[ { "id": 210362, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 333, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "312\n\nHONG KONG HILLTOP RETREAT FOR CROSS AND LOTUS\n\nHUGH WITT*\n\nThe town of Shatin in Hong Kong's rural New Territories is a mushrooming area of rapid growth. High rise apartment blocks, factories, shops and offices are rapidly transforming this valley community into a major urban district. Shatin is one of six new town developments designed to reduce the heavy concentration of Hong Kong's population in densely congested Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It is a typical example of Hong Kong's ability to keep pace with the need for progress and expansion in a highly competitive world trading economy.\n\nBut there is more to Shatin than a reflection of Hong Kong's material needs. It is also a monument to more lasting values. For Shatin holds a unique place in east-west religious thought; it is the place where Christianity and Buddhism blossomed side by side in the teachings of a far-sighted Norwegian missionary. High on a hill, overlooking the changing landscape below, is the Christian mission of Tao Fong Shan the Mountain of the Wind of the Way. Hidden by trees from view below, the site of the mission is marked by a 40 feet (12 metre) cross which can be clearly seen from afar.\n\nToday Tao Fong Shan is a study centre dedicated to ecumenical work and the role of the Christian church among the Chinese. But it continues to carry the influence of its founder, Dr. Karl Ludvig Reichelt, who perhaps more than any other missionary to China, sought and found common ground between the ideals of Christianity and Buddhism.\n\nThe church, its dormitories and the other buildings erected by Reichelt, are set in peaceful tree-lined gardens. And although the\n\n* This article, originally published in a number of Scandinavian theological publications, and in some newspapers in Norway, is printed here as background to the visit to Tao Fong Shan by the Society in the Spring of 1984.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210366, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 337, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "316\n\nHUGH WITT\n\nSverre Holth, a leading authority on Reichelt, wrote: “His vision of the cosmic Christ had opened his eyes to the need for a special type of missionary work in the Far East, namely to reach with the gospel those religious people whose hearts had already been prepared by God's logos. His experience had convinced him that Christ had been there before him and that his footprints were to be seen even in the non-Christian religious systems, or even specially there. He also believed that it had been one of the gravest blunders of modern missionary endeavour that these divinely prepared points of contact had been neglected.”\n\nDid this belief in \"preaching to the converted\" conflict with the traditional approach of missionaries to preach to the Godless?\n\nDr. Lee commented: \"Chinese are not really secular people. In Hong Kong today religion is there much more than it appears on the surface. Most Chinese people have some kind of religious influence. Reichelt's approach was not a denial of the truth of other religions but an affirmative statement that Christianity fulfils other religions.\"\n\nAfter Reichelt's death his followers did not have the same outlook and there were inevitable changes of course. The Christian Mission to Buddhists became the Tao Fong Shan Christian Institute.\n\n\"That Reichelt's followers did not have the same outlook was partly due to his unique personality. There was also a gradual growth in resistance to Western influences during the years after his death,\" said Dr. Lee. Buddhists coming from China in the late 1940s found hospitality here but by the mid-1950s not so many people were coming out.\"\n\nA transitional period followed, when in 1957 the institute became the Tao Fong Shan Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture. Reichelt's son became its first director and the Right Reverend R. O. Hall, then Bishop of Hong Kong, who lived at Shatin and had been a friend of Reichelt, became its first chairman.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210367, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 338, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "317\n\nDr. Lee commented: “This organisation was not interested in conversion or evangelism; it became a study centre, trying to relate Chinese religious background to the work and service of the church. It was not just bookish learning. It also provided a meeting place for people and ideas through seminars and other activities. And through it all the spirit of Reichelt carried on, although there was no direct organisational link.”\n\nNow the study centre has in turn given way to the Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre, a further indication of the centre's ability to relate to changing times and needs.\n\nIt is supported financially by various bodies and is optimistic that it can in time become self-supporting.\n\nThere is one aspect of life at Tao Fong Shan that has, however, remained unchanged - its porcelain workshop. In the past this was used by wandering monks stranded without money, who found that they could work in the shop to earn the means to continue their pilgrim lives. The shop is still operating today, sometimes employing handicapped people, encouraging them to become self-supporting in much the same way as it helped those wandering monks. Some of the artists, who paint the porcelain with exquisite Chinese patterns for sale to tourists and other countries, have worked in the shop since the time Karl Ludvig Reichelt was there.\n\nThe teachings and leaderships of this Norwegian visionary continue at this peaceful spot overlooking the new town of Shatin. As they continue, they will also adapt with time.\n\nSaid Dr. Lee: \"We cannot see ourselves drifting with tradition. We must also concentrate on contemporary questions, internationally and locally here in Hong Kong.”\n\nNOTES\n\nOn Reichelt's life, see S. Holth Karl Ludvig Reichelt and Tao Fong Shan, Tao Fong Shan Christian Institute, Shatin.\n\n2 Personal comment to the author from Dr. Lee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 } ]