Key Dogmas and Rituals

See also Liite and Traditional Buddhist Terms.

▪ Anti-salvation - Li taught that man's soul must be utterly destroyed. Since the soul is totally evil, it cannot be saved. Instead, Li taught that the soul must be replaced by an alien spirit through a process called "mingling" and to effect what Li called "salvation," ie, anti-salvation. Salvation was the beginning of the process.

▪ Anti-redemption - Nothing of man's soul can be retained; however, its destruction does produce a harvest. The alien spirit that replaces the soul grows inside the hulking space left behind in the destruction. Eventually this spirit is reabsorbed into its greater self in what Li called "redemption;" that is, anti-redemption. Redemption was the end of the process.

▪ Soul-murder - The process of destroying a man's soul and replacing it over time with an alien spirit takes place by mixing the two natures together. The proportions of the alien spirit that Li called "God" is increased while the man's soul is decreased. Ultimately so much of the alien spirit has been added that nothing is left of the man. The man is destroyed. That man becomes the alien spirit, which Li names "God." Li called this process "mingling."

▪ Luciferianism - Li taught that the "heart of the Gospel" is: "God became man that man could become God." Li does not mean this as a metaphor, that a believer can become like God; he means that he and his followers actually become God. This is the same as the original sin that Lucifer performed before he was cast out of Heaven. That a created being should desire to become God is Luciferian.

▪ Nirvana - Although apotheosis (Luciferianism) is promoted as a selling-point for Liite doctrine, in actual fact it is a part of a broader doctrine of mingling (see Soul-murder) in which is the soul is annihilated and reabsorbed into the all that is God. This is clearly the extinction of Buddhist nirvana.

▪ Bibliolatry - Li taught that "God-inspired" meant "God's essence" and thus the very words of the Bible were God himself and worthy of worship. Since the words themselves were holy, only the version of the Bible that Li approved and profited from could be worshipped as God. Furthermore, any of Li's published messages and notes to that version of the Bible were required to be worshipped as God. Worship of the words takes place in a ritual Li called "Pray-reading." See Praying meaningless words in repetition below.

▪ God's head - Li never acquired more than a limited grasp of English. During one of his three-hour long sermons it became clear that he thought that the word "Godhead" (properly meaning Godness or divinity) meant God's head. The audience immediately erupted into laughter, thinking that this was an honest mistake of a simple Chinese man — and endearing. Li, however thought his audience was mocking him. So he created a new etymology of the word to show, as he said, that he "knew English better than you Americans." This was fitted into Li's dogmatic scheme to explain how man became God but not part of the Christians' Trinity: man became God, but not the Godhead; man became the body of Christ but not God's head.

▪ Emptying the mind - Li taught that the process of mingling can only take place if the mind is emptied. Orthodoxy knows this as a very dangerous practice during which the mind enters the spiritual realms and is thus vulnerable to spiritual attack far worse than flirting with Ouija Boards. Hesychasts teach analogous Christian practice only with extreme caution. Even saints could be subjected to attack when in meditative visionary states. Li, however, directed his followers to empty their minds through two methods. This had the added convenience that a minded thus emptied could not be critical of nonsense and craven requests for money.

1. Mocking the name of the Lord - Li taught that salvation was a once and for all event that occurred only when a person shouted at the top of his lungs "O LORD JESUS!" ten times in public. This desensitizes the person to the Lord's name ands trivializes salvation to a meaningless technique. When a person accustomed to shouting these words in Local Church meetings hears the Lord's name invoked with sincerity, it means nothing to him. Li called this ritual "Calling upon the name of the Lord."
2. Praying meaningless words in repetition - Li taught that in addition to screaming the Lord's name, his followers must pick random words from the Bible, forget what they mean, and repeat them at least ten times prayerfully. Grammatical words such as "the", "a", "many", etc were particularly to be stressed. Li justified this by saying that all scripture was "God-breathed" and thus literally the substance of God. The follower who did was said "to eat the God" and thus continued the process of Mingling. Li called this ritual "Pray-reading the Word" and "eating the Lord."

▪ Chaos - Li taught that his followers should lead a "spiritual life" that was spontaneous and free. Each long Local Church meeting is a psychological (not literal) orgy of screaming, emotional outbursts, gasps, public confessions of personal weakness, recitation of official slogans, punching the air, and jumping up and down. This is chaos. To be sure, none of this is spontaneous; each meeting is a rehearsal of the next and only the correct words, phrases and ways of punching and jumping are allowed. This is strictly enforced. Followers will be shouted down or shouted to sit down and shut up if they do not perform the chaos correctly. Slow learners are shunned socially and humiliated until they get it right. In addition to the chaos of the meetings, followers' personal lives are likewise often in chaos: latent neuroses and fears come to dominate their lives and their finances often skyrocket out of control.

▪ Christians face a fate worse than hell - Li taught that a Christian was someone who had begun the process of ingesting God. Once a piece of God was "imparted" into the man, God could never destroy the man as easily as he could a non-Christian. The Christian who did not accept Li's doctrine of Mingling would never become God. The alien spirit Li called "God" could not reunite from the man to himself if there were still parts of the man in the man. The solution was that all Christians would be cast into outer darkness, where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" until they accepted Li's doctrines. If after a thousand years of eternity they still refused, they were then sent to Hell where their souls would be destoyed as Li's God intended. Thus the fate of Christian is worse that of a non-Christian: he is rewarded with outer darkness and Hell too.

▪ Christianity, the synagogue of Satan - Li taught that those who had not heard his doctrines are neutral but that Christians are the Devil's own. He also called Christianity "Babylon the Great."

▪ Amorality - Li did not teach morality or ethics. Instead he said that preaching morality was the purview of "shallow Christianity." Members of his Local Church had not need of such talk, he said, since they were already the most moral persons on earth by nature of becoming God.

▪ Unitarianism - Li claimed he was "trinitarian" but taught otherwise. To him, the persons of the Holy Trinity simply represented stages in the process he called "Mingling." God the Son was just God being born. The Holy Spirit was just the fluid whereby the mortal man Jesus became God the Father. God the Father was end the result of the process.

▪ God's economy - see Soul-murder.