Christianity in China...
May I start by saying what a great honour it is for me to be addressing you today. Our links with the Asia Society are so strong that the New York headquarters have created a website for us and we look forward to working closely with them and you as this project develops. It was here in Hong Kong, through the people, the museums, the libraries and the stories, that I first discovered the Early Church of China, then completely unknown to me. It was here that as an eighteen and nineteen year old, working as a volunteer at the St. Christopher's Children's Home on the Tai Po Road, that I first heard tell of this Chinese Church and first learnt to read Chinese. Perhaps I was predestined to study Chinese religion for I learnt to read Chinese by following the characters in a 1930 edition of English hymns translated into Chinese! So, this is a coming home and I am most grateful to you all for this invitation.
For many years, ever since I first found out about the Early Church of China, I have wanted to go deeper into this story and into the particular version of the Christian Gospel, which it seemed to embody. I have gone deeply into Taoism and Buddhism in China over the years, and have had the privilege of translating the great classical texts such as the Tao Te Ching, I Ching, the myths and legends of Kuan Yin, the Eight Immortals, and perhaps the greatest delight, translating Chuang Tzu. I have been very fortunate in working professionally with Taoists on the Sacred Mountains, and with Chinese Buddhists on various ecological projects. I have travelled extensively in China, and was thus able some twelve years ago to go and see the famous so-called Nestorian Stone found in 1625 and carved in 781 AD, which graphically describes the coming of Christianity in the early 7th century to China.....
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