Churchman, Banker, Educator: Lam Chi-Fung and American Church Resources in the Making of Hong Kong Baptist College

In the early post-war era, the resources given by the Hong Kong government to tertiary education were severely insufficient in meeting increasing demands, and many local teenagers who grew up in poor families had to give up on their dreams of being educated at university. In the mid-1950s, Lam Chi-Fung, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Baptist Association, promoted the establishment of a Christian college in Hong Kong with two key aims: on the one hand, this college was to offer local secondary graduates an opportunity to receive tertiary education; on the other hand, it was to spread the gospel to local Chinese youths. However, without the aid of the Southern Baptist Convention, his proposal would never have been accomplished because there were not enough local Christian resources to make it happen. The Southern Baptist Convention not only provided funds to support the College’s campus construction and subsidize its early operation but also sent missionaries, who were experts in different academic areas, to serve as the College’s lecturers. Christian resources from the United States were highly valuable for this newly-founded Baptist college as they helped the latter get through tough times in the first two decades following its foundation. This tertiary education project also marked an important moment of transnational cooperation between Christians in the East and the West in the early post-war era.