Didn't want to start yet another thread. So I'm posting it here.
The Reconfiguration of Guanxi in a Twentieth-Century Indigenous Chinese Protestant Group, By Teresa Zimmerman-Liu. Review of Religion and Chinese Society 2017;4(1):59-86.
"Guanxi is the Chinese system of ideas and practices constituting social relationships and can be considered the foundation of Chinese societies. Protestant Christianity spread over guanxi networks from its first introduction to China, changing both guanxi and Christianity in the process. This paper proposes a causal model of guanxi and then analyzes how it was reconstituted in the indigenous Chinese Protestant group, the Local Churches. It is based on published writings by Local Church founders and members and on the author’s thirty years of experience with the group. This case contributes to the academic understanding of guanxi and Chinese Christianity, finding that
extension of family, supply of resources, and social interaction are the core aspects of guanxi, but that specific practices change in the Christian context to preserve biblical commandments. Because guanxi networks are bonding rather than bridging, Chinese Christian groups will tend to diverge more than they converge."
https://brill.com/view/journals/rrcs...#d5171545e1217
Don't have access to the body of the paper, & wonder how much detail she provides on the history of Witness Lee's sons gaining access to the "supply of resources"? Or if she notes that the Family-First Guanxi Model was apparently also used by off-shoot of Dong Yu Lan (et al) in Brasil? Don't see how they couldn't but be salient features, and help the further the discussion.