Hong Kong
Hong Kong's cardinal Stephen Chow holds a Mass in Hong Kong, China November 4, 2023. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
The visit is the first trip by a mainland Chinese bishop since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997 and follows a landmark visit to the Chinese capital by his Hong Kong counterpart in April. For decades mainland Catholics have been split between an official church loyal to Beijing and an underground flock loyal to the Pope and the visit by Bishop Joseph Li will be closely watched given lingering tensions between China and the Vatican.
Retired bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun arrives the Court of Final Appeal to support media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily during a hearing an appeal by the Department of Justice against the bail decision of Lai, in Hong Kong, China December 31, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Zen, a 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong, was questioned for several hours on Wednesday at the Chai Wan Police Station close to his church residence, before being released on police bail.
The Catholic priest Franco Mella talks to the media before delivering a letter addressed to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, calling on authorities to drop charges against media mogul Jimmy Lai and other political activists jailed or in custody under the national security law, outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong, China, Jan. 31, 2022. REUTERS/James Pomfret
A coalition of Catholics and other Christians on Monday called on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to drop charges against media tycoon Jimmy Lai and other political activists jailed or in custody under a China-imposed national security law.
Activists, relatives of those killed in the drug war, and others protest extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Photo by AC Dimatatac / 350.org
Should the faithful take to the streets in protest to combat political injustice, they will be following the footsteps of religious groups across the globe that have responded with nonviolent action during times of civil resistance.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
MORE THAN A year ago, during the early days of Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill protests, a Christian hymn echoed in the streets. “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” had become an unofficial protest anthem. A year later, the spirit of hope that permeated the song’s adoption has evaporated.
This summer Beijing overrode the “one country, two systems” principle agreed to in 1997 by implementing a new national security law (NSL) in Hong Kong that gives China’s central government a broad set of powers to silence anything deemed subversive. The effects have been swift and chilling. In August, legislative elections for 2020 were delayed a year; pro-democracy candidates were disqualified. Controversial texts have been removed from public libraries, pro-democracy professors silenced, and newspaper offices raided.
Some of Hong Kong’s leading democracy activists, including legal scholar Benny Tai and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Joshua Wong, confess Christian faith. During the height of recent protests, many pastors invoked Christ in their participation. For example, pastor Roy Chan organized Protect the Children, a civilian peacekeeping collective, to shield young protesters from police violence. Under the new NSL, actions like Chan’s could be prosecutable, with potential life sentences.
Image via REUTERS/Laurel Chor
The similarities here are not only due to the presence of death and violence, but high tensions between government and people. Here we’ve witnessed images of police exercising excessive force on protestors, extensive arrests of nonviolent demonstrators, and vile displays of militarization in neighborhood streets, much like in Baltimore, Compton, and other cities in the U.S.
Anti-extradition bill protesters use trolleys to stop passengers from entering the security gates during a mass demonstration after a woman was shot in the eye, at the Hong Kong international airport. August 13, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Police and protesters clashed at Hong Kong's international airport on Tuesday after flights were disrupted for a second day as the political crisis in the former British colony deepened.
Protesters chant slogans outside the Department of Justice in Hong Kong, China. June 27, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
On June 16, the song Sing Hallelujah to the Lord became a popular anthem of the Hong Kong protests against the extradition to China bill. The bill, it is widely believed, would provide the Chinese mainland unchecked power in detaining political dissidents in Hong Kong. This represents yet another flexing of China’s authoritarian rule over the people within its reach, and what some see as a breakdown in the “one-country, two systems” method of governance that has placed Hong Kong at an arms length of Beijing since it was handed over by the British in 1997. The annual July 1 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong are expected to see a massive turnout.
Paper cutouts of men in various colors. Photo via RNS/courtesy mtkang via Shutterstock
Asian-American Christians are voicing concerns over how they’re depicted by white evangelicals, most recently at a conference hosted by Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California.
Saddleback recently hosted a conference by Exponential, a church-planting group, and a video last Tuesday left some Asian-Americans offended.
It’s the second dust-up in as many months involving Asian-Americans and Warren, who spoke at the Exponential conference. Last month he received backlash from Asian-American Christians after he posted a Facebook photo depicting the Red Guard during China’s Cultural Revolution. “The typical attitude of Saddleback Staff as they start work each day,” the caption read on Sept. 23.