Karl Ludvig Reichelt
Encyclopedia
Karl Ludvig Reichelt was a Lutheran missionary who worked China, especially among the Buddhists and established the Nordic Christian Buddhist Mission. He founded the institution Tao Fong Shan in Hong Kong.
Karl Ludvig Reichelt began in the Mission school in Stavanger at the age of 20 years in 1897. He was ordained at Our Savior's Church in Oslo 20 March 1903 by Bishop A. Christian Bang, and was then sent by the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS) to China.
In October 1903 he came with his fiancee and later ('05) wife, Anna Dorothea Gerhardsen, to Shanghai, but left soon after the travelers into the country to Hunan province. Anna Dorothea coming soon. Here in the provincial capital Changsha they settled down to begin their language studies. Karl Ludvig Reichelt had the first part of his work in Hunan. After the one-year language course, he was sent to the city of Ning Xiang, who was at Mission Company Mission field. In 1906 was there an experience that would be crucial to his later work. When he undertook his first visit to the famous Buddhist Weishanklosteret close to town. He later wrote that he just gave a glimpse of a unique and exclusive world of deep religious mysticism, of heartbreaking tragedy, but also immensely rich. He felt that God called him to a special way to work among buddhistenre, and cultivate a friendly dialogue with the monks and the enlightened Buddhist laity. This he used some force to his years in Hunan and Hubei, first as a pioneer missionary (to 1911, when he returned to Norway for a time), then as a teacher in the NT at the priest school in Shekou (1913–1920).
He is particularly suited to the study of Buddhism and the Buddhist religious writings. In 1919 he had the opportunity to be involved in renaming a Buddhist monk.
Under a Norway Stay 1920-1,922 he got the green light from the NMS to build a Christian center of the Buddhist monks to come and stay for shorter or longer time, and there have personal contact with Christianity. He traveled in those years around Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the United States to generate interest for his project, and also received some pledges of support, including from the Swedish Lutheran Church and the Danish Mission Association. A coordination committee for the mission companies in the three Scandinavian countries, was established to guarantee a minimum amount of support in case the gift supply would not reach the expected size. NMS also promised to pay him wages, even though he was in the rest yourself.
Reichelt and missionary Notto Normann Thelle then went back and got their planned center, called the Ching Fong Shan ("the shining wind rock"), just outside of Nanjing. It was not long before the first itinerant Buddhist monks found their way to the Christian "monastery", and eventually, the number of such visitors in approximately 1 000 per year, and most were there for a longer or shorter period. Some were Christian and was baptized.
In his meeting with China's Buddhist monks came Karl Ludvig Reichelt to develop their own misjonssyn, a sight that made him controversial. This was especially with his view of God's revelation and the religions (especially Buddhism) as a preparation for the gospel (praeparatio evangelica), his dialogical method, and his positive evaluation of other religions. But NMS became concerned that Reichelt openness to Buddhism went too far, especially when Reichelt meant to find "points of light and connection points brought forth by God's Holy Spirit ... in their sacred writings (and) in their rituals and thinking systems ". It ended with NMS Reichelt called home for consultations on this and some financial problems, and it ended with the split from Reichelt in 1925.
In 1926 founded when Reichelt The Nordic Christian Buddhist Mission (or the Nordic-East Asia Mission, later the Areopagus). Work continued in Nanjing, and in 1927 , 22 Chinese people were baptized. But the same year the mission station destroyed during a riot, and Reichelt and Thelle had to flee the city.
For two years the work they saw in Shanghai. In 1929 Reichelt came to Hong Kong, and was built institution Tao Fong Shan ("the mountain where the wind blows Logo") in Shatin in the Sha Tin district of New Territories. This institute has since been the seat of Buddhist Mission's work in China.
Reichelt wrote several books in Chinese and several works on East Asia religions, including religions of China (1st ed. 1913) and From Convenience Types and shrines in East Asia (Three volumes, 1947–1949). He received in 1939, St. Olav's Medal for meritorious activities in 1941 and was appointed honorary doctor at Uppsala University for his extensive research on Eastern religious life. For the future mission theologians, religious scholars and sinologist has Karl Ludvig Reichelt extensive and proven knowledge of Chinese culture and religion as well as his contribution to the question of the contextualization of Christianity in China has become a literary treasure.
He left China in 1947, and settled down in 1951 in Hong Kong. He died at the Tao Fong Shan in Hong Kong on 13 March 1952.
Life and work
His father was a sea captain who died when Karl Ludvig was still a child. His mother, who was the Matron at an orphanage, provided that the boy had teacher education at Teachers' College Notodden. He then spent several years teaching in Telemark, and lay preacher in his spare time.Karl Ludvig Reichelt began in the Mission school in Stavanger at the age of 20 years in 1897. He was ordained at Our Savior's Church in Oslo 20 March 1903 by Bishop A. Christian Bang, and was then sent by the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS) to China.
In October 1903 he came with his fiancee and later ('05) wife, Anna Dorothea Gerhardsen, to Shanghai, but left soon after the travelers into the country to Hunan province. Anna Dorothea coming soon. Here in the provincial capital Changsha they settled down to begin their language studies. Karl Ludvig Reichelt had the first part of his work in Hunan. After the one-year language course, he was sent to the city of Ning Xiang, who was at Mission Company Mission field. In 1906 was there an experience that would be crucial to his later work. When he undertook his first visit to the famous Buddhist Weishanklosteret close to town. He later wrote that he just gave a glimpse of a unique and exclusive world of deep religious mysticism, of heartbreaking tragedy, but also immensely rich. He felt that God called him to a special way to work among buddhistenre, and cultivate a friendly dialogue with the monks and the enlightened Buddhist laity. This he used some force to his years in Hunan and Hubei, first as a pioneer missionary (to 1911, when he returned to Norway for a time), then as a teacher in the NT at the priest school in Shekou (1913–1920).
He is particularly suited to the study of Buddhism and the Buddhist religious writings. In 1919 he had the opportunity to be involved in renaming a Buddhist monk.
Under a Norway Stay 1920-1,922 he got the green light from the NMS to build a Christian center of the Buddhist monks to come and stay for shorter or longer time, and there have personal contact with Christianity. He traveled in those years around Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the United States to generate interest for his project, and also received some pledges of support, including from the Swedish Lutheran Church and the Danish Mission Association. A coordination committee for the mission companies in the three Scandinavian countries, was established to guarantee a minimum amount of support in case the gift supply would not reach the expected size. NMS also promised to pay him wages, even though he was in the rest yourself.
Reichelt and missionary Notto Normann Thelle then went back and got their planned center, called the Ching Fong Shan ("the shining wind rock"), just outside of Nanjing. It was not long before the first itinerant Buddhist monks found their way to the Christian "monastery", and eventually, the number of such visitors in approximately 1 000 per year, and most were there for a longer or shorter period. Some were Christian and was baptized.
In his meeting with China's Buddhist monks came Karl Ludvig Reichelt to develop their own misjonssyn, a sight that made him controversial. This was especially with his view of God's revelation and the religions (especially Buddhism) as a preparation for the gospel (praeparatio evangelica), his dialogical method, and his positive evaluation of other religions. But NMS became concerned that Reichelt openness to Buddhism went too far, especially when Reichelt meant to find "points of light and connection points brought forth by God's Holy Spirit ... in their sacred writings (and) in their rituals and thinking systems ". It ended with NMS Reichelt called home for consultations on this and some financial problems, and it ended with the split from Reichelt in 1925.
In 1926 founded when Reichelt The Nordic Christian Buddhist Mission (or the Nordic-East Asia Mission, later the Areopagus). Work continued in Nanjing, and in 1927 , 22 Chinese people were baptized. But the same year the mission station destroyed during a riot, and Reichelt and Thelle had to flee the city.
For two years the work they saw in Shanghai. In 1929 Reichelt came to Hong Kong, and was built institution Tao Fong Shan ("the mountain where the wind blows Logo") in Shatin in the Sha Tin district of New Territories. This institute has since been the seat of Buddhist Mission's work in China.
Reichelt wrote several books in Chinese and several works on East Asia religions, including religions of China (1st ed. 1913) and From Convenience Types and shrines in East Asia (Three volumes, 1947–1949). He received in 1939, St. Olav's Medal for meritorious activities in 1941 and was appointed honorary doctor at Uppsala University for his extensive research on Eastern religious life. For the future mission theologians, religious scholars and sinologist has Karl Ludvig Reichelt extensive and proven knowledge of Chinese culture and religion as well as his contribution to the question of the contextualization of Christianity in China has become a literary treasure.
He left China in 1947, and settled down in 1951 in Hong Kong. He died at the Tao Fong Shan in Hong Kong on 13 March 1952.
Works
- Kinas religioner. Haandbok i den kinesiske religionshistorie, Stavanger 1913, 2. opplag 1922
- Det rene land. ("Tsing tou"). En oversættelse af det merkelige buddhistiske skrift "De vigtigste momenter ved dyrkelsen av "Det rene lands lære" med vedføjede indledningsbemærkninger, København 1928
- Mot Tibets grænser. With chapters by Arthur Hertzberg. 1933
- Fromhetstyper og helligdommer i Øst-Asia, I - III, 1947 - 49
- English translation: Meditation and Piety in the Far East: a Religious-Psychological Study by Karl Ludvig Reichelt, translated by Sverre Holth, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954
- Laotse. Gyldendal, 1948. Translation of the Tao te chingTao Te ChingThe Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing , also simply referred to as the Laozi, whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi, is a Chinese classic text...
,- reissued in 1982 with the title Tao te ching and an introduction by Henry Henne. Gyldendal, 1982. ISBN 82-05-13333-6,
- reissued in 2001, as Tao te ching: utvalgte taoistiske skrifter, edited by Rune Svarverud and Notto R. Thelle; translated from Karl Ludvig Reichelt (Tao te ching) and Rune Svarverud (Zhuangzi). De norske bokklubbene, 2001, ISBN 82-525-4104-6
Further reading
- Hakan Eihart (1974) Boundlessness: Studies in Karl Ludwig Reichelt's Missionary Thinking with Special Regard to the Buddhist Christian Encounter, Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXIV: 1974.
- Eric J. Sharpe (ca 1984) Karl Ludvig Reichelt, missionary, scholar and pilgrim. Hong Kong: Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre.
- Notto Normann Thelle (1954) Karl Ludvig Reichelt. En kristen banebryter i Øst-Asia. Den nordiske kristne Buddhistmisjon. Oslo.
- Notto Reidar Thelle (1995): «Reichelts misjon og livsverk - en utfordring til vår tid», i Norsk Tidsskrift for Misjon, 1/1995, pp. 33-52, Oslo.