He Went Back

“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.” — John 10:11 (ASV)

On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. The Communist Party now held the state, and it set about remaking all of Chinese society. It didn't ban Christian worship overnight. Instead, religious life was reshaped step by step through campaigns, propaganda, patriotic organisations and growing control.

Protestant leaders were drawn into what became the Three-Self Patriotic Movement: self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating, with all foreign ties cut. Here is the irony. Those words sounded almost exactly like what Nee had taught for decades. But the same words can serve different masters. For Nee, an independent Chinese church existed so that Christ, not foreign missions, would rule it. For the state, independence from foreigners was part of political control. The real question wasn't whether the church should be Chinese. It was who would be Lord. Words like “independence,” “unity” and “patriotism” are good words; what matters is how power uses them. Christians have to judge what is actually being done, not just the slogans.

In 1950 Nee went to Hong Kong. He had friends abroad and the chance to stay out of mainland China. Colleagues urged caution. He chose to go back, believing he should share the future of the Chinese churches. It may have been the most costly decision of his life.

The biography is careful not to say that every leader in danger must stay. Paul fled cities when persecution came, and Jesus told his disciples they could flee from one city to another. Scripture allows both staying and leaving, depending on calling. Nee believed staying was his.

But the story of those first years is not a simple tale of a hero resisting from day one. Recent scholarship notes that Nee and the Assembly Hall took part in public patriotic demonstrations and expressed support for parts of the new government, especially around the time of the Korean War. Chinese Christians were trying to survive in a world that was changing fast. Some hoped cooperation on national matters would protect freedom for spiritual work. Some genuinely welcomed parts of the new order. Some acted under pressure. Others, like Wang Mingdao, later refused the state-run church structures more openly.

Then came the denunciation campaigns. Church members were pressured to accuse their leaders in public and expose supposed crimes. For a movement built on trust, it was devastating. Nee's old pharmaceutical business now gave the state economic grounds to investigate him.

In April 1952, Nee was arrested, reportedly in Manchuria, on charges connected to business and political accusations. He was forty-eight years old. Nobody around him knew he would never live as a free man again.

Christians have two Bible passages to hold together here. “Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers,” says Romans 13. Christians honour governments, even ones they didn't choose. But when the apostles were ordered to stop preaching, they said, “We must obey God rather than men.” Telling which situation you're in is one of the hardest things the church ever has to do.

Real heroes are usually more complicated than the posters. That's not bad news. It means God works through actual people.

One thing to do this week: pray for the leaders of your country by name, including the ones you disagree with. Then pray for Christians who live under governments that pressure them, that they would have wisdom to know when to cooperate and courage to know when they can't.