Local Church, the

▪ international religious group

      international Evangelical Christian group founded in China in the 1930s and based on the belief that a city or town should have only one church.

      The Local Church grew out of the ministry of Watchman Nee (1903–72), a Chinese Christian who had been strongly influenced by the Plymouth Brethren, a British fundamentalist free church. In the 1930s Nee wrote several books presenting his beliefs and founded churches throughout China. He adopted an Evangelical Christian perspective but believed that the New Testament teaches that, as an expression of church unity, only one church should be established in any given city. Following the establishment of the communist regime, the government disapproved of Nee's activities and placed him under investigation. As a result, he was exiled from Shanghai and then, in 1952, sent to prison for the rest of his life.

      In 1948 Nee sent one of the church's elders, Witness Lee (1905–97), to lead the mission in Taiwan. Under Lee's direction the church flourished and spread to neighbouring countries, eventually reaching the United States. There it attracted members from Chinese American communities and later from the general population. In 1962 Lee moved to California, where he established Living Stream Ministry, the publishing arm of the movement, to facilitate his own writing and teaching activity and through which he offered guidance to the movement's otherwise autonomous congregations. The movement, commonly known as the Local Church, a name derived from Nee's teaching of one church per city, draws its teachings on the writings of Nee and Lee, which are published by Living Stream Ministry.

      During the 1970s the cordial relationship between the Local Church and the larger Evangelical Christian community ended. Evangelical leaders accused the Local Church of stealing members, teaching unorthodox views of the Trinity, and indulging in various “cult” practices. Christian writers included the Local Church in books on cults. One such book, published by the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, based in Berkeley, California, led to a lawsuit for defamation in 1985 and a multimillion-dollar judgment in favour of the Local Church. The suit ended Evangelical denunciations of the movement, and the Local Church has since quietly pursued its work without further controversy.

John Gordon Melton

Additional Reading

The teachings of the church can be found in The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Churches (1978); and Witness Lee, The Practical Expression of the Church (1970). Neil T. Daddy, The God Men (1981), is a critical treatment of the church.

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