A church in northern China was demolished this week, the second in less than a month, sparking fears of a wider campaign against Christians as authorities prepare to enforce new laws on religion.
Police cordoned off the area around the Golden Lampstand Church church in Linfen, Shanxi province on Sunday before construction workers detonated explosives inside, according to witnesses and the head pastor. After the initial explosion, crews broke apart the remaining pieces with diggers and jackhammers.
A Catholic church in the neighbouring province of Shaanxi was also reportedly demolished last month, 20 years after it originally opened.
China guarantees freedom of religion on paper, but in practice authorities heavily regulate many aspects of religious life. Churches must be officially sanctioned and pastors must adhere to a host of rules imposed by the government.
The restrictive policies have given rise to “house” churches, independent places of worship that exist outside official channels. Authorities periodically arrest pastors or demolish buildings used by unsanctioned congregations.
But authorities have taken a harder line since 2013 against towering crosses and large cathedrals. Officials launched a sweeping crackdown on churches in Zhejiang province that accelerated in 2015, and more than 1,200 crosses have been removed, according to activists.
In an annual report on freedom of religion, the United States State Department found that “the government physically abused, detained, arrested, tortured, sentenced to prison, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices”.
A pastor at a nearby church arrived after the blast at the Golden Lampstand Church and watched construction crews break apart the remains of the building. The pastor asked his name not be published for fear of retaliation by the authorities.
There were “more police than I could count” preventing a crowd on onlookers and worshipers from approaching the site, the pastor said.
“My heart was sad to see this demolition and now I worry about more churches being demolished, even my own,” he said. “This church was built in 2008. There’s no reason for them to destroy it now.”
The Golden Lampstand Church was built a decade ago and cost a total of 17m yuan (about £1.9 million) at the time, according to the head pastor Yang Rongli. Yang previously spent seven years in jail on charges of “assembling a crowd to disturb traffic order”, and has been under police surveillance since her release in October 2016, according to China Aid, a Christian NGO based in the United States.
“I think this might be a new pattern against any independent house churches with an existing building or intention to build one,” said Bob Fu, founder of China Aid. “It also could be a prelude to enforcing the new regulation on religious affairs that will take effect in February.”
The government revised laws regulating religious groups last year for the first time since 2005, increasing control over a places of worship from limiting the construction of statutes outside churches to imposing fines of up to 300,000 yuan (£34,000) for holding “unauthorised religious activities”.
Another church was demolished in a small village in Shaanxi in late December, according to AsiaNews , a China-focused Catholic news website. The building was built in 1999 and local authorities did not give a reason for the demolition.
Officials at the Linfen bureau of religious affairs did not respond to requests for comment.
•Text courtesy of The Guardian UK

Worse regimes did more in centuries past, that's not enough to stop the Church!

So, keep trying yellow-eyed chinko dictators, ideas are seldom stopped by the force of blows, much less beliefs!

Christianity has been known to thrive best in ascetic, harsh climes under the grueling heels of murderous monarchs and regimes but surprisingly falls apart like a house of cards in permissive free-for-all atmospheres of lascivious sumptuousness and fleshly indulgences like today's America!

The bible itself records King Balaak being unable to pry the Israelites loose from the protective benevolence of God with the canon shots of curses, spells, hexes sand other malevolent confrontations. But once, advised and rightly, deploying the weapons of carnal indulgences, surfeiting, hedonistic revellings and other such fornications of soul and body, the Jews were as defenseless as day-old babes, and even chastised and afflicted by God whose commandments they'd transgressed!

Left in places of ease, unchecked and pressed every which way with temptations instead of persecutions, so many ao-called Christian's "faiths" would readily implode and end quite messily!

The Nigerian church should learn from this.

Help them Lord, help them father. . Give them the peace that passes all understanding. . . Captivate their soul in your entangling and warm love. . . Keep the faithful even in the face of persecution. . . Enable them to be steadfast. .. May China be won for you. . . They are under bodily persecution. . . And they are still thriving. . . Most times, they gather in locked rooms like the first disciples to share the word and fellowship with authentic miracles happening amongst them with people still being led quietly to Christ. . .
Your church here in Nigeria is rather under spiritual persecution and manipulations. .. We have relaxed here hoping that you would understand. . . No persecution has been our bane. . . We have relaxed, feeding fat upon mere givings and priotizing the wrong things. .. The quest for fame and world wide acceptance is eating us from within. . . Help us Lord, raise our feeble hands and knees in prayer and solidify our relationship with You. AMEN

plavic:
Help them Lord, help them father. . Give them the peace that passes all understanding. . . Captivate their soul in your entangling and warm love. . . Keep the faithful even in the face of persecution. . . Enable them to be steadfast. .. May China be won for you. . . They are under bodily persecution. . . And they are still thriving. . . Most times, they gather in locked rooms like the first disciples to share the word and fellowship with authentic miracles happening amongst them with people still being led quietly to Christ. . .
Your church here in Nigeria is rather under spiritual persecution and manipulations. .. We have relaxed here hoping that you would understand. . . No persecution has been our bane. . . We have relaxed, feeding fat upon mere givings and priotizing the wrong things. .. The quest for fame and world wide acceptance is eating us from within. . . Help us Lord, raise our feeble hands and knees in prayer and solidify our relationship with You. AMEN

This is lovely. Well done.