Watchman Nee's most dangerous teachings

[MichaelGao]

My youth pastor has decided to use Watchman Nee's "Messages for building up new believers" collection for my youth group.
After having a search on the forums, I am familiar that Watchman Nee has some issues with sanctification, something about Higher life, Keswick, Holiness.
I am unclear as to specifically where it's wrong. So can some explain it to me.

Also are there any other really serious errors that I should be aware of, other than stuff like him not approving of denominations.

 

[Wayne]

One problem, not so obvious, with that material is verifying authorship. As I remember, there were a number of titles published under his name which were instead authored by others, including Witness Lee.

 

[N. Eshelman]

Michael, introduce this site to your pastor (assuming that your worship and teaching is in Chinese??)

Reformation Translation Fellowship Australia

Look especially at their publications:

RTFA

 

[Andres]

I have a good friend that is heavily influenced by Nee. Nee espoused the triune view of man - body, soul, and spirit. This is not the traditional view of man that has him being composed of body and soul. Also Nee has a very low view of the church. He believed denominations to be wrong and clergy to be unscriptural. As such, Nee had a very low view of external authority. Here are a few more "views" Nee held:

Nee outlines no method of Bible study and interpretation and appears to deny evangelical hermeneutics. In his book Spiritual Authority, he sets himself and his elders up as the unquestionable authorities. By all appearances, Nee saw himself not as a servant but as a guru.

One gets the impression from Nee that the Bible was not nearly as important as Christians generally consider it. In his book The Ministry of God's Word, Nee says, "Words alone cannot be considered God's Word." In this book, Nee becomes very philosophical, mystical and incoherent. He says that only as we deliver the Word in terms of the "reality behind it," using what he calls "Holy Spirit memory" and "presenting the pictures as well as speaking the words" will the words be correct; otherwise they are not real.

Nee overemphasizes emotions. In The Ministry of God's Word, he claims that the effectiveness of a preacher's delivery is a product of his emotions. If a preacher does not feel emotionally charged in delivery, "the Spirit is stuck" and the "Spirit is inevitably arrested," Nee says. He continues, "The Spirit flows through the channel of emotion." Then he arrives at a strange conclusion: "Nose in the Scripture stands for feeling. Smelling is a most delicate act, man's feeling is most delicate." Therefore, Nee says, a preacher in speaking needs to "mix feelings with the words spoken, else his words are dead. If our feeling lags behind, our words are stripped of the spirit." To say as Nee does, on page 210, that the Holy Spirit only rides on feeling is dangerous.

Nee uses terms imprecisely. One example is his writing about a minister's receiving "revelations" in his "Holy Spirit memory" and those revelations being remembered in us by the Holy Spirit. This sort of metaphysical mumbo jumbo is impossible to understand, since there is no direct scriptural reference to a "Holy Spirit memory." - G. Richard Fisher, Watching Out for Watchman Nee