Mentality of Hong Kong Christian University Students in the 1960s Towards the Ideal Christian Life
In an interview for Hong Kong Baptist University on August 2 2018, veteran Christian ministry leader Wai Man Fung shared his university student fellowship experiences while he was a student. Since he was born in 1940, this interview should be referring to the situation of universities in the 1960s. This is how they conceptualized the ideal Christian life at the time.
The following contains translated portions of this interview:
they idealized missions:
specifically overseas missions
to the neglect of local Hong Kong needs
their expectations for how to live ethically included:
being a good parent
being a good husband or wife
work ethically with integrity, above secular standards
their ideal ethical ideal was modeled after Daniel and Joseph in the Bible:
both of them went overseas to develop their careers and wealth
sexual purity
submission to authority
altruistic giving and adherence to societal roles for the purpose of being an effective Christian witness
this served as a projection of what the Christian university students wanted for their own lives, justifying their personal ambitions
flaws in their ethical ideals included:
inability to relate to the example of the prophet Isaiah
ignoring challenges which were at odds with Chinese culture and values
not realizing how their beliefs about Christian may have had blind spots
not seeing the need to be reflective
several key influences such taking such a perspective:
American and British InterVarsity Fellowship, Rev. David Adeney, the British Evangelical Movement, associating Christianity with societal elitism
Pietistic celebrity Christians who escaped the People’s Republic of China under Communist rule, who advocated for evangelizing in the United States
In contrast to typical trends of the time, Fung became a pioneer leader for Christian social involvement in Hong Kong beyond this truncated vision of the Christian life.