THE ECCLESIOLOGY OF WATCHMAN NEE

Abstract

In the West, Chinese Christian leader Watchman Nee (1903–1972) is primarily known as the author of a number of popular books on personal sanctification and the Christian life. Although he only wrote and published one of these books personally, due to the extensive catalogue of his sermons, lectures, and conference addresses, many of which were originally published as magazine articles, a large collection of his teaching on a variety of different subjects is available to the public in several different languages and formats.  Spending the bulk of the last twenty years of his life in a communist prison cell in China, it is likely he himself was never aware of the worldwide impact of his writings.  His greatest impact, however, was likely within China itself. A Western missionary, quoted by Nee’s biographer, Angus I. Kinnear, bears this testimony: “There is no doubt that Mr. Nee was a man raised up by the Lord to inject the truths of the gospel into the very blood-stream of the Chinese people. His words stuck like burrs. His books and tracts ran everywhere. If one was asked to draw up a short list of the most influential Chinese Christians there have ever been, it would be hard to leave him out.”