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The Appeal of the Pentecostal Movement in Hong Kong

The Kaleidoscopic City: A Book Review


Alex Mayfield's book, The Kaleidoscopic City, tells the true story of Pentecostal missionaries in Hong Kong in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Kaleidoscopic City: Hong Kong, Mission, and the Evolution of Global Pentecostalism by Alex R. Mayfield. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2023, 279 pages. ISBN-10: 1481318977, ISBN-13: 978-1481318976. Available from Baylor University Press and Amazon.

The Kaleidoscopic City, Alex Mayfield’s history of early Pentecostal missions in Hong Kong (1907-1942), is a treasure trove of stimulating stories, thoughtful analysis, and powerful prose. This riveting history instructs and edifies. Mayfield highlights numerous valuable lessons that might be gleaned from this important slice of church history, but those most helpful for contemporary Christians include: the essential continuity that bound the early Pentecostal missionaries together with their evangelical contemporaries; the way in which the “heat and noise” of Pentecostal worship, which often repelled Europeans, actually served to attract the Chinese masses; and the strategic role that women played in the founding of Pentecostal churches.

Mayfield’s copious research enables him to tell the story of early Pentecostal missionary endeavor in Hong Kong with clarity and conviction. In so doing, he deconstructs notable stereotypes. As it turns out, Pentecostal missionaries were really not so different from other evangelical missionaries of this period. After noting that prominent historians, such as Daniel Bays, “have tended to portray Pentecostal missionaries as radical millenarians and ecstatic revivalists who represented a dramatic break” (p. 10) from their evangelical counterparts, Mayfield challenges this approach.

He rejects “Bay’s antagonistic portrayal of Pentecostals,” because it “fails to explain their appeal” (p. 11). Why were so many radical evangelical missionaries convinced by “these ‘unstable’ newcomers”? Why did so many become self-identified Pentecostals? “If Bay’s assessment is to be believed, then these converts also adopted Pentecostal missionary strategies, which were ‘chaotic, scattershot, and full of harebrained schemes.’ Simply put, this was not the case, and Bays’ description of Pentecostal missions ceases even bearing a passing resemblance to anything identified as ‘Pentecostal’ by around 1914” (p. 11; quoting Bays, “Chinese Ecstatic Millenarian Folk Religion,” in Global Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, p. 340).

By way of contrast, Mayfield demonstrates that the methodology of the early Pentecostal missionaries was similar to that of their evangelical colleagues. “Pentecostal missionaries in Hong Kong thought schoolrooms were as valuable as tarrying rooms; they desired printing presses as well as crusade tents; they found that the distribution of Pentecostal literature was as essential—if not more so—as their evangelistic street preaching” (p. 114). While stories of spectacular miracles or crowds crying out in ecstatic tongues grab the headlines, Pentecostals also featured those activities that typically marked evangelical outreach of this period.

Indeed, although Pentecostals are often portrayed as anti-intellectual, Mayfield’s account also challenges this trope. He notes that, “like their radical evangelical forebears, Pentecostals saw education as a potentially valuable tool in the missionary enterprise; as they found, a bit of schoolwork could open doors for saving souls. In Hong Kong, at least, educational work proved to be the backbone of Pentecostal mission” (p. 117).

In all their endeavors, whether it be their focus on education, the publication of periodicals, or the dissemination of the Bible and tracts, these early Pentecostal missionaries traveled down a well-worn path. Of course, Mayfield does not deny that the early Pentecostals in Hong Kong were unique. He simply affirms that the distinctive elements of their message, spirituality, and methods must be seen in the light of the larger unity that they shared with other evangelical brothers and sisters.

One distinctive aspect of the spirituality of those early Pentecostals in Hong Kong was their manner of worship. Mayfield aptly describes it with the Chinese phrase, renao, which means “hot and noisy.” Mayfield notes that while Pentecostal worship “was by and large” opposed by Europeans, the “lower classes of Chinese people, who may not have had as much exposure to Western ways and customs, found Pentecostal worship curiously intriguing and perhaps even a good form of entertainment” (p. 145). Mayfield perceptively points out that these differing reactions to the combustive energy, the heat and noise, of Pentecostal worship are the result of different worldviews. “While Westerners are prone to perceive chaotic, noisy environments as negative, Chinese people tend to perceive these environments positively…the ‘noise’ of Pentecostal worship made it more readily comprehensible and accessible to Chinese people.” So, while Westerners “found Pentecostal worship obnoxious, Pentecostals soon realized it was an asset in the crowded religious marketplace of Hong Kong” (p. 146).

Mayfield highlights how Pentecostal attitudes toward healing also became an important asset. Yet this is an example of how the context of Hong Kong helped Pentecostals adjust and change. “Healing…became an important bridge between Pentecostals and the people of Hong Kong. On their arrival in the colony, Pentecostals insisted that salvation had to precede any act of divine healing; over time, they gradually began to reverse the order as a way to prove the effectiveness of Pentecostal power” (p. 231). With their vibrant worship and emphasis on divine healing, these Pentecostals might have shared “much in common with Chinese folk religionists, but they still shared more with their evangelical peers” (p. 230). Additionally, it might be argued that the experiential worship and prayers for healing of the early Pentecostal missionaries helped shape the ethos of the dynamic house church revivals of the post-Mao era.

Finally, Mayfield illuminates the foundational contributions made by women to the emerging Pentecostal mission in Hong Kong. Women were not only essential for the missionary enterprise, Chinese Bible women formed the backbone of the Chinese church. “Mostly serving as Bible women, these women were key players in the Pentecostal movement of Hong Kong and southern China; without their work as assistants, teachers, translators, preachers, and at-large evangelists, the Pentecostal missionary enterprise would have collapsed” (p. 232). Mayfield illustrates this point with brief biographical sketches of three remarkable women: Poon Wai Tsz (also known as Ko Sz Naai); Lum Sam Koo; and Annie Tsau (Annie Yeung). Mayfield notes that while there may have been more opportunity in Pentecostal circles for women to participate in activities normally reserved for men, Pentecostals in Hong Kong “also tended to gravitate and support gendered hierarchies that fell in line with traditional late Victorian values…Women could be baptized by the Spirit, but that baptism did not deeply challenge social conventions” (p. 233). Once again, we see that the experience of Pentecostals in Hong Kong, on the one hand, anticipates later developments in China, where women continue to play a huge role in the life and leadership of the church; and yet, on the other hand, it largely imitates attitudes prevalent in the broader evangelical world.

Just as the city of Hong Kong is a kaleidoscope of scenes, scents, and tastes, a fusion of cultures and peoples, so also Mayfield’s research, skillfully presented in this fine volume, brings together often seemingly disparate notions, events, and people. The result is as compelling as the city itself, for Mayfield shows their coherence and significance. In so doing, Mayfield helps us peer through the looking glass and see ourselves and the Chinese church more clearly.

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Image credit: Getty Images via UnSplash+.
Robert Menzies

Robert Menzies

Robert Menzies, (Ph.D. University of Aberdeen) is an adjunct professor at Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in the Philippines. He has taught at Bible schools and seminaries in the Philippines, Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Russia, Holland, Korea, and the United States. Dr. Menzies has authored several books on the work of …View Full Bio


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