Abstract
Church activities moved and continue to remain online in some form after COVID-19, and Hong Kong Protestant Christians have creatively imagined a leaderless Christian community through hashtag movements such as #deltaδmovement. As years have gone by, how did this hashtag evolve, and how does it continue to impact Hong Kong Christians in online/offline identity formation? Local identities evolved as Hong Kong Christians continued to migrate abroad, especially to Britain, through the British National (Overseas) visa. My aim is to make Hong Kong Christians’ identities, local or otherwise, visible, and explore how their identities are interpreted, especially in light of recently implemented national security laws in 2020.
This paper seeks to investigate the faith identity of Hong Kong Christians through analysing their online social media activities on Facebook and Instagram, commonly used by Hong Kongers for sharing their daily lives. I will gain an understanding of how Hong Kong Christians construct their identity and self-understanding on these platforms. The main objective of this paper is to create a digital theology suitable for the Global South, specifically in the context of Hong Kong. I argue that current theorisations of digital activism (Christina Neumayer and Jakob Svensson, 2016) are Anglo-Eurocentric, and researching digital grassroots activism from the Global South not only requires a different model, but that such models, when created, can, in turn, inform the understandings of digital activism in Global North, through different ways of acting and being. Present-day globalisation and large-scale migrations blur the traditional lines of the Global North/South divide. This paper attempts to decolonise existing ways of theorising.
Based on research conducted, I found that Hong Kong Christians’ social media interactions are focused on creative uses of Bible verses and hymns, conveying doubts about religion, drawing faith-based conclusions from their life experiences, and expressing concerns about societal issues. A point of exploration is how Hong Kong Christians use traditional Christian resources, and display them in a visually appealing way on social media platforms, to express their social concerns. An example would be making the connection of nostalgia by using Christian hymns translated from colonial times (Rennie Chow Choy, 2021, p. 45). The key point of this investigation is to make sense of Hong Kong Christians’ self-understanding and identity formation through the sea of ever-changing posts. Being able to construct a Hong Kong Christians’ online identity will be the key deliverable in creating new knowledge and impact on Hong Kong Christianity and digital theology.
This paper seeks to investigate the faith identity of Hong Kong Christians through analysing their online social media activities on Facebook and Instagram, commonly used by Hong Kongers for sharing their daily lives. I will gain an understanding of how Hong Kong Christians construct their identity and self-understanding on these platforms. The main objective of this paper is to create a digital theology suitable for the Global South, specifically in the context of Hong Kong. I argue that current theorisations of digital activism (Christina Neumayer and Jakob Svensson, 2016) are Anglo-Eurocentric, and researching digital grassroots activism from the Global South not only requires a different model, but that such models, when created, can, in turn, inform the understandings of digital activism in Global North, through different ways of acting and being. Present-day globalisation and large-scale migrations blur the traditional lines of the Global North/South divide. This paper attempts to decolonise existing ways of theorising.
Based on research conducted, I found that Hong Kong Christians’ social media interactions are focused on creative uses of Bible verses and hymns, conveying doubts about religion, drawing faith-based conclusions from their life experiences, and expressing concerns about societal issues. A point of exploration is how Hong Kong Christians use traditional Christian resources, and display them in a visually appealing way on social media platforms, to express their social concerns. An example would be making the connection of nostalgia by using Christian hymns translated from colonial times (Rennie Chow Choy, 2021, p. 45). The key point of this investigation is to make sense of Hong Kong Christians’ self-understanding and identity formation through the sea of ever-changing posts. Being able to construct a Hong Kong Christians’ online identity will be the key deliverable in creating new knowledge and impact on Hong Kong Christianity and digital theology.
| Original language | English |
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| Publication status | Published - 4 Apr 2025 |
| Event | Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities 55th Anniversary Conference: Grassroots and Indigenous Digital Faith-based Activism, the University of Edinburgh - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Duration: 4 Apr 2025 → 4 Apr 2025 https://iash55.eventbrite.co.uk/ (Conference website) https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/IASH%2055th%20Anniversary%20brochure.pdf (Conference programme) |
Conference
| Conference | Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities 55th Anniversary Conference: Grassroots and Indigenous Digital Faith-based Activism, the University of Edinburgh |
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| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | Edinburgh |
| Period | 4/04/25 → 4/04/25 |
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