[Gubei]

Even though the SCMP site pops up a notice for subscription, just clicking the author and going on leads to the full text... Anyway, the article is quite interesting because it explains Nee was expelled from Shanghai church due to his business and sexual scandal, then he regained the control of the Shanghai church by claiming that apostles are above elders.

I'm not sure how fact-based correct this article is, but I'm not so comfortable with the SCMP because the newspaper may be pro-China communist party after Jack Ma, the owner of the newspaper, was persecuted from the government.


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In 1942, Nee opened the China Biological and Chemical Laboratories with his brother, who was a research chemist. The same year, he was expelled from leadership in the church for corrupt business practices and sexual immorality with female colleagues and prostitutes.

After distancing himself from business operations in 1945, he turned over the company to the church, and wrote three books that represented a major shift in teaching – limiting the power of the elders and giving ultimate authority to “apostles”, i.e. himself.
...

According to Chang, neither Nee nor Lee ever publicly condemned the Communist Party, but Nee was arrested in 1952 and sentenced to 15 years for tax evasion and corrupt business practices, as Mao Zedong’s administration began rounding up religious leaders and intellectuals into prisons, or distant farming fields."

unquote