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Pentecostals in Hong Kong: A Conversation with Alex Mayfield

Pentecostals in Hong Kong: A Conversation with Alex Mayfield

Last updated on: August 21, 2024 at 12:01 am by David Swartz

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Pentecostals in Hong Kong: A Conversation with Alex Mayfield 2024-08-20T08:53:01-04:00 David Swartz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m pleased to welcome my colleague Alex Mayfield to the Anxious Bench. Alex is an assistant professor of history at Asbury University and is the author of the recently released The Kaleidoscopic City: Hong Kong, Mission, and the Evolution of Global Pentecostalism. What follows is a conversation we recently had about his book. –David

***

David: In 1926 a little girl with golden brown curls sat in a Chinese pagoda boat made of roses, which itself sat on a “missionary float” in the Rose Bowl parade. For hours as the float went through Pasadena, California, the girl held an open Bible in one hand and pointed heavenward with the other. That girl, born in Hong Kong a decade earlier, was the daughter of Aimee Semple McPherson, the most famous character readers will encounter in your book. Why were the McPhersons in Hong Kong in the first place, and how did their brief stay take on such mythical status in later decades?

Alex: Oh, Aimee! If there was a saint of American religiosity, it would have to be her. Her story in Hong Kong was part of the broad interest among faith missionaries at the time. As a young girl, she married Robert Semple, a successful evangelist, and they soon after felt the call to the “great white fields” of China. Semple, several years her senior, was a guiding light in her life and unlocked her ministerial calling. Sadly, he died from dysentery a few months after their arrival and Aimee gave birth to their daughter, Roberta, shortly thereafter. I think it would be hard to overemphasize the experience this had on Aimee. Robert was forever a saint in her memory (she would, after all, remain Aimee Semple McPherson); he was the loadstar of her evangelical call, and his passing was the major turning point in her life. Hong Kong broke her, it was the dark night of her soul, and it reappeared over and over in her sermons and published testimony. That experience gave her ministerial call gravitas, and—uncomfortable as it is—she emphasized this well-known story by employing orientalist tropes in the early days of her ministry. The Rose Bowl “flower boat” (a euphemism for floating brothels in China) was perhaps the most egregious and spectacular of these examples.

What do you mean by “worship as evangelism,” and why did this Pentecostal strategy work so well in Hong Kong’s soundscape?

That is one of the surprising things I found. For quite a long time, Protestant missionaries had been using Western-style music to attract crowds for street preaching (think of the Salvation Army and their brass band). Pentecostals did that sort of thing, but to their surprise, their own worship actually came to be a more successful crowd-drawer. Some missionaries even complained about their doors being broken down because so many people wanted to see what was going on. I think it had something to do with the “noise” of Pentecostal worship. The shouts, singing, shaking, and other physical movements mirrored the hot and noisy cacophony of many Chinese religious sites. Moreover, the hustle and bustle of noisy crowds often holds a good connotation in Chinese culture. So, while it was no doubt still strange for Chinese people to see a Pentecostal service; it was also probably far more entertaining and interesting for Chinese people than it would be for a Western onlooker.

You make fine use of traditional print and archival sources. But you also add an innovative methodology. How are you using the spatial tools like GIS to better understand religion?

Historians can—rightfully—be suspicious of forms of analysis that rely heavily on computational methods, but I do think they have a place as a complimentary way to see the past. As I read through my primary sources for this project, I input information about where people were and who they were talking with into a relational database. This helped me track large-scale trends that might only be hinted at or outright hidden by primary sources. For example, you can see how Pentecostal missionaries moved to the fringes of the urban spaces of Hong Kong, a fact that they almost never remarked on but that makes sense considering their desire to reach the “unworked fields” of China. More importantly, you can also uncover the primacy of women, who tend to leave fewer historical records. With my data, I could illustrate exactly how certain women were vital to the Pentecostal network of Hong Kong even though I only left a few pieces of their writing behind for historians like me to work with.

You’re critical of scholars who emphasize Pentecostal exceptionalism—both insider hagiographers and many scholars who see Pentecostals as radical millenarians and ecstatic revivalists making a dramatic break from earlier missionary efforts. Why do you see more continuity than discontinuity with the broader evangelical missionary enterprise?

In so many ways, Pentecostals missionaries were…well… boring! When I began my research, I thought I’d find so many strange and interesting stories, but what I actually found were the same old evangelical things. Pentecostals built schools, ran orphanages, distributed tracts, and sold Bibles. They took time to learn Chinese and build administrative systems; they even asked leaders of the evangelical missionary establishment for advice. It is true that they had their share of extremes and a distinctive approach, but not much more than other groups. By the end of the project, it was clear that Pentecostals simply reflected the holistic paradigm of early evangelicalism that blended social engagement with experiential forms of piety.

My own research deals with how American evangelicals have been shaped by their experiences abroad. Did you observe this “global reflex” among American Pentecostals who proselytized Hong Kong and China?

Certainly. While no early Pentecostals were involved in what we would recognize as intercultural or interfaith dialogue, their experiences in China shaped them immensely. Many returned missionaries, especially women, would become the largest boosters of missions in their home networks and take on outsized roles in establishing funding support structures. Others would go on to use their missionary bona fides to wield influence at important events. Hong Kong missionaries, for example, were key players in the Arroyo Seco Camp Meeting that sent shock waves throughout the Pentecostal world. While trying to raise funds for work in China, Hong Kong missionaries inadvertently became embroiled in debates over Trinitarianism. More famously, Aimee Semple McPherson built her evangelistic enterprise on her identity as a “real missionary” who spent time in Hong Kong.

In a chapter on how Pentecostals bureaucratized their missionary work in the 1920s and 1930s, you write, “Structures divide, but they also define, and that definition was increasingly needed.” What needed defining?

By the late 1910s, it was becoming increasingly clear that the idea of Pentecostalism as a high-minded, nondenominational renewal movement was unsustainable. Sensationalist traveling preachers were grifting off the movement, heterodox ideas were spreading among Pentecostal churches, and missionaries who set out “on faith” believing that God would provide were facing dire straits as funding began to dry up. This does not even take account of the racial tensions that stirred up in the United States or the economic turmoil of the war and interwar years. Regardless, many Pentecostals in North America increasingly felt the need for stronger denominational structures to safeguard certain ideas and ensure missionary and evangelical efforts were well-funded and established. These denominations defined and set the agenda for what Pentecostalism would be for the next several decades. Perhaps unavoidably, the act of clearly defining Pentecostalism also changed it into something slightly different than what it was before.

What was “missionary tongues,” and how exceptional is this theology/practice in church history?

Oh, that is an interesting question. The idea of xenoglossy, miraculously speaking in a different language, is attested to throughout Christian history (and modern anthropology). In fact, Augustine writes that it was common for Christians to speak in new tongues upon their baptism and confirmation—the two rites were unified in the early Church. In that context, the phenomenon is usually treated as a testament to the unity of God’s work assembling the multiethnic early Church. Throughout Christian history, various saints and holy people were attested to have miraculously spoken in different languages. “Missionary tongues,” in contrast, is a relatively modern evangelical phenomenon because it weds this idea of xenoglossy with the turn-of-the-century evangelical desire to preach the gospel to the entire world. They believed they would speak in a new language for the sake of preaching the gospel to unreached groups. This miraculous ability would speed up the process of evangelization. Pentecostals also had several toes in the dispensationalist camp, so they tended to think speeding up world evangelization would quicken the return of Christ. There may be precedents in history to similar ideas, but I don’t know of any at the moment.

In my favorite chapter, “The Women’s City,” you write that “Female Pentecostal missionaries outnumbered their male counterparts by a large margin, challenged traditional women’s roles, and carved out new social worlds for women through education and orphanage work. Yet Pentecostal women also reified colonialist and patriarchal structures that they had imbibed as part of their Western worldview.” How so?

This is another area where Pentecostals shared a lot in common with evangelicals. By virtue of their Western status, women missionaries were often able to interact in ways that were coded as male in traditional societies. As part of the colonial establishment, they had protections and privileges that meant that could say and do even more than many local men could. Likewise, they were able to build entire female-run enterprises that offered women real advantages and opportunities that defied traditional gender stereotypes. At the same time, evangelical women tended to espouse late-Victorian and patriarchal gendered norms. They practiced modesty in dress and temperament and deferred to male forms of leadership. If you want to dive deeper into this paradox, I really recommend Jane Hunter’s The Gospel of Gentility. Ultimately, while many Pentecostal groups did affirm women’s ordination and make new avenues for female participation, the same paradox was at work.

As you researched this book, what finding or character most inspired you? What discouraged you?

One of the first people who really captivated me in this research was Anna M. Deane. A native Kentuckian, Deane moved to Hong Kong in her late fifties after years as an educator. She was made “matron” of a Pentecostal missionary home, but quickly moved out of that position and established a school for women and children. She eventually founded one of the first schools for the floating population of Hong Kong and became the quiet backbone of the movement in China. Sadly, she died with a ticket for her passage home in hand. In some ways, I think her death was prophetic of a wider shift in the movement. Deane represented this holistic strain of mission that focused on wider social needs. While that strain continued in Hong Kong and elsewhere, it all but died out in much of North America. Pentecostals gradually became associated with a stream of American anti-intellectualism. Deane reminds me of what might have been.

Which was your favorite archive to research at? What was your coolest find?

The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center is by far the largest Pentecostal archive in the world, but my favorite has to be that of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in Bethany, Oklahoma. The former archivist, Harold Hunter, had a passion for the denomination’s global history and they even have a little model of the two-story “gospel boat” that served as a floating school and church. My favorite find comes from the Hong Kong Records Office and is still a bit mysterious: a deed of sale for Fu Taü Chaü Island. It was sold to Paul Bettex and the Pentecostal Mission in 1911. With the help of a colleague, I believe the island refers to Fat Tong Chau, a tiny little island in the New Territories, but I haven’t confirmed that as of yet. The Pentecostal Mission broke apart soon after and nothing ever came of it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what they were planning on doing with that island!

Pretend you’re a sociologist. What would a spatial analysis of religion look like in Hong Kong’s high rises now?

Fortunately, I do not have to. There is a new book by Tobias Brandner called C hristians in the City of Hong Kong (Bloomsbury, 2023). It actually came out the same month as my book! The first chapter really focuses on this question and highlights the multiple approaches to visibility and contextualization pursued by historic and new churches. Brandner argues that the new “upper-floor” churches (meaning churches that rent or own space in a high-rise building) reveal a pragmatic approach to economic realities and hint at the impermanence of sacred space in global cities. I think he is right on. If Pentecostals were afraid of urban cores in the past, they are not afraid of them now.

What’s your next project?

Too many! I am still working with other colleagues to strengthen the China Historical Christian Database, it is the world’s largest database on Christian actors, institutions, and organizations in China from 1550-1950. We have some exciting papers in the works that utilize data science to show what this database can do and how it might reframe our understanding of Chinese Christian history. I also hope to expand some of the thoughts in The Kaleidoscopic City into a further book project that spans the globe, but it is still in the early days. Lastly, I am starting to work on an important project that will take me back to the very beginning of Protestant missions in China, but I have to (painfully) keep that under wraps for the moment. Sorry for the tease!

Aimee Semple McPherson

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