Chinese Police Raid Underground Christian Newspapers In Latest 'House Church' Crackdown

Chinese police raided the offices of two underground Christian newspapers on Monday and seized four prominent staff members who are still missing, the Texas-based Christian rights group ChinaAid reports.

"Four of the magazines' most important personnel were taken into police custody," ChinaAid said of the raids in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. "There has been no further word about them."

The publications, A Kernel of Wheat and A Foreign Land, were started by members of China's 40-million strong "house church" movement, an underground network of Christians who meet in private homes because the government disallows them from registering larger spaces to worship and repeatedly cracks down on open-air gatherings, according to Radio Free Asia.

Pastor Zhang Mingxuan, head of the Beijing-based Chinese House Church Alliance, told reporters that he heard about the detainments but had had no clue as to which house churches the detainees belonged, because there are a great number of them in the area.

"The political atmosphere is very tense right now and the house churches are feeling the pressure, too," Mingxuan said.

Persecution of house churches by Chinese authorities was so widespread in 2011 that ChinaAid called it "the year of political and religious persecution," according to The Christian Post.

But activists are predicting that 2012 will be even tougher for house churches.

"Given leadership transition in fall of 2012 we do expect a much harsher year, even more so than 2011, although 2011 already marked the worst in terms of religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law in two decades," Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, told The Christian Post in a separate article.

Read the articles from Radio Free China and The Christian Post for more on China's house church movement.

Comments

[Science11]

06:21 PM on 04/05/2012

What does the present Chinese Government and Christianity have in common?

The need to CONTROL their citizens and or flocks.

[Friendly]

09:07 PM on 04/01/2012

Reading the comments here, I was happy that some people managed to find the US and Islam are guilty. Good for China!

[AhmazingBailey]

05:21 AM on 04/01/2012

If China becomes christian, then the U.S. christians will get a taste of their own medicine. Chinese leaders will hear jeebus whispering in their ear telling them what to do, and will consider their country "god's chosen ones" and invade other countries because it's "god's will" and they deserve all the riches. Christians in the U.S. will be looked upon as "not REAL christians," but heatheans that do not deserve the same rights as they do. Wow. Wouldn't that be cool?!

[sjaent2001]

11:50 PM on 03/30/2012

""""Chinese Police Raid Underground Christian Newspapers In Latest 'House Church' Crackdown"""" --- maybe the message to US OUtsourcers that your outsourcing manufacturing activity, and outsourcing jobs creation here is China is welcome ---- we do not want you to outsource your religion to the Chinese.

[bbriani3842]

10:49 PM on 03/30/2012

Beware of ANY human that promises a utopia if you follow his or her way of thinking and living.

Skepticism saves.

[DrJon]

07:32 PM on 04/01/2012

BINGO!!!! We have a winner!

[Alegrio Maduk]

08:42 PM on 03/30/2012

http://www.scribd.com/doc/222227/How-the-Vatican-Created-Islam

[Fenrir Lokison]

05:45 PM on 03/30/2012

I can understand the Chinese fear. God is a powerful thing and the light He shines upon His children changes the course of not just lives, but governments. But, they have got to realize...The more they try to extinguish the light the more it shall shine.

[bbriani3842]

10:48 PM on 03/30/2012

Yes, Quetzlcuatl is, indeed, a godly god.

[Fenrir Lokison]

03:16 AM on 03/31/2012

Right.

[trythetruthtoday]

03:27 PM on 03/31/2012

Good post. Expect negative (and stupid) responses.

[lifehub]

05:31 AM on 03/30/2012

This is just one main reason why I personally react so strongly and negatively when Obama 'welcomes' any one of the Chinese government to the White House for a visit. The Chinese government are oppressive and mask their evil well when they visit the US. They hide behind their bows and grins, unbeknownst to many Americans. The Chinese citizenry are, and have been, mercilessly mistreated and abused.

[bbriani3842]

10:44 PM on 03/30/2012

Get over it ... they own us.

Your computer that you purchased was manufactured in China ... made in a Chinese factory and transported over Chinese infrastructure paid for with interest earned on our debt to the Chinese.

You don't think they're so evil when you purchase socks, underwear and appliances made by them.

[Eleventh Hour]

04:07 AM on 03/30/2012

I think it's sad that so many apparent juveniles, ---at least they write and sound juvenile---- are so out of touch with the rest of the world, and what life is like there. This attitude of things being good in China is so far from factual. If some of you who feel that way had to spend a year living in Communist China where a pound of beef was beyond what you could afford, where you feared if the govt. called you in for a visit, where you had to work horribly long and unreasonable hours just so you could do it again every day for the rest of your life, you would be thanking God you don't live there and that the USA is not a Communist country. You don't know what you have until it's taken away from you............and that could happen.

[SQUARE POINT]

05:22 AM on 03/30/2012

I read some of your posts and wanted to acknowlege the gift you are sharing with people who might not appreciate your knowledge and logic.

I am honored to make your acquaintance.

Fanned.

[Eleventh Hour]

04:24 AM on 03/31/2012

Thank you. I had already fanned you at some previous time, or I'd do it now.

[Alegrio Maduk]

07:28 PM on 03/30/2012

What is fearful when China will rule the world and the American people will be working hard for the benefit of Chinese government. All the people will be begging for help from China in which the American now is starting a financial help from China.

[bbriani3842]

10:46 PM on 03/30/2012

No one wants to eliminate religious freedom.

Just understand that religious freedom DOES NOT entitle you to wedge your superstition into public education and public policies.

If atheists were to remain silent, you'd still hear from theists.

If theists were to remain silent, you'd STOP HEARING FROM ATHEISTS.

Get it?

[trythetruthtoday]

03:39 PM on 03/31/2012

You really need to check your references. Christianity was in the schools before "socialists" had it removed. Prayer was in the schools up to 1970, until courts with agendas removed it. The schools have been going downhill since. Our Govt was never meant to operate without God (see Thomas Jeffersons Wall of seperation letter, 1801.)

[trythetruthtoday]

02:38 PM on 04/06/2012

The ACLU will discriminate against Christians every time.

[Joseph Leslie]

02:42 AM on 03/30/2012

Here's what I don't understand! Why does everybody pick on Christians? The first Christians were killed by the Romans. Their deaths provided entertainment in The Coliseum of ancient Rome! We (I am a Christian) and the Jews have been the World's scapegoats beginning with the crucifixion of Christ by the Romans. The Communists tried to stamp us out. Now it is the radical Muslims (the Taliban and Al Queda) who kill us because we are infidels! They say the Koran justifies it! We dangerous Christians help the victims of natural disasters no matter what their religious beliefs! Why? Because Jesus told us so! We always turn the other cheek and try our best to forgive our enemies! The Communist Governments made Christian worship a crime, but we are still here and they are long gone! What does the People's Republic of China have to fear from people who "love thine enemies as you love yourselves"?

[Dick Stone]

03:44 AM on 03/30/2012

You are absolutely right. The media, and Hollywood attack us on some level every day. If a female politicians ever mentions her faith, she will be attacked with vile and reprehensible language that would make Rush's comment about Fluke seem mile. The good thing about what you and I know, regardless of what goes on today or tomorrow, we win in the end.

[Eleventh Hour]

03:46 AM on 03/30/2012

There are good and bad forces in the world. The good faction cares about man and helping him. The evil is far more interested in retaliation, displays of hate and other such selfish motives.

Think about it.

[freethnkr88]

12:39 AM on 03/30/2012

I am an anti-theist but people should be allowed to practice their faith around the world.It is wrong to take away someones beliefs and it makes the people doing it no better than the religious people who forcefully convert people in other countries(I am not speaking of the Chinese people arrested). I do want to point out that the Texas based christian rights group has not mentioned anything about the evangelical christians in Africa killing gays and encouraging violence against them (radical muslims are doing the same).Ask me for proof for my claims.

[Eleventh Hour]

03:49 AM on 03/30/2012

How uninformed some of you are, both educationally and logically. Street smarts has to extend beyond a few blocks in your 'hood, and you're not there yet. What's going on in China is a result of pure manifestation of Communism. They think nothing of taking out life.

[beth24]

11:08 PM on 03/29/2012

BEST POST HERE SCROLL DOWN..CHINA SHOULD TURN TO ITS TAO/BUDDHIST ROOTS..A TERRIFIC RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY THAT TEACHES ETHICS AND HOW TO COMPORT AND BEHAVE IN THIS WORLD..NOT CHRISTIANITY A DANGEROUS CULT ACTUALLY THAT HAS RUINED MANY PEOPLES MINDS

[Eleventh Hour]

03:50 AM on 03/30/2012

To call Christianity a "dangerous cult" is a lie. I suggest that you are doing far more damage than you know with such talk. Why don't you spend a year in China and see how you feel about living in a Communist country before making such uninformed comments?

[goatini]

02:34 PM on 03/31/2012

Says a Dominionist who wants to live in a theocratic country in which his Jesus Police can viciously and with impunity, beat down secular humanists.

[gavrielle]

04:48 AM on 03/30/2012

Oh, please. Which rights have you lost in the last 3 years? Have they raided your house? Taken your bible? Prevented you from home schooling your brats? Seriously, get a grip. This is a majority Christian nation. Your little sect is only one of thousands and is in NO danger of being wiped out.

[Fenrir Lokison]

05:39 PM on 03/30/2012

You've got to be kidding? People get pissy because there is a banner hanging up in a school or because a judge puts a statue up of the 10 Commandments on government property.

For some strange reason, such open displays to many atheists is like holding up a cross to a vampire. So, they use the Constitution to shield themselves from any signs of religion. Because they are incapable of not seeing or reading something and not caring. Kind of like how most people do with movies they don't like or wish books they wish to read or music they care not listen to.

Funny how at least the Christian faith brings up such revulsion in some people.