books, including Book 2, The Vision of the Lord’s Recovery (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1985).

9 See, e.g., Witness Lee, The Ministry of the New Testament Priests of the Gospel (Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1998).

10 See Hank Hanegraaff, Gretchen Passantino, and Fuller Theological Seminary, The Local Churches: “Genuine Believers and Fellow Members of the Body of Christ” (Fullerton, CA:DCI’ Press, 2008), 29- 32.

11 See, e.g., “Loose Cult Talk ,” editoria l, Christianity Today, March 2006, 27 (http://www.christianitytoday.col11!ct/2006/marchI15.27.html); Ken Walker, “Former Local Church Critics Change Stance,” Charisma, June 2009, 20 (http://www.charismamag.comlindex. php/news!207 41-former-loca l-church-critics-change-stance).

12 ” Leading Evangelical Scholars Call on ‘Local Churches’ to Renounce Doctrines, Legal Attacks,” press release, January 9, 2007, hup:!/wwvl.open-letter.org!pdf/OL_PressRelease.pdf.

This anecdote from an old friend of mine captures the awkward tension that has existed between Western evangelicals and the “local church” (LC)¹ movement founded in China by Watchman Nee and brought to America in 1962 by Nee’s coworker Witness Lee. Their unconventional form of worship, unfamiliar doctrines and terminology (e.g., “mingling”), intense devotion to the ministries of Nee andLee, and the strong Chinese influence that is evident even in the Western outposts of the movement, all have contributed to the perception that this group is strange at best and cultic or heretical at worst. For many evangelicals these initial suspicions only seemed confirmed when they studied LC literature or dialogued with their members, since they seemingly embrace unorthodox doctrines such as modalism(God is one person in three modes rather than three persons in one being) even while denying that they hold them.

The Christian Research Institute (CRI), which publishes this magazine, is no stranger to this controversy. Along with the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) in Berkeley, California, in the mid to late 1970s we were among the first to research and publish on the LC. Although we refused to call them a cult,² our highly critical evaluation was consulted and cited by numerous later critics, many of whom did not have the same scruples about using the “c word. “³

In 2003, however, we accepted an invitation by LC leaders to engage in dialogue with them about their beliefs. Over the following few years we discovered that we had been profoundly mistaken about some of their teachings. Furthermore, after several visits to the Far East we have come to believe that this movement represents a crucial work of God in that region that our literature, and that of other Western countercult ministries, has greatly hindered.

The purpose of this five-part article, then, is to offer a fresh critique of the LC movement. After briefly looking at their background as a movement and as a source of controversy, we will take a long, hard look at what can fairly be called the four major concerns evangelicals have expressed about the LC. These were all succinctly presented in a 2007 “open letter” to the LC signed by a long list of evangelical theologians, apologists, and leaders. We will then draw our conclusions together and reassess where the LC stands in relation to historic orthodoxy and to the wider Christian community. Finally, we will look at the larger picture: what is at stake in the decades-long controversy surrounding the LC and what might be gained from its resolution?

notes

1 The ” local church” movement is frequently called The Local Church by outsiders, but although it is convenient to use this name for the group, it is not entirely accurate. The movement has adopted no formal name because of its desire to follow the New Testament pattern of simply identifying believers individually as Christians and collectively as the church (universal) or the church in a given city. Anything else is considered divisive. They often refer to their movement as “the Lord ‘s recovery,” but to keep things simple I will stick with the ” local churches” or LC here. In addition to being known as The Local Church both in the East and in the West they have been called the “Little Flock” during the earlier years under Watchman Nee’s leadership and the “Shouters” exclusively in China. The epithet Shouters was introduced in the early 1980s by the Three Self Patriotic Movement in Jeijing Province to suppress LC activity (as they sought to do with all Christian groups who refused to join their movement) . Over time the name Shouters has morphed in its usage by many Chinese to refer to all members of unregistered house churches, while still others use it to identify a small renegade group of people who claim to be followers of Witness Lee but have broken fellowship with the LC and distort the Bible and Lee’s teachings in numerous cultic ways. The misidentification of the LC with this latter group of “Shouters” has plagued the LC in its dealings with the authorities.

2 We did at first describe them as “cultic,” meaning by this that we considered them a group composed of Christians that had cultlike traits. We ultimately settled on the classification “aberrant Christian group” for the LC.

3 See, e.g., Ronald Enroth, The Lure of the Cults (Chappaqua, N Y: Christian Herald Books, 1979); Salem Kirban, Satan‘s Angels Exposed (Huntingdon Valley, PA: Salem Kieban, Inc., 1980); Bob Larson, Larson‘s Book of Cults (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983);Jerram Barrs, Freedom and Discipleship (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983).

On the basis of a six-year primary research project represented in part in this Special Edition of the JOURNAL, the Christian Research Institute has concluded that the local churches are a genuine expression of authentic New Testament Christianity.

To begin with, the local churches are not a cult from a theological perspective. In this sense, a cult may be defined as a pseudo-Christian organization that claims to be Christian but outright denies essential Christian doctrine. While I personally have differences with the local churches when it comes to secondary issues, such as the timing of the tribulation or the meaning of the millennium, I stand shoulder to shoulder with the local churches when it comes to the essentials that define biblical orthodoxy. With respect to the Trinity, for example, we are united in the reality that there is one God revealed in three persons who are eternally distinct. Although we may disagree on the exegesis of particular passages, this premise is inviolate. Moreover, it is significant to note that in interacting with members of the local churches over a protracted period of time, I have witnessed in them a keen interest in doctrinal precision sadly missing in major segments of the evangelical community.

Furthermore, the local churches are not a cult from a sociological perspective. In this sense, a cult is a religious or semireligious sect whose followers are controlled by strong leadership in virtually every dimension of their lives. Devotees characteristically manifest a displaced loyalty for the “guru” and the group and are galvanized together through physical and/or psychological intimidation tactics. It is unconscionable that the local churches have been uncharitably lumped together with sociological cults involved in the most heinous activities conceivable. Indeed, it is tragic that this classification has been used to persecute and imprison members of the local churches in various regions around the world.

Finally, the local churches are an authentic expression of New Testament Christianity. Moreover, as a group forged in the cauldron of persecution, it has much to offer Western Christianity. In this respect three things immediately come to mind.

First is their practice of prophesying—not in the sense of foretelling the future but in the 1 Corinthians 14 sense of exhorting, edifying, encouraging, educating, equipping, and explicating Scripture. As such, constituents are corporately involved in worship through the Word. Second is their practice of pray-reading as a meaningful link between the intake of Scripture and efficacious communion with God in prayer. And third is their fervent commitment to the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19).

If the early Christian church had one distinguishing characteristic, it was their passion to communicate the love, joy, and peace that only Jesus Christ can bring to the human heart. As we become entrenched in an age of esotericism, it is essential that genuine believers in all walks of life emulate this passion—a passion I have personally witnessed as I shared fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ from local churches in such faraway cities as Taipei, Seoul, and Nanjing.

In sum, along with Christians from a broad range of persuasions, the local churches are dedicated to both proper doctrine (orthodoxy) and proper practice (orthopraxy). As such, we march together by the maxim, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.” While we will continue to debate secondary issues this side of the veil, I have no doubt that we will spend an eternity together growing in the knowledge of the One who saved us by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone.

—Hank Hanegraaff

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast heard daily throughout the United States and Canada. For a list of stations airing the Bible Answer Man, or to listen online, log on to www.equip.org.

As President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI), I inherited a wealth of information on cults, the occult, and aberrant Christian theologies. My assumption was that as an organization committed to first-rate primary research the information in our files was substantially correct. Over the past twenty plus years this assumption has been validated time and time again. But not always. In the mid ’70s the Christian Research Institute in collaboration with researchers Bob and Gretchen Passantino initiated an evaluation of the local churches that would become a fountainhead of misinformation.

This reality began to surface in 2003 when I asked Gretchen Passantino and Elliot Miller, editor-in-chief of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, to join me for a meeting with representatives of Living Stream Ministry. During the meeting I heard stirring affirmations of the very doctrines the local churches allegedly denied. One by one, and in their own words, representatives of the local churches testified to their belief in one God, revealed in three persons who are eternally distinct; to the reality that human beings can never ontologically attain Godhood; and to the fact that they were “only the church” as opposed to being “the only church.”

As a result, I initiated a research project culminating in The expanded cover story of this Special Edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL Primary research was conducted not only in the U.S. but in such faraway places as China, Taiwan, South Korea, and England. It involved careful evaluation of literally hundreds of books, papers, church documents, and audio and video recordings. Even court documents.² The result of our primary research is encapsulated in the following three word;: “We were wrong!”

Gretchen Passantino uttered the words, ” I was wrong,” to a believer in Shanghai who had been in prison from the time his daughter was born to the time she turned seventeen. Elliot Miller said, ” I was wrong,’” to a man in Fuqing who had suffered imprisonment for a total of twenty-four years. Their words were not merely uttered in the moment of emotion. No! They were uttered after years of painstaking primary research.

While we have significant doctrinal differences with the local churches on nonessentials such as aspects of eschatology (my book, The Apocalypse Code, testifies to that reality), when it comes to essential Christian doctrine-the very doctrines for which the martyrs spilled their blood-we stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

The Christian Research Institute is no stranger to controversy. Y2K is a classic case in point. The cover story of a 1999 edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL was titled “The Millennium Bug Debugged.” As a result, we were characterized as “blind to truth” or “downright uninformed,’” like an ostrich with our head in the sand. When I suggested on the Bible Answer Mall broadcast that Y2K would not even be a top-ten news Story in the year 2000, I was accused of causing complacency in the body of Christ. One broadcaster went so far as to say that I would have the blood of millions of Christians on my hands because I was causing complacency in the body of Christ. I experienced the wrath of Christian gate-keepers, who were selling freeze-dried food and survival kits, and of people in the pews, who were absolutely certain that their leaders—particularly those politically connected—could not possibly be wrong on such a crucial matter.

Another significant controversy involved Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. I still vividly recall the controversy that erupted in the ’90s when I began meeting with church leaders. Yet, in 1994 the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL and the Bible Answer Man broadcast were privileged to be first to announce publicly that the Worldwide Church of God had embarked upon a course virtually uncharted in church history-a course that took them from the kingdom of the cults to the kingdom of Christ. Moreover, I was blessed to be able to write the foreword to a book by Joseph Tkach, President of the Worldwide Church of God, titled Transformed by Truth . Today he is not only my dear friend, but my brother in Christ-one who has made the pilgrimage from cultism to Christ.

In those days our ministry was deeply grateful for the friendship and support extended to “The Church Reborn” by cult expert Dr. Ruth Tucker, Christianity Today’s David Neff, Azusa Pacific University, Fuller Seminary, and Regent College. Together we believed that if God could redirect entire movements by changing the hearts of leaders, there was no telling what He might yet do through our continued faithfulness.

Joseph Tkach, by God’s grace was able to utter the words, “We were wrong.” We now express those same words regarding our stance on Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and the local churches.

The cost has been significant. Integrity has been questioned, motives challenged, and slander has ensued. As a result, support has been compromised. If I heard it once I heard it a thousand times. How can seventy Christian leaders who signed an open letter (see the cover Story ) calling the local churches to confess their false doctrines and practices be wrong? Surely, the integrity of CRI has been compromised.

In the midst of the turmoil I have reminded staff that ministry is no place for a popularity contest. That it is not about the size of the platform. Or about political correctness. At the end of the day, we do what we do, because Truth matters!

Whatever the cost it pales by comparison to that borne by the persecuted church in China and around the world. That reality was memorialized in a moment forever emblazoned upon my mind. A Chinese woman with brilliant smile had just finished communicating the experience of incarceration due to reading unauthorized material in an unauthorized meeting. Not a hint of self-pity. Only the radiance of a follower of Christ who had experienced the reality of authentic New Testament Christianity. When she finished, she thanked me for standing for truth no matter the cost. Never have I felt more unworthy. Whatever I face pales by comparison to what she and multitudes like her have suffered.

Perhaps no three words are more likely to stick in our throats than the words, ” I was wrong.” Yet for a ministry committed to the maxim, “because Truth matters,” the willingness to utter these words is not an option, it’s an essential.

—Hank Hanegraaff

notes

1 Because Nee had no intention of starting a new church movement or denomination, and because he considered himself ” just a brother” and nor a pastor or leader, there was no formal transfer of “authority” from Nee to anyone else. Therefore, there have always been some who have denied legitimacy to Lee’s leadership and who have, in fact, disagreed strongly with Lee’s understanding of Nee’s teachings. We have examined these alternative interpretations and developments of Nee’s teachings and do not believe that there is significant difference between Nee and Lee, nor any compelling evidence that Nee and Lee represent different teachings or different expressions of the church.

2 Elliot Miller and Gretchen Passantino, who had participated in the original research in the 1970s, were in a unique position to evaluate deficiencies. Bob Passantino died in November 2003 and was therefore not able to contribute to the recent research. Before his death, however, he agreed with his wife and ministry partner, Gretchen, that a reevaluation was necessary and was likely to determine that the original research was at best incomplete and at worst grossly inaccurate.

3 Joseph Tkach, Transformed by Truth (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1997),54.

Strict Naturalism and Folk Psychology. Naturalism is not a sharply defined position because there is no consensus on what nature includes. Chapter one explains “strict naturalism,” which rejects the common sense view of an agent’s beliefs and desires as outmoded “folk psychology.” Strict naturalists recognize only the blind, material causes of physical science, concluding there is “no ultimate and irreducible teleological explanation of any event…no libertarian freedom of the will…no enduring self or soul of any kind” (p. 13). Teleological (goal-directed) causation is rejected because it violates “the causal closure of the physical world” (28), according to which every physical event has a sufficient physical cause.

Chapter two critiques the causal closure principle, appealing to the renowned neuroscientist Wilder Penfield. Although Penfield had to assume causal closure during his experiments, where bodily movements were produced by stimulating neurons with electrodes, he did not conclude that these movements could not also (on other occasions) be produced by the subject’s mind. Indeed, Penfield himself was a soul-body dualist, partly because “his patients reported being conscious of the distinction between being agents and doing things, and being patients and having things done to them” (35–36). Goetz and Taliaferro also argue that it is “thoroughly reasonable to believe that there can be gaps (causal openness) in the physical world…ultimately explained teleologically.” (38) Here the authors might have helped make their case by explaining why gap arguments need not be arguments from ignorance, as is often assumed.

Goetz and Taliaferro also show the failure of strict naturalism to account for our subjective mental life and even science itself, which is “unintelligible unless persons exist and have observations and thoughts” (50). In an appendix, they develop one version of the argument from reason, showing that naturalists cannot give a credible account of human reasoning, which seems irreducibly teleological. I was a little disappointed that they did not interact with the sophisticated developments of this argument by Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert.

Chapter three defends the soul. Souls appear distinct from physical entities because consciousness is not composed of physical parts. Naturalists claim that souls are too mysterious to explain anything, but Goetz and Taliaferro rightly argue that one can have good grounds for believing that souls causally interact with bodies without knowing how they do so (64), arguing persuasively that “dualism…has more going for it than its critics admit” (70).

Broad Naturalism and Theism. Chapter four addresses “broad naturalism,” which claims our mental and moral lives are not illusions, but can be accounted for in materialist terms (71). Thus John Searle thinks that consciousness “emerges” from the brain just as liquidity emerges from H2O molecules. Goetz and Taliaferro object that “the physical properties…noted by Searle are structurally complex…while properties…of consciousness are not” (73). The overriding problem for naturalism is its implausible reduction of the normative (e.g., moral values) to the purely descriptive. Thus it makes ethical norms contingent on evolutionary history, so that fratricide might have been right (89–90)! By contrast, theists hold that moral values always existed in the mind of God.

Chapter five considers those who claim that God-talk is unintelligible because we can only meaningfully talk about physically embodied agents. Goetz and Taliaferro argue cogently that our thoughts are not limited to spatial objects (101). They also show that given the case for irreducible teleological agency in the human instance, there is no reason to reject divine agency as unintelligible (108–11). They mention “fascinating advances in contemporary neuroscience” (110) as evidence of mental causation, although I wish more had been said to rebut materialists’ use of neuroscience to undermine libertarian free will.

This book makes a strong, concise defense of theism and dualism and responds effectively to the best naturalist critics.

—Angus Menuge

Angus Menuge is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, and author of Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and of recent articles critiquing a materialist philosophy of mind.

But what of Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007)? He lived comfort ably but not lavishly in apparently modest circumstances in Queens, New York, championed the cause of global peace, and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He met with famous politicians such as Mikhail Gorbachev, and other influential individuals including Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, not to mention a long line of celebrity disciples that included Carlos Santana.

Was Sri Chinmoy a genuine spiritual leader the New Age movement could finally look up to as an altruistic champion of peace and tolerance? Or is there more to the story in this case, as there so typically has been with others? Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult by Jayanti Tamm seeks to shed some light on Sri Chinmoy, not as a detached analysis or evaluation, but as a memoir written by a former disciple. Tamm, in fact, was born into Chinmoy’s religious circle and observes that her memoir “isn’t the definitive account of Sri Chinmoy; it is my own remembrance” (author’s note). Nevertheless, along the way Tamm offers several insights that are helpful in understanding not only Sri Chinmoy and his followers, but also the characteristics of cultic organizations and, consequently, how best to interact with adherents.

A Guru and His Ways. Tamm’s parents, an American mother and an Estonian father who immigrated to America with his family, became disciples of Sri Chinmoy, also known as Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, while unmarried. Chinmoy summarily informed them they were to “marry but remain celibate” (p. 7). When Chinmoy learned that Tamm’s mother had become pregnant, he first scolded them for “indulging in ‘lower-vital forces,’” but upon conferring with the Supreme (Chinmoy’s word for “god”), he announced a “special soul” would “incarnate as his chosen disciple” (7). This “chosen one” was named Jayanti, or, “the absolute victory of the highest Supreme” (9). Thus began Tamm’s experiences “growing up cult.”

As expected, Tamm’s firsthand recollections of life in the Sri Chinmoy Center make up the bulk of Cartwheels in a Sari. From her early devotion and commitment to everything guru to her later expulsion and banishment as she approached her mid twenties, Tamm covers a variety of topics.

Chinmoy’s ascetic teachings run throughout the book, with Tamm noting such restrictions as forbidding television, newspapers, pets, computers, interaction with the opposite sex, unnecessary interaction with nondisciples, dietary restrictions, and more. Chinmoy, however, made exceptions, particularly for himself. As a result, he kept an illegal “zoo” of exotic pets in his basement, cared for by disciples. While he forbade the watching of television, Chinmoy craved the attention of the media, often staging elaborate weight-lifting events—one of his many areas of interest—in order to draw attention. It pleased him to be photographed with celebrities of all kinds, and he often lured them by granting them awards.

Page after page, Tamm reveals the underlying purpose of Chinmoy’s disciples—to please him. Everything revolved around Chinmoy and his wishes, demands, restrictions, and interests. “The sole point of everything,” writes Tamm, “was Guru” (13). A self-proclaimed “avatar” who had reached “God-realization” at age eleven, Chinmoy repeatedly told his disciples that if they did not live according to his dictates, they would not only cause Chinmoy physical suffering, but would also bring down karmic punishment upon themselves. Unfortunately, Tamm’s parents offered little in the way of traditional or healthy parenting. “Ask Guru” seemed to be their primary response to every situation.

Chinmoy, with few exceptions, restricted the education of his disciples. Essentially, college was out of the question for any disciple. Chinmoy claimed educational pursuits empha sized the life of the mind over the life of the heart. Since he viewed the life of the heart as superior to the life of the mind, his restrictions on education limited the opportunities many of his disciples had. As a result of the unquestioned authority of Chinmoy, combined with total devotion, many disciples had no lives beyond Chinmoy, working for him or for “divine enterprises” (businesses owned, operated, and employed by disciples who were expected to give much of their income to support the guru). Employment exceptions were made when Chinmoy had other ideas in mind, such as having many of his disciples employed by the United Nations in order to curry the favor of the organization.

“Guru knows best” appears to have been the approach everyone was expected to take when it came to Chinmoy’s decrees. Tamm quotes Chinmoy as saying, “The Supreme acts in and through me. You do not question what I do or tell you to do on my behalf. All commands are coming from the Highest Supreme. I only take advice from the Supreme” (42). Elsewhere she writes, quoting Chinmoy, “True disciples never doubt their guru” (51).

While Chinmoy often presented one face to the general public—such as to the media, celebrities, and dignitaries— another face was seen far more often by devoted disciples. The media saw the kindhearted guru eager to foster peace and unity in the world, while disciples often saw a restrictive and severe teacher who fostered a sort of caste system among his own disciples, often causing them to vie for positions of power and turn each other in for the smallest infractions. According to Tamm, “Guru enjoyed competitions that set up disciples against one another” (102). Ex-disciples were shunned, even by family members. Tamm’s brother, for instance, severed all contact with Tamm following her banishment from the Sri Chinmoy Center (276). It was not uncommon for Chinmoy to sell items to disciples, expecting them to pay for signed photographs, books, and other materials, while also expecting them to donate any windfalls, such as inheritance money.

What did Chinmoy want from Tamm? “What he wanted and expected was my unconditional obedience and undying love” (69). Later Tamm adds, “No matter what Guru asked… I needed to carry it out, swiftly and obediently” (75).

Cultic characteristics. Tamm is not shy about deeming the Sri Chinmoy Center a cult, referring to it as “the cult of the short bald man in the flowing robes who declared himself to be God” (2). But did the Chinmoy Center fit the description of a cult? If the definition of a cult is based on theological and sociological approaches, several aspects of the center do indeed qualify it as cultic. Theologically speaking, Chinmoy’s teachings are clearly at odds with Christianity. He declared himself an avatar (a divine manifestation), believed in karma and reincarnation, believed human beings could achieve God-realization, held to an essentially pantheistic view of reality (all is divine), and viewed Christ as merely one avatar among many.

If we are to believe Tamm, the Chinmoy Center also fit the sociological description of a cult in a number of ways. First, Chinmoy served as the unquestioned authority. Tamm writes, “He was our avatar, the direct representative of our insignificant selves to the infinite pantheon of divinity. He was both father and God, the sustenance of our lives” (122).

Second, members were isolated from traditional surroundings, including contact with family members who were not disciples and with outsiders. As much time as possible was to be spent with Chinmoy or involved in related center activities, leaving little time to think or reflect on involvement.

Third, the center discouraged independent thinking. It promoted unquestioning allegiance to Chinmoy while discouraging the life of the mind.

Fourth, the center made it clear that ex-disciples were to be shunned completely. This cultic technique is particularly nefarious in that it plays on the fears of members, promising swift and severe separation for those who no longer belong.

Fifth, according to Tamm, Chinmoy was also a charismatic leader. This alone did not make his organization a cult, but it is a common characteristic of such groups. Tamm writes of his “beautiful presence. The waves of energy that surrounded him enveloped me completely, erasing all thought. This is what I loved about Guru. Being in his presence created a tangible change in me; it made me holy, better” (138).

Leaving a Cult. Cartwheels in a Sari is instructive in many respects. While Tamm’s memoir is candid and at times more explicit than some readers would be comfortable with, it does serve the purpose of helping readers better understand cultic involvement. Christian apologists and countercult ministries are right to point out doctrinal deviations of cults and new religions, but Tamm’s book illustrates the reality that many disciples of such groups are not involved primarily because of doctrine, but because of relational needs the group is meeting. We are to test doctrine and compare it with truth, but not at the expense of neglecting human needs. Apologetics and evangelism require “gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15), but they must be reasonable and relational. Piles of theological evidence against a cultic organization will do little to sway the follower if the relational aspect is neglected.

Tamm’s memoir also serves to underscore the many challenges that an adherent of a cult or new religion must overcome in order not only to leave the group, but move beyond it to some sense of normalcy. After being banished from the Sri Chinmoy Center, Tamm explains, “As far as I knew, no manuals or instruction guides were readily available on how to create a life and how to function in a post-Guru world….Nothing from my past was available for me to rely on—I was on my own” (280–81).

Leaving a cultic organization is rarely easy. In Tamm’s case it resulted in shunning not only by disciples, but also by members of her immediate family. With her entire life spent serving Chinmoy, leaving the group meant literally starting her life over from scratch. What Tamm needed at that point in her life was not a tract or tirade about the theological errors of Chinmoy— though they were many—but love and kindness. Tamm’s memoir is also instructive to those involved in counseling former mem bers of cults and new religions. We need to keep in mind the many hidden scars that such individuals may carry with them even years after their cultic involvement.

Although Sri Chinmoy passed away in 2007, his legacy and that of countless other Eastern gurus lives on. In many respects, Eastern mysticism has become mainstream. The teachings of such groups, however, are not only at odds with God’s revelation and human reason, but also with our very humanity.

—Robert Velarde

Robert Velarde is coauthor of Examining Alternative Medicine (InterVarsity Press) and author of Conversations with C.S. Lewis (InterVarsity Press) and The Heart of Narnia (NavPress). He is completing graduate studies at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Whether a report is trustworthy depends on the type of individual making the report—a character or the narrator. Information conveyed by multidimensional characters, such as Jacob, may be contaminated with falsification or error and under certain circumstances should be questioned. The same can be said of characters that function exclusively as antagonists or villains in the story (e.g., Abimelech in Judges 9). Entirely heroic or ideal characters (e.g., Daniel), however, are thought to be generally reliable sources of information, and narrators are considered absolutely reliable, since narrators always share God’s perspective and possess His authority. Further, narrators have various devices at their disposal to authenticate a character’s testimony, the most secure being direct confirmation.

Failure to come to terms with these distinctions can lead to faulty interpretations, as it does when the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society attempts to explain the appearance of Samuel in 1 Samuel 28 by appealing to the fallibility of the character’s report. This passage is problematic for the Watchtower because their theology rejects the existence of the human soul as an independent entity that survives the body after death. In 1 Samuel 28:12–19, however, Samuel returns from the dead and speaks to Saul, thus requiring an explanation from Watchtower authorities. They address this issue in Reasoning from the Scriptures, a handbook for dealing with objections that Witnesses frequently encounter when going door to door:

Verses 13, 14 show that Saul himself did not see Samuel but only assumed from the description given by the spirit medium that she saw Samuel. Saul desperately wanted to believe that it was Samuel and so let himself be deceived. Verse 3 says that Samuel was dead and buried. The scriptures quoted under the preceding subheading make clear that there was no part of Samuel that was alive in another realm and able to communicate with Saul. The voice that pretended to be that of Samuel was that of an impostor.¹

The biggest problem with this analysis is that the one who identifies this individual as Samuel is not just Saul, a character type capable of delusions (1 Sam. 18:8–12; 22:7–19), but the inspired and authoritative narrator. Whereas Saul’s report may indeed be mistaken, as the Watchtower claims, the independent testimony of the narrator cannot be dismissed. In fact, the narrator identifies the spirit being five times as Samuel and corroborates Saul’s testimony, as the italicized portions of 1 Samuel 28:11–20 indicate:

Then the woman said, ”Whom shall I bring up for you?” And he said, ”Bring up Samuel for me.” When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.” The king said to her, “Do not be afraid; but what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.” He said to her, ”What is his form?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage. Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” And Saul answered, “I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.” Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? The LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David. As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day. Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!” Then Saul immediately fell full length upon the ground and was very afraid because of the words of Samuel. (Emphasis added.)²

Consequently, if the Watchtower is correct, then the inspired narrator was just as deceived by the impostor as Saul—a conclusion acceptable to neither party in the debate.

Although this particular Watchtower publication seems to overlook the authoritative voice of the narrator, their New World Translation (NWT) does not. It appears that the NWT recognizes the difficulty and cleverly places the name Samuel in quotation marks when invoked by the narrator. Under such conditions, “Samuel” means an alleged Samuel rather than the actual prophet. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that these quotation marks are entirely Watchtower-induced; there is no device, grammatical or otherwise, in the original text to indicate that the narrator was merely humoring Saul or supposing, for the sake of argument, that the individual in question was Samuel.³ In fact, the first one to identify the being as Samuel happens to be the narrator, not Saul (1 Sam. 28:12), an observation that further undermines the translation committee’s assumptions.

Four other considerations support the plain reading of the text. First, the narrator’s straightforward identification of the other characters in this scene reinforces his identification of the spirit as Samuel. In fact, the narrator reports Saul’s attempt to conceal his true identity (28:8), suggesting that he would expose any other pretenders as well.

Second, if the individual was an imposter, we would have to admit that he was a rather talented imposter—and historian as well—since he accurately recalls the earlier circumstances surrounding Saul’s rejection even to the extent of reproducing the words of Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:28, with only minor variations:

1 Sam. 15:28: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you.”

1 Sam. 28:17: “…the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David.”

The problem might be bypassed by appealing to a demonic spirit as the impostor, as the Watchtower attempts to do elsewhere⁴—not unlike some early Christian commentators. But this option still encounters difficulties with considerations one and three, as well as with the narrator’s unqualified identification of the spirit as Samuel.

It also raises some challenging questions. For example, why would an evil spirit venerate Jehovah by using his covenant name (seven times!) and by emphasizing his utter consistency and full commitment to an earlier oath to punish Saul (1 Sam. 28:16–19)? Additionally, the medium’s startled reaction (1 Sam. 28:12) is not easily explained by the appearance of a demon—a being quite common and unremarkable within her occupation. Also unexpected is the spirit’s communication, which comes across as distinct, realistic, and unmediated,⁵ in contrast to the birdlike mutterings normally emanating from mediums (Isa. 8:19; 29:4). Therefore, it is far less complicated and problematic simply to attribute this degree of authenticity to the real Samuel.

Third, and more impressive, is Samuel’s statement in 1 Samuel 28:19, “Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!” What we have here is something like a five hundred pound gorilla that has entirely escaped the Watchtower’s notice. 1 Samuel 28:19 is, in fact, a prophecy of death and defeat (compare 1 Sam. 2:31–36), which proves to be entirely accurate (1 Sam. 31; 2 Sam. 1) and creates agonizing implications for the Watchtower: their version would mean not only that an impostor prophesied correctly but that he possesses a better record of foretelling the future than they do.⁶ It is much more realistic to credit the prophecy to Samuel, a bona fide prophet (1 Sam. 9:19), who himself mentions the fulfillment of an earlier promise in the same conversation (1 Sam. 28:17–18).

Lastly, the narrator’s comment in 1 Samuel 15:35, that “Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death” is suggestive and may allude to the meeting in chapter 28. (Interestingly, Samuel’s attire [1 Sam. 28:14] and Saul’s capitulation to witchcraft are also anticipated in the same vicinity [1 Sam. 15:27; 15:23].) If, however, 15:35 is unrelated to the events of chapter 28, then its place in the overall story of Saul and Samuel seems excessively coincidental and circumstantial.

It is evident, then, that only by abandoning the fundamental principles of interpreting biblical narrative, as well as ignoring abundant clues in the passage, has the Watchtower been able to achieve an interpretation that satisfies its theology. Any disciplined reading will conclude that the Watchtower has been unsuccessful in neutralizing 1 Samuel 28, one of the most effective passages for demonstrating the independence of the soul and its continued existence after death.

—John Makujina

John Makujina is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Erskine College. His publications appear in journals such as Vetus Testamentum and the Journal of the American Oriental Society.

notes

1 Reasoning from the Scriptures (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1989), 385.

2 All Bible quotations are from the NASB Updated Edition.

3 A footnote in the 1971 edition of the NWT mentions that the Septuagint translators understood “spirit medium” (1 Sam. 28:3) as “ventriloquist” (Greek, engastrimuthos). Whether or not the Watchtower is suggesting ventriloquism as a possible solution, it should be noted that engastrimuthos is associated with gastromancy, a Greek form of divination unknown in the ancient Near East and quite different from performance ventriloquism.

4 For instance, You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1989), 91–92; Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1995) , 113.

5 The medium was somewhat removed from Saul during Samuel’s oracle (1 Sam. 28:21).

6 See M. James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3–4, 8, 24, 44, 57-58, 95, 99–100. Whether a report is trustworthy depends on the type of individual making the report—a character or the narrator.