This is very good news: "Appellate Court Rules in Favor of Harvest House and Its Authors, John Ankerberg and John Weldon."*Harvest House had been the target of a protracted lawsuit** filed by "Living Stream Ministry" and "The Local Churches," an aberrant group closely associated with the teaching of Witness Lee, and known for answering their critics with litigation.
The group's litigious tendencies have effectively silenced most of their critics. The suit against Harvest House came after a short chapter critiquing the group's teaching was included in the Ankerberg/Weldon book Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions. The four-year-long legal battle has been extremely costly to Harvest House, but they have persevered rather than settling (as some other publishers have done previously), because they were fighting for an important matter of principle.
The court's ruling Friday included this:
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.
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10 comments:
You might note that the link you provided under "protracted lawsuit" is an extremely one-sided presentation of the history of said lawsuit, provided by the (now defeated) plaintiffs, i.e. LSM/The Local Church. You'll note that the copyright on their site belongs to "The Church in Fullerton." Rather than provide what I expected -- an objective history -- that site basically presents their side of the story. Just a caveat for those who click to a website called "contendingforthefaith.com" which is anything but.
Disclosure: I've had my own share of negative experiences with Local Church related folks on college campuses and am unsurprised to hear of their very aggressive and legal tactics to silence critics. I knew of Christian brothers who were essentially evicted without cause from an apartment building that the Local Church purchased and then filled with members of their own group.
What's rather pathetic is their faulty line of reasoning in the lawsuit: that being included in an "encyclopedia of cults" implies that the authors/publishers intended to label them, as they claim, "as being guilty of the most deplorable, illegal and immoral acts and uses 'guilt-by-association' to link a legitimate Christian ministry and thousands of innocent believers with the most vile and contemptible behavior."
That being said, I can think of no more deplorable or immoral act than corrupting the very truth and Word of God: of that they are surely guilty. May God have mercy on their souls and deliver the many misled from their midst.
Harvest House's presentation of the history of the lawsuit seems prudent to include, as it responds to a number of the misrepresentations on the contendingforthefaith.com site.
Phil, this is very good news indeed. I know of other scenarios where folks are known to answer their critics with litigation, or at least threaten it. In these cases, the threat of potential legal action has also silenced more than a few critics as well.
I was glad to read this, this morning. Thank you for sharing this. Maybe it will be an encouragment for those who feel their hands are tied when it comes to speaking out for truth. I hope so.
SDG,
Carla
Evers: Thanks for your comment. I should have pointed out the source of that link. I assumed it would be clear, because the headlines on the stories at that page are so clearly slanted. It seemed pretty obvious that this is propaganda for "The Local Church."
On second thought, however, people unfamiliar with the case might not immediately realize that, so thanks for making it explicit.
I linked it because it's both fascinating and infuriating to see the lengths to which this sect went to spin the facts of the case and drag out this lawsuit. It seems clear that their strategy is designed mainly to silence critics by intimidation.
For example, a researcher named Jim Moran devoted a significant amount of effort to documenting the aberrant tendencies of "The Local Church." His website was once a valuable resource for those seeking to understand why the group is regarded as seriously unsound by so many. See this account of what happened to Jim Moran's website for an insight into how "The Local Church" deals with its critics.
Just in case you or other readers do not know, Anton Hein is vehemently opposed to Calvin and Calvinism and misrepresents Calvinism. He is not open to discussion about it. It is a shame, as his Index is a reasonable resource for this and that.
Calvinism and Arminianism
Well it hadn't taken me long to figure that a student friend of mine was a modalist, had a strange Bible version, had distinguishing ideas on prayer and was a bit strange in going to a different city for church on the basis that it was The Church... and now I know the name for it. I did figure it was bigger in the US since this friend kept going to the States for conferences. Interestingly, he did take part in our CU small group Bible studies, never suggesting that we were attending false churches or anything. I wish I'd known more about his beliefs so that I could discuss with him more intelligently - I mean, you don't dismiss someone as a heretic for having a bad Bible translation and a strange way of praying.
I once came across a couple of non-student girls offering free Recovery Version Bibles on campus and engaged them in conversation about what they were doing, and asked how they came to know Christ (always good as it's either encouraging or revealing!) They weren't interested in discussing the gospel or knowing about CU evangelism but only in pushing to me the Recovery version (I would, aparently, have a deeper level of Christianity in discarding my current version and reading it). They were rather thrown when I said that I had read it in parts (aforementioned friend's copy), thought it was a bad translation where it differed from my own and was quite convinced that there was no 'higher level' of Christianity because I had every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Anyway, since they weren't students and had no permission to be there it was fairly straightforward to share my concerns with the university chaplain and they weren't seen again.
I find sects awfully sad.
Just thinking out loud...
I wonder if the ACLU or the EFF could be leveraged to get free legal defense for people speaking their mind about this group?
It would be ironic to see the ACLU turned to a good use for once.
"I find sects awfully sad."
You must be using tissues by the bushel then, because if you hadn't noticed Christianity is full of sects. Orthodox or non-orthodox, cult or non-cult or supposedly a cult, they're all sects; not just the Witness Lee crowd, but independent fundamental churches, non-denom evangelical churches, Pentecostal wack-job churches- they're all sects. They're all sad because they all believe that they're the ones and the other guys don't have it. Don't believe me? Just check out the evangelical Christian blogging world, where more energy is spent telling readers who is out than telling them how to get in.
That's what is sad.
More info on this movement:
http://www.theopedia.com/The_Local_Church
This article has inspired me to set up a new blog: liites.blogspot.com
Edifying criticism welcome.
By the way, my grandparents were ong time members of Grace Community and so was I until I moved. However there was a period of twelve years during which a parent went astray and took the family to a cult. My blog is an exercise in healing.
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