A History of the Lord’s Recovery in the U. S.(6)

68.  Churches in Europe Disassociate with LSM
Six months previously, in September 1988, John So and elders from nine churches in Europe wrote a letter to Witness Lee after approximately three years of struggle with LSM,

Dear brother Witness Lee,

It has come to our attention recently through several witnesses that gross immorality and some other sins mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:11 have been committed by your son Philip Lee (who is identified as your Ministry Office) on more than one occasion over a long period of time.  This deeply disturbs us.  It grieves us even more that you and some of your close co-workers were aware of the situation and yet not only tolerated it but covered it up.  What is worse is that, while this was happening, you and your co-workers were promoting and exalting him to the extent that he was able to intervene in the churches’ affairs in recent years.  The peak of this promotion was evident at your elders’ training in Taipei in June 1987.  Some of your co-workers were not only themselves under the influence and control of Philip Lee, but were also openly bringing elders and young people of many local churches to come under the same influence and control [of Philip Lee] in your name and for your sake.  The five brothers whom you and your Office sent to Europe in your place in May 1986 were trying to do the same here.  Our young people who went to your training in Taipei have also testified of the same.

Before God, before the brothers and sisters in the local churches, before the Christian public, and for the sake of the Lord’s testimony, we are compelled by our conscience to fully disassociate ourselves from such sins and behaviour in your work.

Bill Mallon had resigned in December of 1987 from the work (p. 15).

69.  Brothers Quarantined as Ringleaders
In March of 1990 John Ingalls, Bill Mallon, John So, and Joseph Fung were “quarantined” by 45 churches in California following brother Witness Lee’s recommendation in messages given to the elders and co-workers.  Churches in West Malaysia and Taiwan followed and virtually all the churches followed in the spirit of the “quarantine”.  These brothers had been singled out by Brother Lee as ringleaders of a conspiracy to overthrow him and were designated “leprous” and unfit for the church life. None of these brothers, however, felt that they were in a conspiracy, let alone be its ringleaders.  They felt that they were reacting and responding to a need in the recovery.  Each was impacted by the interfering actions of the LSM operation in their localities, beginning in Hong Kong with Joseph Fung in 1985.  In 1990 in The Fermentation of the Present Rebellion, Brother Lee denied Joseph Fung’s complaint of LSM interferences in Hong Kong, even though many complaints about LSM’s interfering tactics were to follow in ’86, ’87, ’88, and ’89.  Brother Lee was well aware of these complaints, saying privately, “I told Philip ten times not to interfere with the churches”.  Yet he condemned Joseph on this point, rather than admit his own failure to remove the stumbling block.

70. Pivotal Meeting for the Churches
Witness Lee not only failed to remove Philip Lee, who became a stumbling block to all four of the “quarantined” brothers, he also did not take the golden opportunity to restore the oneness among all the brothers at a pivotal gathering of elders.

In his second message of the elders’ meetings, Brother Lee spoke concerning our going on. After all our sessions and hours of fellowship with Brother Lee, we had hoped that he would take steps to clear up a number of things publicly. This was surely an excellent opportunity, a perfect forum, and an appropriate time. He did give a few principles for our going on which would be helpful if practiced. He did say, “It is altogether wise and profitable that we do not expect all the churches to be the same,” and, “Do not talk about who is for this or who is for that…We should not label ourselves or label others.” We were thankful to hear these comments and urgings. But we were deeply disappointed that he did not go much further. What he should have cleared up he covered up, e.g., problems regarding the LSM office and the FTTT training in Taipei. We hoped he would have repented for some things that had caused many problems, not just for allowing saints from the U.S. to attend the training in Taiwan. We surely would have respected him had he done this, and the situation could have been altogether different than it turned out.

(John Ingalls, Speaking the Truth in Love, 1990)
The four brothers were eventually “quarantined” in the recovery with no acknowledgments given of their sufferings with Witness Lee and Living Stream representatives. Their reaction to the interferences, manipulations, and usurpations of LSM became known as “the rebellion”. They themselves became known as “the rebellious ones” and “the leaders of the rebellion”.

He later condemned in FPR all the reporters of the divisive activity of Living Stream, ever urging church leaders “not to make an issue” of anything.  By so doing, the church leaders have kept their kind of “one accord”.  They have also kept to this day the shroud about them, created during those days of turmoil in the local churches.

Post-Turmoil  (1990 to 1997)

70.  Fermentation of the Present Rebellion
In 1990 The Fermentation of the Present Rebellion was printed based on messages given by Witness Lee that supposedly tell the story of a rebellion that occurred among the local churches in the late eighties.  The book, however, does not take into account the whole story, and conveniently leaves out valuable and insightful detail that would affect drastically the reader’s ability to understand what actually happened. Moreover, the pages of FPR are filled with error and misrepresentation of former leading ones and their motives and intentions, during a time of turmoil induced by LSM.

71.  Full-Time Training
Full-time trainings became the life-blood of the church life for many of the churches.  Young people attended the two-year trainings and were either sent back to their localities or out into a field of work for the Lord. A high percentage of them became quite useful to minister Christ and deposit the Word wherever they went, including gospel preaching and the raising up churches in other countries.  Their training and usefulness appear to bode well for the churches today and well into the future.  (This is on the positive side.)

72.  Vital Groups
In 1992, after seven years in the new way, Brother Lee began to speak about the need for vital groups.  He had been sharing about small group home meetings since 1984, but said that the churches were not coming into the reality of the home meetings that should constitute 80% of the church life.  Therefore, he was burdened to present in detail what it takes to raise up a proper and vital home meeting fellowship.  In 1996 he expanded on this fellowship that was a major burden he bore until his death in 1997.

73.  High Peak of the Divine Revelation
In 1994 Brother Lee took a remarkable step in introducing the high peak of the divine revelation concerning 1) God becoming a man that man could become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, and 2) the New Jerusalem.  The first item was controversial even among many that had been in the church life for 25 or 30 years, in that initially they had problems adjusting to and then accepting such a concept.  The New Jerusalem, he taught, is the consummation, the final goal of God’s organic salvation in the Bible and our destination.  It is also the reason for God becoming man and for man becoming God in life and nature.  The New Jerusalem had become a major burden of his ministry till the end.

73.2  PSRP “Flow”
In 1996 in order to help the saints become more constituted with the ministry of Brother Lee a “flow” came in from Taipei which he encouraged all the churches to pick up. It was called PSRP, the practice of praying over a portion of the ministry; studying it; reciting it; and prophesying according to it. PSRP did not get off the ground as genuine flows like calling on the Lord, pray-reading, or migrations did.  PSRP was introduced on a world-wide scale in the same way that door-knocking was introduced, and all the churches were encouraged to participate.  There was no flow in either.  PSRP died, as door-knocking died.

Brother Lee once said, “Do not say, as if it were a mere slogan, ‘I am following the flow.’ The real flow is the Lord Himself. How wrong it is to stir up a movement! That is an insult to the Lord. It is an offense to Him. There must never be a movement among us in the Lord’s recovery. Do not use the word ‘flow’ as a cloak to disguise a movement. When some of you speak of the flow, you actually mean a movement. To create a movement and then to encourage others to follow it is to make a tremendous mistake” (The Spirit and the Body, p. 9, 1977).

Note:  Even though it might be said that every believer on the earth should be brought into the God-ordained way under the inclusive and extensive ministry of Witness Lee, it could not be said that the implementation of the new way in the churches was a flow.  It was a forceful push and an unethical organized movement to obtain an end at the cost of hundreds of casualties and division in the Body.  The narrow mindset adapted in the movement that oneness with Witness Lee and his ministry/leadership is automatically THE ONENESS in the Body of Christ has carried over till today.  The trumpet call for the ministry became a trumpet blast for the recovery, as the work and the church became mixed, indistinguishable, moving the churches into sectarianism as ministry churches.

74.  What the Recovery Needs
In 1997, the last year of his life and ministry, Witness Lee looked back over his life in the church and testified in an elders training that the result of his labor in the United States had not been satisfactory.  In fact, it had been “disappointing”.  He also testified that his work in both Taipei and the Philippines never brought “satisfactory results”, and that only one place had done so where he had labored — “Chefoo, my home town.”  He was locked in by the war then and could not leave to minister to the churches.  So, he gave his full attention to the needs in his locality.  He testified that due to the shepherding work and gospel preaching raised up in Chefoo among the saints a revival was brought in that lasted for ten years.  From the beginning of Brother Lee’s ministry in the United States clear to the end of it we heard relatively little about love.  Near the end of his ministry, from 1988 on, he did speak more concerning the need for love among the churches.  He said that even though the saints may enjoy and appreciate the high peak of the divine revelation, if love is absent they will be puffed up and not built up. He also stated that only love prevails and that “love is the most excellent way”.  He said it is the way to be an elder or a co-worker, and that it is the way to handle the saints. He proclaimed that it is the way to do everything and to be anything in the church life and that it is the way to conquer the degradation of the church.

75.  The Last Message
In the spring of 1997 Witness Lee gave his last message in an elders’ conference of Chinese elders and co-workers and took the opportunity to issue an apology to the Body of Christ.  He admitted to past mistakes and said that he had repented before the Lord in tears and that he was sorry to the whole Body of Christ, both in and outside the recovery.  He said that the leaders of the churches need to learn and that the eyes of the brothers and sisters need to be opened to receive people according to the Son of God and not deviate a bit from this path.

A Final Word

It is significant that brother Witness Lee would bring attention to his mistakes at the end of his life.  Although he did not specify what those mistakes were, we know that they were serious and that they affected the Body of Christ.  John Nelson Darby, toward the end of his life, also made a general confession of mistakes he made that affected the oneness of the Body among the assemblies that were under his ministry around the world.  As history has recorded Darby’s errors that led to division among the Brethren in the nineteenth century, the mistakes of Witness Lee have also been objectively recorded.  Both former leaders realized they did not always “receive people according to the Son of God”, but did indeed “deviate from the path”.

Hiding History in the Lord’s Recovery is a book for our learning today and for the churches in the future.  It provides great detail of our history in a balanced, thorough and fair way, along with documented evidences that we have not always been a people receiving others according to the Son of God.  In that final message by Brother Lee, he strongly encouraged saints and elders to study our history of mistakes, including his own.  The Hiding History book affords us a way to do just that, and to learn and to adjust any deviation from the path.

Please contact me for the book if you are a serious student of local church history. It will have references. I look forward to your fellowship and pursuit of oneness in the Body of Christ.

Steve Isitt
sisitt@msn.com
425-445-1732