Against the Tide: The Story of Watchman Nee by Angus Kinnear

Author:Angus Kinnear
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780875087054
Publisher: Christian Literature Crusade
Published: 1973-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

12

RETHINKING

IN October 1935, with the first straggling survivors of the Long March, Mao Tse-tung emerged in northern Shensi to take up his new headquarters at Yenan as the undisputed leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Their year-long feat of endurance was to become an emotional high peak in the Party's annals. Some of its spectacular episodes were already legends of Communist heroism and invincibility: the break-out from the Kiangsi encirclement, the secret crossing of the River of Yellow Sand, the forcing under fire of the Bridge of Iron Chains over the Tatu River at Luting, the ascent of the Great Snow Mountain, and the nightmarish traverse of the Szechwan swamplands. Sustained throughout by political formulae and iron determination, they emerged now at a key point on the fringe of the North China Plain, welded by their ordeal into a disciplined nucleus for future operations. After so long under nearly continuous military attack, they had acquired a new self-assurance as Chinese Communists in their own right, no longer answerable to Russia.

Chiang Kai-shek's attempt to exterminate them had, at least for the present, failed dismally; but the tranquillity in the south meant that the way was at last open for the Shanghai brothers who had felt called to the Tibetan borderlands to set out for Yunnan. In the next year or so, six made their way there. They met with a heartwarming response among the Tibetans but seriously lacked literature. Tracts and Scripture portions in the Tibetan language were therefore printed in Shanghai and shipped to them via Hanoi, where, to Watchman's disgust, the French government confiscated them. He arranged, therefore, for the plates to be flown to Yunnan and the printing done on the spot. Only thus after long delay was the problem overcome.

Elsewhere in China the expansion of the work was set forward by two factors. One was the increasing demand among converts of whatever mission allegiance for Watchman's sermon transcriptions. The magazine and the Bible-centered booklets found their way into Christian homes everywhere, providing food for many who had been aroused spiritually by revivalist preaching but now had nothing to feed them. Nee's gift of explaining Christian doctrines in simple words went far to meet their need.

The other factor was, as we have seen, the spontaneous use of believers' homes. A prayer group would spring up where a believer moved by transfer of business or official service; and at once this would become a fresh center of Christian witness, drawing people, some out of paganism but not a few from various mission connections, into a primitive church fellowship. They were men and women who had turned from their sins to the Savior to give their all to Him. As each small nucleus grew, it was given elders (chang-lao) in the New Testament pattern to guide its activities and make provision for its ministries. It might in due course require larger premises; but its meeting place must be functional and never monumental, and there was no thought of buying land

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