The Chinese shaping British Christianity

Alexander Chow writes about two very important dates this week for people of Chinese heritage in the UK, and the contribution of British Chinese Christians.

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This final week of January 2025 includes two important dates.

The first is 29th January, when the Chinese (or Lunar) New Year begins. I grew up in Southern California attending New Year’s family gatherings at my dad’s oldest brother’s home, often with eight or nine pairs of uncles and aunties and two dozen cousins. Food was always plentiful - as were instructions to study hard, to find a good job, and to properly pronounce the Chinese phrases used during the holiday. I am passing these same traditions to my children in Scotland, far from family - but with ‘family’, now including ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ amongst friends and within the church. Those of Chinese heritage, wherever they may live, look to Lunar New Year as a time of celebration with food, family, and festivities.

The other date of note is 31st January, which marks four years since the UK Home Office began a new visa route for Hong Kong British National (Overseas) passport holders. This was established because of the British sense of responsibility for former colonial subjects who were affected by the recent social unrest in Hong Kong. We ought to remember that nearly two centuries earlier, British battleships fought for the British ‘right’ to traffic narcotics to China, even though the Chinese government prohibited the opium trade amongst its people. In January 1841, after the end of the First Opium War, the British crown claimed Hong Kong as its newest colony. Fast forward to today, and about 158,000 people have arrived in the UK under the new visa. This means that one out of every four or five Chinese you may encounter on the British high street today has come from Hong Kong in the last few years. Ironically, while the Home Office was creating this immigration pathway, racism against Chinese and other East and Southeast Asians in the UK grew at a phenomenon rate, fuelled by tropes like the ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Kung flu’.

Lunar New Year is connected to culture and tradition, while the new visa is connected to social and political experiences. Both affect the lives of many who today call Britain their home. Perhaps surprising to some, this new flow of immigrants has transformed British Chinese churches such that they have become the fastest-growing expression of British Christianity today. This is happening when British Christianity as a whole reports a record slump in numbers. These Hong Kongese are changing the shape of British Christianity. But Chinese Christians have been shaping British Christianity for centuries. The first Chinese Christian on British soil dates to the 17th century, and the first Chinese church was established in Liverpool in 1910.

Yet, this is not simply about ‘Chinese Christians in the UK’. Many are British by birth or naturalisation. Most of those who have come in the recent wave are ‘British Nationals’, as evidenced by their passports. These are British Christians who have shaped British Christianity. And their cultures and experiences will continue to reshape the future of British Christianity.

This is what the book Chinese Heritage in British Christianity is about. It writes the stories of the Chinese within British Christian history and society. It highlights the voices of British-Born Chinese, Hong Kongese, Mainland Chinese, and other Christians of Chinese heritage, from a range of denominational traditions, wrestling with the multiple cultures they embody, and the experiences of welcome and rejection in this land. It shows that Chinese heritage is an integral part of British Christianity. It is not just a book for those of Chinese heritage, but also for everybody concerned about British Christianity.

This book points to the ways in which British Chinese Christians are more than foreigners and contribute to a richer vision of what God is doing in and through His Church in the United Kingdom and beyond.

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Chinese Heritage in British Christianity is published in February. You can pre-order it here.

Alexander Chow is Senior Lecturer in Theology and World Christianity and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

Image credit: Angela Roma https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-using-chopsticks-to-eat-7363753/