Baptists in Hong Kong

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Baptist Church on Caine Road
Baptist Church in Chai Wan
Swatow Baptist Church in Kennedy Town
Hong Kong Baptist University Administration Building
Lui Ming Choi Baptist Elementary School

The beginnings of the Baptists in Hong Kong date back to the first half of the 19th century . In addition to a few free Baptist congregations, there are three independent Baptist congregation federations that are located in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region . The association with the largest number of members is the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong . In second place is the Hong Kong Conservative Baptist Association . The smallest association is the Fellowship of ABWE Churches .

history

The year 1842 plays an important role in Hong Kong Baptism. During that year, various Baptist missionaries met without consulting each other. Although they were all of American descent, they had very different paths behind them when they founded the first Hong Kong churches together after 1842.

The American mission couple Jehu Lewis Shuck (1812–1863) and Henrietta , née Hall (1817–1844) came to Macau in 1836 . The mission couple recorded a first convert in 1837 , who was soon followed by others. In 1842 the Shucks moved to Hong Kong. Qing Yang (1811-1882), Yehu Shuck's Chinese teacher, was among the first to be baptized in the new area. He was ordained a missionary helper and around 1846 as the first Baptist missionary of Chinese origin. Yang worked in cooperation with the US-American Southern Baptist Convention mainly in Shanghai (from 1847) and in Guangzhou (from 1851).

Another missionary associated with the Baptist beginnings in Macau and Hong Kong was Issachar R. Roberts (1802–1871). He financed his trip there from his own resources, reached the Portuguese colony a year after the arrival of the Shuck couple and initially evangelized there in a leper colony . In 1841 he joined the external mission of the Baptist Triennial Convention (later: American Baptist Churches ) and in 1842 went to Hong Kong as the first Protestant missionary, where he baptized the first Chinese in June of the same year (before Jehu Shuck was baptized by Qing Yang). After the great schism within US-American Baptism Roberts worked first for the foreign mission of the Southern Baptist Convention and then from 1851 again as an independent Baptist missionary. In doing so, he worked - from 1844 onwards, inspired by the China missionary Karl Gützlaff - far beyond the borders of Hong Kong.

Also in 1842 came the New York theologian William Dean (1807–1895) to Hong Kong. Behind him lay a mission of several years in Bangkok , during which he founded the first Chinese-speaking Protestant church worldwide, the Maitrichit Chinese Baptist Church , in 1837 . In addition to his pastoral service, he taught interested Bangkok Chinese in Christian theology from 1838 . Tang Tui and Koe Bak, two of his students who were already in the field service, went with him when he arrived in Hong Kong.

All of the missionaries mentioned were involved in the establishment of the first two Hong Kong Baptist churches in different ways. The Queen's Road Baptist Church was constituted on May 15, 1842, and a year later, on May 28, 1843, the Tie Chiu Baptist Church . With the departure of the mentioned missionaries and their close co-workers, the Hong Kong missionary work came to a standstill. From time to time foreign evangelists would visit the two congregations and try to strengthen them. The fact that they lasted for over 100 years is mainly thanks to the local lay helpers. After the Second World War, a new bloom began. One of the reasons for this was that China banned Christian missionary work, after which many Christians from China fled to Hong Kong and planted new churches under the guidance of refugee missionaries. In 1949 the Southern Baptist Convention began again with a missionary activity in Hong Kong, in 1951 the American Baptists followed with the establishment of a missionary work among Swatov-speaking refugees in the crown colony. Other Baptist missionary societies were added. In the early 1950s, the Baptist Mid-Missions and the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism established mission stations in Hong Kong territory. The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society sent its first missionaries to the Hong Kong regions of Kowloon and New Territories in 1963 . In 1969 the Baptist Bible Fellowship finally began its work.

In 1995 there were three Baptist unions with 94 congregations and approximately 47,000 members on Hong Kong territory.

Baptist Convention of Hong Kong

The Baptist Convention of Hong Kong is the oldest and largest congregation in the former Crown Colony. It was founded in 1938 as the Hong Kong Baptist Association and then comprised only three congregations. In 1954 the American Baptists established the Joint Committee of Swatow Baptist Churches . Your congregations have joined the convention over the past decade . The Baptist Convention of Hong Kong is a member of the Baptist World Federation and belongs to the regional conference Asia Pacific Baptist Federation within the World Federation . In 2017, the convention had 167 congregations with approximately 114,000 members.

Fellowship of ABWE Churches

The Fellowship of ABWE Churches goes back to the work of the Barnett couple. Before coming to Hong Kong in 1951, they were in China on behalf of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE). In Hong Kong, the two started with evangelistic child labor. There were two schools in Kowloon, numerous groups of children, which then became kindergartens. At the beginning of the 1960s, she and other employees of the ABWE Mission began setting up clinics and social centers. As a result of the educational and social work, several congregations came into being that joined forces to form a fellowship . In 2019, the ABWE included 24 municipalities.

Hong Kong Conservative Baptist Association

The Conservative Baptists sent their first missionaries to Hong Kong in 1963. The focus of their church planting was on new housing estates in which they set up elementary schools and social counseling centers.

Facilities

In addition to their congregations, Hong Kong Baptists established a significant number of clinics, social centers, and educational institutions. The best known institution is the Hong Kong Baptist University , which was established in 1956 by the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong with the support of the American Baptists . It is the second oldest university in the former Crown Colony and is based in Kowloon.

In 1951 founded the Convention , the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary , a theological training center for volunteers and employees.

literature

  • William H. Brackney: Historical Dictionary of the Baptists . Volume 25 in the Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements series . The Scarecrow Press, Inc .: Lanham, Maryland, and London 1999. ISBN 0-8108-3652-1 . P. 216f (article: Hong Kong )
  • Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook . Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. ISBN 0-8054-1076-7 . P. 99f (Article: Hong Kong [1836/1842] )
  • Paul Yat-Keung Wong: The History of Baptist Missions in Hong Kong (dissertation). 1974
  • Baker J. Cauthen et al .: Advance . Broadman Press: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1970. pp. 106-110

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The abbreviation ABWE stands for Association of Baptists for World Evangelism
  2. ↑ also John Lewis Shuck
  3. ↑ Xiaojian Zhao, Edward JW Park (Ed.): Asian Americans. An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, Ecomic, and Political History . Volume I (A-F). Greenwood: Santa Barbara (California), Denver (Colorado), Oxford (England) 2013. p. 1228 (Article: Yang, Qing [Yong Seen Sarng] )
  4. ↑ For the biography of Issachar R. Roberts see, inter alia, Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (BDCC) / P. Richard Bohr: 1802–1871. Issachar Jacox Roberts (罗 孝 全). Baptist missionary in China and supporter of the Taiping Rebellion (PDF-online) ; accessed on November 12, 2019
  5. ↑ For the biography of William Dean see Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (BDCC) / Laura Mason: 1807–1895. William Dean. American Baptist pioneer, church planter, and theological educator in China and Thailand, founder of the world's first Protestant Chinese church (PDF-online) ; viewed November 12, 2019
  6. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook . Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 99
  7. ^ William H. Brackney: Historical Dictionary of the Baptists . Volume 25 in the Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements series . The Scarecrow Press, Inc .: Lanham, Maryland, and London 1999. pp. 216f
  8. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook . Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 99
  9. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook . Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 100
  10. ↑ BWA.org: Statistics ; accessed on November 14, 2019
  11. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook. Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 100
  12. ↑ HKABWE.org: Community directory (Chinese) ; accessed on November 14, 2019
  13. ^ Albert W. Wardin (Ed.): Baptists around the World. A Comprehensive Handbook . Broadman & HoHolman Publishers: Nashville / Tennessee (USA) 1995. p. 100
  14. ↑ HKBU.edu.hk: Internet presence of the Baptist University of Hong Kong (English and Chinese) ; accessed on November 14, 2019
  15. ↑ 香港 浸信 會 神 學院. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .