Death by a Thousand Cuts: Rejecting the Absurdities, Contradictions, and Contentions of Witness Lee and the so-called “Local Church” Movement

Most people, quite naturally, would fear being struck by a sword more than a scalpel. But slice someone up with a scalpel a thousand times and you can still kill him. Death by a thousand little cuts, rather than death from a single blow, is death just the same.

Some cults seem to have perfected the art of theological “death by a thousand cuts.” Case in point: the Liites (that is, “Li-ites,” or followers of Chang-Shou Li), better known by their self-given title as “The Local Church.” The Local Church first made its appearance in the US in the 1960’s, when Chang-Shou Li (known by his disciples as “Witness Lee”) arrived in America and began to draw followers to himself. Among other peculiarities, The Local Church claimed to be the only legitimate expression of the church. All other denominations and sects are part of corrupt “dead Christianity” from which the “blind” who receive “sight” must separate themselves: “When we were in the denominations, we were blind. I do not believe that any dear Christians who have really received sight from the Lord could still remain in the denominations.... But when he receives his sight, he will swiftly leave the fold for the pasture, for the sunshine, for the fresh air [i.e, join The Local Church].” (Witness Lee, Christ Versus Religion LSM, 197,1 p.109-110). The exclusivist claims of the LC have now been relaxed ostensibly, and according to their website (http://localchurches.org/beliefs/index.html) Christians in other churches can now be saved. If that were the only “scalpel cut” inflicted by Li and his followers, then it wouldn’t be fatal.

But the surgical “cut to the heart”—and one of the reasons the LC is still a cult and not just a far-off-the-center fringe group—is their unorthodox view of the Trinity. Chang-Shou Li was what theologians call a modalist—someone who denies that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three Persons within one divine Being. Modalism affirms that God is one Person who has “temporary manifestations” as the Father, Son, or Spirit. You can think of the god of modalism as wearing different hats at different times. He puts on one hat and now he’s the Father. He takes that hat off, puts another one on, and now he’s the Son, and then, the Spirit, and so on. He changes titles, but doesn’t reveal himself as distinct Personalities. This heretical view of the Trinity has rightly been rejected since the days of the early church.

That Li was a modalist is clear. Among numerous other (literally) damning statements: “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). What’s perplexing though is that there are actually orthodox expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity on the LC website, for instance: “The local church believes that God is the only one Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—co-existing equally from eternity to eternity (1 Tim. 2:5a, Matt. 28:19).” Nevertheless, despite repeated calls to do so from evangelical leaders, LC leadership stubbornly refuse to disavow the heretical teachings of their founder, Chang-Shou Li.

So which is it then? Is Jesus one of three Persons, or is Jesus and the Father and the Spirit all the same Person? Is the LC an orthodox church with a sound view of the Trinity, or a heretical church teaching modalism? The answer is both, and therefore, neither.

In fact—and this is what is so sinister about the movement—the LC today are neither modalists nor Trinitarians. They are “confusionists” who espouse two views that are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable with one another. The Godhead cannot be One Person and Three Persons. He is three Persons (biblical view) or one Person (modalist view). But both cannot be true. The philosophically savvy term of describing the LC view is deconstructionism, which posits that there are no integrated and consistent thought systems, only the illusion of unity that breaks down to absurdity and contradiction when examined closely. And that’s what LC doctrine does. It break down to meaningless babble and absurdity. Confused "God-talk" can neither save people, nor glorify God.

Add to all this the final “scalpel cut” of the LC church’s penchant for suing the pants off people who disagree with them (latest case: an $136 million dollar libel suit against Harvest House publishers who labeled the LC as a “cult”, a suit which the LC lost), and what the LC movement amounts to is theological “death by a thousand cuts”: on the one hand, diverting precious time and resources from the church to answer their clever obfuscations and legal tactics, and on the other, dragging precious souls with them down to hell.

Beware the scalpel.