Through in-depth interviews, this book offers a mosaic of the lived theology of Hong Kong Christians as they responded to political transformation and social movements in Hong Kong in the past decades. It enriches and complexifies our understanding of identity, religion, and politics in the changing relationship between Hong Kong and China. I highly recommend it.
Kwok Pui-lan, Distinguished Scholar, Episcopal Divinity School, United States of America
Ann Gillian Chus new book, Hong Kong Christianities and Civic Life, presents a thoughtful and passionate exploration of how evangelical Christians in Hong Kong conceptualise democracy, human rights, and civic identity. The author, who is from Hong Kong, utilizes ethnographic observations and interviews with local HK Christians to create an innovative grounded theology that is not beholden to imperialist concepts like democracy and human rights. Chu proposes that the incarnational humanism of Jens Zimmerman presents the most appropriate framework for understanding the dilemmas of Hong Kong Christians who suffer division between pro-establishment and pro-democracy factions. Hong Kong Christianities and Civic Life provides an insiders view of the political turmoil in HK today; this well-researched book represents a milestone in the study of Global Christianity.
Sabine Hyland, Professor of World Religions, the University of St Andrews, United Kingdom
For some time now, a new world order has been emerging from the still-burning ashes of an expiring colonial culture. From the Indian subcontinent to the island metropoles of the global south, something previously impossible has made its presence known, an Asian counterpart to what Paul Gilroy called the Black Atlantic. The Yellow Pacific arrives with Hong Kong as its headquarters, expressing anew Christ as the desire of the nations. Showing how faith grows here from the ground up, Gillian Chus new book both describes this new order, and embodies it.
Jonathan Tran, Professor of Theology and Asian American and Diasporic Studies, Duke University, United States of America
One does not have to agree with the authors views on decolonization or Western identity to profit from this immensely important study, based on personal experience and careful social analysis, of Hong Kong Christianity. Gillian Chus use of Christian, incarnational humanism to move us beyond confining racial and ethnic categories frames this study in the more helpful, genuinely biblical terms of our common humanity in Christ. I recommend this book to anyone interested in how Christians should think about their inevitable civic engagement in an increasingly perilous world.
Jens Zimmermann, J. I. Packer Professor of Theology, Regent College, Canada
