China Continues Church Crackdown, Destroys Crosses
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – New footage has emerged of an ongoing crackdown by China’s government against devoted Christians, including the removal of crosses and disbandment of churches.
Video footage seen by Worthy News shows a worker standing on the rooftop of a church building in eastern China where a cross was removed. The building belongs to the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness (CCFR) congregation, a state-vetted church located at Panji District in the city of Huainan in Anhui Province.
“It is safe to assume that this church belongs to the state-sanctioned Three-Self Church. Only government-approved churches are permitted to have church buildings in China,” explained advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC),
In a separate post, CCFR also shared that it claimed was a house church in Shangrao city in Jiangxi province. It was damaged and scheduled to be destroyed, the congregation added.
The photo shared by a member of the church showed the church’s interior impaired with ceiling tiles lying on the floor. Rights activists say the local government in eastern Jiangxi province has intensified its clampdown against house churches since last November.
Several churches in the province’s Dexing city, Shangrao city, and Fuzhou city were reportedly raided by local authorities and told to shut down their churches if they do not join the state-backed Three-Self Church. “Some church leaders were detained, forced to sign an agreement to stop gathering or to join the official church,” ICC explained in a comment obtained by Worthy News.
Despite the difficulties, officials have suggested there may be as many as 130 million devoted Christians in the country of nearly 1.4 billion people.
China’s government has repeatedly expressed concern about the uncontrolled spread of Christianity which officials view as a threat to the Communist system of the Asian nation.
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