Witness Lee - Witness Lee's View of Christianity

Witness Lee's View of Christianity

Witness Lee preached that the apostle Paul addressed Titus as his "genuine child according to the common faith" (1:4). Lee identified this as "the faith that is common to all believers" (Recovery Version, footnote). Jude exhorted the believers to earnestly contend for the faith: "Beloved, while using all diligence to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you and exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). Witness Lee stated that this is "not subjective faith as our believing but objective faith as our belief, referring to the things we believe in, the contents of the New Testament as our faith (Acts 6:7; 1 Tim. 1:19, 3:9, 4:1, 5:8, 6:10, 21; 2 Tim. 3:8, 4:7; Titus 1:13), in which we believe for our common salvation. This faith has been delivered once for all to the saints".

Although Lee saw the local churches as holding the same faith as the rest of Christianity and that Christians should be made one, Lee distanced himself from other Christian church groups and organizations,

"The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations, "!"

Lee taught that any church not organized on the foundational principle of one church per city (what he called "the local ground of unity") was apostate. He thought that recognizing such churches by attending services in anything but a qualified stance was sinful. Lee states,

"The apostate church has deviated from the Lord's word and become heretical. The reformed church, though recovered to the Lord's word to some extent, has denied the Lord's name by denominating herself, taking many other names, such as Lutherans, Wesleyan, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. ... To deviate from the Lord's word is apostasy, and to denominate the church by taking any name other than the Lord's is spiritual fornication.".

So although Lee sought to be viewed as an integral part in the recovery of Christian truths and practices alongside a long line of Christian preachers, the result was to be separate from the same:

"I am afraid that a number of us are still under the negative influence of Christendom. We all have to realize that today the Lord is going on and on to fully recover us and bring us fully out of Christendom." and, "But the organization of the denominations in which they are is not of God. The denominational organizations have been utilized by Satan to set up his satanic system to destroy God's economy of the proper church life."

These and similar statements set up a dividing line between the local churches and other Christian groups. Lee cared little for the acceptance of his contemporaries. He wrote,

"We do not care for Christianity, we do not care for Christendom, we do not care for the Roman Catholic church, and we do not care for all the denominations, because in the Bible it says that the great Babylon is fallen. This is a declaration. Christianity is fallen, Christendom is fallen, Catholicism is fallen, and all the denominations are fallen. Hallelujah!"

Teaching that Christianity had become hopelessly corrupt, he followed a unique theology based on Watchman Nee's. It emphasized a deep, personal, ongoing encounter with God, and a practical, daily commitment to one's local church. Lee taught, as Nee did, that all Christian work was ultimately for the sake of edifying the church and that all other benefits were secondary. He thought that since the rest of Christianity was organized in a way that invalidated its stand as the proper church, there could be nothing for him to learn from or to build upon.