\u201cA Modern History of Hong Kong is clearly written and easily read; it is fully referenced, but unobtrusively so. Tsang offers a mix of narrative and analysis, and covers social and economic history as well as politics .\u201d This review by Daniel Yee seems to demonstrate the instructive benefits of learning the history of Hong Kong. Some reviews seemed to see the reading as a little dry, but they also appreciated the knowledge passed on through it. However, for myself, the real challenge comes in regard to finding its potential for growing a ministry in Hong Kong. How does the value of opium to a past British Empire help to spread the Gospel in a modern Hong Kong?<\/p>\n
As I pondered the above question, I was confronted first with the fact that though this is book was not a \u201cministry\u201d book; however, to believe that ministry can be achieved without first understanding a country\u2019s history and government is na\u00efve. Specifically in regards to Hong Kong, the author demonstrates its specific variance in regards to the rest of China in its willingness to learn from Western civilization . The doorway for Christianity to move into a community is sometimes very narrow; a principle that was demonstrated even more successfully in last weeks reading by Pullinger. Even Scriptures demonstrates that Paul the apostle reached out to the Jews first, but when the opening to extend ministries to Gentile groups, he capitalized on it.<\/p>\n
My second realization was that the same information that reveals open doors, can also show potential roadblocks to ministry. Ironically, I believe one of those roadblocks came in the \u201cflirtation with democracy \u201d discussed in the reading. The early, somewhat dominant nature of Chinese government may have actually been more beneficial for understanding an all-powerful God, omnipotent and omniscient in His power, than the god of America who seems to change at the will of man. The concept of freedom is nice, however, it is also very easy to corrupt. Viewing the ranges on both could actually be the difference of ending up in the sketchy neighborhood that affords years of ministry and bragging about that \u201cone time we went to Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p>\n
In regards to a beneficial help with my own dissertation, I saw better evidence for the value of one\u2019s culture in ministry growth. My point being that the historical culture is so much older than the American culture I have been raised in, and as a result, I believe that someone fully immersed in that culture would definitely have much greater potential than a foreigner trying to penetrate a culture they fail to understand. Furthermore, though the reading was a little slow at times, it was obvious that Tsang seems to possess a strong understanding of the culture and history of Hong Kong; which would be extremely valuable in converting locals, as well as training potential missionaries for future ministry.<\/p>\n
Bibliography<\/strong> Yee, D. (2006). A History of Hong Kong. Retrieved from Danny”s reviews:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0http:\/\/dannyreviews.com\/h\/Hong_Kong.html<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1] Yee, D. (2006). A History of Hong Kong<\/em>. Retrieved from Danny”s reviews: http:\/\/dannyreviews.com\/h\/Hong_Kong.html.<\/p>\n [1] Tsang, S. (2004). A Modern History of Hong Kong.<\/em> New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. P 10.<\/p>\n [1] Ibid, p 73.<\/p>\n [1] Ibid, p. 231.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cA Modern History of Hong Kong is clearly written and easily read; it is fully referenced, but unobtrusively so. Tsang offers a mix of narrative and analysis, and covers social and economic history as well as politics .\u201d This review by Daniel Yee seems to demonstrate the instructive benefits of learning the history of Hong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1297,1290],"class_list":["post-18022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-modern-history-of-hong-kong","tag-steve-tsang","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18023,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18022\/revisions\/18023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTsang, S. (2004). A Modern History of Hong Kong. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.<\/p>\n