Tiptoeing in Hong Kong
I write freelance articles for Christianity Today. My ‘beat’ is Hong Kong, where I have lived for more than 35 years. As you can imagine, things have changed a lot over that time. Two of the news organisations I worked for are now closed. Activities and speech that used to be commonplace are now prohibited. This makes for a lot of interesting potential stories. One of the articles I wrote for Christianity Today explored how different churches were responding to the recent political and societal changes. Here’s the story.
Pastors and church leaders I interviewed were very careful in their comments, although many expressed optimism that nothing would change in the coming years and religious freedom would remain intact. The common phrase was “we’re not political. Our purpose is to share the Gospel.” Things got a bit more complicated when I tried to do a story on churches and Christian organisations that were evangelising newcomers from Mainland China. Hundreds of thousands of Mainland Chinese have moved to Hong Kong in recent years, and many are curious about Christianity. Most had no religious affiliation in China, where the government regulates the five official religions. Hong Kong has complete religious freedom, and yet, when I tried to interview church leaders and Christian organisations about their outreach to the newcomers, the most common response was a polite refusal to discuss the issue. No one wanted to go on the record with details about their glowing success in bringing Mainland Chinese to Christ.
This is the current atmosphere in Hong Kong, where most people play it safe, refrain from doing or saying anything that they think the government wouldn’t like or that might “poke the panda.” None of these churches and organisations are doing anything illegal. Unlike in China, it is lawful in Hong Kong to evangelise in any setting, and to share the Gospel with children. Christian organisations were willing to talk about their outreach to newcomers in the context of teaching them Cantonese or helping them find a school for their children, but wouldn’t go on the record about their success in sharing the Good News with those same families.
I can tell you that many people who have migrated across the border from Hong Kong are exploring the Christian faith and responding positively to Christian outreach. I just couldn’t get anyone to talk about it for attribution. Several organisations actively involved in evangelising Mainlanders simply refused to discuss it. Too sensitive. Not worth the risk. So that’s one story that won’t be appearing in Christianity Today.
petermaize 