Article: Beware of the writings of the Watchman

[aron]

Originally Posted by markpaul

I would like to learn from you guys on identifying false teachings with great pleasure.

My idea of Nee is that as a young, intelligent Chinese Christian he struggled to find a purpose and a center. I am not a Catholic or Orthodox, but I suspect that the schisms of East vs. West, and the subsequent Protestant splinterings, brought a kind of piecemeal gospel to China, where one group taught one thing, and another group stressed something else. Where to turn, where to go? As a young Christian Nee was seeking a kind of center or orientation.

Nee came under the influence of a "subjectivist" or "experiential" kind of teaching, which today would be under the heading of "Charismatic". One begins to seek experience at the expense of truth. Witness Lee said that Nee read all the Christian classics and thus was balanced, but that is impossible: he was putting out books in his twenties, and soon was running the largest Christian group in China. So his readings and fellowship with others became a supplement to his church work, and not a guide to it. He was committed to a path and beyond the hand of correction or control.

The most damning readings of his that I've seen were:

1) how to organize a church. He said, "Get in line with the person in front of you. Obey without question." Okay, but what about the Holy Spirit, guiding us through scripture? What about 'proving all spirits'? What about your own discernment, experience, and conscience?

Watchman Nee's subjectivity was superimposed upon the flock. Today in the LC one of the Maximum Leaders will speak about the "feeling in the Body" as if somehow they were attuned to every Christian heart and mind. This is a great danger of Charismatic groups - you get weakened to subliminal and outside control. Eventually this becomes so clear when scriptures are disregarded, and common sense is abandoned in the quest for "Christian experience". It is mysticism without boundaries - no one can control the madness of the prophet.

Secondly, if "get in line" and "obey without question" were so important to the Christian walk, why didn't Nee get in line and obey in the Protestant, or Anglican groups he grew up in and was exposed to? Why did he wait until he was in charge of his own church group before he discovered this 'spiritual principle'? Again, subjectivity and self-deception are at work.

2) When the Communists took power, Nee's counsel to Little Flock elders clearly exposed (for me) his source was of men and not of God; I think it was in the Roberts/Hsu book. Essentially Nee had human power, and another human power (Communists) was threatened by it and was threatening it. And his response to that threat exposed his source. The 'spiritual' veneer of his counsels was stripped away and he was revealed to be a man, like any other.

Would I have done better? Probably not. But I don't presume to be one of the great spiritual leaders of the 20th century. Nee clearly put himself at the head of the contemporary Chinese Church. He was set up as THE authority. And his follower Lee tried to be THE Christian authority on earth. Both of them eventually were exposed as frauds.

Remember that Jesus taught us that the first would be last, and the last first. Those who presume to be great in this age should be very careful of deceptive influence, and those who try to find someone "great" to obey without question are in danger of great disappointment. Look at Lily Hsu: her spiritual walk was oriented around the Great Man Watchman Nee, and when that image was broken, she suffered loss. Our faith is in Jesus Christ, not ourselves.