Local Church Discussions - View Single Post - BREAKING Watchman Nee and Witness Lee aren't in the Bible

SpeakersCorner · 09-17-2022, 03:29 PM

It is true that this linchpin teaching -- the ground of the church -- was confused in the minds of many saints. Very few that I know, even among the leaders (or leading ones, as they say), really could articulate the essence of this doctrine. I myself grappled with it and grappled with it. But today I see it with different eyes.

The post-NT church in church history pretty much was defined by cities. The Church in Carthage, the Church in Alexandria, the Church in Rome, the church in Constantinople each carried a unique flavor and a developing school of thought/theology. And this is as it should be. We as a species are deeply bound in our geography. It's just in the nature of man.

Protestantism, with its institution-busting divisiveness fragmented these churches, blurring their essential unity ... but the unity is still there underlying all the teachings. I'm a Midwesterner through and through and a Protestant as well. The assembly I meet in -- which has a sign out front, "A meeting place of the church in ___" -- is considerably different than the Catholic church one block from my house and the Mennonite church a block the other way but all three of us are constituted of small-town, Midwestern people who root for the same sports teams, don't turn our noses up at Chili's restaurants, and have a similar accent when we speak. We really are, those Catholics, Mennonites, and my group, in the same church. When we travel to Boston, say, and sit in on one of the meetings of a local assembly there, we all feel our Midwesterness.

So for me there really is just one church per city, fragmented, balkanized, ununified in many ways but still, one church.

09-17-2022, 03:29 PM	#30
SpeakersCorner Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 273	Re: BREAKING Watchman Nee and Witness Lee aren't in the Bible It is true that this linchpin teaching -- the ground of the church -- was confused in the minds of many saints. Very few that I know, even among the leaders (or leading ones, as they say), really could articulate the essence of this doctrine. I myself grappled with it and grappled with it. But today I see it with different eyes. The post-NT church in church history pretty much was defined by cities. The Church in Carthage, the Church in Alexandria, the Church in Rome, the church in Constantinople each carried a unique flavor and a developing school of thought/theology. And this is as it should be. We as a species are deeply bound in our geography. It's just in the nature of man. Protestantism, with its institution-busting divisiveness fragmented these churches, blurring their essential unity ... but the unity is still there underlying all the teachings. I'm a Midwesterner through and through and a Protestant as well. The assembly I meet in -- which has a sign out front, "A meeting place of the church in ___" -- is considerably different than the Catholic church one block from my house and the Mennonite church a block the other way but all three of us are constituted of small-town, Midwestern people who root for the same sports teams, don't turn our noses up at Chili's restaurants, and have a similar accent when we speak. We really are, those Catholics, Mennonites, and my group, in the same church. When we travel to Boston, say, and sit in on one of the meetings of a local assembly there, we all feel our Midwesterness. So for me there really is just one church per city, fragmented, balkanized, ununified in many ways but still, one church.