The Commentary of an Ex-Lee Person (see his errors below)
Books Are Required Reading to Bring Members Under the Authority of their Pastors. Nee, Watchman (1903-1972) Widely read Christian author with some controversial teachings. Nee required blanket, unquestioning obedience. He also taught that all Christians must have a "Covering" - a person who has delegated authority, must be obeyed unconditionally, and who must be imitated. This "covering" does not stop with matters of faith and doctrine, but also extends to personal and secular matters (such as choice of employment, place to live, whether or not to marry, etc.) In addition, Nee taught there should only be one congregation in each city. Whenever Nee's followers moved into a city, they proclaimed themselves as the only church approved by God in that city. These doctrines have been picked up by various abusive churches and cultic movements, such as the International Churches of Christ. Under the leadership of Nee's disciple and co-worker, Witness Lee, his house church movement, the Local Church (known to it's followers as "The Lord's Recovery") later also became controversial. - Articles - Roots of the Modern Discipline Movement Chapter from an online book called "The Discipling Dilemma". In this chapter, Watchman Nee's teachings are shown to be one of the roots of discipling movements such as the cultic International Churches of Christ. http://www.cephasministry.com/evangelist_nee_required_reading.html
Watching Out For Watchman Nee. December 13, 2000 - Question: Does anyone have info on Watchman Nee? Our church requires the reading of the Book "Spiritual Authority" by Watchman Nee. Other books by Nee are: "The Normal Christian Life", "Love Not The World," "Changed into His Likeness," "A Table in the Wilderness," "What Shall This Man Do," Victory Press Evangelical Publishers, Nottbridge Drove, Eastbourne, Sussex. Answer: By no means am i endorsing these books. I find this discussion very interesting...that churches are using Nee's book on Spiritual Authority to bring people under the authority of pastors. Nee was anti-establishment and completely rejected the institutional church and its hierarchial structure. I haven't read the book for 30 years but it has to be a missapplication of his original teachings. There were no formal "pastors" in the "local church" which formed the basis for today's house churches in China. I was in the "local church" movement of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee as a leader and elder for 15 years from 1962 to 1977. I spent two months touring the churches in the Far East in the summer of 1968.The movement was cultic and exclusive, but criticized traditional Christianity for its structure, hierarchy, programs and lack of a true "body" life and church life. They exercised psychological control through more indirect means. Nee was very much against the "western" missionaries and saw himself as completely divorced from organized Christianity. Regarding Watchman Nee, there are some very dangerous teachings in his materials. Consider the fruit that many of his disciples committed suicide after his death. I have observed people reading some of his works getting very depressed. One must consider the full counsel of the scriptures. Watchman Nee teaches that there is nothing good in the soul or body, therefore to be spiritual you must deny soul and body. This causes a splitting in the psuche and is very harmful. Many of the followers got involved in adultery and soulish stuff; but denied it because it was not their spirit that was involved. The full counsel of Scriptures teaches that we are to be sanctified body, soul, and spirit; that we are to be every wit whole. These books have been used a lot by the dangerous Shepherding movement and other psuedo hyper spiritual sort of movements. It leads to legalism and a religious spirit.
You did touch on the 4th book of his I was led to read, "The Latent Power of the Soul" published by CFP. This book addresses the soul in a way that explains much of the strange manifestations of the spirit in the Brownsville Assembly of God, Toronto Airport Church and New Pentecostals, as well as false religions. Having been a subject in a cultic group and experiencing these things this book made a lot of sense, at least to me. I think we have continued this thread enough and can close it, unless others are interested to continue. [Source of Watchman Nee biography. http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/n00.html
The Response
by Troy Brooks
This mindless ex-Lee member of many years is in reaction to his experience, and Watchman Nee having no affiliation with this cult he was involved in seems to be getting the brunt of much of his suffering. This anonymous commentator was in the LSM cult for 15 years. Wow! I have never even gone into their cult meetings even once. And the fact that he would even get involved in this cult, and for so long speaks volumes of his character. He is out of control. I really shouldn't lower myself to this article. I qualify this article as the worse piece of writing I have ever come across in my life on Watchman Nee another person marrying him to Witness Lee mindlessly. To this day it still holds the number one ranking in stupidity. People collect this article through many websites. I will be harsh in my assessment, therefore, well pleasing to the Lord. As per watching out for Watchman Nee we need to really watch out for Richard Fisher.
Watchman Nee did not believe anything that was stated in the first paragraph and as to the second paragraph, Nee had no association to the LSM cult. Watchman Nee did not believe in any of these things. It is totally a marrying of Watchman Nee to Witness Lee because this cult member had been told so by the manipulative and deceitful Witness Lee who had the wool over his eyes for 15 years, and is unable to discern what is really going on. That is all it is. To show you the deceit observe the wording, "later also became controversial" to say these things were really Nee originally, and not Lee originally, but nowhere do you find Nee believing these things in his writings at Christian Fellowship Publishers. Watchman Nee's teachings are not part of the discipling movement, even though of course men may misuse Nee's writings as they wish. The book Discipling Dilemma is therefore of course wrong, but who is interested in bothering with it since this ex-Lee cult member had no desire to go beyond a proclamation. Therefore, let us not waste our time with it.
This is all quite ironic because the writer even admits Nee was "anti-establishment and completely rejected institutional church and its hierachial structure" and even admits all these mindless accusations he stated, "has to be a misapplication of his original teachings". You see this a lot in men like Dennis McCallum for example as they are perplexed by Watchman Nee for while they accuse him, and misread him, they can't understand where he had so much life from. How about the Holy Spirit?
This is another usual case of a person marrying Nee to Lee. It never ends. It is another mindless rant. He talks of depression and suicide, but this is vanity for there is no examination of Watchman Nee's writings of cause and effect, even though he said he read 30 of Nee's books (albeit the altered writings from LSM). If someone committed suicide, they were not in Christ to begin with so it is a poor comment. Notice he says there is "dangerous material" but then does not say what it is, just leaping over to suicide. Of course there is suicides in the Leeist cult, but what doe that have to do with Watchman Nee?
This commentator said he gets depressed when he reads Watchman Nee's writings. I would get depressed too if I read these so-called Watchman Nee writings and alterations at LSM and somehow try to find congruency with Witness Lee's thoughts, since they are totally incompatible (even altered Nee's writings), but Watchman Nee's writings at CFP are the best compilation of spiritual Christian writings ever compiled in any single man who ever lived, so full of life, so accurate and true. I can testify to that fact. His writings take Moses, Paul, John and all the writers of God's Word into fullness like I have never seen done before to such a degree of perfection. I myself have read many of Nee's books from CFP, and still I have found no mistake, nor has anyone ever presented one to me that was legitimate. I find this astonishing since I can easily find error in other writings.
Since this commentator was part of the LSM cult and he observed his members getting depressed reading Watchman Nee, we can conclude that it is really Witness Lee's working in those people as there is really quite a conflicting divide between what Watchman Nee wrote and what Witness wrote. Imagine being told something all along and then Watchman Nee's writings expose those deceptions. You will go through quite a trial to be sure. How could you not be depressed in such confusion? This is the working of the Holy Sprit releasing this man from 15 years of cult life in LSM. Praise God. He is now released but by his comments you can still see he has many problems in his thinking in the mind of his soul.
Watchman Nee never taught that there was "nothing good in the soul and body". This comment by this commentator reveals that he is quite out to lunch, never having read Watchman Nee's writings at all, or if he did, he totally misread them, or the alterations to Nee's writings at LSM are even worse than I thought, since Nee never said any such thing about the soul and body anywhere. "Splitting of the psuche"? What psyche? Huh? Who's splitting? What's splitting? I believe I know the answer to this. It is the splitting of the Witness Lee psyche out of the cult members when they begin to see at least on some level what Watchman Nee was really saying. Even so, they still blame Watchman Nee anyway. It is quite a battle that the Leeists go through in this Witness Lee mind-benders (calvinist) cult. These massive problems in LSM are fully documented here, http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/Misreading.htm.
Watchman Nee, on the other hand, all his life was OSAS arminian, which agrees with God's way. Amen.