The Local Church of Chang-Shou Li is a religion that takes the basic doctrines of Chinese folk Buddhism and cloak them in Christian terminology. It was founded in Los Angeles, California in 1963 by Chang-Shou Li, a Chinese national who is known to followers as "Brother Li" and more commonly known as "Witness Lee". Shunning public exposure, Liites strenuously avoid identifying themselves in any way to outsiders. Among themselves they call the organization the "Church in" and the name of a thousand different cities, or simply as the "church." Among outsiders they are often called the "Local Church."
The Liite organization is totalist and all power is centralized in its headquarters, of Anaheim, California. The organization runs its own publishing operation and it maintains tight control of distribution outlets throughout the world by a monopoly of all printed and recorded materials the outlets may sell and use in worship, over all doctrines and rituals used, by maintaining close supervision of all regional and local leadership, through periodic mass meetings called "conferences," through periodic and year-round indoctrination camps called "trainings," and by enforcing mandatory tax-deductible donations from members and distribution outlets.
Although Liites cherish their secrecy, they can easily find other distribution outlets by looking in a phone book for "The Church in" followed by the name of a major city. This vague notation allows members to find each other without calling undue attention to themselves to outsiders.
Principal doctrine
The fundamental Liite doctrine is Mingling. Mingling is a re-working of the traditional Buddhist Dharma wheel. According to Li, all the world is evil and must be destroyed. This includes all humanity, which will reach its end through extinction or annihilation of the soul. Liites, too, will be annihilated but during their lifetimes rather than at death. This process is Mingling. The term derives from Li's conception of three parts of man (body, soul, and spirit) and a metaphor describing the process of annihilating the soul and replacing it with God. At initiation into the Liites, God invades the human spirit, the "innermost part of his being," then spreads to the soul. Li said that Mingling was like steeping tea leaves in water, the tea standing for God and the water for the human soul. As the tea steeps, the water grows ever blacker. As more tea leaves are added the water becomes blacker still and as yet more leaves are added, the water is gone and only tea leaves remain.
The man is destroyed and what remains is God. In the beginning before man was made, there was God. In the end, there is only God once again. God is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.
Thus Liites may call themselves gods and anyone who has reached an advanced state of Mingling, such as the founder Li, is God.
Proselytes Essentially there is only one way to be mingled, be terminated, and become God: through the Liite ritual of pray-reading of mantras and koans ("messages") published by the organization Pray-reading is a peculiar ritual of worshipping printed words which are full of the essence of God ("God-breathed" as they call it) and thereby absorbing the essence of God.
For example, at the first stage of Mingling, the neophyte Liite is "saved" or initiated into being blotted out and becoming God. Li's "salvation" is the planting of the first seed of God, the first tea-leaf and it occurs in the ritual known as "calling on the name of the Lord." In practice, that means the neophyte must shout as loud as he can "O Lord Jesus" ten times in front of an audience. He is told that it is important not to think of the meaning of the words, but to "proclaim it from the depths of his human spirit." The audience then screams several mantras and the new Liite is baptized in water.
Views of humanity Li's conception that human nature is absolutely evil and must be terminated has numerous consequences on the psyches of Liites. The active Liite is expected to attend five meetings a week and attend two ten-day long intensive indoctrination camps a year. Older members may attend less, but they are expected to support the organization with donations and buying books. Since the central dogma of the Liites is Mingling, the single most important theme running though all the meetings and printed material is the worthlessness of the individual. Man is utterly evil. In practice, this means that individual the opinions and needs of individual Liites are not only ignored, but squelched.
As may be gathered, the stress of so much activity, expectations to know official material, and the attack on human nature leads to distress and even nervous breakdowns.
Persecution of dissent Another feature of the Liites is the persecution of Christian churches. Liites believe that they alone are the one true faith in the world. Christian churches are called the Whore of Babylon and Satanic. The organization has built up a princely war chest from which it takes out lawsuits every few years against Christian publishers who dare discuss Liites openly. This is not simple revenge; for each lawsuit brings in millions of dollars in new donation from membership. The organization thrives on crisis on drama and a big lawsuit is a big crisis and drama. The latest such lawsuit was for more than $136 million dollars against Harvest House Christian publishers, which won against the organization.
Comparison with mainstream Buddhism
Li took what he was familiar with (Buddhism) and translated for his audience in America, a traditional Christian country.
:Banner - koan :Calling - mantra :Eating Jesus - dharma :Full Time Trainees (FTT) - bhiksu :Getting saved - good roots :Jesus - Indra/Sakraderanam :Heaven - pure land :Leading brother - bodhisattva :Liite - upasaka/upasiki :Lord's Recovery - Buddha Land :organization literature - sutra :Mingling- dharma wheel :New Jerusalem - sumeru :Pray-reading - dharani :Redemption - nirvana :Regional coordinator - mahasattva :Salvation - bodhi :Souls - sentient beings :Spirit, soul, and body - three realms (cf. Pelagianism) :Trainees - paramita :Tripartite Man - skandhas :Witness Lee (Chang-Shou Li) - Buddha
Controversy
For Liites, the fate of believers is the same as for non-believers: termination. This doctrinal belief Li called "the heart of the Gospel." It produces an abusive system, wherein the soul, the self, the "I" is ruthlessly attacked. You do not matter. God wants to terminate you. This also leads to a totalist organization structure wherein your opinions and needs will not be considered, and will be ruthlessly put down.
This frequently leads to total mental breakdown of members leading to hospitalisation during which the family intervenes to pull them out of the cult. Is the cult sympathetic to the pain of these members? No! They become the butt of stories. They use these stories to scare membership into submission.
According to former members, the Liite religion is full of stories and gossip about members who left; that is, members who allegedly had total mental breakdowns and were rescued by their families. Here are some examples of these anecdotes. A young woman, while attending a high-stress "Training" (indoctrination camp) in California began having hallucinations and showed symptoms of paranoia. Eventually she left the Training and was hospitalized, diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors said that with a normal life, she never would have shown symptoms. But under the extreme duress and mind-alteration among the Liites, schizophrenia erupted. The woman received medication and was soon after married in a real church. But years later in the cult, her story is still told: that she left the cult and had a mental breakdown. Their moral according to the Liite religion is that God judges anyone who dare leave the Liites. Other stories surround the religion such as the couple that were married and had a child. Then suddenly under stress, the father turned homosexual and left her for a man. A year later the mother, too, discovered she was homosexual and moved in with a woman. The real names of these people are used. These are people you knew and loved. Was this another case of victims to the stress and mind-alteration in the cult? Or is it just an example of the viciousness and gossip wherewith the cult punishes anyone who dare leave?
The actual explanation of these events maybe elusive, but ex-members and religious apologists believe that controversy surrounds the Liite religion.
Racism and Anti-semitism
Perhaps the most notorious feature of Li's teaching was his racism and anti-semitism. A recurring theme in many of Li's sermons is Nordic blondism. He ranked Nordics at the top of the evolutionary scale, just below his own Mandarin Chinese ethnicity. At the bottom were Japanese and Jews.
Li frequently made of Jews and sometimes even had them stand up during conferences and trainings so he could point out their large, hooked noses, and kinky hair. Everyone would laugh at them. He would pretend it was all in fun, but the Jews were humiliated. He even took special pleasure in publicly humiliating the one Jew Li allowed in his leadership, Max Rappaport. This was most strange, since Max was responsible for establishing Li in the 1960s, particularly in using his connections to set Li up in his worldwide headquarters in Anaheim California.
the Lord redeemed us,,He died on the cross for us to be saved and be brought to him..Through His resurrection He imparted Himself in to us.. if you do Love Him don't comment like this..
Guest
3. 04-12-2009 13:54
Hi, I'm a 23 year old college student living in New York. Im writing this comment, because reading your opininions on Witness Lee have left me greatly distressed. I was born into what you would call the "liite religion". I cannot believe you would even use that term. I have been around these dear brothers and sisters all my life, so if any of the things you are writing here were true, I would certainly know. If anything like these things you are speaking were true, I would have left my church a long, long, time ago. I consider myself an intelligent person, and no intelligent person would stay in the non-existent cult that you have described. I would estimate that about 99% of what you have written here is false. Why would you write false allegations like this? I am not so much upset as I am perplexed and confused as to how you arrived at all these conclusions. Many of them are so ridiculous that they are laughable. If any one of the members in this group heard you refer to them as a "liite" they (as well as myself) would be deeply offended. We do not follow Witness Lee as a man. He is not God as you claim that we say he is. He is just a man. Witness Lee does not "have" a church. The church belongs to the Lord Jesus and no one else. Also, all your speculation about Buddhism being the origin of his teachings are utterly ridiculous. I would challenge you to present any of your findings on Witness Lee and what you have wrote here with any sort of proof or evidence. At the very least how these conclusions were reached other than mere speculation and hear-say.
Open for further discussion -Spencer
Guest
4. 30-12-2009 05:36
Intersting take on the local church. I was involved with them 1972 - 1977 and found their movement clausterphobic and paranoid. As with all groups of that sort, truth is there, buried in a worship of a guru.
Guest
5. 22-03-2010 21:49
Seriously....are you a Christian?
If you are, how can you write such an article which is full of lies?
Those who want to know the facts concerning Witness Lee and the local churches, simply visit: www.lsm.org
Guest
6. 20-09-2011 21:33
My comments are being censored, but the original post which is full of lies is allowed to remain.
Guest
7. 20-09-2011 21:34
These are the comments that are being deleted.
Based on some research I have been able to do, the anonymous author of this blatantly false article is very likely Philip Randolph Johnson. Cloaked under the "right" of free speech, he is able to present his own perverted perception of the genuine Christian faith expressed in the local churches.
Evidently he had some bad personal experience with members in a church somewhere and in his pent-up, suppressed anger, has become very delusional as to what was going on in the church he was attending.
Unfortunately in our society, many young people harbor these kinds of things and become almost schizophrenic in later life. This is not unique to any Christian, or even any particular religious community.
His comments are so far off from the truth as to to incite incredulity that this guy could function normally in society. You would be surprised to find out that he is actually a pastor in a non-denominational church - Grace Community Church and is Executive Director for Grace to You which is John MacAuthur's Radio Program. Perhaps he will come back here to remove his lies to protect his reputation.
One vivid example is his hypocrisy in criticizing LSM for it's lawsuit against slanderous books, when he himself works in ministry with a former litigation lawyer. His coworker in ministry made his living suing people and he want to criticize LSM for a few lawsuits against specific slanderous books to protect their ministry from such blatant lies and accusations as are propagated in the article above.
It would be well to heed Romans 2:1 for the only racism being exhibited here is by the author himself in his perverted perception that merely because Witness Lee is from China and a Chinese his Bible teachings must have something to do with Buddhism.
