DAWN Fridayfax 1997 #32

DAWN News from Hong Kong and USA

Hong Kong: when Buddhist gods fall

Recent events in Hong Kong are reminiscent of the Old Testament, when Baal's statue fell before the Ark of the Covenant. A number of religious meetings were held on the occasion of Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese, including a 24-hour Christian prayer meeting from 6pm on June 30th until 6pm on July 1st. Not only Christians held meetings: around 40,000 Buddhists, including 1,000 monks, met on the same day for a prayer meeting "to bless Hong Kong". Buddhist monks prayed for Hong Kong for an additional 30 hours, into the early hours of the morning of July 2nd. At around 5am that morning, following rainfall, a landslide destroyed the steps, a house and two temples in the "Ten Thousand Buddhist Temple" in Shatin. This temple contains 13,000 Buddhist statues, the largest number of any of Hong Kong's temples, including the largest Buddha statue. Some of them were broken into pieces, others knocked over, including the best-known Buddhist statue, that of Kwan Yin, the "Goddess of Mercy". Further landslides ruined the foundations, and the whole area has become unusable. The government has forbidden people to enter the area. A Chinese paper, Ming Pao, printed photographs of the landslide under the headline "He can't even help himself!"
Source: Dennis Balcombe and N. Anderson, P.O. Box 608, Fanling, N.T., Hong Kong; e-mail: anderson@hk.super.net

USA/Time Magazine: "Missionary State of the Art - Church planting"

"Every Sunday morning, many churches in St. Louis are drastically changed," according to Time's Adam Cohen. The aging St. Louis Kingshighway Baptist Church, for example, "a sea of white hair and bald heads", turns into "the lively Catedral de Dios Iglesia Bautista". When the white-haired pensioners leave the church, according to the report, Hispanic Christians, led by Peru-born Rev. Amadeo Torres, flood out of the basement rooms into the main hall, where they unpack their Salsa guitars and tambourines. "The state of the art in missionary work," according to the 4th August issue of 'Time', "is church planting," often even in premises belonging to established and aging churches. One of the reasons, says the report, is that evangelisation regularly brings new Christians into the church, but hardly ever manages to integrate them long-term. The Mount Olive Lutheran Church, for example, hosts a Lutheran service (mainly for whites) at 10:30am, an Afro-American Baptist church at 12:15 and an Eritrean Coptic-Orthodox church at 2pm. The rent payments are a welcome financial aid for churches with problems paying for the maintenance of the church building as a result of sinking membership. "In addition, it is simply helpful for people of all colors to be in the church all week, instead of only white people on Sunday morning," says church president Fred Bodimer III of the Our Redeemer Church in a previously German-American neighbourhood, where the membership has dropped from 1,200 to 88. Comparing the churches shows cultural differences which are manifested in varying styles of service, according to Time. Roosevelt Clossum, pastor of the Afro-American church in Mount Olive, was invited to be the guest preacher in the white Kingshighway church - with the warning that "a trapdoor will open under you if you speak for more than an hour"... An important reason for planting various churches is that they make it easier to reach new people. Thom Rainer, Dean of the Southern Baptists Theological Seminary in Louisville, says that "the Homogeneity Principle shows that churches grow more quickly when people of the same culture worship together."
Source: Time, 4 August 1997

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