China’s arrest of 30 Christians sparks fears of a bigger crackdown

Last Friday, Grace Jane Drexel received a text message from her father in China, prominent pastor Jin Mingri, asking her to pray for another missing pastor.

The text stated that the other priest was arrested during his visit to the southern city of Shenzhen.

Jane Drexel, who lives in the US, told the BBC: “Shortly after that, I got a call from my mother. She said she couldn’t contact my father.”

Within hours, her family realized that Mr Jin had also been arrested in what activists described as the largest detention of Christians in China in decades.

Some now fear that the arrest last weekend of 30 Christians linked to the Zion Church network, which Jin founded, marks the beginning of what could be a wider crackdown on underground churches.

They point to new laws passed in China that appear aimed at curbing underground church activity, and the increased pressure the authorities have put on church members in recent months.

Despite the rule of the atheist Chinese Communist Party, China has a large Christian population. Government figures in recent years indicate that there are about 38 million Protestants and about six million Catholics.

But these numbers likely only represent members of churches registered with the officially sanctioned National Catholic Association and the Tripartite Protestant National Movement, which affirm loyalty to China and the Communist Party.

Human rights activists and scholars estimate that tens of millions of Chinese attend unregistered churches, also known as house churches, which do not follow state-sanctioned ideologies.

Many of these churches have been affected by the Chinese government’s attempts to increase its control over religious groups over the years. Church buildings have been demolished and crosses removed from public display, while religious material has become subject to stricter censorship, with some Christian apps banned in China.

In 2005 and again in 2018, the government reviewed and tightened regulations on religious groups, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2016 called for the “Sinicization” of religion.

Clandestine churches like Zion were particularly affected by the 2018 rules, which require government approval to worship in public. Many of them were forced to stop public activities and switch to providing online services, or simply close them.

The following years also saw the arrests and sentencing of a few prominent priests.

In recent months, there have been signs that Chinese authorities are tightening restrictions again.

In May, Pastor Gao Quanfu, of the Light of Zion Church in Xi’an, was arrested on charges of “using superstitious activities to undermine law enforcement.” The following month saw several members of the Linfen Golden Lampstand Church in Shaanxi sentenced to years in prison for fraud, which human rights groups criticized as false convictions.

Then in September, authorities announced a new online code of conduct for religious workers, which only allows online sermons by licensed groups. This is widely seen as an attempt to curtail underground church services online.

In the past few months, Zion Church members have also faced increased questioning by police officers, Ms. Jane Drexel said.

She said that many in Zion saw the mounting pressure as a prelude to the crackdown, but few expected it to be as great as it turned out to be.

Last Friday and Saturday, Chinese authorities launched what was described as a widespread crackdown in at least 10 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Besides Jin, who was taken from his main base in Beihai City, Guangxi Province, they arrested other pastors, leaders and church members, according to the church.

The BBC has obtained a copy of what appears to be an official arrest warrant for Mr Jin, issued by the Beihai Public Security Bureau. It is reported that Mr. Jin is currently detained in Beihai No. 2 Prison and is suspected of “illegal use of information networks.”

The BBC asked local authorities to confirm the arrest.

Some of the arrested church members have since been released, but the majority are believed to remain in detention, some of whom are in the same prison as Mr Jin.

Corey Jackson, founder of the Christian advocacy group Luke Alliance, said the scale and nationwide coordination of the arrests across China is unprecedented.

“We expect this to be just the beginning of a larger crackdown,” he said, adding that other underground churches in China were now preparing for arrests.

Another Christian advocacy group, Open Doors, said the arrests were significant. A church spokesman said: “The Zion Church was very well-known and outspoken, and may have reached a level of organization that made the authorities nervous about organized social entities they did not control.”

He warned that China’s “policy of acting against house churches will continue” and that authorities may charge more church members with fraud and economic crimes “as an intimidation strategy.”

Sean Long, a US-based Zionist Church pastor and spokesman, said other churches will be targeted because there is a “new wave of religious persecution rapidly emerging across China.”

He described the recent arrests as a “systematic arrest campaign” to “eradicate Zion,” and cited the Chinese term “killing a chicken to scare away monkeys.”

“Zion is the chicken, and we are the most influential… She scares other Christians and house churches in China.”

When asked by the BBC for a response, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said: “We would like to emphasize that Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law. At the same time, all religious groups and religious activities must abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

Earlier this week, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it “firmly opposes US interference in China’s internal affairs on so-called religious issues,” in response to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s condemnation of the Zionist Church’s arrests.

Zion’s story began with Jin Mengre, also known as Ezra Jin.

Born in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, he was a believer in the Chinese state while growing up.

That changed in 1989, when, as a student at the prestigious Peking University, he began participating in the pro-democracy movement that was eventually crushed in China. Tiananmen massacre.

Although he was not present in Tiananmen Square on June 4, the events that occurred in the square changed his life. “It was a pivotal moment. All his life, he had believed in the state. And when he was betrayed, it shattered his entire world view. It was a big moment to come to Jesus,” Mrs. Jane Drexel said.

Mr. Jin initially followed his new Christian faith in the Three-Self Church. In 2002, he moved to the United States with his wife and daughter to study at a religious school in California, where his two sons were born.

The family returned to China in 2007 so Jin could continue his work. But he decided to establish an independent church, Mrs. Jane Drexel said, because he could no longer accept the doctrine of the Three Selfs that called for loyalty to the Chinese state. “He couldn’t be a pastor there because it wasn’t a church that was pleasing to God…You can’t serve two masters.”

Zion began as a small house church in Beijing with only 20 followers. But over the years it expanded and began holding services in a large hall in the office building.

As its influence increased, so did the scrutiny. In 2018, Chinese authorities asked the church to install surveillance cameras in the building, saying it was for “security.”

When she refused, church followers began facing what church leaders described as harassment. Later that year, the church closed.

An exit ban was imposed on Mr. Jin, who was placed under strict surveillance. His family was able to leave for the United States, as did some other church members like Mr. Long.

Zion then focused on what Mr. Long called a “hybrid model” where they would hold large church services online alongside small offline meetings in person. The church has grown to about 100 branches in 40 cities in China, and now has more than 10,000 followers.

That is why, while the fate of Mr. Jin and other detained church members remains uncertain, and the possibility of a broader crackdown looms, Mr. Long is confident that Zion and China’s underground churches will survive.

“Persecution cannot destroy the Church,” he said. “If you look at history, where there is repression, there is recovery.”