Tao Fung Shan: A Christian Church Built in the Chinese Oriental Style
Tao Fung Shan: A Christian Church Built in the Chinese Oriental Style
Situated upon a small hill in Shatin, Tao Fung Shan is the perfect location for a missionary site. However, Tao Fung Shan struck myself, and undoubtedly any other new visitors, as its appearance does not reflect its Christian roots. Instead, the context was wholly Chinese with the buildings constructed in the typical Chinese traditional style. The gardens were in a typical Asian-Pacific style which involves having the garden enclosed within the outer walls as opposed to the surrounding the structures. The purpose of the mission was also highly interesting as the targeted audience of the mission were not laymen but instead, Buddhist monks and practitioners.
This explains the construction features throughout the entirety of the church. By adapting to a Buddhist construction style, it allows the Buddhist or Taoist monks to feel perfectly at home. According to the tour guides and the descriptive video played during the beginning of the tour, Reichelt believed that the Buddhist monks, having already been devoted to religion, are perfect for conversion. He greatly admired the monks’ dedication to their faith and therefore, had focused upon his conversion efforts upon them. His attempt to convert the Buddhist/Taoist, deemed the Christian Mission to Buddhist, led to controversy from both the aforementioned faction and the Christian side – the former believed that the Christian missionaries were impacting their religion while the Christians criticized the Mission based upon religious syncretism, an attempt to merge contrary beliefs together. This view is contrastive with the opinion of Reichelt and the other pioneers of the Christian Mission to Buddhist movement. The primary reason behind unique attributes of Tao Fung Shan, namely the Chinese traditional architectural style and religious elements are constructed based on this principle.
Upon entering the ‘church’, we first passed
Situated upon a small hill in Shatin, Tao Fung Shan is the perfect location for a missionary site. However, Tao Fung Shan struck myself, and undoubtedly any other new visitors, as its appearance does not reflect its Christian roots. Instead, the context was wholly Chinese with the buildings constructed in the typical Chinese traditional style. The gardens were in a typical Asian-Pacific style which involves having the garden enclosed within the outer walls as opposed to the surrounding the structures. The purpose of the mission was also highly interesting as the targeted audience of the mission were not laymen but instead, Buddhist monks and practitioners.
This explains the construction features throughout the entirety of the church. By adapting to a Buddhist construction style, it allows the Buddhist or Taoist monks to feel perfectly at home. According to the tour guides and the descriptive video played during the beginning of the tour, Reichelt believed that the Buddhist monks, having already been devoted to religion, are perfect for conversion. He greatly admired the monks’ dedication to their faith and therefore, had focused upon his conversion efforts upon them. His attempt to convert the Buddhist/Taoist, deemed the Christian Mission to Buddhist, led to controversy from both the aforementioned faction and the Christian side – the former believed that the Christian missionaries were impacting their religion while the Christians criticized the Mission based upon religious syncretism, an attempt to merge contrary beliefs together. This view is contrastive with the opinion of Reichelt and the other pioneers of the Christian Mission to Buddhist movement. The primary reason behind unique attributes of Tao Fung Shan, namely the Chinese traditional architectural style and religious elements are constructed based on this principle.
Upon entering the ‘church’, we first passed