Police and Chinese Communist Party officials raided a church in Guangdong province, which is advocating for justice in China, while its pastor and elder ran an online worship service on Zoom, forcing the two to stop preaching.
Security guards, police and other officials surrounded Shenzhen Trinity Gospel Harvest Church in Shenzhen city and forced Pastor Mao Zhibin and Elder Chu Yanqing to stop preaching, the US-based group reported. United States, China Aid.
The incident took place earlier on July 11, about three months after church member Shi Minglei, also known as Hope, fled to the United States. Hope was also attending the online service which was raided.
Pastor Mao and Elder Shen Ling also recently signed “A Joint Statement of Pastors: A Statement for the Love of Christian Faith,” led by Pastor Wang Yi of the heavily persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church.
In April, several members of the Early Rain Covenant Church were arrested for attending an Easter worship service on Zoom and ordered to cease all religious activity.
Persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern reported at the time that Christians were attending a Zoom worship service from their homes on Easter Sunday when six leaders were arrested and detained by the Public Security Bureau.
The Sichuan house church, which has 5,000 members, has not been able to meet in person since the communist regime shut down the church in 2018 and arrested its pastor and other leaders. Since then, he has chosen to gather online.
“At that time I was also in the Zoom call, but there was a long period of time where I didn’t hear anything,” an ERCC member said. “At first I thought it was a network connection problem, but soon I heard a fight break out. Our colleague Wang Jun was interviewing some people, [saying]”Who are you to do that [to us]?’”
Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in more than 60 countries, estimates that there are approximately 97 million Christians in China, a large percentage of whom worship in what China considers “illegal” underground house churches and not recorded.
Chinese authorities are also continuing their crackdown on Christianity by removing Bible apps and Christian WeChat public accounts as new highly restrictive administrative measures against religious personnel came into effect this year.
China is ranked on Open Doors USA’s Global Watchlist as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians.
The country has also been labeled by the US State Department as a “country of particular concern” for “continuing to engage in particularly serious violations of religious freedom”.
Chinese authorities are also continuing their crackdown on Christianity by removing Bible apps and Christian WeChat public accounts as new highly restrictive administrative measures against religious personnel came into effect this year.