China

Details emerged Monday, January 15, of long prison sentences given to eight Chinese Christians on charges that included inciting “violent resistance” against the destruction of a church.

Chinese security forces have raided a house church in Beijing to prevent it from holding Christmas season worship services while re-arresting an influential house church leader, a religious rights group said Thursday, December 28.

Most, if not all, eight prominent house church Christians in China’s eastern Zhejiang province prepared to spend Christmas behind bars Saturday, December 23, after they were sentenced to prison sentences of up to 3.5 years, fellow believers said.

Chinese police and an angry mob raided the home of a key house church missionary in Beijing and detained about a dozen believers after beating them and destroying furniture, family and investigators said Thursday, December 21.

The largest-ever delivery of Bibles by sea to China, known as ‘Project Pearl’, has contributed to a major underground house church movement in the country and an unprecedented growth of Christianity here, despite reports of persecution, BosNewsLife established Sunday, December 17.

A Beijing court convicted human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng of “inciting subversion” on Tuesday (December 12) after he mysteriously entered a “guilty” plea, according to reports.

Authorities in China’s Anhui province have closed down a house church and force believers to join the government backed Three-Self Church denomination, a religious rights group said Monday, December 11.

Christians in China’s Zhejiand faced a tense Sunday, December 3, amid reports that local authorities want to destroy a house church in the province.

China has secretly executed 15 members of a controversial underground church after founding them guilty “of murdering members of a rival sect,” BosNewsLife learned Thursday, November 30.

A group of Chinese Christians faced a difficult period Thursday, November 2, after their house church building located in the campus of Changchun Agricultural University in the suburb of Changchun city, Jilin province was reportedly demolished forcibly by local authorities.

Tensions remained high in a city of China’s Gansu province Wednesday, November 1, after hundreds of Christians reportedly demanded the return of their church property 40 years after it was taken away from then during the Cultural Revolution.

Local police raided Qilin Mountain Villa in the suburb of Uramqi City, Xijiang Autonomous Region, when some Christians were having a Bible training program held by a Korean pastor from America.

There were hopes Tuesday, October 24, that at least five prominent Chinese church leaders jailed for their alleged role in resisting police forces while defending their church building would be released, after a prosecutor decided not to prosecute them because of “a lack of evidence,” supporters said.

China sentenced a crippled prominent house church leader to two years in prison on charges of “illegal business practices” after he printed and distributed Bibles for other Christians “free of charge”, fellow believers confirmed Friday, October 20.