Three years ago, I was conducting research for a study on the Bible and the Chinese Community in Britain (BCCB). I reached out to several Hong Kong–background churches to request interviews with their pastors or church members but didn’t receive any replies. I tried following up over email but continued to hear radio silence.
When I shared this with a Hong Kong friend living in Britain, she said she wasn’t surprised that I was encountering setbacks in my work. “Your name sounds like a typical mainland Chinese name, which may have made them reluctant to respond,” she told me.
On her advice, I decided to email the churches again using an English name. This time, it worked. But these interactions left me with a heavy heart because they highlighted the deep-seated mistrust and estrangement that exists among believers of Chinese descent.
Chinese churches in Britain are currently experiencing explosive growth. Much of this can be attributed to a surge in immigration: As of last year, the government had welcomed more than 200,000 Hong Kongers with British National Overseas (BNO) visas after the Chinese government imposed a harsh national security law on the former British colony.
Yet this positive perception of Chinese church growth in Britain is a fragile bubble that could pop at any time, as divisions between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese believers persist.
I’ve witnessed some outcomes of these tensions between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong believers, such as believers self-segregating into congregations with others of similar backgrounds and even cursing at each other on social media due to political disagreements.
People from mainland China speak Mandarin and grew up under state-driven ideology with limited religious exposure. Hong Kongers speak Cantonese and experienced greater political and religious freedom. Certain stereotypes—like how Hong Kongers consider mainland Chinese people as backward and uncultured—are common.
Many Hong Kong immigrants in Britain also tend to be strongly against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), exacerbating tensions between themselves and the immigrants from mainland China.
Often, churches never acknowledge these political, social, and communicational divides. Most believers treat politics as a taboo topic to maintain a sense of peace, however superficial it may be, even as ideological tensions simmer below the surface.
In a context where ideological differences seem impossible to surmount, it’s challenging to live out Hebrews 12:14: “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
But the Book of Jonah can offer us a deeper understanding of what real peacemaking entails. God invites us to actively pursue harmony with one another, encouraging us to engage with those we might prefer to avoid, gently confronting biases and seeking reconciliation where division has taken root.
To explore what struggles the Chinese church in Britain is facing and how to cultivate peacemaking in this context, I held interviews with church leaders from China and Hong Kong for the study, commissioned by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 2022.
My conversations with these ethnically Chinese Christians illuminated the strains on that bubble I mentioned earlier, showing how a nationalistic attitude often overshadows Christian convictions to love each other—or love our enemies.
Of the 45 church leaders I interviewed, 41 mentioned that attaining unity within their congregations has become more challenging in recent years. “A group of young people in my church refused to pray in the same space with others due to differing political views” about China and Hong Kong, a London-based senior pastor of a Chinese church told me. (Interviewee names remained anonymous in the research process.)
Only about half (55%) of Hong Kong churchgoers holding BNO visas felt that mainland Chinese people could be trusted. In comparison, close to three-quarters (74%) felt trusting of white British people.
Many Hong Kong immigrants prefer attending local English churches, “not because these churches are better, but because they feel uneasy around other Chinese,” said the same London-based senior pastor.
Some Hong Kongers also expressed concern that there may be spies in Chinese churches. (Last December, a UK court barred a mainland Chinese man who was close to Prince Andrew from entering the country for national security reasons.)
Mainland Chinese believers, in contrast, tend to view newly established churches that only serve Hong Kong immigrants with suspicion. In their view, this exclusivity is driven more by political motivations than by biblical principles.
Mainland Chinese Christians also displayed a strong nationalistic perspective when discussing geopolitical issues during the BCCB study.
“The CCP has undeniably brought significant economic progress to China, lifting millions out of poverty,” an elder at a mainland Chinese church in Britain commented. “Many criticisms of China are rooted in inherent prejudice against the country, and some even justify hatred toward Chinese people.”
Expressions of distrust and judgment have loomed so large that some Mandarin-speaking churches and newly established Hong Kong congregations in the same cities avoid any interactions.
But this isn’t just a modern-day problem besetting the Chinese church in Britain. We see it taking place in one angry prophet’s account in Scripture too.
Jonah is aggrieved with God for showing grace to the people of Nineveh because he regards them as “outsiders” who are not Israelites. “That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish,” he tells God almost petulantly (4:1–2).
Only when Jonah is trapped in the belly of the fish does he confront his own helplessness and need for God’s pardon. “I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord,’” Jonah cries out at the end of his prayer (2:9).
Here, Jonah begins to recognize how much he needs the mercy of God, mercy that he struggles to extend to others, laying the groundwork for dismantling his biases and self-righteousness. Yet, even after the entire city repents, he fails to see the Ninevites the way God sees them.
Later, God asks the sulking prophet, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. … And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people?” (4:10–11).
God’s question to Jonah is a timeless reminder: His mercy is far-reaching. And we are called to extend this same mercy to those we may wrestle with accepting.
We are called to show the same grace and tenderhearted affection to others that God has shown to us. When we focus on distinctions and use them to label someone as “other” or even as “enemy,” we stray from God’s heart.
The ever-evolving Chinese church landscape in Britain may not exactly mirror the conflict between Jonah and the Ninevites. Yet, the BCCB study reveals a tendency for Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese believers to think of each other as Ninevites who are outside God’s salvific plan.
To truly cultivate authentic peacemaking between Christians from Hong Kong and mainland China, we first need to exercise humility and repentance, just as Jonah did in the belly of the fish. Scripture exhorts us to allow the scales to fall from our eyes so we recognize our shared depravity and desperate need for a Savior.
Jonah’s story also prompts us to ask, “Are we content with preserving a surface-level calm while avoiding difficult conversations and leaving deeper issues unresolved?” God did not allow Jonah to simply avoid the Ninevites; instead, he called him to engage with and extend grace to those he disliked.
In Britain’s Chinese church context, peacemaking requires creating spaces where personal and collective tensions can be openly and compassionately addressed. Good answers start with good questions, approached with genuine curiosity and a willingness to acknowledge any awkwardness that may arise.
Examples of successful peacemaking among Chinese churches in Britain are rare. Conversations about these divisions are still often treated as taboo. But some glimmers of hope are appearing through initiatives like the Society of Chinese Public Theology, a newly established association which encourages open dialogues around sensitive topics, such as Christian responses to war and engagement in political protests.
My research for the BCCB study has also been a step toward peacemaking. In my interviews with church leaders from Hong Kong and China, I learned to set aside my own assumptions and spend time hearing their stories, struggles, and hopes. I lamented, wept, and prayed with some Hong Kong–background believers.
Ultimately, peacemaking must be rooted in mutual love, where we address underlying tensions without judgment or hostility, because we are all part of one Spirit and one body (Eph. 4:4–6). As Jonah teaches us, we can trust in God’s immeasurable grace for people who are different from us and learn to show mercy and love to them.
Yinxuan Huang is research manager at the British and Foreign Bible Society.
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