Celebrating St Andrew's Church: 100 Years of History, Life and Personal Faith

Celebrating St Andrew's Church: 100 Years of History, Life and Personal Faith

by Charlotte Vesey

St Andrew's Church $120

Charlotte Vesey has probably made a wise decision in not attempting any analysis of the interesting materials that she's collected and compiled in this selected record of 100 years of St Andrew's Church, Kowloon. As one would expect of an institutional history, published by the institution itself, Celebrating St Andrew's Church criticises no one and nothing related to its subject. Nevertheless, the materials show that some church members hold strong views about political matters, including Hong Kong's colonial past, as we saw when the vicar of the time washed the feet of a large number of Chinese clergy as a symbolic act of communal penance, at a service to mark the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

If you're interested in church history, colonial church history, and modern developments, including the Pentecostal movement in the Protestant Church, you'll find value in this book. Others may find real personal use in the strategies described, which have been set up for spiritual and social survival as part of a large English-speaking international group in Hong Kong.

You may take issue with an editorial policy that's led to the immortalisation of a wendy house and the vicarage cat, but (because there's no index) every word should be read. If not, you may miss the glancing references to a young man's first arrival at the church by rickshaw in 1956, the punkah wallah at work in the days before electric fans and air-conditioning, and heroines of mission or church history such as Gladys Aylward and Joyce Bennett.