China Detains Church Members at Easter Services
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: April 24, 2011
BEIJING The authorities stepped up a three-week campaign against an underground Christian church on Sunday, detaining hundreds of congregants in their homes and taking at least 36 others into custody after they tried to hold Easter services in a public square, church members and officials said.
The church, Shouwang, or Lighthouse, an evangelical Protestant congregation that was evicted from its rented quarters earlier this month, has been at loggerheads with the government since announcing plans to gather outdoors rather than disband or return to worshiping in private homes. The authorities have repeatedly stymied Shouwangs efforts to lease or buy space for its 1,000-member congregation, one of the largest and most prominent so-called house churches in the capital.
The Chinese Communist Party tightly manages religious activity, requiring the faithful to join state-run churches, mosques or Buddhist temples. Until the most recent crackdown on Shouwang and a handful of other unregistered big-city churches, such congregations had enjoyed relatively wide latitude from religious authorities.
Founded 18-years ago in a private home, Shouwang insists that it has no political agenda and only seeks government forbearance that would allow it to occupy the $4 million space it bought in 2009. Church leaders say the owner of the space, under pressure from the authorities, has refused to hand over the keys. Last week, a foreign ministry spokesman defended the governments stance, saying Shouwang had no legal basis to operate.
Most of those seized on Sunday morning were taken away in buses after they showed up at the plaza, which is not far from several of the countrys top universities. A CNN crew said they were briefly detained and had their credentials confiscated before being turned away by the police.
Several church members, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of further provoking the authorities, say they were confined to their homes by security agents, some as early as Thursday, in an effort to keep them from joining Easter services. ChinaAid, a Christian advocacy group based in the United States, put the number of those under temporary house arrest at 500, although that figure could not be immediately verified.
On Sunday night, Shouwangs Web site was blocked and its chief pastor, Jin Tianming, could not be reached by phone. In an e-mail circulated last week, church leaders asked parishioners to make their way to the elevated walkway where services were supposed to take place even though they would probably be intercepted by the police.
The letter took note of the upcoming Easter holiday and likened the congregations struggle to the tribulations endured by Jesus Christ before his crucifixion.
We pray especially for those brothers and sisters who in the past week or two have already been forced to move or leave their jobs, it said. We ask God to remember the price they have paid for holding on to their faith and ask him to take care of their families and their daily life needs.
Uh, there are people far more oppressed than in China.
Do we know it was just because they were Christians. Lets wait for more facts before we judge.
Do we know it was just because they were Christians. Lets wait for more facts before we judge.
I think the current leadership is likely more restrained / reasonable than the next batch of hardliners that might take their place that was raised in a whitewashed history and having never witnessed, first hand, the monster that was Mao and the disastrous economic / social policies of he and his ilk.Can't wait until the leadership croaks. Hopefully people will have some rights then.
Yep, all that awesome trade and credit that we got from them was awful.Nixon opening up to China was the biggest mistake of the last 50 years.
Do we know it was just because they were Christians. Lets wait for more facts before we judge.
Chinese people are brainwashed by the government from a young age and it works on a lot of them.
Uh huh. The difference is that we know about Kent State - the Chinese don't know about Tiananmen. I went to Tiananmen on the 20th anniversary; people weren't even allowed in the square.US just thinks they have choice and freedom, really its just brainwashing. Same shit from the government and the corporations who make the media and choose the elections. Chinese government sucks but Americans are the last ones to point fingers about mindfucking their citizens.
Some call it a consumerist commercial culture, really its a bunch of pacified brainwashed tv zombies.
...I have no idea how to respond to this post.Isn't it insensitive to build a church in China, considering what the Christian British did?
Isn't it insensitive to build a church in China, considering what the Christian British did?
US just thinks they have choice and freedom, really its just brainwashing. Same shit from the government and the corporations who make the media and choose the elections. Chinese government sucks but Americans are the last ones to point fingers about mindfucking their citizens.
Some call it a consumerist commercial culture, really its a bunch of pacified brainwashed tv zombies.
Isn't it insensitive to build a church in China, considering what the Christian British did?
Not to mention The Opium Wars were not religious wars.Considering that they are dead and the Christians are Chinese I'd say no.
Very true, I know several Chinese graduate students that had no idea what happened at "June Fourth Incident" aka Tiananmen Square until they had access to uncensored history upon arriving in America.The difference is that we know about Kent State - the Chinese don't know about Tienanmen.
It's not because they're Christians; it's because they're religious. Religion undermines the brainwashing of the Communist Party, because it leads to the belief that there is something more powerful and awesome than the Chairman of the party. Chinese people are brainwashed by the government from a young age and it works on a lot of them. I've seen the ignorance first-hand.
Here in America, we can read, hear in lectures, and are usually constantly reminded in the media about all of the terrible things our government did to blacks, Native Americans, student protesters at Kent State, the Japanese, etc.
Uh huh. The difference is that we know about Kent State - the Chinese don't know about Tiananmen. I went to Tiananmen on the 20th anniversary; people weren't even allowed in the square.
...I have no idea how to respond to this post.
Hitler was Christian. Look what happen during WW2....
You must not watch / read mainstream American media...What did in America tell about Iraq? WMD? - Weapons of Mass Deception?
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Have media reminded that?