The Anticult Initiative and Hong Kong Christianity's Turn from Religious Privilege

Abstract

Excluding others from membership tends to reveal the instability of anyone's terms of belonging in society. Hong Kong's Anticult Initiative of 2001 sought to establish the legal difference between cult and religion and to exclude some from the protections offered by freedom of religion. In the context of Hong Kong's own renegotiation of political authority with China this initiative prompted Protestant and Catholic leaders to reflect on the peculiarities of their own faith and reassess their position in a post-1997 polity. This article analyzes public discourse, both newspaper editorials and interviews, to document a turn in self-perception away from privilege and toward vulnerability. Now that Christians can imagine themselves, like the assumed target of the anticult initiative, Falun Gong, vulnerable to restrictions on their freedom of religion, they indicate an acceptance of their unstable position and an emerging willingness to take on new concerns and allies. In the face of exclusivity, liberal Christians manage a shift toward greater inclusiveness whose extent is yet uncharted.