<A word of caution...you might just be better off to leave Witness Lee alone and get back to some much more sound doctrine from some other commentators.>>

I was under Witness Lee's ministry from 1975 to 1989. For thirteen of those years I lived in So California and was actually present for W Lee's ministry. Hence, I have some ground to respond to your post.

First, the positives of W Lee's ministry: 1) He introduced me to the cream of past authors: T Austin-Sparks, Andrew Murray, Jesse Penn-Lewis, Amy Carmichael, Madame Guyon, G H Pember, D M Panton, J N Darby, C A Coates, etc. 2) He had a wonderful gift of opening the Scriptures by always pointing us to Christ. I used to leave his ministry full of appreciation of Christ, desiring more of Him. 3) He had a great burden to help the saints know the Lord as life in their spirit. 4) He also greatly helped the saints to meet in mutuality where all were free to participate. 5) For many years our gatherings were like heaven on earth. Christ was the focus and content.

Now the weaknesses (according to my opinion, Dan S & Alan C will probably differ with me here):

1) He believed God only used one man at a time for His move on earth (eg, Moses, David, in NT-- Peter and then Paul). When W Nee was alive, he was that man. When Nee died, the mantle was passed on to W Lee. I heard him refer to himself as God's deputy authority, commander and chief, and THE oracle of God. Hence, there was no balance, he ended up being a pope. He didn't realize in the Old Testament God used one man at a time because those men were types of Christ. In the NT, Christ is the unique Head of the Church. He does not have representatives.

2) Lee tended to give the impression he was a modalist, but actually he merely stressed the aspect of the onenness in the Trinity instead of the plurality. Dr Ryrie actually helped bro Lee here when he told him that God is essentually one, yet economically three. A better approach would be to say , "Amen" to both aspects of revealed truth--unity and plurality. there is no need stress on above the other. R Govett called this the two-foldness of the divine truth.

3) He stressed the ground of locality (city) as the ground of the Church. In teaching all Christians are part of the church in a given city, the local church tries to take the stand as the church. But no one can represent the other believers. What happens is the local church considers they are the only true manifestation of the church in the city. Thus, it's easy to become proud, sectarian, and exclusive. I remember being taught in the Revelation training by W Lee that denominations were Babylon and were commiting spiritual fornication because they took a name other than Christ (eg, Lutheran, etc). The problem with this sort of talk is it's easy to start applying this to individual believers.

4) In his latter years W Lee coined the phrase that believers are "baby gods." Well, for some reason W Lee loved making up strange phrases like God is "no longer raw but processed" so He can be masticated. But this new phrase really surprised me. Yes, the Scripture says we are sons of God, partakers of the divine nature, but there is no need to make up such peculiar terminology that sounds like heresy.

With nearly every "separatists" group, there is the tendency to control the members. Many of us easily fell into being dedicated to the group cause instead of to Christ Himself. If someone spoke anything differently from W Lee's ministry, he was subtlely rejected. Those who left the group, were easily ignored and forgotten for they must have been rebellious and "left God's move on the earth."

Watchman Nee warned against hero worship. Sad to say believers today so easily lift up their leader on a plain equal to Christ (in practice, yet never admited). I saw how the local churches slowly changed from Bro Lee's ministry being for the churches to the churches being for his ministry. He became a factor of onenness among us. The question became "Are you 100% one with Bro Lee's ministry?"

I am very thankful to have been under W Lee's ministry for 14 years. I wouldn't be who I am today without his help. I love those in the local churches. The members are genuine Christians who are quite zealous and dedicated. I have no wish to slander them in any way, but only want to offer my assessment. They need to see where they have erred.

Remember I haven't been among them since 1989. Maybe they have learned from some of their past mistakes.