Ground of Locality and Generality

[Cal]

Originally Posted by tasteslikegold

I do not believe that Lee carried Nee's concept to an unreasonable extreme. Nee said, "this is the pattern of locality in the Bible, which should be followed for this reason." Lee said, "This is the pattern as Nee said said it, we practice it, and others should as well." Witness Lee never stated or implied that "salvation is only in the local churches," which is what you have implied here.

Well, let's see. I know Lee said that there could be "overcomers" outside the LC. But his implication was that those were the ones who loved the Lord and served him purely but had never "seen" the local ground. Once you'd "seen" it, meaning understood the teaching, you were on the hook for it and meeting in any other way was to willfully engage in a grievous error. This was the thought he put in the minds of his members. So effectively he told his members that for them practical growth and salvation could only be experienced in the local churches. To leave the LC was to shipwreck oneself. This was what we were taught.

Benson Phillips stated that no one who has ever left the local church movement has gone on to be a great spiritual Christian (as if he would know for sure.) He also stated, publicly and infamously, that if you leave the local church the sanctification process effectively stops. Now, has BP ever stated anything publicly that he didn't get directly from Witness Lee? No, it's his boast that he endeavored to in all things imitate Lee, so surely he got these thoughts from Lee as well.

Sorry, TLG, but your claims above just do not hold up to scrutiny.

I have no qualms whatsoever of either Nee or Lee condemning the widespread acceptance of religious division in Christendom

Condemning things is easy. The world is full of critics. Coming up with a viable solution for the problem is hard. They failed to do so. Rather they seemed to have simply raised up a generation of critics who when pressed can't answer simple questions about the so-called "solution."