The Living Word Fellowship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since January 2007.

The Living Word Fellowship is a religious group with various churches in The United States, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico. This organization is also known as The Church of the Living Word, and is sometimes referred to as "The Walk." The group was founded by John Robert Stevens. The organization runs a large facility in Iowa called Shiloh.

1 Theology
2 Worship
3 Theological Criticism
4 External links

[edit] Theology

Members of the Living Word Fellowship believe in the standard Protestant Fundamentalist message of salvation through Jesus Christ and the ultimate authority of the Bible. In addition to these beliefs the church also holds as dogma that the word of God is living and spoken today through current apostles. The apostles teachings should always be based on the Bible, but members should listen to the current apostles giving them the same weight as apostles such as Paul if their message supports Biblical principles.

Based upon the New Testament structure of the church, they believe in a five fold "divine order" hierarchy of ministry consisting of apostles, prophets, teachers, elders, and evangelists. A strong emphasis is placed upon building the Kingdom of God upon the Earth by having a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ. This personal relationship also consists of relating to and submitting to other Christians since each born-again Christian is a fleshy manifestation of Christ.

By developing a relationship with Christ members of the Living Word Fellowship believe that the Christian becomes more like Christ as they progress in their faith. Mankind has a trifold nature of spirit, soul, and body. The initial salvation experience saves the spirit, subsequent developments in their walk with Christ are aimed toward saving their soul from its sinful fallen nature. Ultimately, if their souls become like Christ then their bodies will be saved form the sickness and death that began when Adam fell from grace. A common example cited of a successful transformation is the Biblical prophet Elijah.

[edit] Worship

In The Living Word Fellowship, worship is considered crucial to developing this relationship with Christ. The view of worship has been restored in the 1940's in the so called latter rain, and has now been widely accepted among pentacostals. So first of all they speak in tongues and prophecy just like Pentecostals but have added things like: laying on of hands, raising hands, dancing in the spirit. These things have, in later years, been widely accepted by almost all pentecostals and by all charismatics.

Members can come forward during certain periods of worship to prophecy and speak of revelations from the Lord. The other members of the congregation often vocalize agreement and support, extending their hands to bless the speaker. Prophecy is considered powerful, having the potential to change the spiritual and physical world. Christians are seen as being in eternal warfare with the world, often called fallen Babylon. Militant language is used in prophecies to fight the spiritual warfare, but members have not been accused of militant physical behavior against other people or institutions.

[edit] Theological Criticism

While The Living Word Fellowship calls itself "A group of nondenominational churches," many believe ^{[attribution needed]} that the group is a cult. Due to the pejorative nature of the term cult, many prefer to use the term New Religious Movement. This group has been criticized for the following reasons:

Rhema, or "Living Word" is central to the theology of the church, and therefore the beliefs of the church are extensive and loosely defined. Since leaders can dictate church doctrine on audio tapes, which members are expected to subscribe to, beliefs can change drastically over time. Beliefs are supposed to always be based on the Bible to grant authority, but criticism has arisen over the interpretation of the apostles being given far more weight than the Scriptures themselves.
It is believed that each member of the church is a son of God, and therefore has "Christ within them." If members have a deep and sufficient relationship with God it is believed that they can eventually overcome the physical bonds of death. This belief is based on the trifold nature of mankind as being the body, soul, and spirit. Death and sickness are believed to be a result of sin entering the world, causing a fallen state of mankind, and like Elijah in the Bible people can overcome the sin of the flesh to receive a resurrection body. They believe that instead of the Rapture, the Kingdom of Heaven will be established on the Earth when enough Christians crucify their sinful nature to walk in the truth and manifest Jesus, thus never dying. The death of their founder is explained by his unhealthy choices of eating, leading the church to advocate the McDougal diet at one point. Today they advocate healthy and organic foods so unwise choices in diet do not limit the eventual manifestation of Christ in flesh.
The group believes that each member should be in submission to another member of the church in what is called an "Elijah-Elisha" (referring to the biblical story) relationship. Members are encouraged to consult their "Elijah/Relationship" (the term used for the person who they are submitting to) for guidance on all aspects of their life, including finances, romantic relationships, where to live, where to work, what to eat, and how to spend time. Advice from "relationships" is treated as the "word of God." If the member disagrees, church doctrine encourages them to "seek higher confirmation" by bringing the matter up with higher authorities. Each Elijah is also supposed to submit to their own Elijah in a chain of submission leading to and including the apostles. Elijahs are appointed by church leaders and the Elisha can not voluntarily change their Elijah unless the church leaders agree with their complaints.