A Defense of Watchman Nee
This is a response to an article I saw at http://www.apologeticsindex.org/n01.html. That links sends you to a review of a book called Understanding Watchman Nee, written by someone who doesn't understand Watchman Nee at all.
Very early in the article we read, “One need not be a theologian to discover that [Nee's] teachings call for scrutiny and caution by Christians.” This is the one thing I agree with the article on. One does not need to be a theologian to judge any teaching. In fact, theologians, like the one who wrote the book and the one who wrote the linked review, are at a distinct disadvantage as judges because they are disobeying Christ and losing the help of God in their judgment.
Jesus' teaching about how to judge teachings is very simple; so simple, in fact, that it requires a theologian to miss it. “You shall know them by their fruits...every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, nor can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit....Therefor, by their fruit you shall know them” (Matt. 7:16-20).
The fact is, most modern Christians judge by theology and by their own fallible Bible interpretation. They don't know to judge by fruit, or they would know how corrupt their own theology is. Christianity in America in 2008 is thoroughly marked by “doting about questions and arguments about words, from which come envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions, and useless arguments” (1 Tim. 6:4-5). Paul, agreeing with Jesus' assessment that bad fruit is only produced by bad trees, tells us that these things are the product of people who don't consent to the healthy words of Christ, whose minds are corrupt, and who are destitute of the truth. Amazingly, though, American Christians simply press on, using their corrupt theology—proven to be so by the corrupt fruit—to judge the ministries of others. Simply unbelievable.
The issue when we're looking at Watchman Nee is not whether his teachings agree with the bad teachings of American Christianity. The issue is whether Watchman Nee's teachings bore good fruit. The answer is that Watchman Nee's teachings bore great fruit, and therefore they are good teachings. If your theology doesn't line up with Watchman Nee's, and you are not producing the fruit Watchman Nee produced, then you need to scrap your theology and dump his. It doesn't take a theologian to know that. Anyone who reads Jesus' words can figure that out on their own.
Watchman Nee produced churches that understood unity, displayed the love of God to the world, lived in holiness, and diligently sought to shine their light to the world around them. They made a lasting impression in China, and wherever his teachings have come in America, they have produced people who seek after God, repent of their pitiful institutional Christianity, and understand the necessity of unity and of the church. Admittedly, the foundation of American Christianity is so bad that even with that repentance and understanding, almost all the small churches based on his teachings fail. However, in China, where Nee was present, those churches did not fail, but prospered. Rose Creek Village as well, which has learned many important foundational teachings from Nee, has prospered as well and is now spreading its amazing unity and love to other places.
Other names are mentioned in the article. It says that Nee was taught the “Keswick concept of the filling of the Spirit.” Praise God for that! The Keswick convention produced such notable names as Amy Carmichael, C.T. Studd, Hudson Taylor, Rees Howells, Andrew Murray, George Mueller, and others who have borne outstanding fruit.
Jesse Penn-Lewis, John Darby, and Madame Jeanne Guyon are also mentioned. Madame Guyon we can ignore because that's just an attempt to accuse Nee of Catholic mysticism. Madame Guyon influenced Jesse Penn-Lewis, they say. I have read a little of Madame Guyon and almost everything available from Watchman Nee, and while there's good Guyon has to say, she has no influence on Nee's writings. I know little about Jesse Penn-Lewis except that I have great respect for the men I've know who liked her writings. John Darby was the source of some church splits in England and ended up teaching nonsense in Switzerland, producing a church known as “the exclusive brethren” that meet in secret and do not evangelize. However, Nee embraced quite the opposite of Darby's “God gave up on the church” teaching. It is quite true, however, that Nee is easily identified with the Plymouth Brethren, as the article says. This is another good sign, as the 19th century Plymouth Brethren, for all the problems they had, produced the powerful Keswick conventions and teachings on the church that Nee put to great use in China.
All that having been said, I'd like to address some details. Again, there's not an issue here. People with bad fruit are trying to judge a man with good fruit. That's a sufficient answer to their judgments about Watchman Nee. However, some of the details in their article need to be addressed because there's things to learn from Nee on those subjects and because some of their descriptions are not accurate.
Towards the end there are four bulleted points in the article. The first says that Nee “outlines no method of Bible study and interpretation and appears to deny evangelical hermeneutics.” Thank God for the second point in that sentence. Try reading Ronald Sider's The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience for a general review of evangelical fruit. It would be very good for everyone to deny evangelical hermeneutics. On the first point, I'm not sure why Nee was under obligation to outline a method of Bible study and interpretation. Neither the apostle Paul nor the Lord Jesus provided such an outline, either. In fact, if anyone appeared to deny evangelical hermeneutics, it was Jesus Christ, who repeatedly taught that eternal life in the kingdom of heaven would be given to those who did good works (e.g., Jn. 5:29; Matt. 25:31-46).
That first bullet also says that Nee and his elders were to be unquestionable authorities and saw themselves as gurus, not servants. Of course, the guru wording is simply slander. However, no one who reads Nee's books to learn from them believes that he set himself or elders up as unquestionable authorities. He did believe and teach the authority of the elders. It is very difficult for evangelicals to wrap their minds around and understand this authority, because evangelical churches are more like clubs than scriptural churches. Evangelicals attend church twice a week and get to live their own lives. Scriptural churches are a real household of God. They know each other, hold each other accountable, and make decisions about college, jobs, and where to live only with the blessing of the church. They do not have savings account that are not readily available to be shared with others in the church. In short, they do not have their own lives, but they are really the family of God. No one who is not prepared to live this way can be a disciple of Christ (Luke 14:26-33). Evangelicals do not teach or understand this, so they do not understand Nee's concept of authority.
In the second bullet they write, “One gets the impression from Nee that the Bible was not nearly as important as Christians generally consider it.” On the one hand, this seems very funny to me, because I personally think Nee was influenced by the evangelicals to make the Bible more important than it ought to be. On the other hand, it is not funny, because the only possible reason that anyone could think Watchman Nee, who put tremendous emphasis on the Bible, didn't emphasize the Bible enough is because he did not make the Bible an object of worship like so many evangelicals do.
Today I watched a Christian movie with my children, and my son pointed out a misquote I had missed when I reviewed the movie earlier. A Christian in the movie says, “Trust in this book with all your heart, mind, and strength.” My son said, “I recognize that as a Scripture quote, but I think there's an important word changed.” It's actually a compilation of two Scriptures, and the word is changed in both of them. Prov. 3:5-6 says that we're to trust in God with all our heart, and Mark 12:30 says that God is to be loved with all our mind, heart, and strength. In both cases, God has been replaced with “this book.” A clearer example of idolatry practiced toward the Bible I have rarely seen.
What's sad is that while evangelicals are very prone to venerating the Scriptures, they are not very prone to obeying them. An example is the article itself, which simply ignores Jesus' admonishment to judge a prophet—and by extension, any new teacher—by his fruit. Another common example applies to this whole subject of the disagreement between Nee and evangelicals. The Scriptures say that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. Evangelicals disagree, making the Scriptures the pillar and support of the truth, completely disregarding what the Bible says on the subject!
That second bulleted point also complains about Nee's extremely complicated teachings on the ministry of the Word of God. They call him “philosophical, mystical, and incoherent.” I found Nee's teachings on the subject extremely mystical, as they did, but rather than incoherent I found them deeply practical, amazingly insightful, and I have put those teachings to effective use for over 20 years. Over and over, I have found that when I reject my fears that I am going to seem like a nut, and I teach the way Nee suggests, putting spiritual words to spiritual thoughts, my words have cut deeply into people's hearts. His teachings on the ministry of the Word have thus been my favorite for over two decades. The only explanation I can find for their assessement is found in Scripture. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
Since it's been a while since I've read The Ministry of God's Word, I have to mostly leave the third bulleted point alone. In general, though, I have to say it's bizarre to suggest that Nee overemphasizes emotions. Anyone who has read all of Nee's writings will know that Nee does not believe in operating by emotions. In fact, one of his most central teachings is that emotions need to be subjected to the Christian's spirit. Thus, if Nee discusses the use of emotion in The Ministry of God's Word, he can only be discussing the emotions being put to use by the spiritual man, not simply freedom of emotion. If a spiritual man, teaching spiritually, is moved to emotion, then he most certainly ought to use that emotion, and if he does not, he is stifling the Spirit of God. This is not a bizarre teaching, but a true one.
Their final bulleted point is that Nee uses terms imprecisely. This is not true, either. Are there examples where Nee actually uses terms imprecisely? I don't know how that could be avoided. Are there examples where some people may not be able to understand Nee's use of terms? Guaranteed. Overall, though, it's hard to imagine anyone more careful with their terms than Watchman Nee. If I felt qualified to judge him, I'd suggest that he's too precise and careful about words. However, that's an extremely minor issue, and I don't feel qualified to judge him on such an issue. It'd be more appropriate for him to judge me.
They go on to refer to his supposedly imprecise terms as “spiritual mumbo jumbo.” Again, all I can say is that the things of the Spirit are foolishness to the natural man. I don't remember Nee's use of the term “Holy Spirit memory.” I'm sure he did use the term. I'm also sure there was a thought he was conveying that spiritual men can understand, and, knowing Watchman Nee's teaching style, he explained that thought deeply and clearly.
There is one last detail that needs to be addressed, which is their claim in the fourth paragraph that Nee taught “four subsequent experiences after conversion.” Again, this is simply not true. It is true that Nee did allow the possibility of experiences after conversion. It is true that he taught that Christians immediately become stronger once they understand and believe that they are in Christ. He taught as well that the understanding that Christ is our life would also immediately give us strength. It is not true that he had some pattern of four experiences to have after conversion.
These writers end by saying, “When a Christian begins to see...Nee's writings as a key to spirituality, that person is headed for trouble.” I think not. While Nee was around the Christians who followed headed not for trouble but for fellowship, unity, a deep relationship with Christ, and spiritual power and perseverance. The suggestion they make that the Way International and the Children of God are products of Nee's teachings is simple slander. The Way International has nothing whatever to do with Nee's teachings, and neither do the children of God. There are hundreds of home groups influenced by his teaching. Gene Edwards and Witness Lee are influenced by his teachings, and both Gene Edwards and Witness Lee produced flawed movements due to personal pride. However, the people involved in Lee's movements and in Edwards' house churches are usually doing better than the typical evangelical in an evangelical church because their teachings are better.
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