Did Watchman Nee Commit Plagiarism? [Archive]

Unregistered

01-11-2022, 08:32 AM

Few years ago I came across Harry Ironside notes on the New Testament, which really helped me to understand that all the truths I enjoyed in the LR have actually been taken from the "degraded Christianity."

While reading H. Ironside I bumped into the paragraph about the drowning man, which reminded me Wachman Nee's famous example in his book. Two paragraphs are below: 1st from H. Ironside, another from Watchman Nee. Please note H. Ironside have written it earlier than Watchman Nee - in 1942.
Sorry for the lengthy paragraphs, I think the context is important too.

H Ironside excerpt from Notes of the Gospel of John:
"See what it says in verse 6: “When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?” Jesus “knew that he had been now a long time in that case.” Yes, eight years longer than Christ Himself had been on earth that man had been in this illness. Why did He wait so long? That the man might come to the end of himself. You and I would not have come to Christ if we had not been brought to see our insufficiency. You have heard of the poor man who fell into the water. Unable to swim, he went down once and came up again, and went down again. A strong swimmer stood on the pier, looking on, and the people cried, “Why don’t you leap in and save that man?” He said nothing, but let the man go down again, and then he threw off his coat and plunged in and brought him safely to shore. They said, “Why did you wait so long before you went in to save him?” He answered, “He was too strong before. I had to wait until his strength was gone. I had to wait until he could do nothing himself, until he was helpless.”

I think Jesus was waiting for that. When the man was brought to the pool first he had high hopes. “It won’t be long until I can get in,” he thinks, and then someone else got in before him. Over and over again he had gone through this disappointing experience, and now he is ready to give up in despair. It is the despairing soul that Jesus loves to meet in grace. He saves the one who admits, “I cannot do anything to deliver myself.”

See how the Lord dealt with this man. “When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he said unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?” A very simple question. He puts it to everyone. Is my reader unsaved? The blessed Lord is saying, “Would you be made whole?” Do you want to find God’s salvation? “Wilt thou be made whole?” Do you want to know the delivering grace of God? What is your answer? Do you want to be made whole?

And now the excerpt from Watchman Nee:
"One summer I was preaching the gospel in the villages with over twenty brothers. The weather was hot, and we could not take our bath indoors. Therefore, we all went to the river to take our bath. While a few brothers were swimming, one brother had a cramp and began to drown. He kicked his limbs frantically and shouted for help. One of the brothers among us was Wei-san Wang, who was very good at swimming. He had served in the navy. I urged him to quickly jump into the water to save the drowning brother. Yet he stood in the same place and would not move. I was quite desperate and somewhat angry at him for loving his own life so much. When the drowning brother was nearly exhausted and sinking, Brother Wang jumped into the water and swam toward him. With one arm around the drowning one's waist and swimming with the other arm, Brother Wang brought him safely to shore. Later I asked Brother Wang, "Why did you not save him earlier? You could have saved him some suffering, and he would not have taken in so much water." He said, "If I had tried to save him earlier, he would have been struggling for his life and would have grabbed on to anything he could have gotten hold of, and both of us would have drowned. There is a secret to saving a drowning man: Do not save anyone who is living and do not save anyone who is dead; only save those who are half dead. Do not save the dead because it is hopeless to save them. Do not save the living, because they are still kicking with their strength. When you approach them, they will hold on to you and neither they nor you will be able to swim, and both will drown. This is why you should save only those who are half dead, those whom you can grab hold of, but who cannot grab hold of you. In this way, you will be safe, and they will be saved."

We are like the man who was drowning. God will only save us after we have exhausted all of our strength. But the problem is that men often try to make it when they know very well that they cannot make it. We pray, make resolutions, and struggle. This makes it impossible for God to save us. We must be like the drowning man who had exhausted all of his strength in struggling and striving; then God will save us. If we are still kicking with our arms and legs and still making up our minds and struggling, we are still trying to make it and are not yet depleted of our strength. God will wait and not do anything. He will wait until we give up trying to save ourselves, and then He will step forward to save us. Therefore, we must not only be clear that we cannot make it, but must also give up trying to make it. Satan loves to see us stepping forward to fight with him. Once we step forward, he wins the victory. His trick is to induce us to move. As soon as we move, he wins. God has to wait until we drop both of our hands and have completely surrendered. Only then will we overcome. This is the meaning of letting go. Letting go is dropping all of our ability and setting aside our own life completely. By acknowledging that we cannot make it and by saying that we have no intention to try to make it, we will overcome."
***ADMIN NOTE: The above quote appears to have come from The Collected Works of Watchman Nee Set 2 Middle Period (1934-1942) LSM 1993

The brother from Watchman Nee's story is from navy so quite possibly he learned this while serving there. But still I find the similarities quite striking.
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HERn

01-11-2022, 09:11 AM

Well, preachers have been known to appropriate others’ stories and examples without attribution; so probably no foul in this example. I didn’t see any word-for-word lifting from Ironside into Nee’s paragraph. And it may not be fair to expect authors to cite and acknowledge every minor idea or example they borrow from other authors.

But the claim that Nee lifted most of his material for “The Spiritual Man” from a scholarly sister’s book is probably not ethical behavior on Nee’s part and should be judged so that other leaders learn not to sin in the same way.

Anybody who thinks that one cannot make statements like the above about a spiritual leader plays into the hand of the devil that seeks to lift up and magnify man. The end result of continuous exhalation of man led to a system of error known as The Lord’s Recovery, I think.

gr8ful

01-11-2022, 11:55 AM

Watchman Nee was not an academic scholar or a journalist. He was a Christian worker who used publications to get his message out. The standard of plagiarism doesn't apply as strictly to such uses, one could argue -- there is a lot of "borrowing" among Christian teachers.

Some of us helped LSM with the Collected Works of Watchman Nee back in the early 1990s. One way we helped was comparing Watchman Nee's translations of English works into Chinese, which were then translated back to English (why not just include the original English work? Well, there's a nuance in translating that is relevant, so capturing those choices can be of historical interest). There were many such articles that were openly translated from English to Chinese, and it is not a surprise that the practice of applying English sources to one's teaching would happen at other times as well.

More interesting to me is the similarity between C.S Lewis' WWII radio series "Mere Christianity" and W Nee's messages written as "Normal Christian Faith." Both have very similar ideas that seem uniquely constructed -- like C.S. Lewis' "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" construct for describing the Lord Jesus (i.e., he can't be "just a good man").

Anyway, I don't think there's a scandal that W Nee used sources from others in his ministry ("Spiritual Man," aside). Instead, I think it's helpful to acknowledge the heritage that W Nee built his ministry upon openly so that people who currently think there's a unique source to all truths in W Nee and W Lee can see beyond this inaccurate perception and perhaps be freed to receive ministry from others, just as Nee and Lee did.

Ohio

01-11-2022, 01:33 PM

H Ironside excerpt from Notes of the Gospel of John:
You have heard of the poor man who fell into the water. And now the excerpt from Watchman Nee: "One summer I was preaching the gospel in the villages with over twenty brothers. The weather was hot, and we could not take our bath indoors. Therefore, we all went to the river to take our bath. While a few brothers were swimming, one brother had a cramp and began to drown. He kicked his limbs frantically and shouted for help. One of the brothers among us was Wei-san Wang, who was very good at swimming. He had served in the navy. I urged him to quickly jump into the water to save the drowning brother. Yet he stood in the same place and would not move. I was quite desperate and somewhat angry at him for loving his own life so much.
-
Well, preachers have been known to appropriate others’ stories and examples without attribution; so probably no foul in this example.
The standard of plagiarism doesn't apply as strictly to such uses, one could argue -- there is a lot of "borrowing" among Christian teachers... Anyway, I don't think there's a scandal that W Nee used sources from others in his ministry
From the quotes above, we can see that G. H. Lang properly appropriated the story to an unnamed source, in order to make a point about the gospel.

WN, however, made the story all about him, apparently fabricating it into a "real life" story about 20 brothers swimming in a river. I'm not buying the story. It sounds bogus. It doesn't pass the smell test. Think this story through, folks. Reminds me of so many politicians and reporters who are prone to embellishing their stories of "battlefield danger."

Who cannot take baths because it's too hot inside? Take a cool shower -- that's what guys do! Who drowns taking a bath in a river? Surrounded by 19 brothers? All shampooing while Navy Bro watches? Balderdash! How many other stories from WN and WL are like this one?

aron

01-11-2022, 05:44 PM

And now the excerpt from Watchman Nee:
...Do not save anyone who is living and do not save anyone who is dead; only save those who are half dead. Do not save the dead because it is hopeless to save them. Do not save the living, because they are still kicking with their strength. When you approach them, they will hold on to you and neither they nor you will be able to swim, and both will drown. This is why you should save only those who are half dead, those whom you can grab hold of, but who cannot grab hold of you. In this way, you will be safe, and they will be saved."

We are like the man who was drowning. God will only save us after we have exhausted all of our strength..."

This is just imagination. What did the angel say - "Cornelius - you have exhausted all your strength, now God will save you."?

No, the angel said, "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial offering before God." Yes God does save the John Newtons of the world, the drunken sea-captains, but God also saves those who try to do good. In fact, the angel said that God would save Cornelius because he was trying to do good. Yes it was vain, but God didn't wait until Cornelius gave up and went and got drunk! No, the Holy Spirit came alongside Cornelius' pathetic and vain efforts to be good, and saved him! Nee takes one instance, spins a tale, perhaps copied, and then makes a generalization: "God will only save us after..." Completely untrue.

And look at what the townspeople said of the Centurion: "He loves our nation and has built us a synagogue." Did Jesus say, "Nope, too much natural strength there"?

Or the story in Galatians 2 about the Jerusalem Pillars telling Paul, "Only, remember the poor"... should Paul have said, "No! Brothers! That's dead works! That's the natural man, doing good!"? No, he said that he was eager to do the very thing. Or later, at the end of Acts, Paul telling Felix, that he'd returned after several years away, bringing alms for his people and to remember the poor. (ESV)

I don't think there's a scandal that W Nee used sources from others in his ministry ("Spiritual Man," aside). Instead, I think it's helpful to acknowledge the heritage that W Nee built his ministry upon openly....Even if this hopeful statement were true (and I doubt it is), it would be something like, "Mr Smith was an upstanding citizen of the town... except that day that he went down and robbed the Savings and Loan at gunpoint. Other than that, he was a pretty good neighbour to all." And I daresay that the truth is more likely that Nee and Lee were serial plagiarizers. There wasn't enough room in their imaginations, so they borrowed from others' imaginings.

And Spiritual Man alone showed that Nee was a plagiarizer of the first order.

Nigel Tomes in Toronto once wrote an essay on Lee's extensive appropriations. And I doubt WL fell far from his tree. Rather, he imitated well his master.

LSM’s PLAGIARISM—
An Initial Inquiry

Example 3: The Prodigal Son ate “carob pods,” Luke 15:161
The third example is the “carob pods” the Prodigal ate in the parable. The Recovery Version says,
The carob is an evergreen tree. Its pod…was used…to feed animals and destitute persons. An interesting rabbinical saying is that “when the Israelites are reduced to carob pods, then they repent.” A tradition says that John the Baptist fed on carob pods in the wilderness; hence they are called “St. John’s bread.” [RcV., Luke 15:16,1 emphasis added. Also in Life-study of Luke, Message #34, p. 293]
The corresponding section of Vincent’s Word Studies says,
Carob pods…It is also called Saint John’s bread, from a tradition that the Baptist fed upon its fruit in the wilderness. Edersheim quotes a Jewish saying, “When Israel is reduced to the carob-tree, they become repentant.” [Vincent, Word Studies in the N.T., vol. 1, pp. 386-7, emphasis added]
The two sources present the same three pieces of information about carob pods. [1] Tradition says John the Baptist ate carob pods in the wilderness, [2] hence it’s called Saint John’s bread, and [3] a Jewish rabbinical says, “when the Israelites are reduced to carob pods, then they repent.” The sequence of the three points differs, yet their content is essentially the same. If LSM’s note was the product of primary research, independent of Vincent, the vocabulary and syntax would be significantly different. It is not. This suggests LSM has paraphrased Vincent’s Word Studies; yet they don’t cite him. They could have quoted Vincent verbatim, referencing him as the author, or indicated they had paraphrased his work.

Unregistered

01-12-2022, 01:42 AM

That was precisely my point Ohio. Thank you for explaining it so well.

aron

01-12-2022, 09:14 AM

This is just imagination. What did the angel say - "Cornelius - you have exhausted all your strength, now God will save you."?

No, the he said, "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial offering before God."

It is probably not insignificant that the first gentile called in the NT to believe into Jesus wasn't a drunken sea captain but one of Paul's prototypical "God-fearers" who received the gospel in the back rows of the synagogue meetings.

Acts 13:26 “Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent."

Here is Acts 10:At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter."

Here's someone praying, not by the indwelling mingled seven-fold intensified spirit of the Processed Triune God, but praying nonetheless. Doing his best, praying to God. Now, once he was converted to the faith, and received the truth, do you think that he stopped praying, and giving alms, rejecting that "natural effort"? Or that he now rather prayed "intensified indwelling mingling" prayers, deeming his previous efforts useless? If his previous efforts were useless, why did the angel tell him that his prayers had ascended as a memorial?

The stories by Ironside, Lang and Pember are okay - the Bible does have a cripple lying by the pool, helpless, for years. The gospel narrative does have a woman with an uncured flow of blood, all her money gone by doctors who couldn't save her. There's a lesson to learn. But to draw out some one-size-fits-all generalization like Nee and Lee, and from personal anecdote (whether real or 'borrowed') is wrong: "We must see that we all are 'x' ". Even worse, for everyone who's helped by N & L there are four or five more who are damaged, marred. "The oracle of God has spoken, this is now the spiritual reality." Today you see the devoted 'ministry' acolytes in this state of perpetual spiritual infancy, never maturing, going to meeting after training after conference, years becoming decades, always testifying, "Oh, I never saw this point". And they chalk up their years of fruitlessness to not seeing some phrase in a footnote! They've been to 2,000 meetings but they never quite got it!

The rest simply give up. What happens, after trying the Nee & Lee programme, the latest New Way, the person eventually thinks, "Why should I bother? All my self-efforts are vain". So they sink into addiction or worldliness, resigned to a thousand years in darkness. Because, why try? They end up in passivity, ennui, feeling that everything doesn't work, and God never shows up any more. Going to a meeting and shouting slogans in the face of an empty and untransformed condition is a sad joke. It didn't work before, why should it work now? God hasn't shown up. So they quit trying.

But that's my point. Cornelius didn't quit. The blind beggar didn't quit. "Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy!" These people in the gospels and Acts didn't function by the mingled and mystical inner life of Spiritual Man. But they functioned anyway. Nee and Lee are clearly over-reaching.

Can you see what happens? What if the Samaritan had paused, looked over at the poor beat-up fool, and thought, "If I go over there to try to help, am I in my natural man?" It breeds introspection, passivity, hesitation, eventual resignation. God asks you to love. Don't worry if your love is natural or spiritual. Maybe it's feeble... just love. Do your best, and God will honour that as a memorial. Even if your [self] efforts are vain, God's response will not be vain. The Paraclete will come alongside, and you'll know real love.

Ohio

01-12-2022, 10:52 AM

That was precisely my point Ohio. Thank you for explaining it so well.
Thanks for pointing it out.

I have said before that my biggest failure when I was in the Recovery was trusting the brothers too much. Trust should be earned and not just given over because someone demanded it.

"Test all things, hold on to what is good." I Thess 5.21

Ohio

01-12-2022, 10:57 AM

It is probably not insignificant that the first gentile called in the NT to believe into Jesus wasn't a drunken sea captain but one of Paul's prototypical "God-fearers" who received the gospel in the back rows of the synagogue meetings.

Nice catch, aron. Great points.

Reading Nee's story, it seemed as if alcoholic anonymous' saying "must hit rock bottom first" had infected the gospel of grace.

Unregistered

01-14-2022, 07:01 AM

UntoHim

01-14-2022, 09:01 AM

Please take a moment and look at this thread from the big picture.
My friend, many of us here in the West have been taking great pains to "look at the big picture" of the life and times and ministry of Watchman Nee for decades. This endeavor has been greatly hampered because of all the obfuscations and outright hiding the true facts of history related to Nee. Much of the obfuscation and hiding has been done by Mr. Witness Lee. And to be sure, the more closer the "picture" comes into focus, the worse it looks for Nee T'o-sheng ( 倪柝聲 )

Watchman Nee, arguably a martyr, is well-respected interdenominationally.
So was Ravi Zacharias.

But on this forum he is a plagiarist, based upon the flimsiest of evidence.
So say you. I would hardly call the 370+ pages of My Unforgettable Memories: Watchman Nee and Shanghai Local Church (https://www.amazon.com/My-Unforgettable-Memories-Watchman-Shanghai/dp/1625099401) by Dr. Lily Hsu "the flimsiest of evidence". And she is not alone in testifying to the gross and despicable sins of Watchman Nee. God willing, many more will come forward before it's too late.

Who among us has not appropriated a story and retold it with embellishments, perhaps even narrating it in the first person?
Dr. Hsu did not simply "appropriate" a story, she lived it. I have absolutely no doubts that there are some embellishments, exaggerations and even some inaccuracies in Hsu's presentation, but there is far too much collaborating evidence that Watchman Nee was at some level a fraud. Trust me, this is a very hard thing for someone like me who was a devout follower of of Nee and Lee for decades to admit. Sometimes the truth hurts.

What purpose does this thread serve? What is the expected response from a visitor to this forum?
Well, the opening post was concerning Nee's plagiarism. Unfortunately, plagiarism was just "the tip of the iceberg". As far as the expected responses, well, as expected, they have been varied. No surprise there, right?

***Please take a moment and register for the forum by sending an email to Reg4LCD@Gmail.Com and be sure to include your desired UserName.

Ohio

01-14-2022, 09:54 AM

Zezima

01-14-2022, 10:12 AM

Watchman Nee isn’t known outside of LSM circles

Trapped

01-14-2022, 11:01 AM

If known outside LSM it is along the lines of, typically pastors, saying, like, "oh yeah I think I might have read a book of his once."

Nothing close to the singular devotion shown to him and Lee that the local churches show.

Trapped

Recovering

01-15-2022, 11:37 AM

Watchman Nee isn’t known outside of LSM circles

If I may offer a gentle corrective: Watchman Nee is somewhat known outside LSM circles but certainly not to the same degree or with anything like the same reverence as inside. For example, I was surprised (and at the time, delighted) to discover a chapter on Watchman Nee in Dave and Neta Jackson's Hero Tales, Vol II (https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Tales-vol-Dave-Jackson/dp/1556617135/), which we were using for children's meeting in our small LC district. You can "Look Inside" on the Amazon page and see the chapter on Nee in the table of contents -- he's presented as the leader of the House Church movement in China. (Side note, toward the end of our time in the Recovery™, and my wife (especially) and I were a little weary of the Man in God's Creation and God's Calling in the Old/New Testament series, and my wife suggested using Hero Tales. To their credit, the brothers I coordinated with and the other saints involved with the YP/Children's work were fine with using this non-LSM book, and a couple of the other districts picked it up for their children's meeting, too.)

I've run into a handful of non-LC affiliated Christians who knew about Watchman Nee. One, a brother I have known and respected for a long time through mutual involvement in AWANA, told me he knew of Watchman Nee but warned me about his protegé Witness Lee. I asked him about Nee because I recognized the "Fact, Faith and Feeling" story he shared during an AWANA lesson. It was before I had any inclination to leave the Recovery™, so I was simultaneously delighted to hear of someone who admired Nee but at the same time very defensive about the warning against Lee. I gave that friend a copy of the LSM printing of The Normal Christian Life, but he never brought it up again, and the LCs were never an issue between us.

Another time (post LC exit), I found myself (in what was, for me, a surreal experience) with my daughter at a lunch table in a gathering of Anglican priests. I returned from a trip to the restroom to hear my daughter explaining to one of the priests that we used to meet with a church that followed the ministry of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee. Most of them had at least heard of Watchman Nee and maybe read something of his and knew him primarily as the founder of the Chinese House Church movement. But one man in particular had a real light of shock and recognition at the names Nee and Lee and knew exactly what my daughter was talking about. It turns out we knew his wife's sister and brother-in-law, who had caused the family a lot of concern by attending the FTTA together as a couple. He did not have a good impression of the ministry of Lee/Nee, having looked into it at the time. Incidentally, the couple in question is actually among the more level-headed and open FTTA graduates we know. They are serving full-time in a "GTCA" city somewhere now, but I was happy to hear that a lot of healing had happened in their family relationships since their graduation, and the family is much more at ease.

All this is to say that in my experience, I have bumped into a handful of people outside of the LSM associated churches who how know a bit about W Nee, but none really knew enough about him to know or care about his academic integrity.

But concerning plagiarism, I think that most of Nee's academic readers would recognize that he came from an Eastern honor-based culture and didn't really feel like he needed to be subject to the same kind of intellectually rigorous academic integrity that Westerners expect. That's not to excuse it, just to point out the difference in expectation. Just now, I am in the middle of reading a fascinating book by Nabeel Qureshi, "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Allah-Finding-Jesus-Christianity/dp/0310092647/)", and he spends a lot of time talking about how Islamic writers rely on the transmission of authority from respected person to respected person. That seemed really familiar to me in the way I have heard brothers talk about Nee, Lee, and their spiritual predecessors. I know I'm not the first to point this out on this forum, but I think Eastern Islamic and Asian cultures have some important things in common. In that kind of honor-based culture, for example, they wouldn't really recognize the concept of plagiarism in the same way that Westerners do. And I guess readers of Islamic biographies or polemics would find Nee's and Lee's expositional styles pretty familiar and comfortable. In fact that laxity in academic integrity was a big part of what shook Qureshi's faith in Islam and eventually led him to Christianity. (That, and the friendship of a devout Christian, but that's a whole different topic)

HERn

01-15-2022, 12:51 PM

Watchman Nee was well known and read by us Jesus freaks in the early 70’s. I believe the early charismatic leaders greatly respected him for The Normal Christian Life and the Spiritual Man. I did read the former and struggled to understand the subjective aspect of dying to the self. I had no clue what was going on in the latter book! Sometimes I think that because of Nee’s intelligence that he delighted in over-complicating certain biblical truths. I think that Nee is certainly not someone to magnify and base your Christian life upon; why isn’t Jesus enough?

aron

01-15-2022, 04:42 PM

Watchman Nee, arguably a martyr, is well-respected interdenominationally.As far as being a martyr, he spent 20 years in prison, after confessing in court to producing and holding pornography. But a lot of people went into Chinese Communist Jails in the 1950s.

Question: if Nee didn't produce and have pornographic home movies, why did he confess in court to doing so?

Either he lied to save his skin, and get a lesser punishment (life in prison versus death), or he told the truth. Either way he doesn't come off too well. The documentation of what happened to the church after they heard him confess is known. If he spoke something irrelevant at an irrelevant show trial, why did this speaking shipwreck the faith of so many who'd followed him?

And this after his hand-picked elders expelled him for the same thing! Either he did a very bad job of picking elders, or they knew something. And as UntoHim points out, Ravi Zacharias was well-respected internationally, until the truth came out.

Watchman Nee looks great until you start to look closely. And the more closely you look, the worse it gets.

But on this forum he is a plagiarist, based upon the flimsiest of evidence.If you read the Second Edition of the Spiritual Man book, his publisher's Foreword acknowledges that Nee took extensive portions of Jessie Penn-Lewis and passed it off as his own. Did he realize what he was doing? I don't know, but in the preface Nee repeatedly calls it "my work", so I wonder what the possessive pronoun translated "my" means in Chinese. Maybe his conscience really was untrammeled. But maybe Witness Lee's conscience was also unbothered when he hit up his captive churches for hundreds of thousands of dollars for his son's Motor Home business.

Who among us has not appropriated a story and retold it with embellishments, perhaps even narrating it in the first person?

See quote below

When it suited Witness Lee, he liked using only those parts of any situation he truly liked, preferring to leave out the pieces he didn’t like, thereby creating a super clean image of himself. He was the great master builder of his own deception.Appropriating stories, embellishments thereof, insinuating oneself into the center, doesn't seem like Christian Witness to me.

What purpose does this thread serve? What is the expected response from a visitor to this forum?The more of Watchman Nee is seen, the worse he looks. If you read the accounts of the witnesses like Don Hardy, Friedel Hansen, Bill Mallon, John Ingalls and Don Rutledge you get a broader picture. And this thread is consistent with that.

aron

01-16-2022, 01:44 PM

In a letter from M.E. Barber to D.M. Panton, regarding Watchman Nee and Faithful Luke, part of it said, " For many reasons I think you should not be feeling obliged even to answer their letters. These two young men are in great danger. They have a mental apprehension of God’s Truth which unless lived out will be their peril."

In the letter, she says that they (Luke & Nee) don't realize how busy editors are, and pester them constantly with letters. But then she says, "for many reasons" they should be avoided. I remember the anecdote in the LC that MEB had forbidden WN to read Jessie Penn-Lewis. I wonder, did MEB know that J P-L was heavily involved in Freemasonry? Why did she try to keep WN from J P-L's works? Her letter to Panton is dated April 1926, and if you read WN's preface to Spiritual Man it's dated June 1927. So at the time of her letter, Nee was already heavily into J P-L, in spite of MEB's warnings to stay away.

So her comment that they were "in great danger" because they quickly dig into mental apprehension without solid spiritual (Christian) understanding has double weight, here, if they're digging into J P-L, without realizing what they're into. Excerpts from contemporary biographies that I've seen, show Penn-Lewis as fronting a mixture of Quakerism, Freemasonry, and Methodism, and the Freemasonry influence is substantial. An internet resource of primary writing showing her connection to Freemasonry is found here: https://faithsaves.net/jessie-penn-lewis/

Here is Nee writing the preface, in June of 1927: "I am deeply aware that the spiritual life of the readers of this book may vary greatly. If you should therefore come to some points difficult to understand, please neither reject them nor try to fathom them mentally. Such truths should be reserved for more matured life... this book deals wholly with spiritual life as an experience. In no other way can it be understood."

Given the short time between MEB's words warning of "great danger" and those of WN's preface, one can only surmise that MEB was completely wrong in her assessment - and remember, she knew WN better than any - or that he grew an awful lot in a few months, or that she was right and he was madly cribbing something that seemed 'deep' to him but was from another source entirely (i.e., Freemasonry) and passing it off as his own spiritual revelation. (Remember WL's biography of Nee, subtitled "A Seer of the Divine Revelation?)

I look at all this an I'm like, Wow, spiritual deception. Is this what I'm looking at here? Barber's letter brings it right to the fore.

"Throughout his career, Ni [sic] engaged in extensive literature ministry. He began in 1923 by editing Revival, a devotional magazine for free distribution, followed in 1926 by The Christian, which dealt with "truths about church and matters of prophecy" and gained wide circulation in only a few years. In 1926, when he was suffering from tuberculosis, Ni began his first major work, The Spiritual Man, which sought to explain spiritual formations in terms of biblical psychology, especially the radical distinction between 'soul' (self-consciousness) and 'spirit' (God-consciousness). Published in 1928, the three-volume work has been called basically a translation of Penn-Lewis' Soul and Spirit, published ten years earlier, though Ni did not make that clear."

https://bdcconline.net/en/stories/nee-watchman

aron

01-16-2022, 03:20 PM

I googled Barber's connection to Penn-Lewis and found the following, which amends my previous thoughts. But rather than remove the previous post, this makes an addendum. The caution in MEB's letter to Panton remains, and in some ways is amplified.

"In that same year (1923), Penn-Lewis asked Margaret E. Barber to seek a Chinese translator for her works. Barber soon found an ideal Chinese messenger for the Welsh prophetess in Nee: he was versed in English, ardent in his new-found faith [Nee was saved at 17 years old in 1920], restless and ambitious, and yet frail in body like Penn-Lewis herself. However, the role of translator that Barber had conceived for him was too confining. As we have seen, by late 1923 Nee began putting out the Present Witness and Testimony, an irregular journal..." ~Xi Lian, Redeemed by fire: the rise of popular Christianity in China, p. 164.

"By 1928, he had completed his magnum opus, The Spiritual Man (Shuling de ren), a book that promised to lead Christians into the "innermost part of one's being" where one encounters the "life of God." Such a journey would begin with the intricate and vital distinction between 'soul' ('self-consciousness') and 'spirit' ('God-consciousness'), one that almost all Christians had failed to make. The spiritual man, made alive by the 'God-consciousness', leaves behind 'useless' human efforts - driven merely by one's own will or emotions (the 'soul') and manifested in profitless 'zeal' - and enters into 'the life of God Himself.' In the concluding chapter, titled 'Victory over Death', Nee exhorted the spiritual Christian to have faith 'that we shall not die, that we shall live to see the Lord... and that moment will not tarry for long." Nee made no specific mention of the fact, however, that such teachings were already found in Penn-Lewis' Soul and Spirit, published a decade or so earlier..." Xi, p. 165.

So Xi Lian's study removes my earlier guess that MEB had disliked J P-L, since here MEB points J P-L to WN as her Chinese translator. But this ties in with the idea that the 20 y/o WN was aggressively, even dangerously ambitious, and seized upon translation of J P-L as his ticket to stardom. And lo and behold in a few years a three-volume tome of his "deep spiritual experiences" came forth, largely culled from J P-L and uncredited.

If you read early WN you're reading J P-L, and if you read J P-L you are reading... what? This is where the Freemasonry concern comes in. This may not dovetail as neatly with my first hypothesis of MEB's warning about the young and precocious WN, but it dovetails nonetheless.

And it goes back to my original critique of WN's message, from the op. All this Christian-climbs-the-ladder-into-God focus completely misses the gospel message, which is Jesus being the One who is with the Father, expresses the Father. Jesus alone is our focus, not our spirituality. Our spirituality will deceive us, and one day we'll be in court, like WN (and RZ, and others), being exposed as shams and frauds. Don't go there. Stay away from gurus and guru-land. Ya know, 'Seer of the Divine Revelation' and all that.

aron

01-16-2022, 06:50 PM

All this is to say that in my experience, I have bumped into a handful of people outside of the LSM associated churches who how know a bit about W Nee, but none really knew enough about him to know or care about his academic integrity.If they knew about his lack of [academic] integrity, they might have thought less of his spirituality. A few years after being saved, Nee puts out a multi-volume tome of "deep spiritual experience", culled from the writings of others and uncredited. It doesn't make him look too... um ... Christian... you know? If his naivete was such that he didn't realize that he was plagiarizing, then what of his deep spiritual experience? The story is merely one of convenience. (It seems to me, others may see otherwise)

But concerning plagiarism, I think that most of Nee's academic readers would recognize that he came from an Eastern honor-based culture and didn't really feel like he needed to be subject to the same kind of intellectually rigorous academic integrity that Westerners expect. That's not to excuse it, just to point out the difference in expectation. ... In that kind of honor-based culture, for example, they wouldn't really recognize the concept of plagiarism in the same way that Westerners do. And I guess readers of Islamic biographies or polemics would find Nee's and Lee's expositional styles pretty familiar and comfortable.

I have two problems with this. First, if this culture is lax on copying, then the leaders shouldn't be leading Westerners. Neither Nee nor Lee is fit to lead outside their culture. They can't have it both ways, to be an Oriental in cultural mannerisms, then to have some universal, one-size-fits-all spirituality that is good for all people at all times. You know, the ministry of the age. That's where we got cultural-based ideas like "covering drunken Noah" that ignored the plain NT counsel.

The NT is not an honor-based culture - it's a law-based culture. (Yes, it's a NT Law - see James' "royal law" in 2:8). The same rules go for everyone. If Peter had been skimming funds, when they sold properties in the early chapters of Acts, and laid the proceeds at his feet, and suddenly you hear of a ski-resort on Mount Herman, being run by Peter's nephews (!!), don't you think the gospel would be ruined? There is no MOTA-who-gets-a-free-pass in the NT.

Second, WL made a big fuss when others (from S. America) came to his conferences and took his materials, then passing it off as theirs. Where was the cultural laxity then? Suddenly, "they" took from "him". It was his work. How often did we hear Lee say, "I came up with this - I did"? Where was the culture then? No, it was a convenient dodge when one's hand got caught in the cookie jar.

Unregistered

01-17-2022, 03:55 AM

Wow, thank you Aron for researching it. I found it very helpful and somehow releasing from all the deception and lies I believed. That is so true - we should never idolize spirituality, thus magnifying ourselves (or others) instead of our precious Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.

Just to add a bit. Few months ago I spoke with one sister over the phone, who is very strong about LR. She was very upset that I left LR after so many years. According to her, I left the church. When I reminded her all about the hurts she experienced from the elders and how many tears she shed after meeting with them. Her responce was: we are in the army and the Lord is training us not to live in our emotions. We want to be overcomers.
After speaking with her, I realised that desire "to be an overcomer" is a very strong force to stick with LR. I tried to do a little research and found out that the first who started to teach about the overcomers in the Christ's Body was Robert Govett in about 1850. He faced a big opposition because all the christians rejected this idea as unscriptual and dividing the Body of Christ (according to the Bible - week member in the Body is precious to the Lord and not the one who have to pass the terrible 1000 year punishment). R. Govett had about 200 followers and to my surprise one of them was Margaret Barber. Thus through her, this teaching reached Nee and eventually enslaving the ones in LR.
"Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:5

Recovering

01-17-2022, 09:30 AM

I have two problems with this. First, if this culture is lax on copying, then the leaders shouldn't be leading Westerners. Neither Nee nor Lee is fit to lead outside their culture. They can't have it both ways, to be an Oriental in cultural mannerisms, then to have some universal, one-size-fits-all spirituality that is good for all people at all times. You know, the ministry of the age. That's where we got cultural-based ideas like "covering drunken Noah" that ignored the plain NT counsel.

The NT is not an honor-based culture - it's a law-based culture. (Yes, it's a NT Law - see James' "royal law" in 2:8). The same rules go for everyone. If Peter had been skimming funds, when they sold properties in the early chapters of Acts, and laid the proceeds at his feet, and suddenly you hear of a ski-resort on Mount Herman, being run by Peter's nephews (!!), don't you think the gospel would be ruined? There is no MOTA-who-gets-a-free-pass in the NT.

Second, WL made a big fuss when others (from S. America) came to his conferences and took his materials, then passing it off as theirs. Where was the cultural laxity then? Suddenly, "they" took from "him". It was his work. How often did we hear Lee say, "I came up with this - I did"? Where was the culture then? No, it was a convenient dodge when one's hand got caught in the cookie jar.

Exactly. The rational, guilt/innocence culture we think of as "Western" has its roots in the Christian worldview. Certain elements of eastern honor/shame cultures clash irreconcilably with Christian thought, with consequences many of us have experienced personally. Although it focuses more on understanding how we came to post-modernism in the West, I have found Glenn Sunshine's Why You Think the Way You Do (https://www.amazon.com/Why-You-Think-Way-Worldviews/dp/B0033ZP7HA/) to be helpful in sifting through some of the legacy of my upbringing in the Recovery. That, and the Nabeel Qureshi book I mentioned in my previous post.

aron

01-17-2022, 11:35 AM

What purpose does this thread serve?

Please see quote below.

Wow, thank you Aron for researching it. I found it very helpful and somehow releasing from all the deception and lies I believed. That is so true - we should never idolize spirituality, thus magnifying ourselves (or others) instead of our precious Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.

Watchman Nee was the "gateway drug" to the LC.

I spoke with one sister over the phone, who is very strong about LR. She was very upset that I left LR after so many years. According to her, I left the church. When I reminded her all about the hurts she experienced from the elders and how many tears she shed after meeting with them. Her responce was: we are in the army and the Lord is training us not to live in our emotions. We want to be overcomers.
After speaking with her, I realised that desire "to be an overcomer" is a very strong force to stick with LR. I tried to do a little research and found out that the first who started to teach about the overcomers in the Christ's Body was Robert Govett in about 1850. He faced a big opposition because all the christians rejected this idea as unscriptual and dividing the Body of Christ (according to the Bible - week member in the Body is precious to the Lord and not the one who have to pass the terrible 1000 year punishment). R. Govett had about 200 followers and to my surprise one of them was Margaret Barber. Thus through her, this teaching reached Nee and eventually enslaving the ones in LR.
"Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:5

When Lee passed, somehow the familiar "raptured or martyred" rhetoric dried up, as we were forced to consider Witness Lee huddled in a dark room for 1,000 years, because he didn't "make it." The whole thing just became an exercise in absurdity when pursued to its end.

But the NT clearly presents the idea of proportionality - both reward for good-doing and punishment for evil behaviours are set forth clearly. "To whom much is given, much is required etc". There are numerous passages from positive and negative light. Instead we got this arbitrary line that if we crossed we got 1,000 years of bliss. Otherwise, darkness. Weeping, gnashing teeth. I found it arbitrary and absurd, even as a loyalist.

HERn

01-17-2022, 12:07 PM

Quote from gr8tful:

“ More interesting to me is the similarity between C.S Lewis' WWII radio series "Mere Christianity" and W Nee's messages written as "Normal Christian Faith." Both have very similar ideas that seem uniquely constructed -- like C.S. Lewis' "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" construct for describing the Lord Jesus (i.e., he can't be "just a good man").”

Could you please shed more light on this comparison with CS Lewis? Did WL borrow from Lewis, or was Lewis reading WL and borrowed from him?

Zezima

01-17-2022, 01:41 PM

Wait, watchman nee went to prison because he had porn? I’ve never heard this, any documentation on this? I always was told it was because he was Christian.

UntoHim

01-17-2022, 02:03 PM

Paul Vusik

01-17-2022, 09:06 PM

Please see the thread here:
My Unforgettable Memories: Watchman Nee and Shanghai Local Church - Dr. Hsu (http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=3489&highlight=shanghai+experience)
-

Wait, watchman nee went to prison because he had porn? I’ve never heard this, any documentation on this? I always was told it was because he was Christian.

I’m always surprised when people start doing more research and dig through piles of material that’s available for free, not only here but all over the web, they find out so much more than they were told and were led to believe. I just recently watched a pastor give testimony about the amount of school and Bible college, seminary that he did, and after 30+ years preaching what he was taught, he realized that there was something wrong , and went back to study the word of God. How easy it is to be persuaded by people to follow their teachings, but never go before God and study the Bible and ask Him to lead you to the truth for yourself!

Ohio

01-17-2022, 09:40 PM

Ohio

01-18-2022, 07:53 AM

https://bdcconline.net/en/stories/nee-watchman
The conclusions drawn by G. Wright Doyle in his brief bio above are quite succinct and discerning:
"Among those who knew of Ni’s serious faults and failings, there is an awareness that no mere man should be looked to as a teacher of truth or a paragon of virtue. Others see the dangers of concentrating power in the hands of a single person or small group of elite leaders."

The same conclusions could be drawn of WL. The lessons are obvious, that the exaltation of any man in the body of Christ, other than the Head of the body, is perilous. Unfortunately no one has exalted W.Nee more than W.Lee.

Ohio

01-18-2022, 08:09 AM

Just to add a bit. Few months ago I spoke with one sister over the phone, who is very strong about LR. She was very upset that I left LR after so many years. According to her, I left the church. When I reminded her all about the hurts she experienced from the elders and how many tears she shed after meeting with them. Her response was: we are in the army and the Lord is training us not to live in our emotions. We want to be overcomers.

When it comes to fighting the pernicious enemy of God, yes, the church is an army. (Ephesians 6) Yet no where in scripture do we see the use of military tactics, such as dress downs, humiliations, abuses, etc., being used on one another in the body of Christ.

Unfortunately in the Recovery the practice of "lording it over the flock" began at the very top and was duplicated systemically within all the LC's. Thus this devoted yet innocent sister saw all of these endless elder abuses as "normal," or almost mandatory to her "perfection."
"From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." (James 3.10)

OBW

01-25-2022, 02:41 PM

Watchman Nee isn’t known outside of LSM circlesBeyond what Trapped and Recovering provided on this question, I am aware that many of Nee's books were regularly available at Christian books stores. Further, besides Lee/LSM/Local Church, other coworkers of Nee went out independently of Lee. In the US there was Stephen Kwang (I probably butchered the spelling there). We used Sit Walk Stand as part of an adult Sunday school study some 15 years ago in a Bible church. It was while I was involved in that study that I began to see the same kinds of errors I had previously attributed only to Lee.

aron

01-26-2022, 07:14 AM

.. many of Nee's books were regularly available at Christian books stores. .. We used Sit Walk Stand as part of an adult Sunday school study some 15 years ago in a Bible church. It was while I was involved in that study that I began to see the same kinds of errors I had previously attributed only to Lee.

To see the lingering and pernicious effect of Nee, read the quote below:

One of leading brother told one of my family member, "If You leave local church / Lord's Recovery or attend non-LC's communion, your salvation will be lost and God will not recognize your faith. You will not see your family after this earthly life." -- Where in the Bible teaches this???.

The threats quoted above rest on Nee's legacy. Without this borrowed legitimacy their threats would mean little of what they currently do. Yes, there's lingering WN effect outside the Kaung/Lee/Chu/Dong offshoots - on Amazon there's 1000 5-star reviews Spiritual Man, many saying it changed their lives. It's this presumed external credibility that LC leverages to threaten, control, and intimidate members. They're following a "spiritual giant."

The most notable WN/Little Flock effect is that it laid the groundwork for the organised systems that followed. Nee's bred Lee's, just as surely as Lee's efforts bred the PRC "shouters/screamers" and the "s/s" gave rise to Eastern Lightning. Each one trafficked in the other, used it as the inspiration, foundation, and launching point: avaricious, self-oriented, obscurantist, paranoid, mercantilist pseudo-Christianity.

Nee copied Jessie Penn-Lewis, it became a best seller and he was effectively set for life as a Bible preacher. When he was called on it, his publisher ran a few paragraphs at the start of the second edition, said it was 'honoring' to J P-L to copy her, and life went on. Nee emerged unscathed. Witness Lee learned that one can make a nice living on ideas, even if they aren't yours. You don't have to go through school, don't have to be trained. Just be a little more clever than your audience.

(And if you think Lee didn't make a nice living, he got a Private Mausoleum with its reflecting pool. How many plumbers and bus drivers get those? How many humble bondslave Bible teachers get their own private cemetery?)

Nee was exposed 3 times for licentiousness and he survived, with carefully-managed spin and damage control. First occurance was his future mother-in-law, second was his own hand-picked elders in Shanghai (!!), third was when he was accused and apparently confessed to same by the communist government. And if you blanch at the word "communist", note that recent accounts surfaced of confessions by Nee & consorts apparently heard privately by church members. Yet Nee's reputation survived, and this set the stage for Philip Lee. Lee learned well.

Watchman Nee hit up the churches for funds - they called it "handing over". He ran business(es) with family members, perhaps with church funds. At one point he was pushed out of work for business practices. I doubt it was incidental - he was the rain-maker, he brought in the bodies to fill pews. He was speaking before 5,000 to 7,000 every Sunday morning - so why step down over business practices? Simply because he had a business? Where did his brother get the money to start a factory?

All of this lines up with what we know of WL, who hit the churches for a lot of money in 1972(?) for Daystar. I think one 'locality' ponied up $200k. How much in total was raised? Some of it was peoples' life-savings. And, how much came back? And how much of what came back was from 'training fees' charged to sit and listen to Witness Lee talk? And how much "investment" got re-labeled to be "donations", as "investors" gave up? And, who benefited? Oh - Lee's son Timothy was Daystar President, well whaddaya know. Lee learned well from Nee. Family first, church second.

And 20 years before Daystar, Nee is said to have been holder of large properties. He ran multiple 'church' businesses on the side when the communists took over. (see excerpt, below) We have no way of knowing the money trail, or how much was skimmed. I daresay it wasn't inconsiderable. And Lee (and Dong et al) learned well.

Ohio tells the story, that one day Titus Chu's phone rang, it was WL: "You just bought 1,000 chairs." Evidently, WL's children needed some money. TC picked up the phone, called each of his regional 'elders': "You just bought 100 chairs."

But before 1956, the LF had a lot of secular power in China. It's a different reality than what we were fed.

Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China, by Joseph Tse-Hei Lee. Church History; 2005;74(1)

"The land reform and agricultural collectivization provoked anger and indignation in the Little Flock circle. The government had introduced in June 1950 the Agrarian Reform Law, which abolished the landownership system of feudal exploitation and confiscated landowners' holdings for redistribution to landless peasants in order to destroy the gentry. Some Little Flock leaders, notably Watchman Nee, owned large land properties in Fujian province. He immediately advised Wang Peizhen, who supervised the Home of Deacons in Guling, to redistribute land and farm implements among sixty-three Little Flock members during the land reform. He also mobilized the Little Flock members across China to petition to Mao Zedong and the People's Government of Fujian not to confiscate the Little Flock's landholdings in Guling, a tactic similar to the Communist policy of mass mobilization."

tentmaker

02-05-2022, 03:15 PM

Please take a moment and look at this thread from the big picture.

Watchman Nee, arguably a martyr, is well-respected interdenominationally.

But on this forum he is a plagiarist, based upon the flimsiest of evidence.

Who among us has not appropriated a story and retold it with embellishments, perhaps even narrating it in the first person?

What purpose does this thread serve? What is the expected response from a visitor to this forum?

I too endeavor to see things from, as you say, the big picture. I have been following this thread for the past few weeks in the matter of potential plagiarism in the writing of the book “The Spiritual Man”. The following is a quotation taken from the preface of that book, pgs. 11-12.

“I am not the first to advocate the teaching of the dividing of spirit and soul. Andrew Murray once said that what the church and individuals have to dread is the inordinate activity of the soul with its power of mind and will. F.B. Meyer declared that had he not known about the dividing of spirit and soul, he could not have imagined what his spiritual life would have been. Many others, such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, Madam Guyon, have given the same testimony. I have used their writings freely since we all have received the same commission from the Lord, therefore I have decided to forego notating their many references.” “Shanghai, Watchman Nee, June 4, 1927”.

According to Wikipedia, Watchman Nee was born November 3, 1903, and according to the date given in the preface of TSM he would be just 23 years old at the point of writing. If you read through the entire preface, he seems to indicate and consider himself to be a teacher and leader at this juncture of his life. The following 231 pages of the three volume book (my copy) seem to be written with that same general attitude and disposition, in my opinion. He mentions above, five different authors to whom he used their “many references” to include in the TSM. It is impossible to know “who said what”, and what WN “had on his own”, throughout the book. Was WN a plagiarist? Well, he did come right out and credit a few people, along with saying “many others” in the writing of. Can you imagine taking this charge to a court in 1927 China for plagiarism? WN seemed okay with it. Things have changed significantly near 100 years later haven’t they? But today, if you have this attitude (highlighted in the above WN quote) with many publishing house books and materials you may or will get yourself spanked, or sued, if you know what I mean.

I had not thought of this matter in this way, in the big picture, until this OP. I thought it important to provide the quote.