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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 |
CHINA: CHURCH DEMOLITION AND ARRESTS - REQUESTING PRAYER FOR CHINA
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- At 4 a.m. on 26 June 2003, police arrived at the Tu Du Sha Church at Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, with orders to bulldoze and demolish the church. They had expected the church to be empty, and so were surprised to find a group of some 300 believers praying. They left and returned at 8:00 a.m. with 200 military policemen. Despite the protests of believers, the police demolished the church, which was started around 1930 by Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission, and had grown in size to a weekly attendance of 1,500 members. Unbeknown to the police, a believer managed to record the demolition on video. That video was smuggled out of China to Voice of the Martyrs. http://www.persecution.com/china In January 2004, Chinese government officials saw the video and launched a fresh crackdown on the house-churches.
The Church is growing in China at an amazing rate. The only churches the government permits are the government controlled Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) churches. By having Christians in TSPM churches, the government can control what they are taught (a ‘Christianity that is compatible with Marxism’), who they are taught by (government appointed preachers), and who gets taught (no one under the age of 18). The presence of the TSPM churches also enables the Chinese government to present a façade of religious liberty. Some 80 million Chinese believers reject this system and chose to worship in unregistered ‘house-churches’. Unregistered worship is illegal, and believers, especially pastors and evangelists, face violent persecution if arrested.
On the evening of 24 January, house-church leader Ms. Qiao Chunling (41) of Fangcheng city, Henan province, was arrested during a house-church service at Guanlin, Luoyang city. Mr Zeng Guangbo (35), a Beijing military policeman and now prominent house-church leader in the Born Again Movement, was arrested on 25 January at a house church at Zengzhuang village, Yuanzhuang town, Deng county, Henan province. He has since escaped custody and is in hiding.
Ms. Xu Yongling (‘Deborah’ Xu, 58) was arrested from her niece’s home at 11 p.m. on 25 January. Deborah Xu is the younger sister of prominent house-church leader Peter Xu Yongze, who now lives in the U.S.A. Deborah is the present leader of Peter Xu’s ‘Born Again Movement’ church, which has millions of members throughout China. She has been arrested many times in the past. She is also actively involved with the burgeoning Chinese missionary movement. No one has been able to get any information concerning Deborah Xu’s whereabouts. Police in Nanyang will not even say if she has been charged with anything. A relative was told however, that told Deborah Xu’s case is being handled by the Chinese federal government’s Department of State Security. {more]
9:15:57 AM 
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© 2004 Radio Free China
Last Update: 4/4/2004; 9:25:17 AM
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