Hiding History in the Nee and Lee Eras of the Lord's Recovery

Book excerpt: This writing is a transparent rendering of the history of "the local churches" under the leadership of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and their ministry(s), which now is in the hands of a group of "blending brothers" who were mentored by Lee and are fully engaged in promoting his ministry in and through the "local churches" associated with them and with Living Stream Ministry. "Living Stream Ministry publishes the works of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee providing the authoritative and definitive collections of treasures from these two servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. The writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee focus on the enjoyment of the divine life, which all the believers possess, and on the building up of the church, the goal of God's work with man in this age." (from LSM Home page)The term "local church" is to be applied to Christians in a locality who meet on a ground of understanding that they are one in Christ with every true believer and desire practically to be built up with believers in their own locality according to Christ alone and God's own receiving of them. This is the view seen in the New Testament. It is also the vision we see at the beginning of the Lord's recovery in the Watchman Nee era, but toward the end his view had changed dramatically as the threat of Communist interference rolled across China. The era of Witness Lee parallels that of his mentor: They both began with 1) Christ as life for building up local churches, with "administration local each answering to the Lord"; but ended up inspiring a movement in the churches to 2) "hand over" the reins of leadership to one man and his ministry. This book is to inspire them to come back to the vision at the beginning of the Lord's recovery.