User:Khalfani khaldun/sandbox

Controversy

Naming Issues

Despite the general rejection of the name "The Local Church", on May 23, 2001, the Church in Houston began attempts to seek WIPO mediation in order to acquire the domain thelocalchurch.org from Jim Moran of Light of Truth Ministries, a ministry critical of Witness Lee and the Local Churches. Their argument was based on trademark rights attributed to them by others' referral to the Church in Houston as the "local church".

The WIPO mediation panel found that the Church in Houston's claim to the domain name was not valid due to several factors, including that many more local churches besides the Church in Houston could claim usage of the service mark The Local Church, and thus rejected their claim to the domain name.

Daystar

In the early days of the Local Churches, a need to generate money to support full-time workers led some in the leadership to seek out money-generating businesses to invest in. A struggling RV company (Daystar) was purchased. To acquire and run the business, members of the Local Churches were invited to invest in the business venture as the Lord led them but were not required to do so. Witness Lee was the chairman of the board of the company. Shortly after the business was started, the oil crisis of the 1970s sent gas prices soaring and the market for gas fell drastically. Only 16 RVs were built and sold around $70,000 each before 1975. Later the Daystar factory located in Kaohsiung Taiwan was converted into a chairs manufacturing plant. Several churches then purchased their meeting chairs in the meeting halls from Daystar. Eventually, Daystar did close their business. Some of the members who could afford to, decided to consider their business investment a donation while others who chose to, were fully paid back. The remaining Daystar debts were paid by Witness Lee so they could recover their investment. Witness Lee reportedly expressed regret for the mistake. In 1988 an anonymous pamphlet written by an "ex-member" who to this day refuses to identify himself entitled Reconsideration of the Vision brought forth unsubstantiated allegations related to Daystar including coercion and the spiritual intimidation of some members who invested as well as the misappropriation of money that include members of Witness Lee's family.