All Posts Tagged "The God-Men"

The teaching of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee concerning the proper standing of a local church.

What the Apostle Peter and Athanasius say about deification.

Witness Lee’s teaching of deification is actual a biblical view.

Witness Lee and the local churches “are bringing a correction to a problem within Western evangelicalism” concerning the Trinity.

How the “open letter” signers got it wrong.

A general overview of the three cases in which various local churches and church members appealed to the courts for relief from libelous accusations (Timeline)

An evaluation of the accusation that the local churches are “litigious.” That accusation was based on false claims of legal threats with respect to Christian Research Institute, James Bjornstad and Regal Books, Salem Kirban, Jerram Barrs and InterVarsity Press, and Moody Press. The local churches’ application of an appropriate standard for considering legal action is evident also in dealings with Jesus People USA and Geisler and Rhodes themselves. While Geisler and Rhodes condemn the local churches for their appeals to the courts, they do not criticize those who have borne false witness against us and have, in fact, joined with them in propagating falsehoods.

Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes repeated a falsehood that is accepted as axiomatic among some countercult apologists, namely, that the local churches drove SCP into bankruptcy. From source documents this article looks at the actual causes and motivating factors behind SCP’s bankruptcy declaration.

Elliot Miller, Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Research Journal, and Hank Hanegraaff, President of Christian Research Institute talk about deficiencies in the scholarship and biblical understanding of Christian leaders who signed a 2007 open letter criticizing the ministry of Witness Lee and the local churches.

Harvest House publicly accused the local churches of being litigious. This article contrasts the history of the local churches’ appeals for relief from character defamation with Harvest House’s lawsuits against fellow Christians over financial disputes.

The libelous books The Mindbenders and The God-Men shared a common background that involved Jack Sparks and the Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF), an outreach to the radical student subculture at UC Berkeley; the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO), a misguided attempt by Sparks and others to lead evangelicals into Eastern Orthodoxy; and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP), a CWLF startup dedicated to attacking religions with roots in the Far East.

The Experts Speak contains the testimony of six expert witnesses who studied the local churches and the teaching of Witness Lee. Five of them testified in court in the Lee v. Duddy; the sixth was not asked to testify at the trial but wrote a statement titled “Libel and the First Amendment.”

An index to the testimony in The Experts Speak with links to relevant portions on specific topics.

This Preface to the printed volume of The Experts Speak describes the contents of the book and how it is structured.

The “Introduction” to The Experts Speak presents the historical background of Lee et al v. Duddy et al and describes the role of the expert witnesses in the case.

Dr. J. Gordon Melton, Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and author of the standard work Encyclopedia of American Religions, testified that SCP had completely misrepresented Witness Lee and the local churches and had made many false and damaging accusations in its book The God-Men. [Note: Dr. Melton is currently Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University.]

Dr. John A. Saliba, a Jesuit priest and Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Detroit-Mercy, testified that SCP adhered to a principle of attacking and destroying anyone with whom they did not agree and that the accusations of cultic behaviors made in The God-Men were false as regards the local churches and the teachings of Witness Lee.

Dr. Eugene Van Ness Goetchius, formerly Professor of Biblical Languages in both the Episcopal Theological School and Philadelphia Divinity School, testified that The God-Men intentionally misrepresented Witness Lee’s teachings on the authority of the Bible and morality and that the members of the local churches were “extremely family-oriented.”

Dr. Rodney Stark, Professor of Sociology and Comparative Religion at the University of Washington and co-author of the model of conversion that Neil Duddy claimed to have used to perform a sociological evaluation of the local churches, testified that Duddy had missed the model’s entire point and had altered it maliciously. [Note: Dr. Stark is currently Co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion and Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University.]

Dr. H. Newton Malony, Senior Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, conducted a study of local church members to assess the claims of sociological deviance made in The God-Men. He found those claims to be without basis. [Note: Dr. Malony retired from Fuller in 2009.]

Dr. Edwin S. Gaustad, formerly Emeritus Professor of History at University of California, Riverside, wrote a statement criticizing self-appointed vigilante groups such as SCP and the damage they cause to the reforming impetus inherent in Christianity.

The full text of Dr. J. Gordon Melton’s booklet An Open Letter Concerning the Local Church, Witness Lee, and The God-Men Controversy, written and published by Dr. Melton after the conclusion of Lee v. Duddy. After giving a general background of the local churches based on Dr. Melton’s research as the leading authority on contemporary American religious groups, this booklet shows The God-Men‘s twisting of Witness Lee’s words in four key areas—propositional revelation, morality, rationality and use of the mind, and personal versus biblical authority. Based on SCP’s blatant misrepresentation of Witness Lee’s teaching, Dr. Melton recommends that The God-Men and any writing based on it be discarded.

After the end of The God-Men case (Lee v. Duddy) in 1985, Dr. J. Gordon Melton, one of the expert witnesses in the case, wrote and published An Open Letter Concerning the Local Church, Witness Lee and The God-Men Controversy. Dr. Melton demonstrated conclusively that The God-Men had misrepresented Witness Lee teaching and recommended that it, and any other writing based on it, be discarded.

An index to material on this site related to Judge Leon Seyranian’s decision in Lee et al v. Duddy et al, the libel case concerning The God-Men.

Key findings in Judge Leon Seyranian’s decision in Lee et all v. Duddy et al.

A table of contents to the various sections of Judge Leon Seyranian’s written decision in Lee et al v. Duddy et al, outlining the falsity of fourteen accusations, the defendants’ intent to damage the plaintiffs, and the judge’s awarding of both compensatory and punitive damages.

The complete text of the Statement of Decision in Lee et al v. Duddy et al, the landmark libel case in which Judge Leon Seyranian found The God-Men to be “in all major respects false, defamatory, and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous.” In his decision he cited deposition testimony from the defendants as well as testimony before the court from expert witnesses and members of the local churches. These citations are linked to images of the exhibits and transcripts in the case.

At the end of the court proceedings in Lee et al v. Duddy et al, the libel case concerning The God-Men, Judge Leon Seyranian commented on the weight of the testimony that had been presented to him.