Feeding Refugees, Saving Souls, and Planting Churches: Lutheran Ministry in 1950s Hong Kong

Abstract

Abstract The recent interest in the social history of the Cold War has given rise to many narratives of expulsions and migrations in world Christianity. This article focuses on the transformation of several Lutheran missions from sojourning in the wilderness of China’s maritime frontiers into becoming vital pastoral and welfare service providers in British Hong Kong. While licking their wounds after their reluctant exodus to Hong Kong following the Chinese Communist Revolution (1949), the Lutherans employed the triple mission of feeding refugees, saving souls, and planting churches, clinics, and schools to help the distressed population. They mobilized their global and local church networks to secure financial, medical and human resources for crisis management—resources that the British colonial government lacked. Its multilayered operation of relief programs exhibited the organizational capacity of Lutherans to assist stricken communities in Cold War Hong Kong.