View Full Version : Watchman Nee's Brothers
Apparently Watchman Nee was excommunicated by his own church for irregular business dealings, involving his brother. Recently I learned about another brother of Nee, that left China, and returned. From Angus Kinnear's "Against the Tide".
On February 1 the Shanghai Municipal Government took the unusual step of publishing in its Liberation Daily an official statement of Watchman's arrest on April 10,1952, and stated that he and two others, Chang Tzu-chieh and Ni Hongtsu, were held in the Shanghai First Place of Detention. Chang was a fellow worker from Tsingtao. Hong-tsu was Watchman's third brother, the eighth child in the family, and did not claim to be a practicing Christian. He was known to have been a senior political agent of Chiang Kai-shek and had been enticed back from Hong Kong with the Party's promise that his personal finances in Shanghai were protected and would be restored to him. He was eventually executed as a traitor. Unquestionably, the public association at this moment of the two brothers' names was designed to give credibility to the charge of espionage against Watchman.Watchman Nee's brother was a senior political agent of Chiang Kai-shek, left China for Hong Kong, then returned? Also, it says that WN was silent about the accusations of dissolute morals. Did Lily Hsu (or any others) actually hear him confess? Kinnear says, 'no'. Finally, for the benefit of simple God-fearing believers, Nee was charged with being a "dissolute vagabond of corrupt and indulgent living" who frequented brothel neighborhoods and had always been a shameless and indiscriminate womanizer. He had confessed, it was claimed, to seducing over a hundred women, Chinese and foreign. No evidence for this was produced.The difficulty in taking the Communist charges on face value is their scale and stilted verbiage. But if WN was in fact a businessman who used family ties to get ahead, who did have a sordid history of apparent licentiousness, can it be dismissed out of hand because the Communists trumped up the charges? What if the truth was somewhere in between the Angus Kinnear/Witness Lee version and the PRC version? If so, how are we to know? Certainly Witness Lee wouldn't have wanted us to know WN's brother was into politics, left the country and returned, just like WN did(!). The WL story might start to look suspect.
Apparently Watchman Nee was excommunicated by his own church for irregular business dealings, involving his brother. Recently I learned about another brother of Nee, that left China, and returned. Watchman Nee's brother was a senior political agent of Chiang Kai-shek, left China for Hong Kong, then returned? Also, it says that WN was silent about the accusations of dissolute morals. Did Lily Hsu (or any others) actually hear him confess? Kinnear says, 'no'.
The difficulty in taking the Communist charges on face value is their scale and stilted verbiage. But if WN was in fact a businessman who used family ties to get ahead, who did have a sordid history of apparent licentiousness, can it be dismissed out of hand because the Communists trumped up the charges? What if the truth was somewhere in between the Angus Kinnear/Witness Lee version and the PRC version? If so, how are we to know? Certainly Witness Lee wouldn't have wanted us to know WN's brother was into politics, left the country and returned, just like WN did(!). The WL story might start to look suspect.
We will never know, based on these diverse historical versions that occurred during the PRC control, what was real truth.
Long before (circa. 1942) the Maoist takeover in China, however, the Shanghai Christian Church, the center of WN's work and the largest assembly of the Little Flock, had excommunicated him. These were elders hand-picked by WN working together with him for many years. They would never allow some random dubious or fallacious accusation to cause them to make such a monumental decision.
To accept WL's spin story of "mistaken identity" surrounding WN's excommunication, as we were required to by WL's version of history, is to believe that these elders were nothing more than delusional dunces. I may not believe all of Dr. Lily Hsu's account, but I'm definitely not buying WL's story that WN was "living with another woman," who turned out to be his own mother.
We will never know, based on these diverse historical versions that occurred during the PRC control, what was real truth...I know, but did you ever hear the story about Watchman Nee's brother Hongtsu Nee? I feel like I'm watching an episode of The Twilight Zone. Or maybe Saturday Night Live...come to think of it, maybe I was in an episode...
I know, but did you ever hear the story about Watchman Nee's brother Hongtsu Nee? I feel like I'm watching an episode of The Twilight Zone. Or maybe Saturday Night Live...come to think of it, maybe I was in an episode...
No, I don't think so. That's new information. I was told that WN's business with his brother was after his excommunication in 1942, and was totally legit.
Twilight Zone. Yes.
Here's what we know:
1. Watchman Nee was removed from church leadership after business dealings with his brother (also [separately?] removed from church leadership for licentiousness and amorality).
2. After amorality episode, WN was restored to leadership position by Witness Lee, utilizing co-worker Ruth Lee as his foil (according to WL, he and RL sat before Shanghai elders in the restoration session).
3. After resuming leadership in the church, WN initiated a "handing over" of goods and properties in 1948, citing precedent in book of Acts.
4. However, WN didn't closely follow the NT precedent. Peter had said, "Silver and gold I have none", but WN was a large landowner, and his inner ring laundered assets using 63 (!!) fellow church members, to avoid being detained as upper-class "bourgeois/imperialist counter-revolutionary" (this attempt to hide his wealth failed).
5. WN had a non-Christian brother Hongtsu that went to Hong Kong, returned to China and was arrested and executed for being an upper-tier operative in Chiang Kai-Shek government.
6. WN also went to Hong Kong, returned to China and was arrested, tried for various crimes including licentiousness and complicity w Chiang's Kuo Min Tang government, and sentenced to 15 years.
Unknowns: 1) was unbelieving brother Hongtsu also in the pharmaceutical business with WN; 2) was this family business parallelled by WL and Daystar, where "unspiritual" family members got tied into for-profit businesses with "apostle" using church members' money, which then got "apostle" into hot water with church leadership; 3) was WN also complicit in Kuo Min Tang, as his trip to Hong Kong and return to China mirrored his brother's movements? Or was all of this merely coincidence and misunderstanding, as we were repeatedly told?
At some point, many different items and related issues start to line up, one after another. Maybe investigative reporter Jennifer Lin could write a sequel to her "Shanghai Faithful".
Attempting to address point #1 below, this information lacks any mention of Nee family members' involvement in business, and the subsequent removal from church affairs. But it does tie in the Kuo Min Tang.Nee gathered significant amounts of funds to support church planting (works) outside Shanghai and to provide training for the full-time workers, after he established himself at Shanghai in 1927. When the funds were insufficient to support full-time workers, Nee worked as the manager then the chairman of the board of the Biology and Chemistry Laboratory (生化製藥廠) and generated income to support the Little Flock Movement. The size of the business was very big, as one transection in 1945 would involve more than 10 million Chinese yuan. The Biology and Chemistry Laboratory gained huge profits, and Nee was given the title of “General of Medical Affairs” (軍醫少將) for his cooperation with the Chinese Nationalist Party (國民黨，Kuo-Min-Tang) government.
From
Tien, H. E. (2020). Spirituality and Authority of the Corporate Christ: An analysis and critique of Watchman Nee’s ecclesiology (Doctoral dissertation).
Chan, Stephen Chung-Tao. My Uncle, Watchman Nee. Revised and Expanded ed. Hong Kong: Golden Lampstand Publishing Society Ltd., 1999.
Unknowns: 1) was unbelieving brother Hongtsu also in the pharmaceutical business with WN;
Kinnear's book addresses this, somewhat: Ni Huai-tsu or George Nee, research chemist, and then, Ni Hong-tsu or Paul Nee. So George the chemist was different from Paul the Kuo Min Tang returnee from Hong Kong. (But there may have been several Nee brothers working together in the company, we don't know at present)
Here's a perspective from a co-worker in the Little Flock: 1948 - After the war there was a special first time conference for Watchman Nee’s groups, co-workers and elders in China. At that time I was the leader responsible for the Christian Student Fellowship of our school, and as a result I was invited to attend that conference. The oldest sister who was a co-worker, Lee Yuan-Ru (??? four years older than Watchman Nee), asked brother Nee: “Why did you work in the pharmaceutical industry thus causing offence to a lot of good believers?”
Brother Nee wept and said to those elders who were businessmen: “You forced me to do that!” (in Chinese dialect ????????) because the businessmen had not given financial support. As a result, brother Nee had felt that he had no choice but to support the work himself. Then sister Wang Pei-Zhen (???) cried aloud and the whole assembly cried. I also cried, but I didn’t know why. After that, almost all the workers and elders (including myself) surrendered all things and dedicated ourselves again to the Lord. The Lord also reminded me of my promise and indicated to me that from now on I really would be a preacher.
This conference led a spiritual revival in the whole of China! Every Wednesday evening I would often go to sister Wang’s apartment for supper and we would talk about the student’s work. I asked her about brother Nee and the pharmaceutical business. She said in part: “Because brother Nee preached the gospel of Christ to them, a few medical students dedicated themselves to ministry. They were sent to inland China to preach the gospel. Brother Nee had no financial foundation to support them, so they were all poor. One of them got Tuberculosis and died. Brother Nee never asked for any donations for them and now his heart is broken (i.e. "I encouraged them to come out of the world; I sent them to die, I cannot support them"), and decided to work in a business to support those young people." When I heard this, I cried again!
No mention of any Nee brothers here. From this obviously biased perspective, it looks like the "poverty" of Nee was defensible, but still, WN held things personally, which was a great stumbling to many. Church property was "his [family] business" (as WL famously said to Sal Benoit), and his property was church property. But even if done completely scrupulously, how does this look? Imagine if, in the first few chapters of Acts, the saints began selling their possessions and laying the proceeds at Peter's feet, but Peter then used the money to run a family business? It would look bad! Was WN really so myopic, so naiive?
For that matter his traveling around, a married man at that, with a Miss Fischbacher, how does this look? Where's his wife? Is he this innocent waif, so obtusely 'spiritual', that he doesn't realize how bad this looks? Look how many times, even in LSM literature, he's seen arranging his traveling schedule to coordinate with Miss Fischbacher, who is not his wife! How does this look? Terrible!
http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/lc_hsu.html
p.s. If you've never read any account of Lee's separation from TAS over the "ground of unity", Hsu is an eye-witness and includes it here as well.
WN held things personally, which was a great stumbling to many. Church property was "his [family] business" (as WL famously said to Sal Benoit), and his property was church property.
More on how his business practices stumbled the saints.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/nee
After Pearl Harbor, while living under the Japanese, he organized a pharmaceutical company for the sake of raising money for the work of the ministry. This business venture caused him much suffering because his fellow workers misunderstood his intentions; this resulted in Nee's withdrawal from active ministry for several years. Later it provided an excuse for his arrest by the Communists.Notice how, CCEL says that this caused "him" much suffering. How much suffering did he cause others? If WN really wanted to help others, why didn't he just fellowship and go with the "flow"? He went it alone, caused others to misunderstand, and then they booted him from ministry - how did this "further the gospel"?
My point is, look at the effect, not the stated intentions. With WL, the initiation of the Daystar Motor Home company was to "further the gospel" but it also promised investors a 30% return, and it ended up discouraging many. "After Daystar, the church life was never the same". That was the effect. Timothy Lee got his cut, and the investors took a bath, and the church life was never the same. Same with China Pharmaceuticals.
Another perspective
Stephen C.T. Chan, My Uncle, Watchman Nee. Chinese edition. (HongKong: Golden Lampstand Publishing Society Ltd., 1999), p.83
Many spiritual leaders have failed and were weak. However, the Bible was always truthful without covering over the failures of these people whom God used. The failures of Abraham, Moses and Gideon were recorded in the Bible. God did not put these events for us to see how great and successful and worthy of our worship these people were, but to allow us to see His marvelous works manifested through a bunch of useless vessels to accomplish His good will. Likewise, my uncle had failures. Yet those things will not deny the truth of how God has used him mightily. He is among the lowly, he is incomplete, yet he was truly used by God mightily and he was a vessel filled with precious treasure. This is from Nee's nephew, who doesn't specify what the failure, or weakness, is. I suspect it's on his shifting stand on church unity, given that his nephew is a minister in another church group. The truth is somewhere in between Witness Lee, who said that Nee was merely "misunderstood", and the PRC government, whose accusation covered some 2,000 pages and basically said that WN didn't do anything right.
The important thing is to identify the error, and thereby not to repeat it. If we don't learn, we suffered for nothing. In the case of the pharmaceuticals, and the "handing over", Nee deviated from the NT pattern of trusting God. Witness Lee did the same thing with Daystar. There was a work, supposedly to benefit the gospel, but it stumbled and discouraged many. "You have lost your virginity", said Lee, post-Daystar. Some gospel. I fail to see how Nee's Pharmaceutical efforts, as promising as they once seemed, were any different. The reader may say, "How can you sit here in the comfort of your home and criticise God's servant?" My answer is this: the NT is the pattern. WN cited it as the pattern, but he deviated.
We will never know, based on these diverse historical versions that occurred during the PRC control, what was real truth.
Long before (circa. 1942) the Maoist takeover in China, however, the Shanghai Christian Church, the center of WN's work and the largest assembly of the Little Flock, had excommunicated him. These were elders hand-picked by WN working together with him for many years. They would never allow some random dubious or fallacious accusation to cause them to make such a monumental decision.
To accept WL's spin story of "mistaken identity" surrounding WN's excommunication, as we were required to by WL's version of history, is to believe that these elders were nothing more than delusional dunces. I may not believe all of Dr. Lily Hsu's account, but I'm definitely not buying WL's story that WN was "living with another woman," who turned out to be his own mother.
I've heard a few different iterations of this. The most common one I've heard is that WN was meeting with M.E. Barber at her private residence, for spiritual fellowship, which he allegedly commonly did. Can't recall who all started saying this, but it was generally a story accepted in the local churches in order to clear up Nee's image. I think also I recall reading Lee's story or account of how all of it happened and he apparently claims that the brothers who excommunicated him did so out of jealously and or ambition for position. And he paints the picture that they were fully wrong and their accusations were false, etc. He also painted the picture that Nee not defending himself was some kind of high honor gesture of like martyrdom or taking the cross or whatever. And then he paints the picture that when they came to ask Nee to return to lead them again, that Nee had them stand in the other room in some grand gesture of reverence to him for the great error or their rebellion against his leadership or whatever. Reading that as a young impressionable man maybe 18 years ago when I first read it, it seemed like something out of a movie. But I wonder what really happened
Looking at it from a different angle, let's say a 'church kid angle.' If young church kids are reading that story they could easily overlook the pride that's involved in that kind of "cinematic" gesture and scene. Like "Oh Nee was so pious and holy that he didn't even defend himself, and then when he was asked to return he was so solemn at their supposed wickedness that he had them stand in the other room in his house and apologize to him in sackcloth and ashes." Very grandiose stuff. Like out of a movie script or a an old play. Not saying it couldn't have happened that way, but just imagine how prideful and puffed up of a picture that is portraying to young people. They probably want to grow up to be elders and church leaders so they can be "pious" and "holy" like Nee. So they can exhibit their little faux holiness and "spiritual authority," which is really just latent pride and self glorification. However if we look at the New Testament humbleness it's not really like that. Was that turning the other cheek and loving his enemies? So even the story that Lee presents is not without pride and its cinematic qualities
If it really happened that way Nee should have just forgiven them in private and not made a grand gesture about any of it. We should have never even heard about that story. So much of their stories with regards to the "rebellions" and "storms" are really just self aggrandizing, which is funny because they do that right alongside their attempts to quell and cover up the truth. Which were very effective btw. I had no clue or idea that the "storms" were actually caused by Lee's fraudulent business tactics and his nepotism for his sons. Which is why they tell you "don't listen to the dissenters." Insane
But none of it is really Christlike. It doesn't fit to the mold that Jesus had in his ministry when he was being attacked falsely. To me it just has a lot of hidden pride in it. When you look at it from a different angle you realize a lot of it is just not only attempting to exonerate him, but it's also attempting to paint him as this great leader. Which seems to be going on a lot with the high up brothers in the LC. They really love to turn the so called ministers of the age into celebrities while simultaneously acting like there's no special class of believers. Very duplicitous, and I must say very subtle but effective story telling
But none of it is really Christlike. It doesn't fit to the mold that Jesus had in his ministry when he was being attacked falsely. To me it just has a lot of hidden pride in it. When you look at it from a different angle you realize a lot of it is just not only attempting to exonerate him, but it's also attempting to paint him as this great leader. Which seems to be going on a lot with the high up brothers in the LC. They really love to turn the so called ministers of the age into celebrities while simultaneously acting like there's no special class of believers. Very duplicitous, and I must say very subtle but effective story tellingThere are a number of things that don't ring true. Some of them, once you look at them, don't look subtle at all, but brazen.Ohio has touched on some of them. Would Nee's own hand-picked elders turn on him because he was visiting M. E. Barber, or living with his mother? It's simply too fantastic.
And one of Nee's (apparently non-Christian) brothers was high up in the Kuomintang, and subsequently executed by CCP. Nee himself seemed to be well-connected politically, in Pharmaceutical business, and his other brother was involved in the business. Nee eventually got excommunicated for that. What does that tell you? Again, either his hand-picked elders were dunces for not seeing Nee the Impeccable Spiritual Man, or they knew something. Later. Nee and his brothers were going back and forth between the mainland and Hong Kong, possibly getting money out. This was after the "handing over" so they had a lot. Of course, they said it all went for the gospel support but who knows.
Then, Nee was traveling (!!) with women as his close companions. Apparently his wife stayed home, and he was on the road with women(!!). Does not look good, I'm sorry, even if it was all on the up-and-up. Google his writings some time - littered with phrases like "I was waiting for Miss Fischbacher at the train" and so forth. In light of the many accusations from many quarters, this looks bad. Was he really so "spiritual" that he didn't know what it looked like? Who is the dunce, here?
Lee kept himself from such accusations, mainly by ruthlessly crushing women from ministry, but unfortunately his ne'er-do-well progeny did not behave themselves. In this WL looks as bad as WN, or worse, in that he knew, covered up, and let it continue. Just like the RCC the Great Harlot.
Back to Nee & Lee families with church money. Suppose Peter got the proceeds of the property sales in Acts 4 & 5, started a for-profit business involving family (brothers, children), what would that look like? What would happen to the gospel? No matter that in Lee's case the money disappeared, or in Nee's case he was excommunicated. Just the fact that they were "apostles" skimming the till for family business looks really bad.
There are a number of things that don't ring true. Ohio has touched on some of them. Would Nee's own hand-picked elders turn on him because he was visiting M. E. Barber? It's simply too fantastic.
Second, that one of Nee's (apparently non-Christian) brothers was high up in the Kuomintang, and subsequently executed by CCP. Nee was in Pharmaceutical business using church money, and his brother was involved in the business. Nee got excommunicated for that. What does that tell you? Again, either his hand-picked elders were dunces for not seeing Nee the Spiritual Man, or they knew something. Later. Nee and his brothers were going back and forth between the mainland and Hong Kong. I suspect they were shuttling money out, but have not seen any documentation - there is little at all on his various trips out. But it followed the "handing over" period...).
Third, Nee was traveling (!!) with women as his close companions. Apparently his wife stayed home, and he was on the road with women. Does not look good, I'm sorry, even if it was all on the up-and-up. Google his writings some time - littered with phrases like "I was waiting for Miss Fischbacher at the train" and so forth. In light of the many accusations from many quarters, this looks bad. Was he so "spiritual" that he didn't know what it looked like? Who is the dunce, here?
Lee kept himself from such accusations, but unfortunately his ne'er-do-well progeny did not. In this he looks as bad as WN, or worse, in that he knew, covered up, and let it continue. Just like the RCC the Great Harlot.
Back to Nee & Lee & family with church money. Suppose Peter got the proceeds of the property sales and "handing over" in Acts 4, started a business involving family, the money disappeared, what would that look like? What would happen to the gospel? Same thing that happened with Nee and Pharma, and Lee with Daystar. It deflated everything.
Yeah I mean it's possible that Nee was just kind of innocently ignorant in traveling with a female that wasn't his wife. I think it's possible that back then this kind of thing happened with preachers, maybe. It might seem more normal today even, or rather I'm sure that very few people outside of the LC care about that kind of thing because the morals of the world are so lax as opposed to how hypersensitive they seemed a century ago with how paranoid high society was of "scandals." But who knows how and what went down and why. Which is why I'm less inclined to believe second hand accounts of Nee's scandals as opposed to Lee's. Because Lee's caused gigantic turmoil across the nation and it lead up to the letter that Ingalls wrote (and many elders across the nation publicly quit their posts, which is totally understandable in that type of highly immoral environment and nepotism), which kind of put the truth in it and shined light on it all from a different perspective than what we were all told by the blended brothers- which was a whole lot of nothing, and a whole lot of warnings and admonishments to not listen to the rebels and the dissenters. Which now just looks like an obvious attempt to shut out the truth. Which seems either very culty or very sectarian. Or worse just very sly, very untruthful, very not transparent, and very illegal, and yes it reminds me of the Catholic church
But as far as Nee goes it's more murky because I have a harder time believing some random person's writings. For all we know she could have been forced by the Chinese government to put out those testimonies. I just don't know what to trust. But as I said in my last post on this thread, I remember Lee's account of it and from that angle there is definitely a lot of self aggrandizement and uplifting of Nee by Lee
But as far as Nee goes it's more murky because I have a harder time believing some random person's writings. For all we know she could have been forced by the Chinese government to put out those testimonies. I just don't know what to trust. But as I said in my last post on this thread, I remember Lee's account of it and from that angle there is definitely a lot of self aggrandizement and uplifting of Nee by Lee
Suppose a para-church leader gets put out by his own hand-picked regional and local church elders for sexual immorality. This leader has his own full-time training, where "co-workers" and "elders" are all immersed in Biblical teaching and practice 24/7.
Do you think those sub-leaders would be so ignorant of the Bible that they would oust their "Apostle" on unsubstantiated hearsay? The NT clearly says that accusations against leading ones should have multiple witnesses, just to spare the flock this sort of turmoil. Do you think they violated 1 Timothy 5:19 so egregiously, after spending years, even decades, immersed in NT minutae? If they did, then WN did a bad job of picking and training his lieutenants.
No, the story only holds with the WL spin - that WN was a Spiritual Giant, and everyone else was an idiot. (But even that clangs terribly askew - what does Genesis say about giants?)
But as far as Nee goes it's more murky because I have a harder time believing some random person's writings. For all we know she could have been forced by the Chinese government to put out those testimonies. I just don't know what to trust.I agree with this, the communist government is just as untrustworthy, and secretive, and duplicitous, as Lee's house organ the LSM. We have the CCP vs the DCP, don't take either one at face value. If I remember right, though, Lily Hsu heard Nee confess. Can someone corroborate this? I think the standard in China was to confess to avoid harsher punishment. Nobody pled innocent, faught in court, got exonerated. WL used to tell us that the Japanese would kill a person just like killing a chicken. He failed to mention that the Chinese would do the same.
If Nee did confess, and got hard labor instead of death, what does that make him? Either he was innocent and confessed, and lied, knowing that it would shipwreck the faith of the flock (and it did to many), or he told the truth, that he produced pornography. Either way, he doesn't come off well. But I haven't read the Hsu account for some years and can't remember the details, if he actually publicly confessed or just sat there. I'm pretty sure that he had to enter a plea, and did. Does anyone have that detail?
If Nee did confess, and got hard labor instead of death, what does that make him? Either he was innocent and confessed, and lied, knowing that it would shipwreck the faith of the flock (and it did to many), or he told the truth, that he produced pornography. Either way, he doesn't come off well. But I haven't read the Hsu account for some years and can't remember the details, if he actually publicly confessed or just sat there. I'm pretty sure that he had to enter a plea, and did. Does anyone have that detail?
We can't say for sure that Nee "knew it would shipwreck the faith of the flock" by confessing. And it's unfair to imply that he should have just been a martyr in that situation. He had children, a family, and it's possible that he felt he could have been released at a later date and to whatever extent continue to run the race as a free man. We don't know what went through his heart and his spirit at that time. It's possible if he did indeed confess, it was because he felt that it was better to be alive for whatever reason, than to die. After all he did live for twenty years in imprisonment. I've heard accounts of him bringing some of the prison guards to salvation, but no way to verify those accounts. At any rate twenty years is not a short time in regards to the human lifespan
We also don't know that they didn't want to kill him, but rather they wanted him alive. We don't know that they didn't force a confession out of him at threat of harming or imprisoning his family either. And we don't know that he wasn't tortured into a confession. Too much unknowns and too many variables to make any type of solid case either way
There are a number of things that don't ring true. Some of them, once you look at them, don't look subtle at all, but brazen. Ohio has touched on some of them. Would Nee's own hand-picked elders turn on him because he was visiting M. E. Barber, or living with his mother? It's simply too fantastic.
Barber was an elderly sister who died in 1930. Née was excommunicated in 1942. Was there even a Shanghai church in those days?
Barber was an elderly sister who died in 1930. Née was excommunicated in 1942. Was there even a Shanghai church in those days?
Well that doesn't add up then. Possibly the error is mine here
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