I am so pleased to be published as the most recent contributor to the ‘Figurative publics‘ forum on The Immanent Frame. My essay is titled ‘“Sing Hallelujah to the Lord”: Secular Christianities on Hong Kong’s Civic Square.’
My contribution works through how ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord,’ an evangelical chorus from the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, became for a while the informal theme song of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. Bringing the fields of Global Christianities and secular studies into conversation, I attempt to make a methodological argument. Most journalists and scholars will be tempted, as I show, to try to figure out which Christians and Christian communities are behind the song. I propose another way forward, to look at what the song does in the secular publics of Hong Kong.
I am thankful to Mona Oraby, Olivia Whitener, and Nusrat Chowdhury for helping me sharpen this essay for this exciting forum, as well as to my colleagues who read it carefully and helped me navigate some of the thorny writing issues that befall every essay. I am also grateful to my friend Richard Wu for allowing me to publish his photo of an Eastern Orthodox icon of the Harrowing of Hades at the Hong Kong protests along with my piece. It’s not taken from the day I write about — June 12, 2019 — when ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’ began to be sung, but it’s from the time afterward when, as I argue, the chorus took on a life of its own. I look forward to seeing what conversations I may find myself in as I continue the work that I have announced myself to be doing in this piece.
Justin K.H. Tse 