Church and State in Post-Handover Hong Kong

This essay examines the politics of church-state interactions in Hong Kong after July 1, 1997, using Anthony Gill's political-economic model of religious mobilization and liberty and Max Weber's theory of priestly versus prophetic religion. How have local Christians reacted to the Communist-backed SAR government in Hong Kong since 1997? Do Catholic and Protestant leaders and their followers play a mainly priestly or prophetic role when dealing with the authoritarian Beijing government and its subordinates in Hong Kong? From their side, do SAR officials allow Christians freedom to worship and evangelize, or is the Church increasingly persecuted the way it is on the mainland? Based on our interviews with Christian leaders from Hong Kong and an analysis of available official statistics and Chinese- and English-language publications, this essay finds that church-state relations have become increasingly fraught as some Christian intellectuals and young people more and more support anti-Beijing, prodemocracy movements. At the same time, however, the government has tried to co-opt many other, less-activist laity and clergy into remaining politically quiescent, with at least some success. Within local congregations and denominations, this effort has resulted in increased polarization along generational, educational, and political lines. While rational-choice theory is thus partially supported in the case of Hong Kong, it needs to be informed by a Weberian approach that focuses on religious ideas.