[aron]

Another interesting point about Chinese culture in the history of the formation of the Local Church: the trial of Watchman Nee. Some observers pointed out that Nee confessed, when asked at trial, that the pornography was produced by him; they then said that this was akin to proof of his guilt. But my reply was to ask, How many people on trial in China, in say 1952-1967, pled not guilty, got a lawyer or made some defense, fought the charges and were exonerated? I doubt many, if any at all. Once you were accused by the state, that was it - harmonious social order required that the state prevail. To fight the state would be unthinkable.

Watchman Nee on trial found himself caught by the same system he once presided over: you have to get in line with those before you. In this case it was the prosecuting agent on behalf of the state, or the Chinese people. Once Nee had been the authorized (in his eyes, anyway) agent on behalf of the church, i.e. the deputy God, and now the will of the Collective was manifested as the State, or the People, and Nee had to yield its authorized representatives. Right and wrong, truth and evidence, were irrelevant: the harmonious functioning of the Collective demanded complete subservience. Nee now found himself on the wrong side of "Authority and Submission", the secular version, and had no choice but to comply.

In both cases culture (the collective ordering through shared expectations and values) drove the proceedings. In in the formation of the Little Flock movement, in Nee's supposedly "normal church", it was religious, and in the other case it was supposedly the will of the proletariat. But in both cases the harmonious functioning of society depended on the will of the individual being subsumed by that of the collective. In both cases established culture ruled; in neither case was there any opportunity to deviate.