Douglas Todd: 1970s Christian hymn now an anthem for Hong Kong protesters
Credit to Author: Douglas Todd| Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2019 12:00:50 +0000
Largely unnoticed outside Hong Kong, a Christian hymn has risen to become the anthem of millions of street demonstrators and their far-flung supporters around the world.
Sing Hallelujah to the Lord, a chant-like tune written in the 1970s, is a song of peace and praise, composed in a plaintive minor key. But somewhat like We Shall Overcome during the 1960s civil rights movement, it has caught on among religious and non-religious pro-democracy activists alike.
When mass rallies began in Hong Kong in June, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, confronted by armed riot police with tear gas, strengthened their courage and inner calm by intoning Sing Hallelujah to the Lord over and over again for 18 hours, says scholar Justin Tse.
“Even if you’re not a Christian it’s still the anthem” of the pro-democracy movement, says Tse, who obtained his PhD from UBC and has long been watching conflict in Hong Kong, where 300,000 to 500,000 residents hold passports from Canada (far more than from any other country).
“The hymn captures the aspirations of the protesters, in the sense they don’t want their home to be ridden with violence by police, who sometimes seem to be in an unholy alliance with triad gangs,” says Tse, author of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (Palgrave).
Even though the pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong and cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Sydney are not being directly organized by churches or the city’s many Christian schools, Tse says Christian leaders are far more involved in this summer of widespread resistance than they were during the 2014 Umbrella Movement.
Back then, Christian activists in Hong Kong accused their own church leaders of “selling out” to authorities doing the bidding of the People’s Republic of China, Tse says. But in 2019 key church figures are quietly playing significant roles in the mass movement, even while it is dividing ethnic Chinese around the world, including 3.8 million in the U.S. and 1.8 million in Canada (mostly in Toronto and Vancouver).
Hong Kong Catholic Bishop Joseph Ha, for instance, has joined more than a million dissenters cramming the city’s streets and told authorities the people are protesting “because they love Hong Kong,” says Tse.
A video of a man kneeling on the pavement and pleading with the police for restraint went viral when it was realized he was a Protestant pastor, says Tse. Other Christians have publicly urged Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam — who was educated in one of the city’s influential Catholic schools — to apologize for supporting China’s hated extradition bill.
That may have helped nudged Lam on Wednesday to finally announce withdrawal of the bill, which would have permitted alleged criminals to be extradited to China, where courts are distorted by politics. Key activists, however, continue to call for reforms, including free elections.
Vancouver Pastor Samuel Chiu says ethnic Chinese people in Canada are finding events in Hong Kong “traumatizing, even though they’re 10,000 kilometres away.”
About 80 Chinese Christians had been chanting Sing Hallelujah to the Lord in Vancouver, Chiu says, when they were confronted on Aug. 18 at Tenth Church by 100 pro-China demonstrators waving the five-star red flag of China.
“Some in our group felt a little bit fearful, even though I myself found it amusing. People were anxious about the way (the pro-China demonstrators) were taking pictures of us as we left the church,” says Chiu, who acts as liaison for a group of evangelical and Catholic pastors supporting protesters.
Richmond-based Chiu, with the Alliance denomination, says Sing Hallelujah to the Lord, which has also been sang at Vancouver and Toronto protests, was written in 1974 by a Californian. It became central to what what was then called the Jesus Movement, which saw tens of thousands of peace-and-love hippies convert to evangelicalism.
“Sing Hallelujah to the Lord is not a political statement. It’s about the Lord hearing our prayer. It’s about crying out to the Lord. It’s not celebratory or victorious. It’s a prayer,” says Chiu, who maintains contact with key Christians leaders in Hong Kong, where much of the leadership graduated from Catholic or Protestant-run schools. Tse says “Christian ideas are just part of the fabric of the city.”
Julia Duin of Get Religion, which monitors media reporting on religious issues, can’t figure out why almost all TV and press outlets have ignored how a hymn has become the unofficial anthem of the historic protests in Hong Kong, most of which have been peaceful. Duin notes the gatherings often take on the aura of “an outdoor worship service.”
‘The hymn captures the aspirations of the protesters, in the sense they don’t want their home to be ridden with violence,’ says UBC-trained scholar Justin Tse.
Pastor Chiu says Christians are quietly working among the demonstrators, even though most in Hong Kong, Canada or Australia would not necessarily be churchgoers. Congregations are opening their doors to demonstrators who need rest and washrooms. Pastors in green vests are moving among the throngs, offering comfort.
The strength of conviction of some protesters, Christian and otherwise, is tremendous, says Chiu. Asked whether he’s heard reports some of those arrested are willing to be like early Christian martyrs and give up their lives for the greater good, Chiu says, “Many say they’re not afraid of being shot at.”
The 49-year-old pastor, who came to Canada from Hong Kong in 1988, acknowledges mass pro-democracy demonstrations have divided the seven million people of Hong Kong (which is a special administrative region of China), as well as ethnic Chinese in North America.
“I’m being pressed by some local Chinese people to not be so vocal. Some church elders are coming up to me and saying, ‘Stop talking about the protests.’ It shocked me,” says Chiu, one of an estimated 100,000 Chinese Christians in Metro Vancouver, about one-quarter of whom regularly attending church.
There are significant tensions over the protests among Metro Vancouver’s 500,000 ethnic Chinese, who are roughly divided between a wave of immigrants from Hong Kong who arrived in the 1990s (with many returning) and a more recent flow coming from China.
On one side, says Chiu, is a large group that includes most mainland Chinese and even some Hong Kong expatriates, who want everyone to keep quiet. “They are the ones who say just obey the authorities.” On the other side is a vocal minority of protesters and their backers.
The men and women getting arrested in Hong Kong who have Canadian passports might “have a way out” after they’re released, says Chiu, since they would probably be allowed to move away. But in this conflict involving the world’s second largest global power, few will predict how it’s all going to turn out.
Says Chiu: “You never know, you never know.”
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