The Local Church movement of Witness Lee, known by its adherents around the world as The Lord's Recovery, was imported from the Orient to America during the early sixties by Witness Lee (1905-1997), a former disciple and co-worker of the Chinese evangelist Watchman Nee (1903-1972). This movement claims to be the one true church, the sole expression of Christ, the sole move of God on earth, and the most orthodox of Christians. Witness Lee, until his death, had lead this movement of approximately 150,000 with unquestioned authority as the apostle of this age, God's deputy authority, and as the oracle of God. Witness Lee claimed to have been commissioned directly by the Lord and to have received revelations from the Lord, which formed the basis of the beliefs and practices of the Local Church movement. According to Witness Lee, Christianity is viewed as blind, fallen, poor, and degraded, and denominational groups are called harlot daughters of the Whore of Babylon (Rev. 17), the Roman Catholic Church.

Witness Lee's writings teach modalism instead of trinitarianism, support pray-reading as spiritually superior to normal prayer, critize and castigate Christian churches which do not share his doctrinal views on "local ground", and teach that the Local Church movement is a necessary precondition for the return of Jesus Christ.

Controversial movement begun in China in the early 1920s by Ni To-sheng (Watchman Nee). Growth and controversy developed during the administration of their second leader, the late Witness Lee, who moved to America in 1962 founding Living Stream Ministry. Among issues drawing criticism from evangelical Christians is the Local Church's use of the term “mingling” to describe the relationship between God and believers (i.e., Christians become both divine and human like Jesus). Some evangelicals have also charged that the church compromises the Trinity doctrine by confusing the Persons of the Holy Spirit and the Son in a way similar to modalism. The organization's exclusivity has also comme under fire. According to Lee, each city can and should have only one church. Denominationalism is seen as of the Devil. According to critics, the effect is that Lee-led local churches, usually called by the name of their cities (e.g., the Church in Anaheim or the Church in Chicago), become the only true expressions of the Body of Christ. Thus, according to former members, all other churches or denominations are seen as being outside the will of God or not true churches at all. The Local Church has also gained a reputation for threatening legal action to prevent unfavorable public evaluation of its movement. Even Christian critics have been targeted, adding to the evidence that they do not consider believers outside their movement to be true or obedient Christians (1 Corinthians 6:1–8).

The extensive footnotes written by Witness Lee and the Scripture text found in this edition are supportive of the beliefs and practices of the movement. Footnotes from the Book of Revelation state that denominational groups are spiritual fornicators for taking on names other than that of Christ (Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, etc), that Christianity is degraded for taking on these denominational names, that denominational groups are the harlot daughters of the Whore of Babylon, and that Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism have become an organization used by Satan as a tool to damage God's economy (a la Lee).

In 1977 SCP published an eighty-page booklet, The God-Men, which provided the first major survey of the beliefs and practices of the Local Church. It was later translated into the Chinese language. A revised and expanded edition was published in 1979 in the German language by Swiss publisher Schwengeler-Verlag. It was entitled, Die Sonder Lehre des Witness Lee Und Seiner Ortsgemeinde (The Unusual - or Strange Teaching of Witness Lee and His Place - Church or Location Church). The Local Church in Stuttgart, West Germany, filed a lawsuit in Swiss court to stop distribution of the book, alleging defamation. The suit was dismissed by the court because improper plaintiff brought suit. That decision was appealed by the Local Church but the dismissal was upheld by a higher court. In December 1980 the Local Church filed another lawsuit, this time, in Oakland, California, also alleging defamation in the German edition of the book. An English version derived from the same manuscript was published in the United States by Intervarsity Press in 1981, under the title, The God-Men. No lawsuit was filed against the English edition of the book published by Intervarsity Press. For four and a half years SCP was subjected to a strategy of financial attrition by the Local Church by means of pretrial maneuvering. SCP's lawyer filed a declaration in federal court:

I concluded that the process of protracted discovery at a tremendous expense was more important to the plaintiffs than meaningful settlement negotiations as they had nothing to lose by the expenditure of vast sums of money. I was personally informed in February 1985 by a person who had recently left the Local Church that the litigation was costing the plaintiffs approximately $80,000 per month. Obviously, SCP could not afford to sustain a defense indefinitely in the absence of insurance given the magnitude of the discovery efforts by plaintiffs: approximately 140 days or half-days of some 44 persons; only 8 persons were deposed by SCP for 17 days or half-days. I have never seen discovery conducted in such minute detail as that conducted by plaintiffs in this case. (1) 

SCP's debts mounted with the approach of the trial date of March 4, 1985. Already in debt and facing additional court costs and the probability of the Local Church appealing a defeat, SCP's existence was threatened. On March 4, the day the trial was to begin, SCP filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy protection. This action imposed an immediate stay on the Local Church's action against SCP. This action also allowed SCP to continue its ministry without giving into demands made by the Local Church. Demands would require SCP signing a statement that would give the Local Church an unqualified endorsement.

Finding SCP inaccessible, the Local Church then pursued Schwengeler-Verlag and Neil Duddy. The publisher had already faced one challenge and declined to get involved in the U.S. litigation. Neil Duddy was now living and working in Denmark, and having already used personal money to defend himself in the U.S., was unable and unwilling to defend himself. He declined to return to the U.S. to appear in court.

Having been unsuccessful in having the bankruptcy judge send SCP back to the state court for a full-scale trial, the Local Church called for a default hearing, a one-sided procedure in which the plaintiffs are allowed to make an uncontested presentation to the court. SCP staff were present but were not allowed to participate because of their bankruptcy status. The Local Church presented their side of the case in an uncontested manner. Witnesses and so-called experts freely offered their testimony without the fear of being cross-examined. Based upon the information presented during the default hearing, and without benefit of cross-examination by SCP, the judge issued a strongly-worded opinion in favor of the Local Church that had essentially repeated their original claims against SCP. The Local Church received a $11.9 million award for general and punitive damages against the author and the publisher. Since SCP was in bankruptcy and therefore out of the lawsuit, the judgment did not apply to them. Witness Lee and the Local Church, however, filed a $15 million claim against SCP in bankruptcy court, assuming the status of a creditor on the basis of a disputed damage claim that had never been tested in a court trial. The Local Church received $34,000 as the result of their efforts. Local Church members will appeal to the judge's 32-page opinion as evidence of their vindication against charges of cultic activity as presented in The God-Men. States Bill Squires:

The only thing that can be concluded from 4 1/2 years of pretrial maneuvering is that there were insufficient funds to litigate a complex case at the level of legal activity and expense that was set by the plaintiffs. Had there been a trial, we believe we would have prevailed....We urge concerned Christians to carefully and prayerfully review the abundant supply of internationally published material which evaluates and comments on the teachings and practices of Witness Lee and the Local Church, including the tapes and publications of the Local Church itself, in order to accurately understand this group and form your own opinion. (2) 

We present this interview and article about the teachings of the Local Church and its leader Witness Lee as a service to our readers who are interested in the many variations of new religious movements found in the world today. Some, as in the case of the Local Church, have their roots in the Christian faith and can be misidentified as orthodox denominations unless close scrutiny is made of the teachings and organizational methods.

We also present this article as a tribute to the former editor of UPDATE, Neil Duddy and his wife Linda. They no longer live in Europe, and hopefully will find peace in their new world far removed from the several years of anxiety and pain documented in this article. However, the verdict of the court in the United States, as well as harassment on the part of the Local Church, will follow them into the future. We commend them to the prayers and concern of our readers, and ask for your own reflections about the situation in your country.

Here in Denmark, the Local Church makes prominent use of the verdict of the trial. They have translated The decision of Judge Leon G. Seyranian of the Superior Court of the State of California into Danish and German. They have also widely disseminated a reflection on Duddy's book prepared by J. Gordon Melton. an American scholar who appeared in court on behalf of the plaintiff against Duddy and the SCP. The Local Church is appealing to those who recognize the authority and power of the courts to assert their correctness in this matter. Bul while making this assertion in the name of the Christian faith. and claiming the authority of a civil body as their grounds. they continue to crudely judge other Christian expressions of faith and judge the holiness of other Christian denominations.

I don't think the Local Church acted biblically in this situation. They have had a history of using the court system (along with the Church of Scientology) to shut down their critics. For all the bad that has been said about the Unification Church, the Way International, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Hare Krishna, the Family (COG), and other cults, they do not have a track record of response-via-lawsuit the way that the Local Church and the Scientologists have had.

Fortunately, I think that the 1985 lawsuit against the SCP was the last lawsuit (or threat of lawsuit) that the Local Church has used, and I am not aware of any other threatened lawsuits since then. In this respect, I commend them for their change in tactics.

OPINION
This is a libel suit brought by a church against a publisher and two authors after the church was included in a book about “religious cults,” as that term is defined in the book. The publisher and authors moved for summary judgment, which the trial court denied. This interlocutory appeal followed. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 51.014(b) (Vernon Supp. 2005). Because we agree that the passages in the book that refer to the church are not, as a matter of law, defamatory, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment that the church take nothing from the publisher and authors.
[...]

CONCLUSION
Because the allegedly libel statements are not defamatory, as a matter of law, we sustain the publisher and authors’ first issue on appeal. Accordingly, we need not address the remaining issues and decline to do so.

We reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment that the church take nothing from the publisher and authors.