Persecution in China- Part One

“Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life” Revelation 2:10. That passage of Scripture also says, “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer”. Here in the United States I cannot believe the things I am about to report to you about the religious persecution that goes on in China under their so called due process of law. There is a church group in China known as The Three Grades of Servants. Their leadership has been charged with murdering 20 leaders of another group known as The Eastern Lightning. Additional charges include defrauding members of their own group to the tune of 32 million Yuan, which amounts to about 2.2 million dollars. Even though the prosecution failed to produce any incriminating evidence confessions were extracted by the members of The Three Grades of Servants by way of extreme torture and sexual abuse. The so called guilty are facing sentences ranging from 3-15 years and all without substantial evidence against them.

In another case, the leader of the China for Christ Church of over 10 million members stands accused of falsifying a passport and given a 7.5 year sentence. He was initially arrested without charge and that happened in December of 2004. Much of his time in “prison” has been in medical facilities since he suffers from severe diabetes and high blood pressure. In addition he has five chronic diseases. Witnesses against him mysteriously disappeared but their statements were provided to the court regardless if there was any validity to them or not. They were provided as evidence without the benefit of cross examination.

This past year alone has seen a massive crackdown of house churches in China with thousands of arrests. The charges stem from worshipping the Lord to providing communion. Each of those charged face long prison sentences. Again, here in my country it is difficult to conceive of what is happening in this foreign land largely without due process of law which is non-existent in China. False witnesses or missing witnesses seems to be the order of the day over there as well as the aforementioned use of torture to extract confessions from these church leaders. There is only so much that a human body can take.

I will only have one more report on this issue because one can only hear of these reports only so long as the list seems to go on and on. I trust that you get the point without going into too much detail on each of these cases. Please understand that since the Internet is viewed even in China individual names were withheld for obvious reasons.