Clergy Training and Theological Education: The Anglican-Episcopal Experience in China

Clergy Training and Theological Education:

The Anglican-Episcopal Experience in China

Philip L. Wickeri

Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Archives

Ming Hua Theological College

Abstract

This paper explores in some detail theological education in the Chinese Anglican and Episcopal (Sheng Kung Zong, 聖公宗or Sheng Kung Hui 聖公會) traditions.  Clergy training and theological education were priorities for the various Anglican mission societies and for the American Church Mission (ACM, The Episcopal Church). There were significant regional variations, however. At least fifteen institutions for the training of clergy and theological education were established at one time or another by churches and societies that came to be associated with the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (CHSKH), including union theological colleges in which the CHSKH participated. Anglican and Episcopalian missionaries started or co-operated in theological education based on regional needs and initiatives, but with different approaches to the task at hand. There were various academic and church requirements for ordination to the CHSKH priesthood, and these were never standardized. In addition, there were variations in approach to the training of rural and urban clergy in different dioceses, to the relationship between spiritual formation and academics, and that between ecumenical and denominational perspectives.  Most clergy were trained in China, but a good number of promising candidates were sent overseas for theological education. The CHSKH established the Central Theological School in 1922 in an attempt to standardize the theological training of Sheng Kung Hui Clergy, but it was never able to train a large number of clergy, and it was not consistently supported by all the dioceses. Clergy training during the war (1937-1945) and post-war years, and in Hong Kong after 1951 are also examined. This paper concludes with an assessment of the Anglican experience of clergy training and theological education in China, including Hong Kong, in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Anglican clergy preparation within the broader Protestant (or non-Roman) Chinese tradition.

Key Words: Anglican, Episcopal, Sheng Kung Hui, clergy, theological education

Theological education and the training of local or native clergy were closely linked goals in the Protestant and Anglican missionary experience all over the world. This has become a subject of some interest in the study of world Christianity. The missionaries believed that a local clergy was essential for the indigenization of the church and for the contextualization of theology. By the late nineteenth century, the training of clergy and catechists in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific became more specialized as separate institutions for ministerial training were established in many places. By the first decades of the twentieth century, many of these had become theological colleges. Some later developed into outstanding theological colleges and divinity schools, others struggled along, and still others disappeared from the scene. 

New theological institutions and clergy training centers were established from the 1950s onward, addressing new challenges for ministerial formation in different contexts. Today, there is an increasingly globalized understanding of theological education, linking institutions and communities from Europe and North America and the Global South. As such, we can now speak of theological education in the context of world Christianity.[1]

It was not always this way. This paper is a preliminary treatment of clergy training and theological education in one Christian tradition in one country: the Anglican and Episcopal experience (聖公宗) in nineteenth and twentieth century China. My purpose is to: (1) interpret and analyze Anglican and Episcopal theological education in its diverse expressions; (2) consider the Anglican-Episcopal experience in relationship to the changes in Chinese church and society; (3) illuminate issues that were distinctive for Chinese Anglicans and Episcopalians, particularly after the founding of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (CHSKH) in 1912. By approaching Christian theological education historically, focusing on one tradition, my hope is both to explore a neglected subject in the study of the CHSKH in China, and to discover new ways of understanding continuing issues and approaches, which are still of relevance today.

The Study of Chinese Theological Education and the Anglican Difference

Chinese theological education has been very well studied and surveyed. The first comprehensive study was made by P. F. Price in 1917 and published as part of the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the China Continuation Committee.[2] Theological education was also a subject discussed in great detail in the 1922 volume The Christian Occupation of China[3], which came out at the same time as the “Burton Report” which, among other things, noted the decline of the enrollment of theological students in Chinese theological colleges since the last survey.[4] American Methodist missionary Samuel H. Leger did a major study of Chinese theological education a few years later.[5] There he made the important distinction between the “apprentice type” of clergy training, informal and practical, and academic theological education in seminaries and colleges. This distinction was important for Anglicans then and now.  The most thorough and comprehensive study of theological education in China was the so-called “Weigle Report” of 1935.[6] This report included detailed statistics and substantial recommendations, but the outbreak of the war with Japan made most of the latter impracticable. In 1941, C. Stanley Smith provided an account of theological education in wartime China noting future challenges, the most prominent among which were recruitment of qualified students, faculty, and finance. [7] Smith also wrote a supplementary chapter for the “Weigle Report” covering the decade 1933-1934 to 1943-1944, and a shorter report (cited above) after the end of the war.  The last study in the missionary era was the so-called Anderson-Smith report that surveyed theological education after the departure of missionaries from China, and suggested the continuing training of Chinese clergy in Southeast Asia.[8] All these studies were produced by Western (primarily American) missionaries and Chinese Christian leaders interested in improving theological education in China based on educational theories and ideas that were then current in China and the US.

Over the last twenty years, scholars have reconsidered their study of the thirteen Christian colleges in China, each of which was involved in clergy training and theological education at some point. Xu Yihua has written several important studies of theological education in relation to the Christian colleges, and has discussed the above-mentioned studies in detail. He offers useful analyses and historical reflections of Chinese theological education, largely based on his own research on the Christian colleges. Xu discusses theological education in terms of the entry-level education of students who became candidates for the ministry, the denominational background, the relationship of seminaries to universities, British and American systems, and other factors, and provides a history of theological education in China, focusing on the Yenching School of Religion and St. John’s University. [9]  In a subsequent essay, Xu compares these two institutions and argues that a shift towards free-standing theological schools was inevitable given the changing situation of the church and university education in China in the years leading up to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.[10]

        In light of all of the work that has been already done, why do we need another study of Chinese theological education, and particularly one that focuses on a single church tradition?  It is important, I believe, for at least three reasons. First, the studies of theological education in China from the 1920s on did not necessarily reflect the thinking of CHSKH bishops, many of whom had very different thinking on Sheng Kung Hui theological education, as opposed to Protestant theological education in general. Missionaries and scholars associated with the CHSKH did participate in many of the studies, but it is difficult to assess whether this had a significant impact on the CHSKH as a whole.  The education of CHSKH clergy was a contested issue in the church, and practical, academic and spiritual matters were interwoven.  For the CHSKH, the accent throughout was on flexible patterns, which sometimes meant making a virtue out of necessity. 

Second, in most of the studies done in recent years, the major theme has been to contrast practical and academic approaches to theological education, and set these in the context of a changing Chinese society and political order. This is an important theme, to be sure, but it is an inadequate measure in and of itself. For the CHSKH, academic and practical learning were important, as indeed they were for other Protestant denominations.  Advanced theological education could never be separated from practical clergy training. But in addition, personal and ecclesial spiritual formation were also important for the CHSKH.  This is a qualitative consideration, and difficult to assess, but one that was not adequately emphasized in any of the above-mentioned quantitative studies.[11]  It is reflected in the reports and letters of bishops and educators. Spiritual formation may be regarded as an Anglican distinctive, then as now.  It bears some resemblance to theological education in the Roman Catholic tradition. Consciousness of the church year, daily prayer, training in liturgics, patristics, immersion in the Western spiritual tradition (and, at least in some cases its Eastern Orthodox counterpart), the seminary itself as a spiritual community – these were significant areas of interest for missionaries and Chinese clergy alike. Anglican distinctives sometimes caused tension with other Protestants when the CHSKH was involved in union theological colleges. The “apprentice type” of theological education (more commonly called mentoring today) emphasized the relationship between teacher and student.  This was not simply a temporary expedient when a proper college was lacking, but an important part of Anglican-Episcopal tradition.  It continues to be important today, in England and North America as well as countries of the Global South. There were strengths and weaknesses in the Anglican approach in China, but theological education could not be limited to the issue of the academic versus the practical.

The third reason is related to the other two. There is a clear link between theological education in China before 1949 and Anglican theological education today. This is why I pay special attention to Hong Kong (where I teach in the last remaining Sheng Kung Hui theological institution) and Canton. This is also important for any consideration of theological education in the context of world Christianity. In the last part of this paper, I will look at the experience of clergy training in Hong Kong from 1950 onward to illustrate some continuing themes, issues and problems.

Following the major studies mentioned above, theological institutions in China before 1949 may be divided into three kinds:  (1) theological training schools for catechists and evangelists, primarily for junior middle school students and requiring two or three years of study; (2) theological colleges or seminaries. By the 1920s, these required senior middle school education and awarded a B.Th. after three or four years of study; (3) graduate schools of theology and divinity schools for university or seminary graduates. After three years of study, students were awarded the B. D. (or more recently an M.Div.) degree.  Some seminaries and colleges combined the second and third forms. According to the 1935 “Weigle Report,” there were 2 graduate schools of theology, 13 seminaries or colleges and 14 theological training schools. This does not include some of the diocesan colleges and training programs.

All three forms of theological education were important for Anglicans and the CHSKH, although by the 1930, the second and third forms were more prominent. The categories overlapped, and even advanced theological training was often done informally, at least in some of Sheng Kung Hui institutions. Anglicans in China stressed the need for a well-educated clergy, but this did not necessarily mean that they favored a university model of theological training.

Five issues in theological education were constants for Anglicans in China, although they were not necessarily equally important at all times and in all places.  These were similar to issues facing other Protestant denominations, but also in some ways distinctive. 

1.  What standards should be established for the training of a clergy? This was more complicated than it may appear. Different patterns were established for the training of rural and urban clergy at different times. There were different emphases in English and American approaches, and in the different institutional approaches noted above, based upon the educational level of ordinands or postulants. The question of standards was to some extent forced upon the missionaries and the Church given the education levels of the men who presented themselves as possible candidates for holy orders.
    
2. The question of language was particularly important for Anglicans and the CHSKH. Clergy needed to function in Chinese, but facility in English was also important given the importance of the prayer book and the liturgy. In some seminaries the medium of instruction was Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese or another dialect), in others English, and in others a mix. How language shaped theological education was a recurring topic in CHSKH meetings on theological education.
   
   
3. The relationship between denominational and ecumenical theological education. Anglicans and Episcopalians had special requirements for theological education, as noted above.  Some Anglicans pioneered in ecumenical initiatives, such as the union colleges, but others remained resistant to ecumenical theological education. Practical considerations sometimes determined the choice of one or the other.
   
   
4.  Financial support for theological education was an issue for all churches, right up to 1949.  The seminaries were always dependent on the foreign mission boards, although the CHSKH said that in principle individual dioceses should be responsible for theological education. Financial questions sometimes dictated answers to questions about standards, ecumenical co-operation, and teaching faculty, and these were in turn related to questions of clergy support. 
   
   
5. The contextualization of theological education in China.  This became an important issue in the 1930s, but missionaries and Chinese leaders had been discussing it long before that.

The difference between English and American approaches to theological training (and later Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Anglican approaches) runs through all of these issues.  Many ordinands were sent overseas for training, but this was more common in the American Church Mission and later among the Canadians than it was in the British mission societies. Americans were closely involved with the thirteen Christian Colleges in China, which were themselves American institutions.  This meant, for example, that the Theological School of St. John’s University and St. Paul’s Divinity School were more closely related to the ACM than the British societies even after the founding of the CHSKH. 

Nineteenth Century Beginnings in Anglican Clergy Training

        Huang Kuang-tsai (黄光彩) was the first Episcopalian Christian in China (1846), the first deacon (1851), and the first priest (1863). He certainly received catechetical instruction and some form of clergy training in the process, but we have no record of this.[12]  Most likely, he was trained in a personal capacity by Bishop Boone. Huang had travelled with Boone to the United States before he was baptized, learned English and was Boone’s Chinese teacher, as well as his assistant.

        Regular forms of theological education began slowly among Episcopalians in China, and more slowly still among Anglicans. In both cases, the training of clergy up until the early twentieth century was informal and even haphazard, making use of a mentoring or apprenticeship method, by both English and American missionaries. Chinese converts first became evangelists and catechists, with limited but important functions. They preached, made pastoral visits, and provided basic Christian education, especially in rural areas. Only a few went on to become priests.

St. Paul’s College (Hong Kong) was formally established in 1851, although teaching at the college had begun some years earlier.  Vincent Stanton founded the institution, and there is some evidence that he hoped to train native clergy and Christian teachers in Hong Kong, according to the principles of the Church of England.[13] However, St. Paul’s never developed into a theological college, and it distinguished itself as a boy’s preparatory school instead. The earliest Hong Kong Anglican clergy，including Lo Sam Yuen(羅心源), Kwong Yat-sau (鄺日修) and Mok Shau Tsang(莫壽增), all studied at St. Paul’s for secondary school, general education, and informal theological training. Both Lo and Kwong were fluent in English because of the time they had spent in Australia, but Mok worked mainly in Chinese. 

St. Paul’s at one time tried to become a training center for English CMS missionaries. In 1876, Edmund Davies (CMS) arrived with six young men to be trained as priests at St. Paul’s, but this idea failed, although several of the men went elsewhere in China as missionaries.  St. Paul’s continued to train young men for ministry in Hong Kong, but it was not primarily a theological college for clergy training. In 1899, Bishop Joseph Hoare closed the college and restarted it as a theological school, but this only lasted for a decade.  St. Paul’s in those years was the site for the training of catechists from Canton, under the direction of CMS missionaries. There were five or six students, but just two who completed their coursework.[14] Instruction was mainly in English, and focused on the Bible, Geography, and Arithmetic, as well as courses in the Chinese Classics. Bishop Hoare taught at the college, and the students who died with him in the typhoon in 1906 had been part of the training class.  As we see below, he liked to be close to the students, and taught them “in ambulando” as he liked to say. This was a form of mentoring, which emphasized teacher to student relationships.

Hoare had been a CMS missionary before becoming the Bishop of Victoria. He arrived in China in 1875 and started Ningpo Clergy Training College in Chekiang Province. It later became Trinity College, and provided training for most of the priests in Zhejiang, who largely served in rural areas. Hoare described the curriculum as “evangelistic theology taught ambulando,” emphasizing a personal, pastoral, and practical approach, as that of a mentor with his disciples. Most students had little formal education, and instruction was primarily in Chinese (Ningpo dialect). The classes focused on the Bible and other subjects in an Anglican college setting. Between 1876 and1893, there were 165 students at the college. Of these 57 became teachers and catechists, and 8 were ordained to the priesthood.[15] This was an outstanding achievement for a small, non-academic institution.  The institution founded by Hoare later became the Holy Trinity Training College (寧波神道院), and continued to train priests for the Zhejiang diocese until 1950.[16]

By 1876, there were twenty Bible schools and theological seminaries in China, with 231 students.[17] At least three of these were Anglican or Episcopal: Ningpo Theological Training College, St. Paul’s Divinity School in Hankow, and the diocesan school that became Foochow Theological Seminary in 1883.  The standards of most of these schools were not very high and most students, both urban and rural, came with little more than a primary school education.  They studied for three or at most four years, after which they became catechists or evangelists, and perhaps priests. Foochow continued to ordain more priests in the Diocese of Victoria than either Hong Kong or Guangdong, and it had a special need for a college of its own.

There were very few Chinese priests in the late nineteenth century, but outstanding among them was Yen Yung King (顔永京), who distinguished himself as a scholar, a translator, and a pastor. He was related to the ACM in Shanghai. Yen studied at Kenyon College and the Episcopal seminary Bexley Hall, and was one of the first Chinese students to return from America.[18] Not many priests were sent overseas for study at this time, but their numbers would increase in the twentieth century. Yen ranks among the outstanding priests and scholars in the history of the Sheng Kung Hui.

        St. John’s College (later University), established in 1879, was the most important Anglican-Episcopal center for theological study in the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. Bishop Samuel I. J. Schereschewsky, the leading spirit behind St. John’s, saw its main purpose as the training of a Chinese clergy. The Theology School began in March 1880 and the first students were from Boone Boy’s School.  There were four faculty members, one of whom was Chinese. The Theology School quickly fell on hard times, and in its various incarnations, it had a checkered history.  It moved back to Hankow a few years after its founding, but in 1893, it returned to Shanghai and was established as an English-medium college. (Instruction at Boone was in Chinese.) St. John’s had a three-year program into the early twentieth century, and all faculty were appointed by the Bishop, who served as Dean.  Bishop F. R. Graves, the longest serving bishop in Chinese Anglican Episcopal history (1891-1937), saw the Theology Department as his preserve.[19]  St. John’s would continue to play a very important role in Anglican theological education after the founding of the CHSKH.

The CHSKH, Central Theological School, and St. John’s

By the early twentieth century, most Anglican dioceses had their own programs for clergy training, but these tended to be informal and unsystematic. Chinese clergy were few in number.  Hong Kong had only one Chinese clergyman in 1900, and Foochow (still part of the Diocese of Victoria), twelve or thirteen.[20] There were more clergy in Shanghai and Hankow.  The ACM had a training center in each city, and they moved more quickly in the ordination of Chinese clergy.  By the late nineteenth century, Anglicans and Episcopalians began to work toward cooperation in many areas. Important meetings of bishops and clergy to strengthen efforts toward unity were held in 1897, 1899, 1903, 1907, and 1909. The CHSKH was formally established on 26 April 1912 in Shanghai.[21]  All 11 diocesan bishops were in attendance, as well as 39 clergy (19 of whom were Chinese), and 32 laymen (28 of whom were Chinese) . This became the first national church body of any denomination established in China.

The idea for establishing a national theological seminary was first mooted at the Second General Synod of the CHSKH in 1915.  A committee was appointed that year to study the establishment of such an institution and it made its report to the next General Synod. This report focused on the five general issues that were introduced earlier in this paper.[22] As a result, the Central Theological School was formally established at the Third General Synod of the CHSKH in 1918. The first faculty members were appointed in 1920, two missionaries and one Chinese, but CTS was not opened until 1922, in buildings belonging to the American Church Mission on the outskirts of Nanjing. Mandarin was the language of instruction.

CTS had been modeled on the Central Theological School in Japan, which was seen as a great success.  But the context in China was quite different. Japan was much smaller, without many dioceses, and no dialect issues. Although the CHSKH had a centralized, hierarchical structure, in such a large country, dioceses tended to function independently.  This, alongside the fact that there were many different mission boards and overseas churches related to the CHSKH, meant that promoting  the centralization of theological education would be difficult. All of this contributed to the fact that the CTS was in difficult straits for most of its history, in terms of faculty, finance, students, and relationship to the dioceses.

The first two deans of CTS were missionaries, Revd. Basil Mather and Dr. Ridgely, but Dr. Tang Zhongmo (湯忠謨), who had been teaching with Mather and Ridgley at CTS from the beginning, was appointed dean in April 1927.[23] The small faculty was drawn mainly from the American Church Mission, the SPG, and CMS in the 1920s and 1930s, making it very diverse in terms of churchmanship, but still liberal in outlook and very academic. Students were mostly from small towns and rural areas. The constitution of the CTS was finally approved at the Eighth Synod of the CHSKH in 1934. It stated: “the purpose of the C.T.S, shall be the promotion of theological learning and especially the training of men for Holy Orders in the C. H. S.K.H.”[24] CTS was designed to be the CHSKH seminary. However, in this General Synod and the one following, the committee overseeing the seminary urged closer cooperation between CTS and the much larger Nanking Theological Seminary, an ecumenical institution, but a school with no Anglican founding member.[25]  The two schools, though in the same city, were geographically far apart.  In addition, many in the CHSKH, including the CTS faculty, wanted the school to remain an Anglican institution. 

        Writing from Peking in 1938, after Nanking had been overrun by the Japanese, Bishop Norris said that the history of CTS had “been one long struggle against adversity.” There were issues of location, property, finance, faculty, and the recruitment of students. There were never very many students at the school, and only five or six dioceses had sent students to CTS.  Many dioceses gave no financial support and preferred to send their own ordinands elsewhere, or train them on their own. Thus, the Honan diocese sent its students to Cheeloo School of Theology in Shandong, South China had its own seminary in Canton, and others had local arrangements. Many in the CHSKH were suspicious of what was being taught at CTS: it was seen as too liberal and academic, and not appropriate for students from rural areas. The few CHSKH university graduates who presented themselves as candidates for the priesthood were reluctant to go to such a small school. They would prefer to go to a university-based college with a more cosmopolitan atmosphere, such as the Yenching School of Religion in Peking or St. John’s University. Bishop Norris (as opposed to Bishop Hall in Hong Kong who sent his candidates to Canton Union Theological College) wanted the school to give more attention to both devotional life (formation) and practical training. Bishop Norris believed that CTS had emphasized systematic academic training too much.[26]

Criticisms of a different order were made by the CMS.  One missionary wrote, “Nearly all of us, Chinese and Foreigners, were opposed to the Nanking C.T.S.” because it was too academic and theologically liberal.[27] The following comment from an evangelical student is one of two reproduced in CMS records, and was presumably sent with the letter just cited: “The religious “flavour” in the teaching given is very thin indeed, i.e. heaven and its opposite abstract concepts; an undue stress on the humanity of our Lord, his great personality something like or greater than the great ones of the earth as over against His Divinity.” CMS missionaries and evangelical students from Zhejiang had a criticism that was fundamentally different from the high churchmanship of Bishop Norris.

These criticisms came after it was clear that CTS could no longer stay in Nanking.  The Japanese invasion of the city in December 1937 resulted in the ruin of CTS and the looting of its premises. Bishop Norris suggested that the school be re-opened in Peiping.  After the fall of Nanking, some of the faculty and students moved to St. John’s, but by late 1938, the school had been reopened in Peiking/Peiping according to Bishop Norris’ proposal.[28] There never were very many students or faculty at CTS during the war, and in 1945, CTS was relocated to Shanghai under new leadership, sharing space at St. John’s before the St. John’s theology division was closed for good.

St. John’s University Theological School continued after the founding of CTS, and the two institutions faced similar problems in terms of faculty, finance, and student recruitment. In addition to these two seminaries related to the CHSKH and the ACM, St. Paul’s Divinity School was still operating in Hankow, and so there was duplicate (or triplicate) effort.  “One school with a staff of six or seven could do much better work at less cost of time and money than three half-staffed schools” could do.[29] St. Johns and CTS were both under the Bishop of Jiangsu, although they had different governing boards. They each had their own spheres of influence that they did not want to give up. St. John’s was by far the stronger institution.  But it never had more than 7 or 8 theology students, and usually only 4 or 5.[30] The fact that it offered a combined college and theological course, using English as the medium of instruction, meant that St. John’s, unlike CTS, graduated a number of highly educated CHSKH clergy and lay leaders, most of whom were priests in urban churches. According to Xu Yihua, from 1896 to 1946 St. John’s had about sixty graduates, including eleven CHSKH bishops.[31] Small as the number of graduates was, it represented a significant figure for CHSKH clergy, and bishops as a whole.[32] 

The Yenching School of Religion has been mentioned above, and a brief word is needed about the significance of Yenching in the context of Anglican theological education.[33] The Yenching School of Religion (1916) was always the preeminent graduate school of theology in China, in terms of the quality of its faculty and international reputation. It was ecumenical, but neither the CHSKH, nor the ACM nor any of the missionary societies were formally a part of Yenching.  Still, Yenching had the two most important CHSKH theologians on its faculty, Wu Lei-ch’uan(吴雷川) and Zhao Zichen (T.C Chao, 趙紫宸), and other Anglicans taught there at different times. Some CHSKH bishops regarded Yenching as disconnected from the Church, and Yenching trained few graduates who became priests. In fact, the Yenching School of Religion, like the Anglican-Episcopal thelogical colleges, had very few students at all, an average of only 4 or 5 a year between 1916 and 1931,[34] and fewer still after that. Yenching was in the odd position of being the most contextualized theological college, but it arguably had the least impact on the church.

Zhao Zichen, who himself became a CHSKH deacon and priest in 1941, was without a doubt the leading Christian theologian of his day.  He spoke and wrote a great deal on many subjects, including ministerial training in China.  He saw the importance of relating theology and the church to the life and culture of the country, and for this, seminary faculty needed to be spiritual guides as well as qualified academics. Writing in 1948, he believed that the seminary should be a “fellowship in Agape,” promoting practical activities, theological study, moral and religious discipline in worship, prayer and spiritual life.[35] His views in this essay reflect, at least in part, his own turn toward the CHSKH. However, there is little evidence that he had much of an impact on CHSKH thinking about theological education in this last year before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.

Canton Union Theological College

             Canton Union Theological College (CUTC) was a very different type of institution from CTS, St. John’s or St. Paul’s.[36] It came into being just two years after the formation of the CHSKH, in October 1914, and became the leading seminary for the training of Cantonese speaking clergy, including clergy of the CHSKH.[37] It should be noted that in the decades leading up to the separation of the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau from the CHSKH in 1951, Hong Kong and Macao could not be considered separately from Guangdong and South China in terms of Sheng Kung Hui clergy and theological education.  There was continual movement back and forth between churches in this very large diocese.

The theological training that had been done at St. Paul’s College in Hong Kong moved to Canton in 1909, and the new school became Holy Trinity College, under the direction of CMS missionary Percy Jenkins.  The first graduate to be ordained an Anglican priest was Wan Ha-Po (Ha Po-wan, 夏步雲1913).[38] Lee Kau-yan (李求恩), one of the most prominent CHSKH priests in Hong Kong up through the early 1960s, was also a graduate of Holy Trinity. By the end of 1914, at least ten Anglicans from Hong Kong and Guangdong who were attending the college were candidates for the priesthood. That year, Holy Trinity College became the CHSKH component of the new CUTC.

CUTC was in many ways a model ecumenical initiative for its time, with strong Anglican participation through both CMS and the Diocese of South China. The founding missions were: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the American Presbyterian Mission (North), the CMS, the London Missionary Society, the New Zealand Mission, the Methodist Missionary Society (English) and the United Brethren Mission.  In 1915, the Canadian Presbyterian Mission (later, the United Church of Canada) joined the union. The ABCFM withdrew in 1928.  Chinese Churches later joined the union, including the Kwantung Synod of the Church of Christ in China, the South China Synod of the Methodist Church and the South China (or Kwong-Yuet) Diocesan Synod of the CHSKH.[39]

Similar to the other union colleges, CUTC students could take a university level theology degree or do a Bible School level diploma. For all churches and missions involved, there was always the problem of the educational level of their candidates for ministry, especially those from small towns and rural areas. There was both a college (theology) and a training (Bible School) department at CUTC, and students were admitted to one or the other depending on their prior education. In each department there was the study of the four classic theological disciplines: (1) Bible; (2) Theology and Ethics; (3) History; and (4) Pastoral Theology. The medium of instruction was Cantonese, but English was also taught and many of the missionary faculty taught in that language. For students in both departments, the emphasis was on practical theological training as well as solid grounding in the Bible.[40] Already in 1929, CUTC maintained some affiliation with Lingnan University, but exactly at what level remained a continuing topic of discussion until formal affiliation finally came after the War, in 1947.

        Each mission or church looked after its own students at CUTC.  CHSKH students lived in St. Andrews Hall, a hostel on the college campus.[41] The hostel was a dormitory and a small religious community that facilitated the formation of ordinands through the use of an apprenticeship or mentoring model. Percy Jenkins continued to be the Anglican presence at CUTC in St. Andrews Hall until the early 1930s. He taught Old Testament. Other CMS missionaries, and at least one Chinese priest, taught at CUTC at different times. In its first decade, CUTC had graduated 96 students, twenty from the CHSKH.[42] Most CHSKH Hong Kong and Guangdong clergy and many lay leaders were trained at CUTC from 1914 to 1938, and then again from 1945 to 1952. There were always women students at CUTC, the most well known of whom was Florence Li Tim-oi (李添嬡), who studied in the college department. Jane Hwang (黃羡雲), who became a priest in 1971, studied at CUTC in the late 1940s. Other prominent graduates or students from Hong Kong included Edward Lee (李應標), S. C. Lee (李兆强, who also taught in the college), Kong Chi-wing( 江之永), Chow Ming Chou(周夢秋), Cheung Wing Ngok(張榮岳), and Chung Yan Laap (鍾仁立).  Bishop Hall held up CUTC as a success story of Anglican-Ecumenical co-operation. Both he and Bishop Mok were board members.

Anglican-Episcopal Theological Education in China, 1937-1952

The war was a time of crisis for the country as a whole, and put the churches and theological institutions in especially difficult situations.  It forced ecumenism on theological education, and many CHSKH seminaries and dioceses became involved in union institutions in order to have any theological education at all. We have seen that CTS and St. John’s Theological School continued for a time, as did the Yenching School of Religion in Peking.  St. Paul’s Divinity School moved with Hua Chung University to Hsichow (Xizhou, Dali) in Yunnan.

After the fall of Canton in October 1938, theological students from CUTC stayed on to help with relief work for a few months. The college moved to Shatin in 1939, where studies continued under tutorial supervision. [43] CUTC eventually moved to Yunnan, as students and faculty made the arduous journey from Hong Kong to Haiphong by ship, then Haiphong to Kunming by train (fourth class), then Kunming to Hsia Guan and Hsichow by boat, horse, and on foot. The autumn term began in September 1940, and Gilbert Baker was part of the team who was teaching and looking after students in their residence hall, Wen Ling Tang. CUTC effectively became part of Hua Chung University and its theological seminary, with a shared curriculum.  Bishop Hall taught several classes there. There were a relatively large number of theological students – 44 – two-thirds of whom were in the upper class.[44] 

        West China Union Theological College (WCUTC) was started in Chengdu in 1937.  It became host to Nanking Theological Seminary, which sent five faculty members to Chengdu, and the college also attracted faculty and students from elsewhere. Its Board of Management was drawn from four or five missions and churches. The Diocese of Western Szechuan had seven students there during the war, although it had trained ordinands in its own diocesan college in Chengdu previously. WCUTC granted a B.Th. degree after two or three years of study. Between 1937 and 1945, there were 25 to 73 students in any given year, and a total of 327 students studied there during these years.  Plans were made for the continuation of the college after the end of the war, but the Nanking faculty returned to Nanking, and WCUTC was closed in a few years time.[45] Bishop T. K. Shen taught at WCUTU in 1945-46, after he had left Xi’an.

CTS, 1945-1952

CTS moved from Peking back to Shanghai after the war, and once again shared space with St. John’s University. Bishop Shen moved back to Shanghai from Chengdu, after he left WCUTC and resigned as bishop of Shaanxi (1946).  He was named dean of CTS and taught liturgics and other subjects. Six students were admitted from the Missionary Area of Shanghai in February 1947. In the following term, CTS had 15 students from 5 dioceses, and the next year, 33 students from ten dioceses and two missionary districts, in four classes. St. John’s Theological School had closed during the war, and CTS faculty were drawn from there and from other university departments. Missionaries and priests in Shanghai also taught part time.  Gilbert Baker taught at CTS that first year, but he later moved back to CUTC at Lingnan University in Canton.[46]

There was initially some controversy over the location of CTS. Francis Cho-min Wei (韋卓民) wanted the school moved to Wuchang or Hankow to join with St. Paul’s Divinity School, and there was still the abandoned CTS property in Nanking. The decision was made at the CHSKH Tenth General Synod (1947) to locate the school in Shanghai, with a renewed call that it become the primary location for theological training. However, even in Shanghai, there was still no permanent site for CTS, although temporary buildings, including a dormitory and chapel, had been erected on the St. John’s campus.

In 1949, the 33 students came from 10 dioceses. There were 7 college graduates, a rather remarkable number, 3 clergy refreshers, 1 Russian Orthodox student, and 22 undergraduates. Three women students joined in the Spring 1949 term, but by then some male students left due to the Civil War. In addition to its regular program, CTS began to offer trade courses, in the belief that clergy should also be “productive workers.” The courses were in gardening, hair cutting, and carpentry. By this time, the faculty were mostly clergy from Shanghai and foreign missionaries.  Financially, CTS was supported by overseas missions, mainly the AMC and CMS.[47] As the Civil War deepened, the seminary continued. Classes were stopped for only three days, before and after the Red Army took the city on May 25, 1949. 

        Bishop Shen was at first hesitant to co-operate with the Communists, and wanted the CHSKH to remain aloof from politics.  He did not allow students to take the day off on October 1, 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded, saying, “We are different.”[48]  Still, the church and the seminary began to adjust to the new order. In 1950, the House of Bishops resolved that CTS would be the theological training institute of the whole Church and the individual dioceses should take financial responsibility for maintaining it. The seminary could no longer expect support from foreign missionaries.[49] Still, as late as 1951, Bishop Shen was soliciting funds from CMS and the SPG and other mission boards, claiming that CTS would be “the only purely Anglican theological college in China.”[50]

        A class of six graduated from CTS graduated in June 1950, when there were still 30 students at the seminary.  By the end of that year, Bishop Shen wrote to Bishop Hall in Hong Kong requesting him to receive CTS post-graduate students for their remaining year of work.  The lack of funds had become acute, and the departure of missionaries meant that the school no longer had many teaching faculty. He went on to suggest that the graduate section of CTS be relocated to Hong Kong.[51] Hall refused Shen’s request, and as we shall see, he was also hesitant to have the students and faculty of CUTC moved to Hong Kong.

The last class of three B. D. level CTS students graduated in 1951. CTS closed in the summer of 1952, and that Fall it became part of the newly formed Nanjing Union Theological Seminary.  Other CHSKH students went to Nanjing from Foochow, a union institution of which the Anglicans were a part. There were certain classes for CHSKH students in Nanjing, and they held their own services of morning and evening prayers, at least for a time.[52] Bishop Shen taught at Nanjing Seminary until his retirement in 1958. The CHSKH ceased to exist in 1958, and so that year marks the end of Anglican-Episcopal theological education on the mainland.[53]

CUTC, 1945-1952

In 1945, there were three union theological colleges in China of which the CHSKH or the CMS was a part: (1) West China Union Theological College,  discussed above; (2) Foochow Union Theological College; and (3) Canton Union Theological College.  CUTC moved back to Canton in 1945, and it became part of Lingnan University in January 1947. [54] Lingnan University was one of the thirteen Christian Colleges that had been chartered as an American institution. Because of this, CUTC had to retain its own administrative structure in programs for both university and post-graduate students. Roman Catholics were also related to Lingnan through the Jesuits who taught there.

        Bishop Hall had always supported the CUTC and the role that Anglicans played in ecumenical co-operation at the college.  However, he was not quick to embrace the relationship with Lingnan University.  Writing in 1946 to the CUTC president, he said: “The one serious danger with the University is that we unconsciously use the secular yardstick of “University standard” to measure the qualifications of our staff. As far as CHSKH is concerned, we shall ignore it entirely.  This may affect salaries – unless we are careful – as at Yenching. A man in the theological department cannot get a “Professor’s” pay unless he has a doctorate.”[55] This reveals the tension that had always existed in CHSKH relationships with universities – including St. John’s – about questions of standards, and how standards in turn reflected questions of Church finance.

Between 1945 and 1951, the Diocese of South China sent its ordinands and students of ministry, in both Hong Kong and Guangdong, to CUTC. In 1950, Bishop Murong Yin (慕容賢) became chair of the board of CUTC, and over the next year, because of the changing political situation, missionaries on the faculty gradually withdrew from Canton.  In the summer of 1951, the new Diocese of Guangdong was created, with Bishop Murong as diocesan bishop. The new Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau became a detached diocese of the CHSKH. In 1952, the former Lingnan campus became Sun Yat-sen University, and its faculty was combined with other universities.  CUTC became a separate institution on a greatly reduced scale, but continued to function as a theological seminary until the late 1950s.  

Anglican Theological Education in Hong Kong, 1950-1996

        As with the mainland as a whole, theological education in Hong Kong was conducted at many different levels after the end of the war. For Anglicans, Ming Hua College began as a diocesan institute for theological study, admitting its first students in 1946-1947.  According to its prospectus, “The aim of the College is to give theological training to educated young people of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, so that they may take a larger part in the leadership of the Church and in assisting the parish priest.”[56] Bishop Hall was the principal and S. K. Cheung (張紹桂) the first dean. The teaching staff (9 in all) were all English except for George She and S. K. Cheung. Ming Hua College would continue to offer general courses on the Bible and theology for the laity for the next few decades.

        In addition to Ming Hua, Bishop Hall also created a separate program offering a Diocesan Diploma in Theology (the so-called “D. D.T program”).[57] It offered courses on theological subjects taught in different locales in Kowloon and Hong Kong. There were both English and Chinese sections, and the lecturers were often the same people who taught at Ming Hua College, Hong Kong Union Theological College, and the Chung Chi Theology Division, discussed below. This was a creative initiative that sparked the interest of many young people and lay leaders in the Church, some of whom went on to study for the priesthood.

        The more formal training of clergy did not begin in Hong Kong until the mid-1950s. We have seen that the Diocese of South China supported CUTC in the late 1940s, and sent most ordinands there.  Bishop Hall initially resisted the idea of moving CUTC to Hong Kong in 1950, just as he had opposed receiving CTS students from Shanghai in the territory. He wanted CHSKH priests to stay in China. Writing to the CMS General Secretary a year after the founding of the People’s Republic he noted, “I have written to Bishop Shen protesting very strongly against the withdrawal from China of the best educated students of CTS and suggesting they go to Yenching where we have three CHSKH priests teaching in English. An “Overseas” theological college can only train for “Overseas” work, witness the Russian Seminary in Paris.”[58] These were noble sentiments at the time, but also quite unrealistic.

        With the separation of the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau from the CHSKH, something had to be done for the training of priests in Hong Kong. Chung Chi College was founded in 1951 with the support of Protestant churches and missions in Hong Kong, but initially, no provision was made for theological studies. At the request of the Board of Chung Chi College and the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (HKSKH) Standing Committee, Union Theological College in Hong Kong (HKUTC) began in September 1955.[59] HKUTC was designed to be a post-graduate institution, sponsored by co-operating churches “to train their own pastors primarily for city parishes and town Churches and to train Chaplains of Middle Schools.” [60] The co-operating churches were the Church of Christ in China, the Methodist Churches, the HKSKH and the YMCA.

The teaching staff was part-time and the academic committee was chaired by Canon A. P. Rose of St. John’s Cathedral. Teaching was bi-lingual, but a reading knowledge of English was required of all students for a three-year program of study.  HKUTC set a rather high standard for itself in theological preparation, but not all students were prepared for this. In the first year, there were three full-time HKSKH students and two students from other churches. The faculty was mostly Anglican, but there were also lecturers from other churches.    HKUTC had a “semi-permanent” home at St. John’s College of Hong Kong University, where there were daily services of morning prayer in the college chapel. The chapel was also made available for other denominations. [61] It was clear from the start that HKUTC was Bishop Hall’s initiative, inspired by his experience of CUTC.  Other churches were invited to “join in” to what was essentially an Anglican initiative.

        Bishop Hall sent most ordinands or possible candidates for the priesthood to HKUTC from 1955 until his retirement in 1966. However, there were some non-stipendiary clergy who received their training through the D.D.T. course. At least one candidate for the priesthood – future Archbishop Peter K. K. Kwong (鄺廣傑) – was sent by Bishop Hall to the United States for theological training. The first HKUTC graduates – the three Anglican students who entered in 1955 – received a “Licentiate in Theology” diploma in 1961.[62]  In 1962, Bishop Hall appointed Michael Goulder to be principal, in an effort to raise academic standards. There were six full time Anglican students when he arrived (9 students in all). By this time HKUTC was mostly Anglican –  Methodists and Presbyterians were already preparing to go to Chung Chi. Goulder became frustrated by the low academic standards of HKUTC and he resigned in 1966.[63]

        Well before the mid-1960s, discussions were held among the churches about pooling their resources in education.  The founding of Chung Chi College was an example of ongoing co-operation among Hong Kong churches and mission agencies. The Christian colleges on the mainland had been closed, and Chung Chi College represented an effort to capture the same spirit in university education.  Bishop Hall was a leading figure in the establishment of the College and the HKSKH provided needed support in terms of leadership.  In 1954, Hoare Hall, named after Bishop Joseph Hoare who had died with his students in 1906, was dedicated on the campus, with much support coming from the HKSKH.

        By the late 1950s, there were discussions about opening a seminary or theology department at Chung Chi.[64] As a result, in 1963, seven churches joined together to form what eventually became the Theology Division of Chung Chi College.[65] From 1964 onward, there were regular discussions in the HKUTC and the HKSKH Diocesan Theological Education Council about whether to send students to Chung Chi or perhaps the Lutheran Theological Seminary. The possibility of retaining a separate section for Anglican students at Chung Chi was also discussed.[66] It seems clear that Bishop Hall did not want to send theology students to the ecumenical Chung Chi Theology Division as it was constituted, even though the HKSKH was a founding member. In fact he never did.  By the time Gilbert Baker became bishop in the fall of 1966, it had become increasingly clear that HKUTC was no longer viable. It continued for a few more years with several students and new leadership but in the summer of 1972, HKUTC was, in effect, folded into Chung Chi, and for the next decade most Anglican candidates for the priesthood went there.  However, Bishop Baker also sent some promising HKSKH candidates for the priesthood overseas for study.

       For many in the HKSKH, this was never an ideal solution. Given the high tide of ecumenism in the 1960s, the Chung Chi Theology Division downplayed denominational distinctions in both campus life and education.  It did not have morning and evening prayer, or a regular Eucharist for Anglican students. The Prayer Book and courses in Anglican tradition were not part of the curriculum at Chung Chi, even though there were Anglicans on the faculty. Bishop Baker retired in 1981, and was succeeded by Bishop Peter K. K. Kwong. In the mid-1980s, Bishop Kwong asked Paul Tong and Ian Lam to organize a six-week summer program at St. John’s College for HKSKH ordinands to supplement the education they were receiving at Chung Chi and help form them for the priesthood.[67] Around the same time, the HKSKH decided it would no longer send its candidates for the priesthood to Chung Chi, but to Anglican or Episcopal seminaries in England and the United States. This was the pattern for HKSKH theological education in the 1980s and 1990s, but there was informal theological training in Hong Kong as well.

As 1997 approached, the detached diocese of Hong Kong and Macao made the decision to become an independent province. It was determined that the new province would need its own theological college for the training of priests and future leaders. And so, in 1996, Ming Hua College was renamed Sheng Kung Hui Ming Hua Theological College. Since that time, ordinands have been trained at Ming Hua. The college still maintained the library of the former HKUTC, and it refurbished its premises on Glenealy.  A new college building was dedicated in 2007.  In this new form, Ming Hua Theological College became the only Anglican-Episcopal or Sheng Kung Hui seminary in Greater China.

Conclusion

In true Anglican Tradition, the special contribution of the Sheng Kung Hui to Chinese Christianity has been the thoroughness of teaching, dignity and beauty of worship, and Episcopal Church order. These things have depended on a well-trained ministry with a relatively high – though, in fact very simple – standard of maintenance. This is commonly recognized in China to have been the right policy. In many places, the reverse is now true, and Anglican clergy are less well cared for than some churches which have only one single missionary organization behind them.[68]

        Writing in 1943, at the height of the war against Japan, the eight CHSKH bishops meeting in Chungking summarized some of the issues that had always been a dilemma for Anglican and Episcopal theological education in China. At the time, nine of the thirteen CHSKH dioceses were under Japanese occupation. The CHSKH was the product of at least thirteen churches and mission societies, all with distinct traditions in theological education.  The letter was sent to eleven of these to appeal for additional funds and support both then and in the post-war period.  Bishop Y. Y. Tsu was also asked to take this appeal to North America on his forthcoming visit.

        Funding and financial support was only one of the continuing problems for theological education in the CHSKH.  As we have seen the issues of standards for ordination varied, and different programs in the same theological institution were often established at lower (B.Th.) and upper (B.D.) levels.  The question of language – facility in English (where St. John’s excelled), and the use of Mandarin or another dialect (Cantonese in the south, for example) – was never resolved, but it probably did not need to be, given the different requirements in different dioceses. There were also different approaches to whether theological education should be Anglican or ecumenical, and this too varied from place to place and from time to time. At the heart of the matter was the unresolved contradiction between the need for a well-trained CHSKH clergy of high educational standard, a clergy well-formed in Anglican tradition and spirituality, and the absence of strong theological institutions with adequate funding and church and diocesan support. Related to this was the small number of well-trained Chinese faculty, and the small number of well-educated candidates for holy orders.

         There were too many competing centers for the training of clergy from the nineteenth century onward. At one time or another, there were at least fifteen different institutions for the training of clergy (See Appendix), and at any given time, none of them had very many students.  After the founding of the CHSKH, the CTS was established for the whole church, but St. John’s continued, alongside a variety of union colleges and diocesan training programs.  Some promising candidates for the priesthood were sent overseas for their studies, and informal apprenticeship or mentoring programs existed alongside all of the other forms of clergy training. It could be said that China was a large country, and because travel was difficult, a variety of forms of clergy training were needed. There is certainly some truth in this.  But at the same time, the CHSKH was a small church.  There were only 232 priests serving a total of less than 67,000 parishioners after the end of the war.[69]  The issue before 1951 was that a large number of institutions were training a small number of priests, and often competing with one another for students and finance. 

        And yet, despite all of the problems, the CHSKH produced well-educated priests and bishops, who well-connected with the churches.  They had a clear sense of their CHSKH identity, and many were active in society at various levels. Even a cursory look at Christian publications in the late 1940s will reveal the many ways in which CHSKH priests were involved in church and society.  The theological colleges, though poorly equipped, poorly staffed and poorly financed gave a great deal of attention to their students and all aspects of their lives. The flexibility of Anglican training helped make this possible.

The CHSKH had always valued a highly trained priesthood.  Many lay leaders were also theologically literate. Theologically educated lay Anglicans played important roles in the universities (Francis C. M. Wei), the YMCA (T.Z. Koo and David Yu), and church and society as a whole. By 1949, the Bishops’ Conference of the CHSKH was entirely Chinese, with the exception of Bishop Hall of South China.  All other foreign bishops had resigned in the years leading up to the founding of the People’s Republic, but there were able assistant bishops to take their place.  After 1949, Anglican leaders played an important role in the newly formed Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement. They were socially and politically progressive, but they also brought to the TSPM a sense of churchmanship.    Many prominent Anglicans, both lay and clergy, were severely criticized in the movements of the 1950s and 1960s, and that others were forced to leave China to continue their work elsewhere.  CHSKH leaders were often on different sides vis-à-vis developments in the People’s Republic of China.

In Hong Kong after 1949, there was a significant and consistent record of Sheng Kung Hui leadership in church and society.  The HKSKH continued to reach out to SKH members on the mainland and beyond.

        The prominence of CHSKH leaders cannot be solely attributed to the role of theological education and clergy training in the Anglican-Episcopal experience in China.  It is also a result of the general CHSKH interest in education and social welfare, the prominence of many Anglican families and the social involvement outstanding individuals. It must also be remembered that despite the record of clergy and lay achievement in church and society, there were many areas that the CHSKH fell short.

As we consider the history of theological education in world Christianity today, it is important to take into account what can be learned from the past history of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui in China, and what this might mean for the training of priests for service in church and society in the years to come. The problems and the possibilities are still with us.

Revised 20 July 2011

Appendix

Sheng Kung Hui Theological Schools and Colleges in China, and Union Theological Institutions in which the CHSKH was involved

(The numbers in parentheses indicate the date of founding, when known)

SKH Theological Colleges

1. St. Paul’s College (1851), Hong Kong
2.  Ningpo Clergy Training College (1875, later became Ningpo Trinity Theological College (宁波三一神道院 ), Ningpo  *
3. St. John’s Theological School (1880), Shanghai
4. Beijing Diocesan Training Center, Beijing
5. Central Theological School (1924) , Shanghai*
6. St. Paul’s Divinity School (circa 1876, later became Hua Chung University Theological School*)
7. St. Paul’s Theological College, Chengdu (West China Diocesan Training Center*)
8. Ming Hua Theological College (1996), Hong Kong

Union Institutions in which the SKH was involved

      9.  Yanjing School of Religion (1916), Beijing
      10. Union Theological College (1914), Guangzhou
      11. West China Union Theological College (1937), Chengdu and Wuhan
      12. Hong Kong Union Theological College (1955), Hong Kong
      13. Foochow Union Theological College (1883),* Fuzhou
      14. Nanjing Union Theological Seminary (1952), Nanjing
      15. Theological Division of Chung Chi College (1963), Hong Konh

*SKH schools listed in the 1949 Chung Hua Sheng Kung Yearbook 

[69] “Reports and Resolutions of the Tenth General Synod of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui,” HKBU Archives of History of Christianity in China, CMS Archives, Reel 384 “CHSKH, 1937-1950.” In 1946, the number of CHSKH church members was 66,551, down from 78,616 ten years earlier, presumably because of the war. 中華聖公會年鑒 （上海：總議會中央辦事處， 1949），23頁。