Divine to divided: How Occupy Central split Hong Kong’s Christian leaders

Three years since the Umbrella movement transformed Hong Kong politics forever, the city’s preachers are still struggling with the schisms it produced

Reading Time:14 minutes

Jayson Albano, Marta ColomboandMaria Cristhin Kuiper

Published: 8:00am, 24 Sep 2017Updated: 3:11pm, 20 Jun 2018

It was a Sunday in late September and Reverend Philip Woo was enjoying his day of rest, taking afternoon tea with a friend at the Admiralty Centre, blissfully unaware of the higher plan God had for him that day – to play his part in a movement that would go on to shape Hong Kong’s political history.

Across the road from Woo, a founder of the civil disobedience movement Occupy Central, Benny Tai, was preparing to rally protesters outside the Central Government Complex, setting in motion a 79-day demonstration in which tens of thousands of Hongkongers would block roads in the business district to demand the right to democratically elect their leader, the chief executive. It was a demonstration that would polarise Hong Kong, strain the city’s relationship with the mainland Chinese government, and leave a question mark for years to come about the political future of the famously free-wheeling former British colony.

Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai. File photo

Back in 2014, from his table on the second floor at the Admiralty Centre, Woo could not see Tai and the protesters gathering – any more than he could have foreseen the countless twists and turns the political saga would one day take. But he could hear them, and a little voice inside him told him to investigate.

Once on the street, he could see clearly. He could see the crowds forming, and he could see the mounting ranks of riot police. And when he saw those same policemen firing tear gas into the assembled masses one thing became clear in his mind: that his faith in God demanded he act.

The police fire tear gas on protesters in Admiralty as Occupy Central gets under way. File photo

Woo and his friend began collecting empty plastic bottles, filling them with water to quench the thirst of the thousands who flocked to join the demonstration that night. In so doing, Woo became a small cog in the movement that would soon gain worldwide fame as the Umbrella revolution.