China (MNN) — The recent arrest of six Christians in southwest China highlights growing religious freedom concerns in the country, and the question of who will shape the hearts of China’s next generation?
Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA explains that these six believers were apparently involved in church activities for children. Yet the charges against them make their actions sound far more serious:
“‘Organizing minors to engage in activities undermining public order.’ That is not a religious charge,” says Nettleton. “That is a ‘you’re undermining the government’ charge, and so that could carry quite a serious penalty.”
Teaching religion to children in China has been banned for years. Yet believers have faithfully worked to reach the next generation.
“There are risks for meeting together with other Christians in China. That risk grows if you have people under 18 in those meetings, so they certainly would have known the risk of what they were doing and counted the cost ahead of time,” says Nettleton. He says the detained Christians will likely receive significant prison time.
The arrest of the six Christians is only one example of the Chinese Communist Party’s push for the “sinicization of religion.” That is, bringing religion under state ideology and control. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report in May 2026 on how China’s laws are increasingly restricting freedom of religion or belief.
(Photo courtesy VOM-USA)
“They would say [sincization] is more of a cultural thing, but the reality is, it’s a control thing. The Chinese Communist Party wants to control the hearts and minds of China’s people,” says Nettleton.
“That’s the position of the Chinese Communist Party, that you are undermining the government when you are training children in biblical values and biblical truth.”
How can we be praying for China? Last week, May 14–15, United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing. Ask God to raise more advocates in the government and other spheres who will speak up for persecuted Chinese Christians.
Pray also for the encouragement and strengthening of imprisoned believers like Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, Pastor Wang Yi, and others.
“We want to pray for them in the way that we would want to be prayed for if it were us who were behind the bars,” says Nettleton, pointing to Hebrews 13:3.
Header photo courtesy of The Voice of the Martyrs USA.
