Status of religious freedom in China

Outside of China, it’s hard to get a feel for how things are in China. For many of us, it seems like China is doing a lot better when it comes to human rights than they have in the recent past.

Photo courtesy of Vision Beyond Borders.

Patrick Klein of Vision Beyond Borders says that’s not really true.

“The perception to the West is, China’s life is so much better, people are doing better economically. We sometimes have this perception that China’s free, it’s open. It’s not.”
He cites an event that took place a little over year ago. An explosion in the busy city of Tianjin killed over a hundred and left several hundred injured, says BBC News. According to the Washington Post, media coverage of the event was heavily covered, and independent blogs and video postings were taken down.
Klein says, “They don’t have freedom of speech, they don’t have freedom of religion, and I think we need to be very careful that we don’t think that China is free just because economically they have prospered. When we see what’s going on with the Church, they’re stepping up the persecution more and more.”
The USCIRF says discrimination from authorities and the government has targeted Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners alike. This includes torture, forced disappearances, imprisonment, etc.
Ministries like Vision Beyond Borders sees examples of this first-hand. Klein has been visiting China for 30 years. He says what’s happening there is a good reminder that ultimately, our hope is with Jesus Christ.
“We’ve heard 2,000 churches have had their crosses removed, we’ve heard stories of pastors being arrested, pastors even being put in mental institutions. We’ve seen crackdowns at the border more and more. I just came back from China just a week or two ago and I was surprised to see so many police.”
Earlier this year, a government-backed church demolition ended in the death of a pastor’s wife. China Aid says they both had been buried alive, but his wife wasn’t able to escape and suffocated under the rubble.
Klein says the government finally allowed Churches as long as they were registered. They thought that Christianity would die out with the older generation. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Christianity grew, and quickly.

The registered Church

Photo courtesy of Vision Beyond Borders.

Some might think this looks like a move towards religious freedom for Christians. Why not just join a government Church? But the truth is, it enables the government to control the Church better, and therefore do its best to blot out the Gospel message.
“What the government is saying now is they want to bring all religions under the umbrella of the communist party. Which is to say that the first devotion is to the government, not to God.
“And then once you register with the government, then what will happen is there’ll be spies will be coming to the Church, they’ll be listening to the pastor’s sermons. If the pastor preaches on the second coming of Jesus, if he talks about healing or miracles, or if tells the people that their first devotion is to God, not to the government , that pastor will be arrested.”
This is why many Christians choose to meet secretly instead. BBC did an article earlier this year which goes into detail about why Christians make this decision even under the risk of punishment. When the Government church preaches that Jesus would be a communist if he walked the earth today, the political influence in these churches becomes obvious.
Vision Beyond Borders, who works to provide Scripture materials worldwide, disagrees with registering with the government to protect the Message from being muddled. He says even the Bibles used in these churches often have to remain in the churches. They bear the stamp of the government.
Even if Scripture hasn’t been tampered with in these government controlled copies, it limits the Christians ability to study it for themselves.
“We believe you should be able to have access to the Word of God anytime you want it, 24/7,” Klein says.

And that’s what they work to do, though he says you have to be careful. Christians can legally buy a few copies of the Bible, but once they purchase a few too many, they will be followed—their congregation found and shut down.
“We’re not trying to overthrow governments,” Klein says, “But we’re just trying to help people to know what the Word of God says and to follow Jesus and to put God first in their lives.”

How you can help the Chinese Church

BBC says there may now be more Christians in China than registered members of the Communist party. This is exciting news. But there are many, many Christians who are still without Bibles in China. It’s a reality many of us can’t even imagine, some of us having multiple copies ourselves.
If you would like to help, the first step is to pray.
“We need to be praying for the Church in China,” Klein says, “There’s a lot of persecution going on, a lot of the mainstream media’s not talking about it, but I think it’s important for Christians to be talking about it and be praying and to say, this is an illusion that China’s free, China’s open, people can do whatever they want, it’s not true.”
If you’d like to support the life-changing work Vision Beyond Borders is doing, click here.

World leaders are using the G20 as an extension of their “Syrian chessboard.”

The U.S. and France stand alone on one end of the spectrum. They’re pushing for military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Long-term allies Russia and Iran stand firmly beside Assad. With the help of China, Russia is effectively blocking any and all attempts in the UN Security Council to move forward with military action.

As the chess game continues, this war’s statistics remain unchanged.

Over two million Syrians have fled their homeland, seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Millions more are displaced within Syria. At least 100,000 people have died–6,000 of whom were children.

It’s easy to get “lost in the weeds” when it comes to Syria–the saber-rattling, the staggering statistics, the never-ending attacks–and lose sight of the impact on people made in God’s image.

Would that change if you spoke to some of Syria’s refugees? That’s exactly what PIONEERS Director of Development, Nathan Burns, did in recent days.

“It was very powerful, and very hopeless,” says Burns. “To sit in a room with a family who’s had their son stripped away, they’ve been shot at…they have nothing; they left it all behind. It’s very real, and in that moment, it kind of came crashing down on me.

“There wasn’t a lot I could say, but I could come back here and share it.”

A brief window of opportunity has opened for PIONEERS to increase its ability to care for and share Christ’s love with Syrian refugees. They’re hoping to take advantage of this opportunity by raising $200,000.

“By God’s grace and provision, we already have a $100,000 matching grant,” Burns explains, “which means if we can raise half of our goal, every one of those donors will have their money doubled, and we’ll hit the $200,000 mark.

“We’ve already seen people start new lives in Christ, and we hope to see many more,” he adds.

Currently, PIONEERS missionaries are providing holistic relief through material aid distribution, church-planting, a counseling center for women and children, and a children’s sports program.

“We are there trying to offer the hope that we can,” Burns says. “We hope that [in] this sort of situation, something can be redeemed out of it.”

By meeting basic needs, the love of Christ becomes tangible, and lives are changed.

“We’re sharing the Gospel of Christ,” says Burns. “We’ve already seen 10 families come to Christ where we’re ministering.”

Can you help PIONEERS reach more Syrians with the hope and love of Christ? Click here.

“And don’t forget to pray,” says Burns. “We need the prayers to redeem a situation this big, this terrible.

“The evil one is at work, and he can do great damage. But that’s why we’re sharing [that] there is hope, and that’s who our God is: a Redeemer.”