Reborn after Death

　　We always want to know about our ancestors. In fact, our identity begins in our historical connections long before our birth. Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary was born the same year that the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary in Guang Zhou closed in 1951. Like the mythical figure of the Phoenix who dies in a fire and then rises reborn from the ashes, the Hong Kong Seminary was born from the closing of the Leung Kwong Seminary. A better metaphor for the relationship between the seminaries is the Christian belief in resurrection. Life does not end in death, but is renewed by the power of God. Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades [death] will not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18) Hong Kong Seminary continues the mission of equipping leaders for Chinese Baptist churches that began in Guang Zhou. The purpose of this article is to trace several connections between the two seminaries.

Early History of the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary

　　The Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary began at the kitchen table of missionary Rosewell H. Graves where he gathered and mentored the first two students in 1866. The seminary continued for eighty-five years until 1951 with the final closing. This school was the first Baptist seminary in China. It began twenty-one years after J. Lewis Shuck and Baptists arrived in Guang Zhou in 1845. During the early years the Southern Baptist South China Mission was largely responsible for faculty and funding of the seminary. In 1907 a new seminary building was erected through the $5,000 appropriated by the Foreign Mission Board. The seminary was given the name, The Graves Theological Seminary, in honor of the founder. This was the name of the seminary until 1933 when the Leung Kwong Association accepted responsibility for the school and the name was changed to The Leung Kwong Seminary. The Leung Kwong Association was composed of churches in the two Kwongs: Kwong Dong and Kwong Sai.

　　Both Chinese and missionary Baptists were teachers, but the seminary president had always been a missionary. A joint committee of six Chinese members and six missionaries served as policy guides, something like trustees. Although administrative policy decisions were made by this committee, the final decision on all matters of personnel, budget, and policy had to be referred to the Foreign Mission Board in Richmond, Virginia, for approval.

　　In 1931 an Associational committee asked the South China Mission to adopt a policy of local responsibility by which all decisions regarding the seminary would be made by a local committee composed of Chinese leaders and missionaries. The Foreign Mission Board was not willing to adopt this localization policy. However, M. Theron Rankin, missionary seminary president at the time, led the mission to transfer responsibility for the seminary to the Association while the mission continued supporting the school by providing personnel and finances. In 1933 the seminary came under the direct responsibility of the Leung Kwong Association. They elected the Theological Education Department members and gave to them the oversight responsibility. The first Chinese president they selected was Rev. Lau Yuet-sing, who also served as pastor of the Dong Shan Baptist Church Rev. Lau was not only the first Chinese president of a Baptist seminary in China, he was also the first national president of any seminary associated with the Foreign Mission Board. He served from 1933 to 1937 when he became pastor of the Hong Kong (Caine Road) Baptist Church. Later he became the first president of the Hong Kong Baptist Seminary in 1951.

Leung Kwong Association and Hong Kong Baptists

　　Baptists in the Leung Kwong Association together with the South China Mission sponsored many institutions: a kindergarten, elementary and middle schools (Pui Ching, Pui Dou), two hospitals, an orphanage, a publishing house, an old people’s home, a school for the blind, a seminary, and a Bible school for women (Pui In). The women’s Bible school was established in 1908 by Valeria Page Greene, wife of Leung Kwong Seminary teacher G. W. Greene. This school trained Bible women for ministry in the churches. As in most schools in China men and women did not study in the same school. This will be in contrast to the Hong Kong Seminary that was co-educational from the beginning. However the same teachers taught in both the women’s Bible school and the Leung Kwong Seminary. For a short time during the Japanese occupation in Guang Zhou, Pui In was moved to Hong Kong but soon returned to China. Pui In was permanently closed during the restrictions of the new Communist government. Students from Pui In were among the first members of Hong Kong Seminary classes.

　　Much of the relationship of the Leung Kwong Association and Hong Kong Baptists in the years before 1900 is lost to us in the destruction of records. It seems that in about 1880 Dr. R. H. Graves accomplished the transfer of responsibility for churches in Hong Kong and Cheung Chau to the South China Mission. This marked the close of the early phase of the American Baptist Missionary Union (Northern Baptists) activity in Hong Kong. At least by the beginning of the Hong Kong (Caine Road) Baptist Church in 1901 graduates of the Graves Seminary were serving as pastors in Hong Kong. Of the seven Caine Road pastors from 1901 to 1957 five had studied or taught in the Graves Seminary. One pastor, Rev. Lau Yuet-sing, had been seminary president. It seems likely that this Hong Kong connection with the Leung Kwong Seminary would have been the case in the other churches and chapels in Hong Kong. Certainly after 1938 and the founding of the Hong Kong Baptist Association there was participation of Hong Kong churches in the Leung Kwong Associational meetings and activities since these churches were members of that Association before and after 1938. The Association minutes speak of frequent requests as well as reports from Hong Kong.

The Closing of the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary

　　The years after the Leung Kwong Association assumed responsibility for the seminary were very difficult times. War with Japan (begun four years after the transfer) was followed by civil war in China between the Nationalists and the Communists. Guang Zhou was repeatedly bombed by the Japanese from 1937 to 1938 during which time the seminary remained open. After the Japanese occupation of Kwong Dong in 1938 the seminary closed the campus and moved students and Chinese teachers to West Guang Dong to the cities of Shiu Hing and Lian Dung in order to continue classes. At the end of the war, in 1946, the seminary reopened in Guang Zhou with Dr. Chiu Yan-tsz as president. Faculty included: Prof. Lau Kung-chak, Rev. Fung Chiu-wing, and Eugene Hill.

　　In June 1949, Rev. Chu Wing-hong joined the seminary faculty (he is the father of our adjunct lecturer, Rev. Lawrence Chu). Rev. Chu had taught in the Pui In Bible School while it was in Hong Kong after which he studied in the Baptist seminary of Shanghai University. On 1 October 1949 the People’s Republic of China was established as the new central government. Concern was being felt among Chinese leaders and missionaries concerning the possibility of continuing church and seminary life. Rev. Chu was asked to serve as the acting president of the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary. Classes continued on a limited basis. In March of 1951 the new government demanded that the seminary be closed and the property be turned over for the use of “the people.” The reason given was the connection of the seminary to foreigners even though the school was under the control of the Association and all missionaries had left. For 106 years (1845-1951) Baptists had openly shared the gospel of Jesus Christ in Guang Zhou. For 85 years Baptists had provided theological education for Baptist leaders. In many ways this was the end of an era of Baptist life in China.

　　Seminary students were greatly saddened by the closing of the school, but they had received word that Hong Kong was opening a seminary that very year, 1951. Rev. Lau Fook-chuen remembers that he had studied two years in Leung Kwong. His teachers had been Dr. James Belote, Rev. Eugene Hill, Dr. Charles Culpepper, and Rev. Matthew Tong. Rev. Lau and other students immediately began to make plans to emigrate to Hong Kong in order to continue their studies in the new school. This would not be easy since leaving China required an exit visa from the new government. These students joined the flood of refugees coming to Hong Kong. Among those coming were many Baptist church members, some pastors, several missionaries, some institutions.

The Birth of the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary

　　By the year 1950 it was becoming obvious that under the new government continuation of the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary would be difficult, perhaps impossible. Pressure on institutions with foreign connections was resulting in the confiscation of property for use by “the people.” Foreign support for the school in both personnel and finances would be impossible. China was being closed to Baptist theological education possibilities, but Hong Kong was opening a new opportunity for a new seminary.

　　In spite of the limited number of churches (3) and chapels (6) in Hong Kong at the time, the vision of Chinese leaders led them to call together a group of Baptist leaders to consider the proposal of opening a Baptist seminary in Hong Kong. In August of 1950 this preparation group met at St. Stephen’s College in Stanley for prayer and planning a new Baptist seminary in Hong Kong. The proposal to start a Hong Kong Baptist seminary was ratified by the Hong Kong Association (later Convention) in the annual meeting on April 2, 1951. The Preparation committee elected by the Association was composed of four pastors: Lau Yuet-shing first president of the Leung Kwong and the Hong Kong Baptist seminaries), Daniel Cheung, Au-yeung Hing-cheung, and John Chan; five laymen: Lam Chi-fung, Tam Hei-tin, To Chiu-shing, Tsoi Wai-fung, and Lee Mang-pui; and four missionaries: James Belote, Victor Frank, Ronald Fuller, Charles Culpepper, Sr. (all of these missionaries later taught in the Hong Kong Seminary). Classes were to begin in September 1951.

　　The beginning of Hong Kong Baptist Seminary had close connections with the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary. The closing and opening of the two seminaries took place in the spring and fall of same year, 1951. All of the students in the first two Hong Kong graduating classes had formerly been students in Leung Kwong (with the exception of one student). Four of theses students were men from the Leung Kwong seminary. Five graduates were women who had studied in the Pui In Bible School. All of the first missionary teachers had served in the South China Mission, except Dr. Culpepper, who had been the president of the all China Baptist Theological Seminary in Shanghai. Early Hong Kong teachers who had taught at Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary were Lau Yuet-sing, Chiu Yan-tsz, and Chu Wing-hong.

　　In spite of these connections with the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary the Hong Kong school was unique. The initiative to inaugurate the seminary came largely from the Chinese Baptist community rather than from the missionaries. The management of the seminary was under the Association, first by the Theological Education Department and then by a Board of Trustees, not under the Mission. The Hong Kong seminary was not moved from China to Hong Kong as had been other Hong Kong Baptist seminaries (Alliance, Evangel, and Bethel). The Hong Kong Seminary was a new creation. Unlike the separation of men and women in different schools as in Guang Zhou, the new seminary was co-educational from its beginning.

　　This year Baptists can celebrate the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the first Baptist missionaries, J. Lewis and Henrietta Shuck, in Macau, China in 1836. We recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of Hong Kong Baptist Seminary. If there were a definite connection with the Leung Kwong Seminary we would have celebrated our 145th anniversary (1866-2011). Regardless of the actual historical connection by a formal move from China to Hong Kong there has been a continuity of purpose, students, teachers, relationships, and above all Baptist churches. Leung Kwong Seminary closed, Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary opened. We should be reminded of the words of Jesus, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (Jn 12:24).