Author and evangelist Francis Chan recently shared that he is back in the U.S. after his visa to work in Hong Kong was rejected. Now, Chan says some articles written about the incident which speculate nefarious intent from the Chinese Communist Party could harm his ability to return.
“Let’s be careful not to make this bigger than what this actually is,” Chan said during an interview with CBN. Such comments could “be damaging to the possibility of me going back into Hong Kong when we have Americans saying ‘oh the communists kicked him out,’” Chan emphasized.
“That isn’t the case that I know of,” Chan said, referring to the speculation that his work visa was denied because of a communist agenda. Instead, Chan reasons his application for a 2-year work visa was likely denied because the organization sponsoring him “wasn’t clear enough and didn’t give enough detail as to what we would be doing there in country.”
“There have been different articles written about the situation and I think people have interjected their own views or thoughts of what may have happened. But the truth is, it very well could have been just my application for immigration that there was things we didn’t think through, and so they had some questions for us,” Chan explained.
Normally a work visa application takes 6-8 weeks for the government to process, but Chan said it took almost a year for him and his family members to receive an answer about their visas.
Hong Kong Churches Face Disunity
In addition to explaining the situation with his visa status, Chan also answered some questions about the ongoing conflict in Hong Kong between churches and the Chinese government. Chan said the biggest problem the church in Hong Kong faces is division within itself. Chan said there are believers on both sides of the pro-China vs. pro-Hong Kong debate and it is tearing the church apart.
Chan compared the divisions among Hong Kong believers to the divisions we are experiencing in the United States. He brought up the debate over whether or not to meet physically during the pandemic. This question is really a matter of methodology, Chan argued, and said the thing we should be more concerned about is doing what the Bible actually mandates: Things like confessing our sins to one another, bearing with one another, and aiming to become “perfectly one,” as Chan describes.
Chan believes each church group must have freedom to figure out how to obey these biblical mandates “in [their own] context.”
