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Witness Lee (李常受 Pinyin: Lǐ Chángshòu) was born in Chefoo, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He converted to Christianity in 1925 after hearing the preaching of Peace Wang, and almost immediately came under the influence of Watchman Nee. He became a full-time co-worker of Nee in 1933, and moved to Shanghai to be with Nee in 1934. In the late 1940s as the Communists were advancing in China, Witness Lee was sent by Nee to Taiwan in order to continue their ministry there. During the 1950s, Lee worked closely with T. Austin-Sparks who held conferences with him in Taiwan in 1955 and 1957.

Witness Lee died in June 1997 in Southern California.

Expansion of the Church

In 1948, Lee extended his ministry from Taiwan to cities in Malaysia and Indonesia. His ministry reached Manila in 1950, Japan in 1957, the United States in 1958, Brazil in 1959, Canada in 1963, South Korea in 1965, New Zealand and Australia in 1970, Germany and Nigeria in 1971, and Ghana in 1972.

Witness Lee visited the U.S. in 1958 and 1960. During this time he met with a number of Christian fellowships in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. In 1962, Lee returned to the U.S. and established his residence in Los Angeles, helping to raise up the local church in Los Angeles. He established the Stream Publishers in 1965 (which later became Living Stream Ministry in Anaheim, California) primarily as a publishing vehicle for his and Nee's spoken and recorded messages. He gave numerous conferences, mostly in the United States and Asia.

Lee's ministry is recorded in hundreds of tapes, videos, and books, which are mostly edited transcriptions of his spoken messages. His major work, The Life-Study of the Bible (complete online text, online audio), comprising 32 volumes, is also an edited transcription. Late in his life Lee began the "crystallization-study" of the Bible to review and expand on the major points ("crystals") of the Bible that he had taught throughout his lifetime, but was unable to finish it. Today this study is being carried on by a number of Lee's co-workers at Living Stream Ministry.

The Lord's recovery

According to Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, the Lord's recovery can be traced back at least to God's raising up of Martin Luther and the reformers, and continued in recovering lost biblical truths through others such as Madame Guyon, Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian Brethren, John Nelson Darby, and the Plymouth Brethren, as well as themselves. Lee believed that one of the primary items that God used Nee and himself to recover was the oneness of all believers in Christ and the practical expression of this oneness in the practice of the local churches.

One in Christ

Although both Nee and Lee taught that, doctrinally, all Christians are one in Christ, they also strongly advocated the teaching that all Christians should also be practically one by having only one eldership in each city (with many elders) and accepting all believers in Christ as members of the church in each city regardless of racial, cultural, social, doctrinal or any other differences. Nee called this practice meeting on "the ground of locality" (see local churches), and Lee carried on in this after being sent by Nee out of China. Because of their unwillingness to compromise in this matter, other Christian organizations distanced themselves from Nee and Lee both in and outside of China. This, however, did not diminish their ministry, as they cared little for acceptance and validation by their contemporaries in mainstream Christianity.

Controversy

Some aspects of Nee's and Lee's ministry are considered to be controversial by many Christians. For example, Nee's teaching of the "ground of locality" was not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Also, Lee's distinctive view of the Trinity has been condemned by numerous observers as being modalistic, which accusations he and others have strongly denied and sought to refute. In another move without regard for contemporary acceptance, Lee, late in his life, following the example of Athanasius, declared that God became man in Jesus so that man could become God in Christ (in the life and nature of God, but not in His Godhead). So foreign was such a declaration to the ears of many modern Western Christians, that it was taken by some as being heretical.

Followers of Witness Lee (i.e., members of Witness Lee's Local churches) generally respond to these charges by arguing that many passages in the Bible support their beliefs. For example, to demonstrate their belief that "man becomes God in Christ," they cite John 1:12-13 and 2 Peter 1:4, 1, as well as verses in Corinthians and Ephesians.

See also

• The Shouters Sect
• Audios of Possession Violent Repetitive Screaming Mantra
• Jim Moran Saved Files Videos and Audios

External links

Sites Collected by Troy Brooks on the Unholy Trinity of Witness Lee, The Local Church, and Living Stream Ministry

• Misreading Nee Proving the 6 major sins of leeism are not of God.

Sites Run by the Unholy Trinity of Witness Lee, The Local Church, and Living Stream Ministry

• Brief biography from Living Stream Ministry
• Detailed biography from Living Stream Ministry
• Life-Study of the Bible - Complete online text.
• Life-Study of the Bible Radio Program - Complete online archive of more than 1000 programs.
• Books by Witness Lee - Complete online text of more than 200 titles.
• The Local Church (Theopedia - conversative evangelical Christian perspective)

• 1905 births
• 1997 deaths
• Christian writers
• Local Church