China tightened its ‘choke-hold’ on churches across the country in recent months, according to China Aid.
Bans on unregistered church worship and on teaching Christianity to children, ‘as if intending to eliminate all house churches at once,’ have startled Christians.
In Guangzhou, Guangdong Province in southern China, police visited members of unregistered church members at their homes to warn them not to attend worship services. Officers also summoned a large number of them for questioning.
Despite Article 36 of China’s Constitution stipulating that all citizens have freedom of belief, and its Regulations on Religious Affairs do not forbid children from attending services, in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province on the eastern coast, children were specifically prohibited from attending church. Local officials ordered churches to cancel all activities involving teenagers. School staff told parents not to allow them to attend Sunday worship.
Sunday schools in Wenzhou were shut down. County-level departments dispatched officials to more than 100 churches who verbally issued prohibitions against teenagers attending church, summer camps or Sunday schools and assigned personnel to monitor their activities.
The Nanyang Municipal Religious Affairs Bureau in Henan ordered all 20,000 house-church members in the province to join the Three-Self Church. Many Chinese Christians disagree with the movement due to theological discrepancies and rampant government censorship. Henan Province has also begun forcing Three-Self Churches to seek approval for all large-scale religious activities.
In Ezhou, Hubei Province in the eastern part of the country, an almost weekly conflict between officials and members of a house church (who meet outdoors after the Communist Party confiscated its chairs and desks) escalated when government-hired thugs beat five or six Christians.
In Jiangsu, officials have launched a new investigation that includes acquiring information on key church leaders and other members and their connections to Christians overseas, as well as their plans for future development. When a pastor asked why she was being made to fill out a form that included her personal information, an official replied that the Communist Party suspected ‘Christian imposters’ were infiltrating churches and deceiving believers.
