Chinese Christians flee China amid church persecution: 'It's not safe for us anymore'

 

As China continues its repression of religion, Christians in this communist country are fleeing in search of life.

 

 

 

China's ruling Communist Party has carried out widespread repression against all religious institutions, including mosques, in recent years, banning Tibetan children from Buddhist religious studies and imprisoning more than one million members of Islamic ethnic minorities in so-called "re-education centers. "President Xi Jinping, who is also the party leader, has ordered all religions" " to ensure loyalty to the officially atheist party or face the wrath of the communist regime.

 

Liao Qiang, who fled the Early Rain Church after being attacked and targeted by the government for opposing Xi and the party, is now in Taipei, Taiwan, hoping to gain asylum in the United States until China reverses its anti-religious surveillance.

 

More than 100 Early Rain members were arrested from the church or their homes on December 9 and 10, according to Human Rights Watch. Among those detained was Wang Yi, a pastor who held a service every June 4 to commemorate the bloody crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which the Chinese government tried to erase from history. Since then they have been under constant Orwellian guard under the government.

 

 

Ren Ruiting, Liao's 23-year-old daughter, told the Associated Press she had to report her whereabouts to police using social media as soon as she left home and was told her safety would not be guaranteed.

"That's when I learned that it was no longer safe for us and that my children were the most vulnerable," Liao said after Sunday's service, attended by about 30 people, at the small Xinan Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taipei.

 

The Chinese government requires Protestants to worship God only in churches recognized and regulated by the officially sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement, although many others are part of independent congregations.

 

Liao refused to sign a waiver from his church after police tried to force him to do so.

"If our elders decided to break up the church, I can accept that," he said. "But it's not up to you to decide if it's wrong or illegal."

 

 

Persecution of Christians in China is nothing new. A report by the watchdog group Freedom House found that Christians and other religious groups in China have been persecuted since 2012, .

One-third of all religious believers in China who belong to a religious group have also faced "high" levels or "very high" levels of persecution, ranging from bureaucratic harassment and economic exploitation to harsh prison terms and even violence.

 

 

But experts and activists say the Chinese government is now conducting the most serious crackdown on Christianity in the country since the Chinese constitution granted religious freedoms in 1982.

 

source: foxnews.

 

Let's ask pope Francesco rhetorically: what is the pope doing about the persecution of Christians in China?

He only sees young men sailing rafts to Europe.

On the other hand, the situation in China illustrates the situation in Poland. I mean the control of religion by the state (read Vatican). Even if Christians unite outside the denominations, they still have their agents. The system is supposed to be efficient.

I can already imagine the times when the only proper religions will have to be plugged into the Evangelical Alliance.

 

For now, the Internet still has that measure of freedom that allows us to choose for ourselves between sound teaching and ecumenical teaching.