M. Theron Rankin and the Baptist Seminaries in Guang Zhou and Hong Kong

　　The annual Baptist Heritage Week has been held from March 6 through March 8. The theme for this year was “Snapshots of the Early Baptist Leaders in China and Hong Kong (I)” with Professor Jerry E. Juergens, Professor Jerry E. Moye and Dr. Vincent Lau respectively introducing several Baptist leaders: Dr. M. Theron Rankin, Ms. Lottie Moon, Mrs. Henrietta Hall Shuck and Dr. Lam Chi-fung.

　　In this issue we publish Professor Jerry Juergens’ manuscript hoping that through his discussion, we are led to recall Dr. Rankin’s contribution to theological education and to understand the connection between the Baptist Seminaries in Guang Zhou and Hong Kong.

　　On this first day of Baptist Heritage Week 2007 we are gathered to remember one of our Baptist ancestors, Milledge Theron Rankin and explore the background connection between the Baptist Seminaries in Guang Zhou and Hong Kong. Of course every time we borrow a seminary book we see his name, “Rankin Memorial Library.” Who was he? Why is he so important that our library would be named for him?¹ What does his story remind us about the connection between the two seminaries?

　　Who was M. Theron Rankin? He was Executive Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention when in 1951 Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary (HKBTS) was established. He was the first FMB area Secretary for the Orient. He served as the president of the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary in Guang Zhou when the presidency was passed to Rev. Lau Yuet-sing and the full responsibility for the seminary was assumed by the Leung Kwong Baptist Association. ² If we were to explore his life in depth we would examine his interpretation of the rising ecumenical movement in China, his plan for increased mission support which was named “The Advance Program,” and his mission philosophy. In his too short 59 years he made remarkable contributions to Baptists in China³ and throughout the world. The focus of this paper will be his connection with theological education.

　　The story of M. Theron Rankin will enable us to explore the Leung Kwong Seminary in its own context as well as its linkage to the beginning of the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary. We take up his story in 1918 when he entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. World War I had just ended with an expanded world and missions consciousness on the part of Baptists. His arrival at the seminary coincided with his first relationship with the Baptist seminary in Guang Zhou. He met Miss Valleria Greene. She was the daughter of Dr. George Washington Greene who had arrived in Guang Zhou in 1891 to teach at the Baptist seminary. She was born that same year. When she entered theological study, women did not study with men in the seminary but rather studied in the Womans’ Missionary Union Training School. ⁴ During her two years’ study, there was time for Theron to fall in love with her and to hear her tell of the needs of China. The romance of missions involved the romance of two students. By the spring of his and her second year he responded to a call to volunteer for missions extended by Dr. Eugene Sallee, a visiting China missionary. Later that day he was overjoyed to learn that Valleria had walked down another aisle reaffirming her dedication to serve as a missionary. Neither knew earlier of the other’s intention.

　　Valleria finished her two-year course in May 1920 and returned to Guang Zhou. Theron, graduated with the Th.M. degree, was appointed a missionary to Guang Zhou, China by the FMB and arrived on his new field all in 1921. The next year Rankin and Valleria were married.

　　After two years of language study, Rankin began to teach in 1923 in the Graves Theological Seminary (which was later renamed Leung Kwong Baptist Theological Seminary) in Guang Zhou. It is important to understand the background and development of this school which was the first Southern Baptist seminary in China. Dr. Rosewell H. Graves was appointed as a medical missionary to Guang Zhou in 1855, only ten years after J. Lewis Shuck began the first work of Baptists in that city in 1845. Graves was indeed a pioneer Baptist missionary in China. By 1866 Graves was gathering students in his home for two hours of study each day. It was said that the seminary began with students studying around a table in his kitchen. He, like other missionaries, felt the need for theological education for the leaders of Baptist churches. ⁵

　　In 1890 the seminary moved into rooms of a Baptist chapel in Guang Zhou. The next year Dr. G. W. Greene arrived to strengthen the school. Dr. Greene had been a teacher in the Wake Forrest College in America. In 1905 the FMB appropriated US$5,000 for a new seminary building which was completed in 1907. During the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Graves ministry in China, his name was given to the seminary. It became officially “The Graves Theological Seminary.” ⁶

　　Rankin arrived in Guang Zhou during troubled times in China. Among the many political and religious crises to be faced by the new missionary were the following: the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China; the conflict with the warlords; the creation of the Chinese Communist Party, July 1921, (one month before Rankin arrived in China) and the resulting civil war; the rise of nationalism and students unrest in education; the growing anti-foreigner sentiments; the move of Christians toward union in the National Christian Council of China, 1922. These crises would be a serious challenge to Baptists and their life in the coming years.

　　At first he struggled with finding the type of ministry to which God was calling him. He enjoyed doing the work of an evangelist with itinerate preaching in the cities and villages of Guang Dong province. When he was urged by the mission and the FMB to accept the invitation to teach in the seminary, he hesitated. He wrote, “I feel very strongly that one should have considerable experience in itinerating preaching before one is fitted to teach others to preach.” In spite of his reservations, he began teaching in the fall term of 1923. His first courses included a New Testament course (in Chinese), courses in Greek, Old Testament, and Comparative Religions for students who understood English.

　　Rankin was a popular teacher with the students in spite of their reservations about foreigners. He was young, being only 29 years old when he began to teach. He was open to the students’ concerns and to the issues of the times. A good example of his willingness to understand people with whom he might disagree is this: he once met with Mikhail Borodin, the representative of the Soviet Union to the Kuomintang and advisor to Sun Yat-sen in Guang Zhou. In a reference to the interview with the Communist Borodin, he demonstrated a trait that would characterize his teaching and administrative career. It was an unusual openness of mind that sought to understand the other person’s point of view even though he did not agree with it. He said of Borodin that he wished he could “get behind that forehead of his and see through his eyes and his mind as he saw….I tried to picture for myself the concept that man had gained of Christianity [from Borodin’s life in Czarist Russia]… and I was convinced…that if Christianity were actually and truly what that man thought it was, I would be an atheist too.”

　　He understood the students and accepted their criticism of the seminary. China was experiencing a period of anti-foreigner and anti-Christian demonstrations and protests. Missionaries and any individuals or institutions associated with foreigners were accused of being Western Imperialists. In 1925 the British police fired on demonstrating students in Shanghai. A few months later the same tragic reaction against a group of students took place in Guang Zhou. Chinese students were restless, critical, uncertain, and in a general state of rebellion. In the new Republic of China “modern science” was the standard of all education. The old style of Chinese education was not acceptable to the present generation of students. On one occasion the students at Graves Seminary petitioned the seminary trustees in protest against the election of a Chinese faculty member. They stated their complaint to be that “his training was not high enough.” Under the strain of student unrest and the unsettled conditions of government restrictions on all forms of religious education in China, the seminary president, Dr. P. H. Anderson, resigned in 1925. He had been president of the seminary for 14 years.

　　When Theron Rankin was asked to become the president of Graves Seminary, he was at first hesitant to accept the position. Among the barriers to his becoming president was his age, he was barely 31 years old. There was his lack of experience; he had been a teacher for only two years and had been in China for only four years. The troubles of social unrest that confronted the resigning president would remain a heavy burden for a new president. But perhaps the most challenging consideration was his growing conviction that Graves Seminary should have a Chinese president and should be under the local association rather than under the mission. Reluctantly, Rankin became president of the seminary in 1925. ⁷

　　In China about this time there was a widespread conviction and in some cases action toward what would later be called localization but was then named as a process of devolution. The Leung Kwong Baptist Association⁸ (organized in 1885) operated an extensive program of ministries in the two provinces. Dong Shan, a district of Guang Zhou, was the focal point for many institutions of the association. Along with the churches there were the following programs: a kindergarten, elementary and middle schools for boys and for girls (Pui Ching and Pui Dou), a hospital, an orphanage, a publishing house for all China (moved to Shanghai in 1926), an old peoples’ home, a school for the blind (Mo Kwong), a Bible training school for Christian women (Pui In) and a theological seminary. Gradually most of these institutions had come under the responsibility of the association. However, the seminary had remained an institution of the mission of Southern Baptists as it had been from the beginning. Although Chinese trustees were elected to the seminary board, the final decision on all matters of personnel, budget, and policy had to be referred to the Foreign Mission Board in Richmond, Virginia for final approval. To many of the Chinese leaders, this seemed to continue the consciousness that the seminary was a “foreign institution.”

　　In 1931, the Leung Kwong Association asked the mission to adopt a policy of local responsibility by which the seminary trustees (composed of both Chinese and missionaries) would make all final decisions regarding the seminary without referring matters to the FMB. Rankin was aware that the FMB was not prepared to take this step. He saw this as an opportunity to reverse the roles of the Chinese leaders and the missionaries. For too long and far too often both groups saw the missionaries as senior partners and the Chinese as junior partners in Baptist life. Rankin wanted to reverse the roles. The role of the missionary would be to support and assist the Baptist association by providing funds, personnel, and other means of help. In the South China Mission Executive Committee he made a radical proposal. He proposed that “the Mission discontinue operating the Graves Theological Seminary not later than the school year 1933, and that we state to the Leung Kwong Association that in case they wish to conduct such a school we are prepared to assist them in the teaching and financially….” Although some missionaries saw this new relationship as a radical move and some Chinese leaders thought the new responsibility was too heavy for them to bear, Rankin’s proposal was approved by both the association and the mission. ⁹

　　Several significant results come from this momentous decision of the Chinese Baptists and the South China mission. One immediate action was the change of school name. The Graves Baptist Seminary became the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary. More significantly a Chinese president was selected. He was Rev. Lau Yuet-sing, 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 FMB. And of course, he was the first president of the HKBTS. He began as president in 1934 and continued his role as pastor and president until 1937 when he was called to be pastor of the Hong Kong (Caine Road) Baptist Church. The final gratifying consequence of the association’s assuming responsibility for operating the seminary was the increase in support of the seminary by the Chinese churches.

　　Rankin reported his feelings after the first session under the new administration as being very optimistic. “The session thus far has been the most encouraging one since I have been connected with the school. The Chinese leaders have taken hold with a determination and spirit of consecration which leads me to believe that the Seminary is now planted on a foundation which will not give way….”

　　One year after completing his nine-year presidency (1925-1934) of the seminary, Rankin was asked in 1935 to serve in the newly created position of FMB Secretary of the Orient (now called Area Director). The FMB Executive Secretary, Dr. Charles Maddry, divided Southern Baptist mission fields into four areas with a regional secretary responsible for providing a link between the FMB and the individual missionary on the field. Rankin, whose office was moved to Shanghai, related to all the missionaries in China and Japan (the only Asian countries with Southern Baptist missionaries at the time).

　　As Secretary for the Orient, Rankin represented the FMB at the momentous centennial celebration of Baptists in China. The meetings were held in Guang Zhou in 1936 one hundred years after the arrival of the Shucks in Macau in 1836. Over 900 Chinese Baptists participated with representatives from all the associations/conventions and missions present.

　　In 1939 Rankin convened a meeting in Kaifeng with representatives from all of the SBC mission in China along with representatives from their affiliated conventions. Plans were drawn up for three important advances. First, an advanced theological school for all of China was to be established at Kaifeng. Second, the production and distribution of Christian literature was to be increased through the China Baptist Publication Society. ¹⁰ The third plan called for an all-China evangelistic campaign in Baptist churches during 1940. These were indeed bold goals in the face of the war with Japan in China and the war with Germany in Europe. This spirit of advance in the face of difficulty was typical of great difficulties.

　　Dr. Rankin was responsible for aiding missionaries in either their evacuation from the war zone or assisting in their relocation to West China during the 1937-1945 war with Japan. He was in Hong Kong on December 25, 1941, when it surrendered to the Japanese. He, along with other missionaries and expatriates, was interned in Stanley Prison until July 1942 when he was repatriated to the USA. ¹¹

　　Seminary classes were often suspended during the Japanese occupation of Guang Zhou. During this troubled time, the Chinese faculty and students moved to West China and continued their education in the western cities of Shiu Hing and Lian Dung. In 1945, at the end of the war the seminary reopened. The civil war began to disturb life once again and by October 1, 1949, the Communist liberation resulted in religious repression that caused the seminary to finally be closed in 1951. For more than 100 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.

　　In January, the year World War II ended (1945), Theron Rankin was unanimously selected by the FMB trustees to become the Executive Secretary of the FMB. He was the first former missionary to be elected as the head of the Southern Baptist’s international missions program. ¹² Although his leadership through the FMB was highly significant, his direct relationship to Hong Kong and China was more indirect.

　　As the title of his biography described him, he was “M. Theron Rankin: Apostle of Advance.” His driving vision for Southern Baptists in the period after World War II was for “advance.” He challenged Baptists to advance by giving more to missions, advance by sending more missionaries, advance by entering new countries. For example in 1946, Southern Baptists were supporting 550 missionaries. In 1948 Rankin challenged them to reach a goal of sending 1,750 missionaries (an increase of more than 300%).¹³

　　It was during his administration that Southern Baptists entered new countries and regions in Asia. Before World War II Southern Baptists had missionaries only in two Asian countries, China and Japan. After the war they entered Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and from 1949 Hong Kong. A large part of the advance to new countries and regions occurred because all Southern Baptist missionaries left China by the year 1951. The door into China was now closed to missionaries from the outside.

　　But the exit door from China was wide open. The flood of refugees leaving China is well known to all of us. Among those coming to Hong Kong were many Baptist church members, some pastors, many missionaries, some institutions, and even a few seminary students from the LKBS. These students are very important since they began their studies in Guang Zhou and they became members of the first few classes of the HKBTS.

　　The year 1951 was a tremendous year. The LKBS closed its doors for good. The last Southern Baptist missionary left China as did the missionaries of all other Christian groups at about the same time. HKBTS began its first classes in 1951. Baptist church membership in Hong Kong was increasing. The need for additional church staff was growing. One of the important connections between the Guang Zhou and Hong Kong seminaries was the refugee students from the LKBS who earnestly desired to complete their seminary training. During a youth conference being held at St. Stephen’s College in Stanley, a group of Baptist leaders met for prayer and planning for a new Baptist seminary in Hong Kong. On April 2, 1951 the Hong Kong Baptist Association (later called Convention) approved the proposal to establish a theological seminary. ¹⁴ As the discussion turned to the question of who should lead the new school, it was obvious that Rev. Lau Yuet-sing was the most experienced and qualified person to serve as the first president. It should be pointed out that from the beginning the seminary was an institution of the Hong Kong Baptist Convention with trustees elected by that body. As Rankin had pointed out in the case of the LKBS in 1933, the Chinese Baptists would be the senior partner and the mission would be a junior and supporting partner in the life of the seminary.

　　Before I came to Hong Kong in 1970, a few old Baptists told me that I would be going to the seminary that was moved from Guang Zhou to Hong Kong. This opinion was not correct. The two schools do not have a direct historical link as do other schools in Hong Kong. ¹⁵ But the two schools do have several interesting connections which should be remembered.

1. The first president of HKBTS was the first Chinese president of LKBS, Rev. Lau Yuet-sing.
2. The year 1951 was the year of closing the Guang Zhou seminary and the year of opening the Hong Kong seminary.
3. Students from the LKBS who were refugees in Hong Kong wanted a place to complete their preparation for a Baptist ministry in a Baptist seminary.
4. Missionaries who had served in Guang Zhou were relocated in Hong Kong.
5. Before 1951 the logical place for Hong Kong church leaders to receive Baptist theological education was in Guang Zhou. The Closing of China made the birth of HKBTS an imperative for Baptists.

　　M. Theron Rankin spoke to Southern Baptists in 1937 concerning the major role Chinese Baptists were assuming in the Baptist institutions of China. He quoted the words of Jesus, “except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (Jn 12:24) He then said, “As this Chinese Baptist consciousness grows, increasing Chinese initiative develops. As good Baptists these people insist in many instances on working out their own interpretations and positions through their growth and experience, even though in this process they be involved in painful errors. Certainly we have demanded this right in our own history.” He spoke of Chinese Baptist seminaries and other schools when he concluded, “In the institutions of training we cannot expect to train Chinese to be good Southern Baptists, but we must expect them to be good Chinese Baptists who will be able under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit to possess their own souls.”

　　The “Apostle of Advance,” M. Theron Rankin, died on June 27, 1953. The Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary was born two years earlier in 1951, the same year the Leung Kwong Baptist Theological Seminary died.

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¹ In this presentation content footnotes will be used to provide background information which may be of interest to the reader. Since the nature of the oral presentation is informal no effort to document sources will be made. The Rankin Memorial Library was so named in 1953 after his death.
² The name of the association came from two provinces, Guang Dong and Guang Xi.
³ Rankin’s doctoral dissertation in 1928 at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was a critical study of the newly created National Christian Council of China. In this examination he was remarkably open to the positive elements of the rising ecumenical movement as a voluntary co-operative effort. His negative criticism focused on the threat of church union emphases of some participants in the Council as illustrated by the newly formed United Church of China formed in the year he began his study. His work would make a good study for understanding Southern Baptist interpretation of ecumenism from the perspective of missions.
⁴ The same pattern of separate schools for men and for women was established in Guang Zhou in 1909 with the founding of Pui In Traning School for Women. Mrs. Greene and her daughter, Valleria, both served as principals of Pui In.
⁵ As early as 1846, one year after the establishment of the Southern Baptist Convention, the new Foreign Mission Board appointed Dr. Francis C. Johnson to be a theological teacher in Guang Zhou. However, after three years on the field, he like many other early missionaries, had to return to the USA because of health reasons.
⁶ The name of the seminary was not always consistently used. For example it was sometimes referred to as the Dung Shan Seminary, or Guang Zhou Seminary, or Graves Seminary, and finally and officially the Leung Kwong Baptist Seminary. The school was often referred to as a theological college.
⁷ During the school year 1927-28, he was on missionary furlough in order to research and write his doctoral dissertation in Southern Baptist Seminary.
⁸ The South China Mission of the Southern Baptists had earlier encompassed these two provinces, Guang Dong and Guang Xi. In China the Associations served as regional bodies that carried out programs of work by means of trustees elected by the churches in annual session. At this time there was no single convention of Baptist Churches in China. In 1930 the China Baptist Alliance was formed bringing together churches from most of the associations and foreign mission groups.
⁹ It is always important to see events in their context. The decision of Rankin and the mission was certainly based on the principle of Chinese responsibility and control in Chinese Baptist institutions. There is the further rationale related to economic conditions. The Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression (at its height in 1933) caused a drastic decline in mission funds for Southern Baptists. The same financial crisis led to the resignation of mission seminary teachers. At one point Rankin considered closing the seminary. He decided, instead, to reduce the classes and keep the seminary open on a limited scale rather than close the school altogether.
¹⁰ The China Baptist Publication Society was originally located in Guang Zhou. It was moved to Shanghai in 1926. It was finally moved to Hong Kong in 1951 where it became known simply as the Baptist Press.
¹¹ In an ironic twist of events, Rankin had his longest and last ministry in Hong Kong in Stanley. It was there in nearby St Stephens College in 1950 that a group of Hong Kong Baptists, both missionaries and Chinese leaders, would meet to plan for the beginning of the HKBTS.
¹² After his election to the position of Executive Secretary, every succeeding Executive Secretary has been a missionary.
¹³ Although it was not Rankin’s program, “A Million More in ‘54” was adopted by Southern Baptists in the year of his death to promote evangelism and church growth.
¹⁴ The preparation committee was composed of four pastors: Lau Yuet-sing, Daniel Cheung, Au-yeung Hing-cheung, , and John Chan; five laymen: Lam Chi-fung, Tam Hei-tin, To Chiu-sing, Tsoi Wai-fung, and Lee Mang-pui; and four missionaries: James Belote, Victor Frank, Ronald Fuller, Charles Culpepper, Sr.
¹⁵ An example of this institutional transfer is Chung Chi College in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.