CHINA: Christians suffer for supporting Shouwang Church
Christians from various house churches are suffering for their support of Shouwang Church, the large Beijing house church that has been forced to meet outdoors since government pressure led to its eviction.
On Sunday 28 August five members of a house church in Fangshan, Hebei province, travelled for two hours to worship with members of Shouwang Church at a plaza in Beijing. On their arrival, waiting police sent them back to their local police station, where they were urged to sign documents repenting of their decision to support Shouwang. All five refused, but were eventually released. During their detention, a member of a registered "Three-Self Patriotic Movement" church (the official, government-sanctioned Protestant church in China) came to persuade them against supporting Shouwang. The Fangshan Christians reported that one of them started to read Bible to him, and he left in shame.
Besides the Fangshan members, police detained at least 15 Shouwang members on 28 August, holding them for up to 48 hours. They put other members under house arrest from Saturday night until after the time of the Sunday service. The following Sunday (4 September), at least twelve Christians were arrested at the plaza, taken to various police stations and held until midnight or Monday morning. As usual, many members were detained at home from Saturday. Senior church leaders remain under constant house arrest.
Another supporter from a different house church, Pastor Wang Shuanyan of Beijing's Xinshu ("New Tree") Church, was amongst 16 worshippers arrested at the plaza on 14 August. The previous Sunday, a police officer had threatened to lock her up for 48 hours if she persisted in coming to join Shouwang, so this time she brought a sleeping bag. Shouwang members, including the wife of senior pastor Jin Tianming, took turns waiting outside the police station for her release, during which time Pastor Wang decided to go on hunger strike. In a letter written after her release on 16 August, and smuggled out of China, Pastor Wang described how she was detained and taken to a police station.
"I believe deeply that all things considered... Shouwang's outdoor worship... is right," wrote Pastor Wang. "Was I fasting or on a hunger strike? To me it was both. To God I prayed earnestly. To the relevant authorities I was protesting against the repeatedly occurring violence." (She had seen police leading away a female Shouwang member with force on a previous Sunday.) "Formerly I went onto the platform, talked with government authorities and petitioned the People's Congress. Now with conflicts lasting and violence rising, to a weak, insignificant and detained person like me, a hunger strike became the only means by which I could express my protest."
Pastor Wang was one of 17 house church pastors who signed a petition calling for a complete overhaul of China's religious policy. The petition, titled We stand up for our faith - a petition to the National People's Congress concerning the conflict between church and state, was submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC) on 10 May. The NPC has failed to respond. Since Pastor Wang signed the petition, police have stationed themselves outside Xinshu Church every Sunday, sometimes entering and checking identity cards, and some Xinshu members have received threats from their employers.
On 31 May the police detained another signatory, Shi Enhao, pastor of Suqian house church in Jiangsu Province and deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance (CHCA). In late July he was sentenced, without trial, to two years in labour camp for "illegal meetings and illegal organising of venues for religious meetings." Pastor Shi's family hired a lawyer on his behalf, but officials refused to grant access to Pastor Shi on the grounds that state secrets were involved. The lawyer appealed to higher authorities, including the NPC and the Department of Public Security, but received no response.
Responding to the Shouwang events and Pastor Shi's sentencing, Zhang Mingxuan, president of the CHCA, wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao. He wrote that he had taught church members to abide by the law and respect the government but in return had been deprived of many rights, including the right to a passport. He wrote that others had been similarly deprived, such as house church pastor Zhang Tieling of Fan County, Henan Province: officials sealed his house with bricks and knocked his wife to the floor, leaving her in the hospital with a brain injury. Zhang Mingxuan concluded, "In the past 26 years I have been arrested, beaten and placed under house arrest 42 times just because I speak the truth... As long as [it means] Christians can freely worship God, I don't mind dying for this cause." (China Aid, Compass Direct News)
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Saving Pastor Gong
Please Help Saving jailed Pastor Gong of Huanan Chruch
http://ministrysolar.wix.com/pastor-gong-huanan
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Since Dec 2, 2012, my father Pastor Shengliang Gong had High Blood Pressure and Cerebral Infraction, but he never got the proper medical checkup and adequate treatments. Consequently, my father’s illness got worse and worse. More than once my father almost fell to the ground during last November.
Finally when he got the checkup on November 26th 2013, the doctor said my father’s illness was not very optimistic. He was having Cerebral Infraction, Encephalatrophy, Brain Lesions and Leukoaraiosis, etc. The doctor said that my father needs to have checkup every three months. So we repeatedly requested the prison officials to perform checkup accordingly, once every three months. The prison said that they had one done on April 17th, but refused to release the hospital’s medical treatments records and conclusions to neither my father nor the family members. They would not make any specific statements about my father’s illness. Now, my father and our family have no ideas about the level of his illness.
Since my father illness, previously we could buy some appropriate medicines for him according to his known conditions pieced together from oral communications of diagnosis, after consulting with doctors. Though this won’t amount to totally healing, it was the only way our family could do for him under the circumstances. But now, as the prison withholding medical records from us, we are unable to know his condition and thus cannot providing suitable medicines for him-the very minimum request was denied of us.
The inadequate medical treatments within the prison cannot give my father prompt and sufficient treatments. Yet the prison won’t send him to hospitals outside for necessary treatments and regular checkups, causing further serious damages to his health. The prison won’t allow him the fundamental human rights; they also deprive his right to know about his illness condition. The prison as law enforcement agency behaves illegally. Effectively, they are directly pushing my gravely ill father to dead end street of death.
I appeal to the international communities concerning my father’s health and human rights conditions. Please join us to rally for my father and our family’s rights to medical records and the right to know the situation of my father’s sickness; also his right to have regular medical treatments, thereby saving his life and protect his fundamental rights!!
Pastor Shengliang Gong’s daughter: Huali Gong
June 30th 2014
Cell Phone: 13241248388
Han Kou prison department phone number: 027-83556018
Instructor Hanwen Wang: 15327298562
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五十年來，中國大陸的信徒從不到100萬（1949）遽增到八千萬（2000），這是中國五千年來難得的宣教黃金時期；在中國教會裡，也普遍呈現「羊在找牧人」的現象，上帝為中國敞開了大門！現在就是「中國福音化」的關鍵時刻！
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教會是基督榮耀的身體，是一切事工的根柢。今日世界各地的基督教宗派都去中國宣教，如何促使海外教會超越宗派主義，中國教會突破山頭主義，共同營造具有「國度觀」的宣教事工，將是中國教會拓展生根的關鍵時刻！
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1989年「六四」之後，大批的中國知識分子信主，他們承認了理性的局限性，也不再提「反宗教、反帝國主義」，轉而思考基督教對中國現代化有何貢獻？如今正是因勢利導，以基督思想來影響中國文化，以聖經真理來更新中國文化的關鍵時刻！
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