This past Sunday, members ofEarly Rain Covenant Church
were blocked from enteringtheir worship building.
With their leadersdetained and facing jail,
churchgoers decided topray and worship outside.
On December 9th, authoritiesin the city of Chengdu
arrested prominentChristians pastor Wang Yi
along with his wife and 100 members
of Early Rain Covenant Church.
Authorities shut down thechurch and charged Pastor Wang
with inciting subversion of state power.
He and his wife could face up to 15 years
in prison if convicted.
Early Rain, like scoresof other congregations
is outside governmentcontrol as part of China's
burgeoning so-called underground
or house church movement.
(worship music)
Appearing on CBN News's World Beat,
Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs
says this movement hastouched every corner of China.
- And that's the excitingthis is all across China
there are house churches,they are what they call
family churches, andthe reason the Communist
government is so worriedis be there are far
more Christians in Chinathan there are members
in the Communist Party.
- [George] Nettletonsays Beijing is waging
a brutal and widespreadcrackdown to stop the growth
of these unregistered churches.
- [Todd] This crackdown Ithink is a direct response
to the fear of the Communist Party leaders
who see the church growingway faster than the Party is.
- Mr. Yang has Chinadeclared war on Christianity?
- Yes.
- [George] Fenggang Wong, a leading expert
on religion in China sayswhat started as a small
government campaign againstunregistered churches
has turned into all out war.
- The campaign was firstexperimented in Jiujiang Province
in 2014 to 2016.
Now it had become a nationwide campaign.
- [George] A campaignwhere authorities routinely
target houses of worship, destroy crosses,
burn Bibles and arrest pastors.
(worship singing)
Mr. Fenggang who once predicted that China
could become the world'slargest Christian nation,
(trumpeting)
says that the governmentheaded by Xi Jinping
views Christianity asa threat to the Party's
longterm political aspirations.
- Christians are the remainingNGOs in the shrinking
civil society in China.
And under Xi Jinping andthe Chinese Community Party
is really trying toestablish a totalitarian rule
of Chinese society and theChristians are standing
in the way of totalitarianism.
So that why they became a target.
- [George] Pictures sharedon Early Rain's Facebook page
claim to show thatpolice physically abused
some of those arrested afterthey were taken into custody.
Foreseeing his possiblearrest, Pastor Wang wrote
a letter titled, My Declarationof Faithful Disobedience
with instructions thatit should be published
if he went missing for more than 48 hours.
In it, Want vowed touse non-violent methods
to stand against Chinese laws he believed
were against the Bible and God.
"My savior Christ alsorequires me to joyfully bear
"all costs for disobeyingwicked laws," Wang wrote.
"I am filled with anger anddisgust at the persecution
"of the church by this Communist regime,
"at the wickedness oftheir depriving people
"of the freedoms ofreligion and of conscience."
Wang is no stranger to authorities.
He was once one of China'smost prominent civil rights
lawyers and intellectuals.
In 2005, he had anencounter with Jesus Christ
and decided to convert to Christianity.
He gave up his law careerto pursue his calling
as pastor and started Early Rain
in China's Sichuan Province.
(speaking foreign language)
His sermons, many ofthem widely circulated
on social media, soonmade him a rising star
and an important playerin the Christian revival
that was sweeping China.
All that has come to a screeching halt
with his arrest and theclosure of the church.
Still members of his congregation vow
to keep meeting despite the arrest.
George Thomas, CBN News.
