A LETTER OF FELLOWSHIP AND WARNING
May 26, 2010
To All the Saints and Churches in the Lord’s recovery,
We are burdened to write this letter of fellowship and warning to you all as we consider the Lord’s work among us, of which we are stewards.
In the past few years, Sister Charing Garcia and certain ones who disseminate her opposing views, deviant teachings and eccentric practices, have been actively spreading dissension among the churches and saints. They have, both in oral and written word, been actively criticizing the teaching and direction of the work in Northern Philippines, promoting views that are both unscriptural and aberrational from the ministry that we have received.
We are issuing this letter because necessity is laid upon us. The prevailing circumstances compel us to do so because (1) she has been teaching differently and erroneously, (2) she has been carrying out a divisive, private and unaccountable work, and (3) she has been undermining the co-workers and elders.
Teaching Differently and Erroneously
As those who carry out the New Testament ministry, we need to be faithful to the teaching of the apostles which constitute the contents of God’s New Testament economy. We should not teach differently, and we should not follow those who teach differently.
Yet despite numerous attempts on the part of many leading ones to fellowship with Sister Charing to correct her erroneous teachings over a considerable period of time, she has been largely unaffected by our efforts. Instead of opening up to the feeling of the Body, she has withdrawn from the fellowship among the co-workers to do her own work, and worse, insisted on publishing her own writings to promote her teachings and work.
She has refused to take heed to the admonition in the Scriptures for women not to teach the truth with authority (1 Tim. 2:11-12). Her website propounds teachings which have been observed to be unscriptural and different from what we have received from the ministry of the age. Her writings contain many winds of teaching that have developed into a system of error threatening to carry about the unsuspecting and unprepared.
To safeguard the saints and churches, we have published www.healthyteaching.org which chronicles and corrects her errors and misaiming while cutting straight the word of the truth to defend items that have come under pernicious attack. We recommend for the saints to diligently and prayerfully read these articles and be inoculated by the equipping of the truth.
Her Divisive and Private Work that Refuses to be Accountable to the Body
Even while still among us, she had manifested many signs of rebellion by continually defying the leadership and arrangement in the work. In many places where she had gone to work, the report from the leading brothers is that the result has not been sweet. When her discordant activities and overbearing attitude were brought to light, she tried to rally younger co-workers to defend her, and when this failed, she accused these co-workers of being afraid of losing financial support as the reason for not taking her side.
Moreover, her elevation of a descriptive practice in the Bible into an absolute truth and prescriptive teaching, insisting for the churches to practice her eccentric way of house-to-house Lord’s table meeting, has produced turmoil and resulted in divisive tables in Malabon and Makati, among other problems.
Her Undermining Activities Against the Co-Workers and Elders
Sister Charing refused to accept the fellowship and arrangement of the elders of the church in Malabon where she meets, and has repeatedly and publicly showed contempt and derision towards them. She has also instigated rebellion by many of her words and actions. A number of statements she made, in public and in private, reproach leading co-workers and elders here and abroad, even some of the blending brothers who take the lead in the ministry in the Lord’s recovery today. These atrocious actions severely damage the coordination among us.
In addition thereto, she often parades her credentials and perceived successes in work while disparaging others and their work. Her intemperance and utter lack of self-restraint, arrogance, independence, pride and boasting exhibit a character unbecoming of a co-worker. Her refusal to be blended with others had often led to various problems in the past, and by her fabrications and machinations she has caused other co-workers to unjustly suffer loss, such as what happened in the case of Brother William Bahandi.
In a further display of her audacity, she repeatedly used the work’s publication, the New Man, to air her grievances, differing views, and different teachings, unnecessarily thrusting to the saints and churches matters that have yet to be resolved in the work, in order to pressure the ones leading in the work to follow what she wants. When she could no longer do this, she persisted in publishing a dissonant website despite knowing the principle of “one publication work in the Lord’s recovery”, a principle that brothers Nee, Lee and Liu had led us to keep in the past so that there will be no uncertain sounding of the trumpet in the ministry that might confuse the saints.
Concerning her website, we need to point out that while she claims that it is personal in nature, it mostly deals with many areas in the work and continually touches matters on church administration. While her site professes to have a positive fourfold goal, it largely contains various accusations and innuendoes against the co-workers and elders, even as it redefines many truths. It propounds her different and erroneous teachings. It strongly advances her views and practices while continually taking to task and casting aspersion upon those who do not share her views or practices.
A Public Clarification
Time and again, Sister Charing has persisted in using Brother Liu Chi Cheng’s revered name to justify her own work to others. This she does while carefully concealing her different teachings, divisive works and undermining activities from our brother who does not read English and Tagalog, presenting to him only the positive side of her work like gospel preaching and shepherding, while painting to him a negative picture of the co-workers and elders she chose to assail.
Over time, because of the confusion propagated by Sister Charing, many of the leading ones and saints have sought clarification with us as to her status in the work. Through this letter, we would like to affirm that she is no longer a co-worker. Last November, she had likewise been asked to withdraw from the translation work of the Old Testament Recovery Version by the Living Stream Ministry, and for over a year now she is no longer connected with the Fulltime Training or the Literature Center, which was one reason why she has recently been asked to move out of her assigned quarters in the training center.
Having resigned from the work, she herself has claimed in private and in public that she is the “Lord’s worker” and not a co-worker of any one of us. In connection to this, we would like the saints and churches to know that her work, particularly her aberrant teachings, divisive ways of working, and the eccentric practices that she promotes are not sanctioned by the work and do not in any way represent the co-workers.
A Word of Admonition
It is our earnest desire that the saints and churches may be preserved from any further damage and be kept in peace for their building up (Acts 9:31). Because Sister Charing and her supporters continue to actively sow dissent through private contacts with the saints and in their writings, we ask the churches and saints to refuse and reject her lawless works and publications. We admonish the saints not to read the materials published and spread by Sister Charing and her supporters in printed form, in emails and on the Internet. Such materials are filled with questionings and contentions of words which spread spiritual sickness and death (1 Tim. 6:4; 2 Tim. 2:16-17, 23). They employ contentions, manipulate Scriptures and the ministry, and make emotional appeals in order to gain sympathy and deceive the uninformed in order to draw them away after themselves (Acts 20:29-30). We must be careful about anyone who is spreading spiritual death and keep ourselves away from them (Num. 6:6-9). We must overcome any personal affection and stand resolutely with the testimony of oneness in the Lord’s unique recovery.
Being Absolute for the Truth With No Personal Affection
If a serving one deviates from the truth, whoever it may be, the saints should not follow her, even if they have received help from her in the past. In order to be absolute to the truth and faithful to the Lord’s recovery, we all must set aside personal feelings and relationships (Matt. 12:48-50; 1 Pet. 1:22).
“Regardless of how much help we have received from a certain one in the past, if he does something that offends the Body, we must practice the truth” [referring to the truth in Romans 16:17]. (The Problems causing the Turmoils in the Church Life, p. 32)
“Being absolute to the truth means that no personal feelings or family relationships are allowed to stand in the way of the truth. In spiritual matters, the truth is compromised as soon as human relationships are taken into account.” (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 52: The Character of the Lord’s Worker, p. 152)
Marking Her Out As Being Divisive Based on Romans 16:17
Even though she has claimed time and again that she is not our co-worker, she recently sent her pompous and accusatory reply letter to the elders of Malabon en masse to the co-workers in Northern Philippines and other saints. Despite repeated attempts to address the problems with Sister Charing and her supporters, it is now evident that they have no intention of changing their course but instead are becoming more and more aggressive and virulent in propagating their erroneous and different teachings and spreading their divisive work.
After years of waiting before the Lord, the elders of Malabon issued a letter of warning to the churches to mark her out as being divisive. Most recently, they have come to a decision that the sister and those who take part in her divisive works need to be quarantined for the sake of preserving the health of the Body. We encourage the saints to read these letters, now posted in www.healthyteaching.org, in order to be clear with the relevant facts and truth.
As a corollary to the warnings made by the elders of the church in Malabon, and in light of Romans 16:17 which admonishes us to mark those who make divisions and causes of stumbling contrary to the teaching which we have learned, and turn away from them, we solemnly exhort all the saints to join us in marking Sister Charing Garcia and those who disseminate her divisive views and dissenting speaking. For the sake of preserving themselves and the rest of the Body, we urge the saints to keep a watchful eye on these contagiously divisive persons and turn away from them. Titus 3:10 shows us that, a factious man – a heretical, sectarian man who causes divisions by forming parties in the church according to his own opinions – should be refused, rejected, after a first and second admonition. To refuse such a one does not mean that we excommunicate or cut her off. Rather, it means that we take action to quarantine her in order to save both the contagious one and the rest of the Body.
We harbor no personal offense and bear no ill will toward Sister Charing and those who disseminate her divisive views and speaking. We have been patient in this situation for years, longing for their repentance. It is our desire and prayer that, through the compassions of our Savior God, Sister Charing and her supporters who purvey her dissenting views and different teachings would change their course. We declare our openness to restore into fellowship any who genuinely depart from their deviation and show fruits of repentance. However, while they remain obstinate and continue in their factious ways, we enjoin the churches, particularly the elders, to keep a watchful eye on them and turn away from them to protect the churches from their dangerous and damaging works.
May the Lord grant us all to think the same thing (Phil. 2:2) and speak the same thing (1 Cor. 1:10) so that we may carry out the unique work of the New Testament ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12). Praise the Lord! His testimony continues to shine brightly and His work in the Philippines continues to be blessed in the genuine oneness and one accord (John 17:11, 21-23; Eph. 4:3-6; Rom. 15:5-6).
On behalf of the co-workers in Northern Philippines,
