All Posts in Category "Defense"

An historical overview giving the background of the writing and publication of the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions, the structure and language of the book, attempts to engage the authors and publisher in Christian fellowship, the discoveries made during the lawsuit, and the decision of the Texas Court of Appeals in the case and that decision’s shortcomings and dangerous implications, as well as a surprising development leading to greater recognition of the members of the local churches are genuine believers.

An historical overview giving the background that produced The Mindbenders, the “war” declared by leaders of the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO) on the local churches, the libel suit filed and the resultant withdrawal of The Mindbenders, and the aftermath of the case.

An answer by Watchman Nee to a question about the circumstances under which a Christian could appeal to a secular law court.

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)

Background information on the local churches, including a statement of our faith, a brief history, and an explanation of our pursuit to be well-pleasing to the Lord in all things.

A chronology of the events in November and December 2001 leading to the filing of a libel complaint against Harvest House, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon for the publication of the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions. The events in these two months show the local churches seeking Christian reconciliation versus the duplicity of Harvest House and its authors in negotiating in bad faith and initiating legal action.

Basic facts concerning the litigation over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions (ECNR), including a definition of the issues at stake, Harvest House’s rejection of all attempts by repersentatives of the local churches and Living Stream Ministry to resolve concerns apart from litigation, Harvest House’s republication of the book and filing of a suit in Oregon court, and Harvest House’s subsequent reprinting of ECNR after the libel action was filed.

Frequently asked questions regarding the litigation over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

A statement by Living Stream Ministry concerning Eastern Lightning, “the Shouters,” and other aberrant religious groups in China.

A chronology of the progress of The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

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.

An examination of how Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes misrepresented the subject and scope of the libel lawsuit over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions, the content of that book, and of the court’s decision in the case.

The Motion for Rehearing filed by The Local Church et al with the Texas Court of Appeals after the court’s decision in the libel case over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

An amicus brief filed by cult experts who appealed to the United States Supreme Court to review The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al on the grounds that Texas Court of Appeals decision set a dangerous precedent for protecting defamation by the use of the term cult when it is used in a secular sense, as the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions did.

A press release concerning the Texas Supreme Court’s decision not to review the Court of Appeals decision in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al.

A letter written after the end of the case over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions to those who do not meet with the local churches but who followed the case’s progress.

A letter written after the end of the case over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions to the believers who meet in the local churches.

A press release concerning the United States Supreme Court’s decision not to review the Texas Court of Appeals decision in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al.

An amicus brief filed by six people with extensive experience in publishing, broadcasting, and religion asking the United States Supreme Court to review The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al from the perspective of balancing protection of freedom of speech and of the press with the rights of religious organizations to seek protection from libel.

An amicus brief filed by six international experts (including three former ambassadors), attesting to the danger of the Texas Court of Appeals decision inThe Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al to Christians residing in religiously restrictive countries and asking the United States Supreme Court to review that decision.

An amicus brief from ten prominent scholars in the fields of religion and the social sciences asking the United States Supreme Court to review the Texas Court of Appeals decision in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et

al on the basis of the “detrimental effect this ruling may have on religious freedom in America.”

The petition by The Local Church et al to the United States Supreme Court.

A list of articles written in response to Harvest House’s public misrepresentations on its corporate website and through other channels.

An amicus brief filed by libel law expert Dr. Rodney Smolla with the Texas Supreme Court pointing out several flaws in the application of libel law by the Texas Court of Appeals in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al.

The Response to Petition for Review filed with the Texas Supreme Court in response to a filing by Harvest House et al asking the court to not review the case.

In various venues Harvest House President Robert Hawkins and authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon have misled the public regarding the local churches and facts surrounding the litigation over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

Harvest House and its authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon sought to make the local churches repulsive in the eyes of the Christian public using out-of-context quotation and misrepresenting our Scripture-based rejection of unbiblical teachings, practices and institutions as a rejection of fellow believers and of the faith. In doing so, they pervert Witness Lee’s plea for recovery to the biblical standards of life, service, and testimony among Christians.

The local churches seek to return to the biblical standard concerning the subjective experience of Christ, the function of every member of the Body of Christ, and the practical testimony of the oneness of the Body of Christ. Harvest House, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon misrepresent Witness Lee’s biblically-based critique of organized Christianity on these three lines, even though they and their associates acknowledge the same deficiencies in Christendom today.

Harvest House feigns indignation over our criticism of organized Christianity, yet their own books contain very harsh statements criticizing evangelical Christianity, Christianity and the church generally, and the Roman Catholic Church specifically. They even attack prominent evangelicals such as Billy Graham.

The Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions by John Ankerberg and John Weldon (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1999) accuses the local churches of rejecting Christianity, implying that we reject fellow believers and the Christian faith.The authors and their publisher have never corrected this deceit despite extensive documentation provided to Harvest House proving the contrary.

Harvest House has attempted to turn Christians against the local churches with a series of out-of-context quotations posted on its corporate website. This article contextualizes those quotes and exposes Harvest House’s unfaithfulness to the Bible and to the Lord’s church in misrepresenting the teaching of Witness Lee.

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.

An introduction to a series of articles on how Harvest House misrepresented the local churches’ appeal for relief from libel and our objections to the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

Harvest House attempted to recast the litigation over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions as a theological dispute, but a reading of the libel complaint filed in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al shows this claim to be false.

John Ankerberg and his attorney Shelby Sharpe both claimed that the local churches registered no objections to “The Local Church” chapter. This article shows that their claims are false and misleading.

On a syndicated radio broadcast Harvest House President Bob Hawkins, Jr., gave a distorted account of the history of the local churches’ protests over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions. This article contrasts the statements he made on the air with the actual facts.

To mislead both the court and the public, Harvest House portrayed the nature of the definition of cult in the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions as purely theological in nature. This article shows the falsehood and duplicity of that claim.

An amicus letter brief by apologist Gretchen Passantino filed with the Texas Supreme Court concurring with Hank Hanegraaff’s amicus brief on the dangers of protecting the word cult from defamatory meaning.

An amicus brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court signed by scholars in the fields of religion and the social sciences arguing that the Court of Appeals had failed its obligation to balance First Amendment rights against the social values underlying defamation law.

An amicus brief signed by seven men with extensive experience in publishing and broadcasting, urging the Texas Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al to balance First Amendment rights and “the right of religious organizations to be free of unsubstantiated denigration of their reputations.”

An amicus brief submitted by eight individuals to the Texas Supreme Court regarding the danger posed by Court of Appeals’ decision to ignore the book’s use of the secular definition of the term cult in parts of the world with repressive governments.

An amicus brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court by Hank Hanegraaff asking the court to review the Texas Court of Appeals decision in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al based on the danger posed by that decision’s protection of the word cult from defamatory meaning.

The Petition for Review filed by The Local Church et al with the Texas Supreme Court, asking it to review the Texas Court of Appeals decision in the libel case over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

A public statement concerning the decision to appeal the Court of Appeals decision which granted Harvest House, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon summary judgment in the libel action over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

A press release concerning the Court of Appeals decision reversing the District Court’s rejection of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

An index of court filings and major court rulings in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

An index of miscellaneous procedural and evidentiary court rulings in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

An index of press releases related to The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

An index of the letters of protest written by representatives of Living Stream Ministry, the local churches, and the co-workers of Witness Lee prior to the filing of The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

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.

An examination of what the Bible says about how Christians should deal with disputes and under what circumstances an appeal to a secular court system may be justified.

A chronology of key events in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

An index to important documents in The Local Church et al v. Harvest House et al, the libel litigation concerning the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

A press release responding to an amicus brief filed by The Rutherford Institute with the Court of Appeals. That brief mischaracterized the litigation as being over issues of belief rather than over abhorrent conduct.

A press release concerning public postings on Harvest House’s corporate website libeling the local churches.

Ten irrefutable facts about the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions that show reckless disregard for the truth and malice on the part of both the authors and the publisher in including the local churches in the book.

Harvest House claimed to use “professional editorial standards” in the development and publishing of the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions. This article shows the emptiness of those claims.

Harvest House claimed that its use of The Chicago Manual of Style discharged its responsibility to use “acceptable editorial standards” in publishing the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions. The Chicago Manual, however, focuses on stylistic and not substantive issues and cannot be used to justify shirking editorial norms in publishing a book that makes false and defamatory accusations.

A press release responding to a Harvest House statement on its corporate website following the District Court’s rejection of its summary judgment motion.

A press release announcing the District Court’s decision to deny the first motion for summary judgment filed by Harvest House, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon in the case over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions.

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 “Meet the Experts” section of The Experts Speak gives basic profiles of the six experts who studied the local churches and the teachings of Witness Lee for the Lee et al v. Duddy et al case concerning The God-Men.

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.

After the ruling in The God-Men case, Tyndale House Publishers withdrew Larson’s Book of Cults which also mentioned the local churches.

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.

In 1983 Thomas Nelson Publishers issued a retraction and apology for including the local churches in The Mindbenders by Jack Sparks.

A brief history of the background of The God-Men by Neil Duddy and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP); of the landmark case, Lee et al v. Duddy et al, in which it was ruled to be “in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous”; and of the aftermath of that decision.

Three documents showing the claims of the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO)/Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) to apostolic authority and succession.

Correspondence from Thomas Nelson Publishing staff members and an outside reader recommending that the company not publish The Mindbenders by Jack Sparks.

A document in which New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO)/Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) leaders state their intention to “take their people” from evangelical groups that would not cooperate with them.