Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
Kisstheson, I follow you. One aspect I don't quite understand is "Later Nee/Early Lee" and it's relationship to Theodore Austin Sparks. To my knowledge Nee worked with Sparks up to the Communist takeover in China. It wasn't until the mid-late fifties when Lee broke his ties with Sparks. It would be good to indentify each of these periods with particular decades. For example at what point did Early Lee become Later Lee. At what point did Early Nee become Later Nee?
Thanks for your post.
Terry
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Thank you for the feedback, dear brother Terry. I appreciate it.
The "Early Nee" vs. "Later Nee" distinction seems to be pretty clear. The six years (1942-1948) that dear brother WN laid aside his ministry form a fairly neat line of demarcation between "Early Nee" and "Later Nee". When WN resumed his minsitry in 1948, the "flavor" was definitely different. The repeated emphasis on "handing over", the strong emphasis on submitting to authority, all the talk about spreading the gospel and the church life according to "The Jerusalem Line", a sense that the saints in China affliated with WN's ministry were God's unique move on the whole earth, a spirit of "insisting" that the saints be one with the latest "flow" - all these, and more, are characteristics of WN's later ministry which were not present, or were not emphaisized nearly so much, in his earlier ministry.
I have looked through the updated version to
Against the Tide and the only trips taken by WN outside of Mainland China during 1948-1952 were trips to Taiwan and Hong Kong. I do not see any evidence that WN co-worked with TAS or had contact with TAS during the years 1948-1952. Rex Beck's biography of TAS entitled
Shaped by Vision makes no mention of TAS either having contact with WN or co-working with WN during those years. I certainly do not think that there was any kind of split or separation, it appears to be a case that both were very busy in the years after WWII, particularly WN since the Communists' were gradually taking over all of China.
Yes, WL reluctanly invited TAS twice to Taiwan in the mid-to-late 1950's after considerable urging from WL's co-workers. We all know the result of those visits -WL ended up refusing to co-work with TAS any more. To be 100% fair, I should probably change my statement for "Later Nee/Early Lee" to this: " . . . but also a steadily diminishing willingness to co-work with other ministries". That sounds more fair and balanced compared to " . . . but no longer co-working with other ministries ".
The "Early Lee" vs. "Later Lee" distinction is much harder to pin down. Others on this forum knew WL as lot better than I ever did, so I will defer to any insights they may have. I would say that this change was more of a gradual change, starting in 1974 and running to 1985. Certainly, the pre-1974 Lee was very different from the post-1985 Lee. Some of the publications in the mid-1980's, like the book
The Vision of the Age and the whole
Elders' Training series, announced loud and clear that "Later Lee" was on the scene!