At first blush, this book's subtitle perfectly captures the tenor of the volume. Philip Wickeri, the advisor to the Anglican Archbishop of Hong Kong on theological and historical studies, explains that his biography has “no overall theme,” but simply aims to “narrate Gilbert Baker's life in the context of his times, drawing on available documentary evidence.” No other biography exists, so Wickeri has “nothing to deconstruct, no position to advance” (4). The book is a sympathetic treatment of John Gilbert Hindley Baker, whose fourteen years as bishop of Hong Kong have generally been overshadowed by the forceful personality of his predecessor, Bishop R. O. Hall, and the genius of his successor, Bishop Peter K. K. Kwong. Yet between these two giants, Wickeri describes a man who responded to the 1967 riots in Hong Kong with speed and pastoral wisdom, navigated the first two women in the Anglican Communion to legal ordination, helped craft what may be the first “Joint Agreement on the Sacrament of Holy Baptism” with the Roman Catholic Church anywhere in the world, and strengthened the church's commitment to education and social work. Baker's years as bishop were productive, even if they were not flashy. They help fill in the historical gap that has existed in the diocesan history between 1966 and 1981. The book, as Archbishop Paul Kwong concludes in the Foreword, is perfectly suited to “be read and studied by all priests and laypeople in our province” (x).
Yet this sixth publication in the Historical Studies of Anglican Christianity in China Series can be read as more than a denominational publication. It is also part of a historiographical reconfiguration that is underway in the study of Christianity in China. It is not a return to the Great Missionary genre of the past, nor is it a China-centered history that privileges Chinese actors. Instead, Wickeri uses Baker to describe a transnational Christian movement. Baker's story cannot be contained in Hong Kong. It must include England, the United States, Canada, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other stops along the way. Baker, and the people he served, were highly mobile. Furthermore, the issues and events that surfaced in Hong Kong cannot be untangled from larger networks and interests. Baker's role in the ordination of women in the Anglican Church is an example. Wickeri describes the mechanics of the global Anglican Communion, the various conferences and committees that weighed in on the issue, the contending attitudes around the world, and the ambiguous position of the Diocese of Hong Kong in the Council of the Church in Southeast Asia, which provided the diocese support but ultimately no clear oversight. With seemingly little effort, Wickeri demonstrates how a local ordination was most certainly a global event.
The transnational story is embedded in the sources. Wickeri visited eight archives on three continents. He put together a thorough bibliography of English and Chinese sources, and he created a chronological bibliography of everything Gilbert Baker published between 1936 and 1996. To help fulfill his prediction that his book would not be the last on Baker, Wickeri added three appendices to the back that list the churches, schools, and social service centers established by Baker, and a fourth that provides the names of all the people Baker ordained. The opportunity is there to do more than write a “Life and Times of John Gilbert Hindley Baker,” but future authors will find that Wickeri's global framework is indispensable.
