An Ecumenical Experiment in Colonial Hong Kong: The Start of the Tsuen Wan Ecumenical Social Service Centre (1973 to 1997) and Its Local Praxis
Based on both documentary research and a series of interviews, this study retrieves the ecumenical spirit of the beginning of the dismissed Tsuen Wan Ecumenical Social Service Centre (TWESSC) a Christian non governmental organization. Early ecumenical praxis among six local churches (including one Catholic parish) testified to the need to work for (and with) the poor and to advocate for social justice, as promoted and sponsored by the World Council of Churches in the early 1970s. The TWESSC was recognised as an effective activist group in colonial Hong Kong, but was disbanded in 1997, due to conflict between the executive committee (including church representatives) and its frontline social workers and its service recipients. This article contributes to the study of ecumenism in Hong Kong in two ways. Firstly, it examines the emergence of the ecumenical movement in Hong Kong against the broader background of the involvement of church groups in community development. Secondly, it explores how the Hong Kong churches were occupied by the subvention of frontline services by the government since the 1980s, and how they sought to silence dissenting voices in the ecumenical movement.
Religions