Talk:Local Church controversies

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I created this page to give the main page (Local Churches) an unbias point of view. I don't see Wikipedia's Main page filled up with controversies against it. -Michael Quantum.

Neutrality

Wouldn't it hold true that this article in nature would be biased? Its a page of allegations against the Local Church. Who marked it as biased and what would you suggest? --Csodennc 02:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why there needs to be a separate article on this subject. Removing the controversies that surround the Local Church from the main article actually injects bias into the main article rather than remove such bias. Additionally, there is a whole sentence in the "Summary of allegations against the Local Churches" section that is so riddled with parenthetical comments in such a prejudicial way as to completely dissolve the meaning of the actual statement. Here is the statement:

"* Calling themselves God: Some have alleged (as one of the "sins" of "Leeism") (calling "Christianity" "Leeism" is itself libelous; one's spiritual beliefs are not defined by outsiders but by the person themself, and such a label is akin to accusing Jesus of casting out Beelzebul by Beelzebul) that local church members call themselves God."

The actual sentence, apart from the prejudicial statements themselves should read:
"* Calling themselves God: Some have alleged that local church members call themselves God."

What is missing here is an objective point of view. I would suggest merging this article with the main article and reworking the entire text to provide a good unbiased presentation of all points of views in regards to the controversies presented here. Jaiotu 13:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The previous article was the "merged version". I suggest it is better kept this way. I wondered if we should delete this article. All these were old information and doesn't reflect the present situation now. Pehkay 11:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Tags removed

No response from anyone in regards to POV and factuality tags, of which I found no reason for. If anyone would like to retag the article, please explain your concerns in this talk page --Csodennc 00:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I placed a POV Check tag on this article. There is just way too much bias going on in here that needs to be cleaned up. Jaiotu 17:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Article Cleanup

This article could use some major clean up and streamlining. I don't think that Wikipedia is the right forum for hosting a full-fledged debate on these issues. The style of this article is written in a "Allegation / Response" format that could easily turn into an "Allegation / Response / Counter-response" format that would only increase this article's already biased entries. Take a look at the main article on Ted Haggard. Here, you have a presentation of the allegations in one section, followed up by a section responding to these allegations. This is simply more readable.

This article's title indicates that it should be presenting the Allegations against the Local Church when in fact it is a defense of the Local Church. Perhaps retitling this article as "Local Church Controversies" would be better suited to the actual content presented here. Jaiotu 14:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

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I think this section is incredibly sloppy. There should be a way to present both historical and present controversy without so much bias. Items that are not in dispute should be able to be reported factually with some support to establish them as a genuine pubic controversy.

How should one go about restructuring something and preserve the community contribution? Should a proposal be posted in this discussion section or should one just make the edits and allow the community to shake it out? Many of the so-called allegations are poorly titled and should be retitled to be more accurate or to align more accurately with actual public allegations.

For Example, the first allegation Calling themselves God should be retitled Doctrine of Deification because the controversy is more the teaching of a doctrine than is is the practice of calling ones self something.

The allegation Alienation from family that does not attend the Local Church doesn't actually address alienation from family, but the practice of not celebrating holidays by many/most members. This allegation should be retitled to something more appropriate or the content of the allegation should be rewritten to support the premise.

The allegation Allegation of sexual impropriety: is not true to the spirit of the allegation. The actual allegation is the failure to discipline a leader accused of sexual impropriety because of his relationship to Witness Lee. The title should be more appropriate to the specific allegation.

The allegation Pray-Reading is misleading. While there is some controversy related to the general practice of pray-reading, this allegation is more specific to a practice of pray-reading something other than the Bible. This should be retitled to indicate the actual nature of the allegation.

The allegation Allegation of Having Numerous front organizations: is just plain sloppy. Where are the "numerous" front organizations?--only two are named. Since the Local Church is not a single entity, but a collection of independent entities, how can it have any "fronts"? This is something that needs to be refined or sources need to be provided to support it.

While I, personally, am not a public critic of the Local Churches, I feel that I could easily put together controversies section that is far less biased and significantly more journalistic. The Local Church has had controversy almost as long as it has been in the U.S. so there is no reason to shy away from it. Certainly, there is an unbiased way to present both sides of each issue without inflammatory or intentionally salacious language.

Here are a few of my organizational suggestions:

First, separate this topic into two main sections-- Historical Controversy and Present Controversy. There are plenty of controversy that is historical and no longer applies to the Local Churches. For example, the The God-men and the Mindbenders issues and lawsuits are something historical. Daystar and problems with Philip Lee are all historical and have very little to do with the churches now.

Next, subdivide each main section into the subsections:

Doctrine - This will probably be the largest section and might require further subdivision in time. Most of the current Local Church controversy is related to the teaching within the churches. Whether it be deification, dispensational punishment, modalisim or specific biblical interpretations, this is an area that should be able to contain an unbiased presentation of each issue. If there are no editors who can journalistically present each side, without bias, in a single treatment of each issue, then an allegation/response method should continue.

Practice - There are some Local Church practices that have been publicly criticized, like pray-reading, calling on the Lord and attending numerous conferences and trainings. While some of the may be based on doctrinal teachings, the controversy is actually the practice. The difference should be that practices are things that are observable based on behaviors and actions of the members. While Calling on the Lord is taught, the controversy is in how it is practiced.

Other - There may be other controversies that doesn't fit neatly into Doctrine or Practice and there should be a section to hold these issues as well. Things like lawsuits and public issues with other groups or people might be something that doesn't fit into either of the other areas.

It is unfortunate that the Local Churches have to operate with a constant cloud of controversy hanging over their head. Certainly, this kind of stuff can have a negative effect on new believers or converts. I understand the inclination by many members to simply want to wipe this stuff off the Internet, but we live in a country where free speech provides the mechanism for much ugliness. While the Internet cannot be regulated, Wikipedia is here for purely informational purposes. I believe that even controversial entries can reach a level of journalistic integrity that serves everyone. For that to happen, critics of the Local Church need to dial back their personal agenda and feelings and present things with less bias and with more support. At the same time, Local Church members need to accept that things they don't like will be written about them. The beauty of this is, that they have an opportunity to present the "whole" story. The trick is to find a way to let dissenting voices merge into a single non-biased voice. I feel it is possible if you check your emotions and opinions at the door.

Please feel free to respond. --Gijones 15:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Naming issues

This section does not seem to be dealing with anything that looks like an actual controversy. In fact, it reads like a treatise on why there is no controversy surrounding Local Church naming issues. If controversy actually exists in these regards, it should be better articulated. Otherwise, this section should be completely removed. Jaiotu 18:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

There isn't actually much (if any) existing controversy regarding naming. However, one event occurred that seemed to contradict the claims from the Local Churches that they do not accept the name 'The Local Church'. Since it is a single historical controversy, I have added more detail to the record of it. I did remove a statement that the property and ownerships of Jim Moran were 'donated' to the Living Stream Ministry. In the letter from The Church in Fullerton Corporation posted on Daniel Azuma's website, it is plain that the transaction involved a 'purchase'[1] and at no point has the LSM been involved in this issue. While it is generally circulated that the purchase was from Jim's sister, public documents only mention the 'executer' of his estate and do not identify them or assign a personal relationship. Because this is a legitimate minor controversy, I believe this section does warrant existence. Since there really is no debate about the facts, it doesn't warrant being moved to the summary area. --Gijones 18:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Bias Domain Name

From reading through this article trying to find out about the "local churches" which sprang from Watchman Nee and Witness Lee I feel the writer is in strongly opposed to the teachings of this church and this has created a bias in the way he or she has presented the Domain Name issue. As most people realize domain addresses are not only for naming an organization but also for protecting it from what others may truthfully/untuthfully publish against it. If another organization controls the name most people are using for that organization even if they may not call themselves by such a name they receive . Although the local churches may not have originally have labeled themselves in such a way it is understandable that they did not want others to refer to them in bad way by the name that stuck. I feel that the argument misses the point of what 'Nee' and 'Lee' were trying to get across.

59.16.122.59 13:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Jonathan Tennant

Response: I think the appearance of bias may come from the very fact that this is a controversy. It is also because this portion of the article is actually a hybrid or multiple writers. I tried to add information that is relevant to the issue with as neutral a point-of-view as possible, but the controversy stems from the fact that the Local Churches have stated so emphatically that the name "the Local Church" is not theirs, that when they tried to take a domain name away from a critic under the argument that they actually owned the service mark "The Local Church" and "The Local Churches", it simply smacked of a double standard. To claim a service mark you must be doing business under that mark, that fact that the Local Churches, by their own admission, don't do business under the name "the Local Church" it couldn't be more contradictory. Regardless, the fact that this section is a presentation of public criticisim and controversy it will always represent bias. That is why a format that permits a response to allegations was created for this section. I wrote the second half of that section that begins with "Despite the general rejection of the name..." I can't speak for the first half this section as I did not write it. Actually, I think that the portion that I replaced made the presentation less biased. As I re-read my portion of the section, the only thing that I can possibly read as biased might be the usage of the phrase "complete contradiction" instead of simply "contradiction." If someone thought that that phrasing was a bit biased, I wouldn't have minded at all of someone reworded it to make is less emphatic. However, if you in any way think that the second half of this section was written by someone who is "strongly opposed the the teachings this church" you would be wrong.

I think that this whole section needs to be rewritten... not just for a NPOV, but because both the allegations and responses are poorly written. It is clear to me that no "official" response to any criticisim has been added nor is any official response ever cited, despite the large resources of public comment on every major doctrinal issue by the Local Church. I think that I personally could write both the allegations and the responses in a manor that is significantly more informative then that which currently exists. The fact that the allegation of modalistic beliefs isn't included on the allegation list shows how poorly presented the public criticisim is. I have seriously considered rewriting this whole record on several occasions, only that would violate the communal nature of Wikipedia. However, I may begin to rewrite sections piece by piece in the future, but only when the re-writes can be fully documented for support.

--Gijones 19:22, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Removal of sexual and financial allegations

I've removed some criticisms because they are not sourced. Particlularly when we are making allegation of sexual and financial improprieties we need to have verifiable sources that we can attribute the allegations to. I can't find them in the listed sources.

Michaelquantum 04:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

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Removing the accusation that asserts that the costs of numerous annual conferences and trainings places an financial burden on the members of the Local Churches does not need some special sourcing requirment as it is public knowledge that, at least the trainings, have a financial cost to them and that members are encouraged to attend the "seven feasts" which would often require travel. This should have been marked as needing a citation since I am sure that you are aware that the cost of trainings can be sourced. Now the cost causing a financial burden would be harder to source, but the allegation itself it a conclusion based on public fact. I personally think that this is a bogus allegation, as attendance is voluntary, but I don't see that this rises to any sort of unsupported public slander as it uses common, though likely flawed, logic to arrive at the allegation. If you think it is an issue, why not post something on the discussion section regarding your concern instead of just deleting something... especially since the allegation did include a response.

As for accusation of a sexual nature, it can be sourced. In the 1988 a document, A Reconsideration of the Vision, was published in which eye witness quotes are cited. Once again, I think this is a non-issue, as Philip Lee bears no responsibility currently in the Local Church or LSM. However, the actual controversy is not the sexual action, but Witness Lee's failure to discipline his son while he held a position of responsibility in the ministry office. I personally don't care if this is deleted, since Lee has passed away and his son is no longer in a position of influence, but it still doesn't mean that you should start wiping stuff out. It is possible to request citation. It is better when you contribute to the community instead of just hacking away at things you don't like.

--Gijones 20:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Some Daystar Questions...

There are two allegations that I am concerned about in the Daystar article. The first, is a statement that churches were "required" to purchase chairs from Daystar for their meeting halls. Now, people who have been a part of the Local Churches for a while have known that almost all of the larger churches had the same yellow chairs in common. Many churches have since upgraded to newer chairs, but you can find those chairs around most meeting halls and in many older members homes. While that is evidence that many churches bought the chairs, it does not support the accusation that they were "required" to buy them. I am not sure if the pamphlet "Reconsideration of the Vision" covers such an allegation, so a citation of some sort should be added.

The article also claims that some guy paid off the remaining debts to prevent Lee from getting in trouble during any subsequent investigation. Where is the citation for this? It may have happened, but there needs to be some public support for such an allegation. Please provide some sort of support, or confirm that these allegations are also part of "Reconsideration of the Vision."

--Gijones 14:43, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge/deletion

Isn't this article supposed to be merged & deleted? See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Local Church controversy. 70.116.8.234 (talk) 09:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

recent edits (09/24/08)

Please see the discussion on the main article's talk page for the discussion relating to some of the new edits. Thanks, HopeChrist (talk) 22:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

more recent edit

I have edited the portion to be more general, and it is only a fact if you look up from ministrybook.org their own publication website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.226.152 (talk) 12:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

done with it

Arrgg. Forget about it in whole. Please look up your history book first before assuming anything! I have only give out a fact and it is not at all a 'research'! But anyway I am sick of you guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.226.152 (talk) 14:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem with the additions you keep making is that you're suggesting that two sources conflict, when in reality they don't. Aside from merging your sources together to produce a new statement, you're also under the influence of a logical fallacy: that God couldn't have acted through people in history to prepare Britain for WWII so that Germany would not attack them. Please try and maintain a neutral point of view when editing Wikipedia. This means approaching editing not from whether you believe God exists or does not (because both sides require a leap of faith), but from a point of view that is not affected by the possibility that He exists or does not exist (or in this case, has an influence on world events or does not have any such influence). KhalfaniKhaldun 15:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

theological controversy

I think it may be relevant to cite the statement released by Fuller Seminary regarding the Local Churches, stating "that the teachings and practices of the local churches and its members represent the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith in every essential aspect.” I believe this is available online —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.1.8 (talk) 23:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup

I'm about to go through and delete all of the unsupported statements throughout this entire article. Many of these are full paragraphs of information. It's unfortunate that this must be done, but it is not acceptable to have anything on a "controversies" page be unsupported by reliable sources. For the sake of anyone who wants to save this information, though, I will copy it here so that at any point in time when supporting sources are found they can be moved back into the article. KhalfaniKhaldun 19:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

From Allegations Against the Local Church

Some of the critics of the local churches argue concerning practices in the local church such as of "Calling on the Name of the Lord" and "Pray-Reading (the verses of the Bible)" saying they resemble Buddhist style mantras. However, for many Christians the practice of praying while reading the Bible is perfectly normal. Even Martin Luther wrote about his practice of turning passages of the Bible into prayer. Yet some critics argue that local church members worship the published words through their practice of Pray-Reading.

Critics claim that the Local Church reverses the meaning of such essential beliefs as salvation, redemption, divine love, human nature and the Name of Christ. For example, the central doctrine of the group is "God became man that man would become God in life and nature, but not in the Godhead." As taught in the Local Church, this means that man must grow in the life of God until he is completely transformed into Christ's image, fully expressing God. Some critics claim that the local churches reverse the meaning of "Unchristian doctrines", however the result of this double-negative is in fact to proclaim "Christian doctrine".

In 1977, two books, The Mindbenders and The God-Men were published accusing the "Local Church" of being a cult. Churches and individuals associated with "the Local Church" have successfully sued certain critics for libel on these and different occasions. After defendants exhausted their finances and resources, The Mindbenders was eventually retracted and withdrawn from publication with a public apology, and The God-Men was determined in court to be “in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous.” However, the trial was uncontested when the defendant declared bankruptcy the day of the trial, and could not appear in court. Also, the author of The God-Men moved to Denmark immediately before the trial. The decision was thus delivered in default.

From Lawsuits

The Mindbenders

In 1980, four separate lawsuits were filed against Thomas Nelson by the local churches in Anaheim, Dallas, Atlanta, and Cleveland, for a total of $37 million. When Thomas Nelson's liability insurance was near exhaustion, Thomas Nelson opted to settle out of court and issued a retraction as part of the settlement, which appeared in several newspapers. This retraction does not comment on alleged errors in the book; neither does it apologize for its content. The retraction was issued by Thomas Nelson, whereas Jack Sparks (author of the book) did not issue any retraction.

Delete & Merge

As per consensus in this AFD from so long ago, this article should be deleted and merged. It contains almost the exact same material (although somewhat less of it) originally contained in the article that was nominated in that AFD, and thus should not exist. (i.e., it's still just a POV fork.) As of now, I am beginning to work on cutting down this article to what it should contain and making it into an appropriate section for the Local churches (affiliation) article. You can find it here. Feel free to make comments on my edits and participate in the editing there, as that will probably be the final product. KhalfaniKhaldun 18:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I quit editing Wikipedia shortly after starting this project. Sad, I know. But I really wish someone would see this and run with it. The fact that this article still exists two years later bothers me. Per Wikipedia policies it should not exist and never should have been re-created in the first place. A large portion of it can probably be deleted, anyway, since Wikipedia isn't an exhaustive resource for every minor detail involving a topic and this article seems to be pretty nit-picky. Anyway, someone please pick up where I left off. Merge this article back to its parent. Thank you! 69.40.135.212 (talk) 06:28, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Integrated material from Living Stream Ministry

Hi, I noticed a fair bit of duplicated effort covering the same material on Living Stream Ministry and Local Church controversies. I noticed that a similar situation in the Local churches (affiliation) article had been remedied with a summary and a link to this article, so I have attempted to expand this article and integrate new material from the LSM article. The LSM article now contains a summary paragraph and a main article link here.

I wonder about the naming of this article. Since the main article is local churches (affiliation), why does this article use an upper-case C? I tend to capitalize it myself, but that's because I'm an ignorant outsider ;) so sorry if I offend! But in any case, this article's capitalization should reflect the main article's.

I understand there is also concern that this article is simply a POV fork. While appreciating the concern, I believe that without a "central" article such as this one, there is bound to be a lot of overlap between controversies relating to the Living Stream Ministry and those relating to the Local Churches movement as a whole, resulting in a lot of unnecessary duplicated effort such as the material I just integrated. IMHO, better to have everything in one place here, with short summaries and main article links in relevant LC-related articles. I have attempted to organize/improve some of the material towards that end, however, the integrated material from LSM (and probably the other stuff too) is badly in need of more copy-editing and WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE-checking, which I do not feel entirely qualified to do myself.

I will gladly defer to editors with more expertise and experience covering such controversies; they are generally not my thing. I hope I have not injured anyone's feelings in my attempts to organize these two articles, and if this article ends up needing to be deleted/merged, my feelings won't be hurt either :). -- Joren (talk) 23:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Joren,

While I appreciate (and actually partially agree with) your feelings of having this article merged into both LSM and the local churches, I still believe it should be done. Wikipedia has policies against POV-forks, but AFAIK not against duplicating material. (Like I said above, I've not edited Wikipedia much in two years!) In addition to that, the difference between LSM and the local churches article should be very clear. LSM is a publishing company that is independent of the local churches. While they are strongly affiliated, there should be enough of a distinction between the two that there should not be very much overlap between them (if done correctly). The only overlap I can truly see between the two is that the leading brothers in the local churches have been accused of somehow unfairly directing the LSM, but from what I recall there is not much support for that matter so you shouldn't have to worry about it!

As for most of the work I have seen you do, it involves the lawsuits (which did not involve the LSM, but instead mutiple local churches) and the points of view of the local churches on human divinity, etc. These are all issues that pertain specifically to the local churches and their beliefs and should not be on the LSM page. (Like I said, think of LSM as a publisher, not a ministry, despite its name.) Sorry if you brought it all over from there, it shouldn't have been there in the first place!

Thanks for all your hard work. You've done a good job so far! 69.40.135.212 (talk) 07:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

"End of Controversy" section

To be fair and objective, this section needs to exist, even if reworked.Ryoung122 04:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

To clarify for anyone reading this, the article already reports the conclusions of the Christian Research Journal's article We Were Wrong. The reason the recent edit was reverted was due to copyright and plagiarism concerns, but it is also redundant, since it has already been cited and summarized in the article prior to this edit. Copying and pasting information into an article doesn't help; in 99% of all cases, information cannot be copied and pasted into Wikipedia.

Also, I do not believe it is objective to claim that the controversy has "ended", but that's a topic for another discussion. Obviously there will always be people that attack and defend any major movement, that's just the way it is. To claim that no one is presently opposed to the local churches would require extremely reputable and verifiable sources to back it up.

-- Joren (talk) 05:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite of Article. Heavily Researched and Documented

This article has been long overdue for a thorough overhaul. The main issue was a lack of balance in terms of the weight of the issues discussed. Furthermore, it has long exhibited a tension of competing perspectives and in some cases personal opinions without the kind of objective use of credible primary sources that should be found in an encyclopedia article. In addition, there have been numerous developments over the past few years that the article did not reflect. The result has been an incomplete, unbalanced, poorly documented, and stylistically inconsistent article.

Since the 1970s, the two major areas of controversy related to the local churches have centered on the libel litigations they have filed and three main areas of their theology. This rewrite reflects those two main and substantive areas of controversy with references to the main documents that reflect both sides of the controversies. I have done my best to adhere to this site’s policies regarding research and objectivity as befits researchers and writers for Wikipedia.

"And He marveled because of their unbelief..." ~ Mark 6:6 15:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC) Antipas_Scribe (10/26/13,, 8:17AM)

This rewrite is one of the most ludicrously biased articles I have ever seen on wikipedia. Somebody should rewrite or perhaps just revert. Critics of the church have their credentials questioned as coming from "degree mills" (the word dissertation even carries scare quotes?!). The trials are reported in manifestly biased manner, and the motives and character of everybody who questions the local church movement are attacked. 76.121.187.193 (talk) 14:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't advocate a total revert as the previous version of this article was a paucity of sundry facts compared to the body of information now presented and it is difficult to address the second part of your critique without specific examples. However, regarding the matter of the "degree mill", PSU's own article strongly supports the judgments being made in this article so I am inclined to accept them for now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abishai 300 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This seems a reasonable conclusion. The scare quotes may be stylistically slightly heavy handed but describing the institution as a defunct diploma mill is accurate. That said, my gut says there's probably something that's probably a mess with this article. I'm having a poke around on Google Books and I'm not finding much about the Local Church movement that's not written either by Witness Lee, by Living Stream Ministry, or by critics of the Local Church movement like Geisler and Rhodes. What I'm not seeing is much in the way of academic discussion from theologically uninvolved authors. It's a mess, but I'm not sure if there is an easy way to fix it if we can't find some non-involved sources. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)