"Early Nee" vs. "Later Nee"

[TLFisher]

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

[kisstheson]

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

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!

[kisstheson]

Dear brother Terry,

Here is my best attempt at assigning specific decades to the three phases of "Early Nee", "Later Nee/Early Lee", and "Later Lee":

1. 1920's = "Early Nee"
2. 1930's = "Early Nee"
3. 1940 - 1942 = "Early Nee"
4. 1942 - 1948 = WN temporarily lays aside his ministry
5. 1948 - 1949 = "Later Nee/Early Lee"
6. 1950's = "Later Nee/Early Lee" (Nee imprisoned in 1952, Lee continues "Later Nee/Early Lee")
7. 1960's = "Later Nee/Early Lee"
8. 1970 - 1974 = "Later Nee/Early Lee" (Nee passes away in 1972)
9. 1974 -1979 = Transition years from "Early Lee" to "Later Lee"
10. 1980 -1985 = Transition years from "Early Lee" to "Later Lee"
11. 1986 - 1989 = "Later Lee"
12. 1990's = "Later Lee" (BB's continue "Later Lee" after WL passes away in 1997)
13. 2000's = "Later Lee" (BB's continuing "Later Lee")

What do you think of this?

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by kisstheson

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!

Kisstheson, I see the defining separation between Early Lee and later Lee beginning with the bi-annual trainings. This is when the focus began to transition from focus Jesus Christ to the Ministry. Given this transition was not immediate and did not become transparent until the late eighties/early ninties.

Terry

[kisstheson]

Originally Posted by Terry

Kisstheson, I see the defining separation between Early Lee and later Lee beginning with the bi-annual trainings. This is when the focus began to transition from focus Jesus Christ to the Ministry. Given this transition was not immediate and did not become transparent until the late eighties/early ninties.

Terry

Thank you for confirming this, dear brother Terry. I had suspected that this transition was rather gradual, based upon the posts of many dear ones on these forums and based upon dear brother Hope's book and dear sister Jane Anderson's book.

The subtlety here always amazes me. A shift of focus from Jesus Christ to the Ministry that unveiled Jesus Christ. At first, this was not an easy shift to discern. It surely would have required a lot of discernment back in the 1970's to see that the focus was subtly shifting and to know how things would eventually turn out. Today, of course, we have super-clear hindsight regarding all these events.

May these things serve to warn us, instruct us, and humble us for our going on in the Lord.

[kisstheson]

Dear ones,

I have been reading through the new and revised edition of dear brother Angus Kinnear’s book Against the Tide, his biography of dear brother Watchman Nee. I was surprised (and somewhat comforted!) to learn that someone else also saw a difference between the pre-1948 “early Nee” and the 1948-and-onwards “later Nee”. (1948, is, of course, the year in which WN resumed his ministry after a six-year interruption.) Maybe dear brother UntoHim and I are really onto something here!

(In the quotes shown below from Against the Tide, the bolding was added by me and does not appear in the original.)

Concerning the strong emphasis on submission to “deputy authority” from 1948 onwards, brother Kinnear writes:

“But the slogan ‘Bow to Authority’ was in fact to become a new and, to many, very disturbing feature of the work from now on. To us today it seems so entirely out of character with his past teachings and way of working that one wonders if it could possibly have originated (as a few have thought) in a change in mind in Nee himself, or whether, at a time when he was spiritually vulnerable, he was caught off balance by the enthusiasm of others.” (p. 233)

Concerning the new teaching from 1948 onwards regarding working according to “the Jerusalem line”, brother Kinnear writes:

“Watchman Nee had himself been meditating along these lines and readily agreed. Jerusalem, he pointed out, became just such a centre . . . ‘Our failure in these few years is that we have had no structure of the work corresponding to the principle of Jerusalem. We should concentrate fellow workers for ministry in regional centres until local churches are fully established and thereafter transfer whole communities to other parts – unless, as in the Acts, the Lord arranges a persecution to scatter them abroad.’ . . . This statement appears a startling reversal of Watchman’s earlier insistence on the local churches’ complete independence of apostolic (that is, worker) control. It is from this point in fact that the tighter authoritarianism makes itself felt throughout the movement, to become after liberation a feature of the churches outside China.” (pp. 231-232)

(All quotes are taken from Angus Kinner, Against the Tide, Kingsway Publications, copyright 1973, revised edition 2005.)

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by kisstheson

Dear ones,

I have been reading through the new and revised edition of dear brother Angus Kinnear’s book Against the Tide, his biography of dear brother Watchman Nee. I was surprised (and somewhat comforted!) to learn that someone else also saw a difference between the pre-1948 “early Nee” and the 1948-and-onwards “later Nee”. (1948, is, of course, the year in which WN resumed his ministry after a six-year interruption.)

I am just shocked. I had attributed these changes to LSM distortions.

WN was well aware of future dangers which would undoubtedly ensue.

This only confirms Hope's observation that, though WN is so well appreciated by many Christians, his teachings about "deputy authority" are suspicious.