Khang Kiat Tien Or Kang Kedian (1895–1987)

Khang Kiat Tien or Kang Kedian (1895–1987) BRUCE W. LO Bruce W. Lo is the ESDA assistant editor for the Northern Asia-Pacific Division. Khang Kiat Tien (pinyin Kang Kedian ???),1 also in some Adventist literature as KT Khang or KT Khng, was a pioneer Chinese evangelist best remembered as the author of several books on tracing Christian and Biblical concepts in Chinese written characters. Early Years Born in Singapore October 28, 1895, Khang Kiat Tien’s ancestry was from Xiaoping (??), Guangdong, China.2 Many of his friends knew him by his alias Kang Chong Heng (Kang Zhongxing???). He was the eldest child in the family of Kang Mu Shun (???father) and Lin Dai (??mother), who were farmers from Xiaoping.3 Khang was a Catholic by birth and completed his Senior Cambridge Certificate at St. Joseph Institute, a Catholic School in Singapore.4 He was a capable student and was awarded a first prize of $75 by the Institute. After graduating in 1913, he decided to cut away his long Manchurian queue, a hair style adopted by many Chinese males during the Xing Dynasty, and became one of the new generation of Chinese youth. K.T. Khang, c.1949 He was employed by the Singapore government as an From "Adventism in China" Digital Image Repository. accountant in their finance office with a handsome salary of $80 per month, above the average earnings of many young graduates.5 He first learned about the biblical Sabbath through an evangelistic meeting and was later guided by a Seventh-day Adventist couple, Mr. and Mrs. Chen Shuming (???), resulting in Khang accepting the Adventist faith. Unable to keep the Sabbath, he decided to give up his well-paid government job. Those were difficult days, but he remained faithful.6 In 1915, on the recommendation of Mrs. Chen Shuming, Khang went to Shanghai San Yu College7 at Ningguo Road (???), Shanghai, to study Chinese. Because of his good knowledge of English, he was employed by the school as a translator, working together with the husband and wife team of Li Chuangmao (???). They helped each other and became great friends. It was at the school that Khang met Liao Teck Sing (pinyin Liao Dexin???), who was from Xinhui, Guangdong (????) born October 25, 1894. At that time Liao was the women preceptress at the Shanghai San Yu College. The two married June 7, 1916 and began a life-long partnership in church ministry. Together they had eleven children, of which eight lived to adulthood.8 In 1917 K. T. Khang was appointed an assistant evangelist in the Chaozhou-Shantou (Teochew-Swatou??-??) district. In 1918 he was sent to Mei Hua School in Gulangyu, Xiamen, Fujian to teach for two years. In 1920 he moved to Nanning, Guangxi (????) for evangelistic work. In 1921 he returned to Guangzhou, Guangdong, to assist Pastors A. L. Ham and J. P. Anderson in the Canton Mission office there.9 Administrative Responsibilities 1932 marked the year when K. T. Khang entered administrative work. That year he was appointed the president of the Shantou Mission. The mission headquarters was at a beautiful small town called Hou Chetou (???) in the Shantou district. At the time Shantou only had an elementary school. As he traveled throughout the mission district, Khang recognized the importance of nurturing youth in the Adventist faith. With the help of two local teachers, Huang Changhua (???) and Lin Shouyu (???), he was able to start a new secondary school for Adventist youth in the Shantou Mission. Students were encouraged to do colporteur work by selling Signs of the Times and other religious literature. When students completed their studies at Shantou, they were encouraged to go to Canton Training School to continue their education. When the military activities of the Sino-Japanese war got close to Shantou in 1940, K. T. Khang took his wife, children, and mother-in-law with him to Hong Kong and stayed at the South China Sam Yuk Training Institute at Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was also invaded by Japan in 1941, he again moved the entire family to Huizhou (Waichow ??).10 In 1942, after his mother-in-law died, Khang was appointed president of the Hakka Mission (????) and vice president of the South China Union Mission. As the war continued to ravage the land, church members were scattered.11 His daughter Shaofang Kang (???) recalled an experience while her family was in Huizhou: I remember this experience while we were in Huizhou which demonstrated the Christian love that father showed towards other people. At that time, we lived in a small house but had a relatively large family of 11 members (8 children, mum and dad and grandma). One of the church friends who just lost his father, had even a smaller house. They were looking for somewhere to place the body before the funeral. No one wanted to help because Chinese believed that it is bad luck to have a dead body in one’s own home. Dad agreed to allow the friend to put the body in our small house and conduct the funeral for him. This instance made a strong impression in my mind.12 After the Second World War, K.T. Khang was invited to join China Training Institute at Qaotou Zhen (Chiaotoutseng ???) in Nanjiang as a teacher and the men’s preceptor. He remained in that post for two years, 1947-1948. When the new government was firmly established in mainland China, he returned to Hong Kong in 1949.13 Move to Southeast Asia In 1950 Khang was invited to pastor the Singapore Chinese Church in the Malaysian Mission. It was there he published his best-known book, Genesis and the Chinese, on the correlation between Chinese writing and the Genesis story.14 In 1951 he was invited to become ministerial director of the Southeast Asia Union Mission. In 1952 he joined the theology department of Southeast Asia Union College as a teacher, and also pastored the College Church. From 1952 to 1955, he served as chaplain of Singapore Youngberg Hospital. In 1961, he was reassigned to pastor the Pontian Church (??) in the State of Johor (???), Malaysia. He remained in that post until 1966, when he retired.15 Retirement Years After retirement, K. T. Khang and Mrs. Dexin Liao Khang continued to live in Singapore. Dexin Liao Khang died April 23, 1970 due to illness. Even during his retirement years, Khang was not idle. He updated his 1950 book and republished it jointly with Ethel Nelson under the new title The Discovery of Genesis.16 In 1982 he visited his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Chen Zimou (???), in Hong Kong, and his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Xian Yi (??), in Los Angeles. That year he immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, to be with his elder son, Kang Shaodian (???) and Shaodian’s family. On November 24, 1985, K. T. Khang died at the age of 91.17 Khang the Writer K. T. Khang wrote several books to assist himself in his evangelism. Three of the better-known ones are18 Genesis and The Chinese, Has Christianity Been Hoodwinked?, and A Peculiar People. Genesis and The Chinese was no doubt the most influential. First printed in Hong Kong in 1950, it was reprinted twice in 1985 and 1994.19 The book analyzed the correlation between traditional Chinese writings and the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis. Khang believed that the ancient pictorial writing of the Chinese language contains memory fragments of the early history of human race as recorded in the Genesis account. Some scholars challenged his assumptions and evidence, but his analysis resonated with many who have some knowledge of the Chinese language and the Genesis story, believing that Khang’s ideas deserve further investigation and research, and that the findings of such efforts can benefit Christians in the area of apologetics and evangelism.20 Authors who have written on the subject matter include Timothy Boyle,21 Richard Broadberry,22 Ginger Chock,23 Ethel R. Nelson, Samuel Wang, 24 and Jiang Zhou.25 Particularly worthy of mention is Ethel Nelson, an Adventist missionary pathologist to Thailand who was so inspired by Khang’s apologetic ideas that she decided to extend the research effort that Khang did on Chinese characters. In 1979 she collaborated with Khang to update Genesis and the Chinese, and republished it under the new title, The Discovering of Genesis.26 She continued to publish, either singly or jointly with other authors, many more books on the subject.27 The following is Nelson’s account of how she came to know K.T. Khang, from an interview with Christina Hogan of Adventist Dialogue, around the year 2004:28 About 25 years ago I came across a book entitled Genesis and the Chinese by Pastor Kang. The title brought an instant response within me: There can be no connection! Out of curiosity, I opened and read the book. I discovered that the Chinese characters are pictograms that tell the story of Creation. I began using these to give Bible studies to students in Bangkok. When we came back to the United States, I put it away for three or four years. Then I wrote to Pastor Kang in Singapore, and asked him, “Would you be interested in updating your book and working on another one?” He was very excited, and we worked one year by correspondence. Then I went to visit him in Singapore. The result was Discovery of Genesis (Concordia, 1979).29 While it may not be possible to prove conclusively how Chinese characters had evolved from their original primitive shapes to their modern forms because of the lack of reliable records in time of Chinese prehistory to show how the changes occurred.

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