Church Leader's Persecution Belies China's Religious Freedom Myth
by Allie Martin
March 10, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Chinese house church leader is on the run from government officers after his church was raided last month.On February 9, Public Security Bureau officers raided an underground Christian Church and arrested its leader, 40-year-old Chu Wei, along with his wife and 10 other Christians. The twelve were held all day and interrogated by police, who did not allow them food or water, or access to a toilet. Police officers tried to get the Christians to sign a document renouncing their faith and their attendance at their church meetings, which the officials characterized as "evil cult" gatherings.
The officers eventually released the group, but days later, Chu Wei was warned that officials with the Chinese government were going to send him to a labor camp. This news forced him into hiding.
Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) representative Todd Nettleton says the Chinese government officials are threatened by the Christian leader. "Chu Wei is the head of a group of about 50 house church meetings in China, so he has considerable influence," Nettleton says. "The government is trying to pressure him into registering all those meetings and coming under government control."
And according to VOM's spokesman, the government officials wants to force Chu Wei to transfer his allegiance from his Lord to his Communist leaders. "Instead of being loyal first to Jesus Christ, they want him to be loyal first to the Communist government. Obviously he refuses to do that," Nettleton says.
But for Christians in China who resist joining the official state church, Nettleton says, this kind of pressure is par for the course, as they must deal with government persecution and threats on a daily basis. "This is the normal occurrence," he says, "to be put under pressure by the government, for a church group to be arrested and questioned, interrogated and intimidated -- that's an everyday occurrence in China."
Nevertheless, the Chinese Church is growing, Nettleton notes, with thousands and thousands of new believers coming to Christ every month and joining the underground church movement. "The raids, imprisonments, torture and interrogation -- all the oppressive tactics of the government -- force caution, but they cannot keep the Word from going forth."
For house church members in China, Nettleton says, "This is nothing out of the ordinary. Christians there, they know this is what's going to happen when they come to know Jesus Christ and they choose to follow him. This is what they are facing."
VOM staffers in communication with Chinese house church Christians insist that it is time for the rest of the world to know that religious freedom in China is a myth. Nettleton urges Christians in America to pray and to advocate for persecuted Christians in China by writing cordial letters of protest to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.
