Academic Insert

CONTACT

newsletter of the

International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education

ISSN: 1521-9631

Vol. 15, No. 1, continued.

November 2003

REGIONAL PAPER: CHINA – HONG KONG

by Dr. Peter Tze Ming Ng

Professor of Religion, Chung Chi College,

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Prepared for the IAPCHE Leadership Conference for the Asia/Oceania Region

Oct. 22-26, 2002, The University of the Philippines at Los Baños

History of Christian Higher Education in China

There were altogether 13 Protestant and three Roman Catholic universities in China when the Communists took over the country in 1949.[1] It was the outburst of the Korean War in 1950 and the subsequent breakdown of Sino-American relationship that finally led to the closing down of all Christian colleges in China.[2] The remnants were later settled down in Taiwan and Hong Kong to continue their educational activities among the Chinese people. Now, there are five Christian colleges in Taiwan and three in Hong Kong.[3] Among the three Christian colleges in Hong Kong, Chung Chi College was the first, founded in October 1951 by the representatives of Protestant churches in Hong Kong together with the missionaries who retreated from China. In 1956, the college was moved to its permanent site at Ma Liu Shui, the New Territories of Hong Kong, which is just 30 miles from the border of the China Mainland. The college aims to continue the Christian, cultural and academic activities on the periphery of China which the Christian colleges in the Mainland have been pursuing before 1949.[4] Her school badge is engraved with a Nestorian Cross and the Lotus, symbolizing the attempt to integrate Christianity and Chinese culture which is the central mission of the college. The building of a college chapel also symbolizes another Christian presence in the campus. It is stated explicitly in the college constitution that Chung Chi seeks “to promote Christian faith, learning and research” and it continue to strive for Christian scholarship even when it was incorporated as one of the three foundational colleges of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963.[5] Hence, together with Hong Kong Baptist University and Lingnan University, Chung Chi College represents the Christian presence in the higher education of Hong Kong.[6] With the return of the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the three institutions became the only Christian colleges/universities in the People’s Republic of China. These three colleges are witnessing not only to the possibility of providing Christian higher education in China; they can also exemplify the significance of Christian colleges in Asia today.

Opportunities and Challenges

Confessional

Hong Kong is a secularized, yet multi-cultural and multi-religious society. Though the Christian churches in Hong Kong are free to confess, proclaim and evangelize in the society, there are great challenges from the multi-cultural and multi-religious contexts. There are various religious traditions, including over 50 different Protestant denominations with a plurality of theologies, the Roman Catholic Diocese formed by the various religious orders and missionary societies, plus Buddhism and Taoism (which worship thousands of deities in very different ways), with Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and many other popular religions. Name any religion of the world and you will find it in Hong Kong. Even the Falungong sect, which has been condemned as an illegal cult in the People’s Republic of China, enjoys much religious freedom in Hong Kong. Hence, any religious activities or any form of religious education conducted in a public university are bound to be inclusive and educational for all. Even the teaching of Christianity cannot be taught as the only or dominant religion, but rather as one among the many religions of the modern world. In addition, we are faced with a great challenge today, in Hong Kong as well as in Asia, namely: Can Christian colleges be open to non-Christian religious perspectives? Does ‘teaching Christianly’ imply also the willingness and the possibility to provide open platforms for genuine, educational inter-religious dialogue? These are some of the great challenges facing our Christian colleges in Hong Kong today.

Educational

Though Hong Kong has been a British colony for the past 145 years, the Christian community remains a small minority, estimated at 8-9% of the whole population. Being incorporated into the system of higher education in Hong Kong, the Christian colleges are now situated in the flux of secular context in Hong Kong. This became especially clear when Chung Chi College first became one of the constituent colleges of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963. As a Christian college situated within a public, government-sponsored, secular university, Chung Chi has already learned, to be accountable not only to the various sponsoring churches but also to the secular university authorities and to the government of Hong Kong. Thus, alongside its religious commitments as stated in its constitution, Chung Chi has to observe its educational commitments and is accountable to the society and the government of Hong Kong. Though Chung Chi continues running a Chaplaincy office and a Chapel which conduct Christian service on Sundays, coordinating various Christian fellowships, and providing degree programs in theology and Christian studies, all such activities are conducted within an educational and secular context. Hong Kong Baptist University and Lingnan University faced similar challenges when they acquired their university statuses in 1995 and 1999 respectively. There are now seven public, government-sponsored universities and one Institute of Education in Hong Kong.[7] Our Christian universities need to strive hard to compete with the other universities in our academic quality of teaching and research. On the top of this, we have to excel in one way or another, to be a distinctive academic institution in Hong Kong. As institutes of higher education, the Christian colleges are confronted with the fact that there has always been a bias against any religiously informed perspectives getting a fair hearing in the academia. In his book The Culture of Disbelief, Stephen Carter suggests that the problem of religion in America today is not so much being discriminated against in public life, but rather that it has been ‘trivialized.’[8] In most modern, secular societies, religious belief is expected to be essentially private affair and is most often treated as though it were a harmless hobby. Religious beliefs, according to Carter, are reckoned as parochial, sectarian and divisive.[9] Hence, religion is also marginalized in the academic world. Academics regard itas intellectually irrelevant, so much so that reflections on intellectual implications of personal religious faith are not encouraged in academic works. George Marsden shared similar views when he said: “While American universities today allow individuals free exercise of religion in parts of their lives that do not touch the heart of the university, they tend to exclude or discriminate against relating explicit religious perspectives to intellectual life.”[10] In his book The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, Marsden proposed that American higher education should be “more open to explicit discussion of the relationship of religious faith to learning.”[11] What about Christian colleges in Asian countries? How will Christian colleges function in an academic world in which religion is marginalized or regarded as intellectually irrelevant? Can we help modern academics to realize that religious perspectives including Christian perspectives should have a fair hearing and be duly respected in the mainstream academy? It is indeed the responsibility of Christian colleges today to ensure that a Christian scholarship is legitimate, alongside the other religious and non-religious perspectives in modern higher learning. This is another important challenge Christian colleges in Hong Kong are facing today.

Political

People may wonder what a Christian college can do when it is attached to a secular university. We have discovered, however, that Chung Chi is placed in a superb situation. It has become “a light to the Gentiles.” As one of the four constituent colleges of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chung Chi can distinguish her Christian identity in many ways without making the students feel imposed upon. The Christian witness at Chung Chi serves as an asset or added value to the university, as one option of lifestyles for the students and faculty to choose from.

People have also been wondering whether there would be any future for Christian higher education in Hong Kong after the return of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to Communist China in 1997. We had. However, envisioned a new mission, which Christian colleges could contribute to higher education in Hong Kong and China. (Again, a change to be a Light to the Gentiles!) It is interesting to note that since the opening of China in the last two decades, there has been growing interest in religious studies among the professors and scholars in Mainland China. There are now more than ten universities in China with a department of religion or a religious studies program—such as Peking University, Qinghua University, the People’s University of China, Fudan University, University of Nanjing, Szechuan University, Zhejiang University and Zhongshan University. Chinese scholars are more eager to come to Hong Kong to upgrade their western knowledge and research methodologies, especially in the field of Christian and religious studies. They are concerned not only with the study of Christianity as a western culture, but also with the comparison of Christianity with other Chinese religions, and with the practical issues of religion in general.[12] Indeed, after the return of Hong Kong to China, we have even greater opportunities to develop academic links with universities in the Mainland and entertain these Chinese scholars; hence our new challenges and our new missions in serving the universities in Mainland China. What can Christian colleges offer to these Chinese scholars? Can we set up a centre and provide a platform for them in their search for the academic study of Christianity and other Chinese religions and for the more scholarly, inter-religious, educational dialogues?

Varying Attempts on Christian Higher Education

For the remainder of this paper, we shall give a fuller report of Chung Chi College as an illustration. As a Christian college, Chung Chi College seeks to affirm its distinctiveness and unique position in the midst of this contemporary world. Its unique features include the following:

a.        Firstly, as a Christian college, Chung Chi College shares the same concerns to strive hard for the integration of Christian faith and learning. There is a Theology Division in Chung Chi College that offers theological education and training for all churches in Hong Kong. As part of a secular university, we cannot offer any theological training that is distinctive of a particular theological or denominational stance. However, we can offer a wide range of courses for inter-denominational theological education. Chung Chi offers an undergraduate program for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (in Theology), and various graduate programs leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.), Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Divinity (M.Div.), Master of Theology (M.Th.), Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).[13] Chung Chi theological students have to take courses together with other non-theological students; hence they have to face challenges directly from their non-Christian classmates who demand rational justification of the Christian faith. As Christian theology has to be studied as an academic discipline within the secular university setting, the students at CUHK are trained to study Christian religion from inter-disciplinary approaches. They can apply methodologies from different disciplines and explore from various perspectives: historical, social, cultural, philosophical, and psychological as well as other aspects of Christianity. Hence, there are courses such as ‘Philosophy of Religion,’ ‘Phenomenology of Religion,’ ‘Sociology of Religion’ and ‘Psychology of Religion,’ along with other Christian Theology courses. On the other hand, theologians at Chung Chi Colleges are more concerned with the development of indigenous and contextual theologies, such as Chinese and Asian theologies. They have been taking a leading role in the Program for Theology and Culture in Asia (PTCA) since 1983 and have collaborated with theologians from other Asian countries in “Doing Theology with Asian Resources.”[14]

b.       Secondly, since Chung Chi College is a Christian college, it is still justified to give more weight to the study of Christianity. We can have a chaplaincy office and provide Christian services on Sundays, coordinating various Christian fellowships for professors, staff and students, not only at Chung Chi College, but also within the Chinese University of Hong Kong. However, it must be noted that we are bound to be living with people of other faiths. At times we must cross our own boundaries and be concerned with people of other religious beliefs. Our chaplain has already extended his care and concern to other non-Christian religious groups in the campus. Indeed, since we are living a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, Christianity is taught in our university merely as one amongst the many religious traditions in the world, along with Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism. This is what we are experiencing in Asia today. There is a Department of Religion in Chung Chi College; its curriculum covers the study of the great religions of the world, including Asian Religions and Chinese Popular Religions. ‘Religion as a discipline’ has never enjoyed any privileged status in the university nor in Chung Chi, yet it is respected, as a perspective of life-experiences worthy of the scholars’ attention, and the study of religion has also been an active element within her teaching curriculum. Indeed, no religious tradition could be adequately presented without the proper awareness of the existence of other religions around it. All religions are taught fairly only in ‘the context of religious pluralism.’[15]

c.        Being a constituent college of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chung Chi College can provide greater opportunities for open dialogue and discussions on religious matters and promote more scholarly research and studies in areas of religion and theology. Since the establishment of the “Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society” in 1996, the college is able to organize activities such as monthly lectures, regular seminars, academic conferences, publication of books and occasional papers.[16] We have secured a legitimate place not only for the Christian perspective, but also for the other religious perspectives within academia. We have also opened up more spheres and facilitated a higher level of discourse on religion—hence the cross-cultural and cross-religious dialogues within the university setting. Chung Chi College has already established a good tradition of cultivating the study of religion as a legitimate place in the academy and while upholding her Christian identity, she has kept herself open to the study of other religions.[17]

d.       Since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, we have had greater opportunities to link up with universities in the Mainland; hence we are facing new challenges and taking up new missions in serving the universities in Mainland China. For instance, we find in ourselves a new mission of training Chinese professors for universities in Mainland China, especially in the areas of religious studies and Christian studies. We are helping Chinese universities to develop courses and programs in religious studies, and we are planning academic conferences for some universities. Since the establishment of a new Department of Religion at Peking University in 1996, our Religion Department has agreed to venture joint activities with her (such as academic conference on alternate years).[18] The first conference was held at Chung Chi College in November 1997; the theme was “Religious Studies and University Education.”[19] The second conference was held on December 15-17, 1999 at Peking University, with the theme “Religious Experiences and Cultural Values.” At present, we have already accepted eight students from Mainland China in our Ph.D. program, four studying in Daoism and Popular Religions in China and four in Christian Studies. They were from Sichuan University, Shandong University, Peking University, Yunnan University and Fujian Normal University. They are top-class students, and are definitely potential professors of high caliber when they return to serve in their home universities in the Mainland.

e.        2001 was the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Chung Chi College. To celebrate our golden jubilee, our Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society organized, among other activities, a series of lectures on religion in which scholars from the six great religions, namely Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Islam, were invited to give lectures on ‘Religion, Culture and Human Society.’[20] The lectures were open not only to students and faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, but also to the general public including scholars and students from the other universities. We also organized an academic conference in May 2001 on ‘The Challenges of Asian Christian Universities in the 21^st Century.’[21] We invited all ACUCA member institutions to attend the conference and they all bore witness to the fact that we are now much more confident about the future of Christian higher education in Hong Kong and China than before 1997. In June 2002, we organized another international student conference entitled: “Changes and Challenges of Christian Higher Education in Asia” and we invited 22 Christian universities and colleges in Asia to send their student representatives to the conference.[22] Lecture topics include: “Christian Professionals in Asian Society,” “Christian Life on Campus,” “Social and Political Actions from a Christian Perspective” and Inter-Varsity Christian Student Networking.”[23] Issues discussed at the conference included: “What is the role and meaning of Christian higher education in contemporary Asian societies? Is Christianity still relevant in an increasingly secular world? How are we able to maintain our Christian heritage in the modern college or university setting?”[24] We have also organized several faculty-students study/service tours in China this summer. Two are worth mentioning here. One was a ‘service tour’ to Fujian province. Our chaplain took 12 students from Chung Chi plus another 12 students from Christian colleges in Taiwan. The trip aimed to facilitate better understanding among students from ‘the three places across the Strait.’ Another tour was a ‘study tour’ organized by the Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society. Twenty students were taken to Xian and Dunhuang in Northwest China. They were introduced to the rich religious resources in the region. Both trips were found very educational and the students’ lives were very much enriched.

f.        Lastly, we launched another new mission this in 2002. Our Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society at Chung Chi College cooperated with the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco in organizing an International Young Scholars’ Symposium in December 2002. The Symposium was designed to provide a platform for the training of young scholars, especially for the Ph.D. candidates working on Christianity and Chinese Culture and Society, to exchange their views and findings with other young scholars worldwide. These young scholars were expected to present papers on their current research and interact with other participants. Well-established and distinguished scholars specialized in the area were invited as consultants and to give comments on their presentations. One of the three scholars invited was Prof. Daniel Bays from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, USA. The symposium was held on December 10-14, 2002, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and we extended our invitation to 30 candidates, including seven from Hong Kong, 19 from Mainland China, one from Taiwan, one from Japan and two from the United States.[25]

Concluding Remarks—“A Bridge between Cultures”

In summary, there are great challenges for Christian colleges in the 21^st century in Asian countries. There may be different ways for us to respond to the challenges in our different countries, yet we all share a common mission—to glorify God in Christian higher education in our given countries. We trust that God will grant us His great wisdom so that we can glory Him in our distinctive ways. Chung Chi College is just one example in China-Hong Kong, of a school that is attempting to explore, within its unique context, the Christian presence in our modern world. Christian educators have been seeking ways to define the mark of ‘a Christian college,’—whether it should be ‘a college with a strong Christian administrator,’ ‘a college which upholds strong Christian scholarship,’ ‘a college with a Christian worldview across the curriculum’ or ‘one with 100% Christian faculty’ etc. etc. The more significant mark of a Christian college besides the above criteria, as we see it, is ‘whether the college can realize for itself a workable Christian mission’. As a Christian college, Chung Chi has been striving hard for ‘a Christian mission’ with which she can serve not only the local Christian churches, but also the Chinese society and the wider academic community. We are seeking our mission and our role as that of ‘a bridge.’ We are indeed working to serve as a bridge between the East and the West, a bridge between Hong Kong and China Mainland, and also a bridge between People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. More still, we are serving as a bridge between Christianity and Asian cultures, as well as between Christianity and Chinese religions. The results have been both fruitful and stimulating. It is indeed our vision that Christian colleges in Asia would fully utilize our Asian resources and best serve the society by becoming great centers for inter-cultural exchanges and inter-religious dialogues. Our mission is that Christian higher education in Hong Kong, as it is in other Asian countries, will strive not only to integrate faith and learning, but also to promote the study of religion and cultures including Asian and Western Christianity. This would contribute toward the betterment of human civilization, not only in Asian countries but also in the whole world. This is the calling we have from God in our own situation and we need support and prayers from brothers and sisters in other countries too.