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Beijing Arrests ‘Bravest Pastor In China’ And 100 Congregants

(GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

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Joshua Gill Religion Reporter
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Chinese authorities arrested an evangelical pastor known for criticizing President Xi Jinping, and 100 of his congregants, as part of their intensified crackdown on unregistered churches.

Police arrested Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, hailed by some as “the bravest pastor in china, in the city of Chengdu on Sunday, the day after Wang published a manifesto accusing the Communist Party of instituting “Caesar Worship” of Jinping and calling Chinese Christians to resist government regulations that contradict the Christian faith. Remaining church members said Wang’s manifesto and his open criticism of China’s religious regulation likely prompted his and 100 of their fellow congregants’ arrests. (RELATED: China Bans Religion For 90 Million People)

Jinping’s religious regulations and urged worship of the state are “morally incompatible with the Christian faith and with all those who uphold freedom of the mind and thought,” Wang wrote in his manifesto, entitled Meditations on the Religious War, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Church leader Li Yingqiang said Early Rain would continue public services, despite the intensified crackdown on unregistered churches, as long as there remained some members of the congregation to engage in worship. Li said that other house churches in Chengdu have faced the raids with similar resolve. Some, like Zion Church pastored by Jin Mingri in Beijing, retreated from public scrutiny and divided into smaller house churches that worship in secret after authorities closed their building and arrested their leaders.

This photo taken on September 12, 2018 shows Jin Mingri, head pastor of the Zion church, posing in Beijing days after authorities shut down one of China's largest "underground" Protestant churches. - A Chinese Protestant pastor is vowing to keep preaching to his flock despite the closure of his prominent underground church in Beijing, defying the government's intensifying pressure on religious groups. ( FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

This photo taken on September 12, 2018 shows Jin Mingri, head pastor of the Zion church, posing in Beijing days after authorities shut down one of China’s largest “underground” Protestant churches. – A Chinese Protestant pastor is vowing to keep preaching to his flock despite the closure of his prominent underground church in Beijing, defying the government’s intensifying pressure on religious groups. (Photo by FRED DUFOUR / AFP) / TO GO WITH AFP STORY CHINA-RELIGION-RIGHTS,INTERVIEW BY ELIZABETH LAW (Photo credit should read FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

“Some house churches have to sacrifice,” Li said. “We are willing to do it.”

China began implementing new regulations on house churches, state-registered churches, and other houses of worship in February, requiring in part that they register with the state or risk being shut down. The regulations also subject these churches to heightened monitoring and surveillance from local communist authorities, to be implemented at the discretion of those authorities.

Wang, a former legal scholar, activist, and founder of Early Rain, was the first pastor to sign a public petition organized by Early Rain against those regulations.

“He’s the bravest pastor in China today,” Rev. Hong Yujie, a friend of Wang in Vancouver, told WSJ.

The degree to which churches are affected by these regulations depend largely on how local communist authorities choose to interpret the regulations in each region, though they have largely used the new laws to exert more control over churches, even banning children under the age of 18 from attending religious services in several regions. Communist authorities have used the regulations as tools to carry out Jinping’s vision of sinicizing religion in China — which is to force all religions in the country to submit to the authority and teachings of the Chinese Communist party.

Sunday’s raid, while indicative of Beijing’s waning tolerance for unregistered churches, was not the first time Wang and his followers have been arrested. Police arrested the pastor and some congregants earlier in 2018 for holding their annual service in remembrance of Tiananmen Square and the suppression of democracy in China.

Wang, however, remains undeterred from preaching against the injustices of Jinping’s administration.

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