Local Churches (affiliation)
The local churches (one-city, one-church) (Chinese: 地方教會) is a Christian group based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house. The term "Lord's Recovery" is also used by them about themselves because of their belief that truths, experiences and crucial elements from the Bible were lost in time and recovered from the Reformation onwards, and that today only they currently are what the Lord is recovering. One of the defining features of the local churches is their interpretation of the Bible refers only to churches as being defined by their locality and that the Christians in a city or locality are members of the church in the locality in which they reside. Many of the churches refer to themselves as "The church in (city name)", e.g. "The church in New York City" and "The church in Anaheim" even though according to this interpretation all Christians in a locality constitute the church in that locality.
The group began in China some time after Watchman Nee (倪柝聲) became a Christian in 1920. Between 1920 and 1952 Watchman Nee established local churches throughout mainland China. Watchman Nee was imprisoned by the People's Republic of China in 1952. It is asserted by the Living Stream Ministry that before his imprisonment, Watchman Nee asked Witness Lee to go to Taiwan in 1948 in the event that the Communists took over so that their work would not be lost inside China. In 1962 Witness Lee moved to California. Local churches are now spread throughout the world: in the United States, the far East, Europe, Russia, South America, Africa and the Middle East. The Shouters is a cult offshoot, and local churches mostly distance from them, which is ironic given local church history.
Read more about Local Churches (affiliation): Etymology, Meetings, Practices
Famous quotes containing the words local and/or churches:
“Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)