Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Pray for the Persecuted Church

  Pastor Zhang Mingxuan EDITOR’S NOTE: In China today, the only churches permitted are those with government-paid pastors who deliver government-approved sermons. Children under 18 are barred. So, the vast majority of Chinese Christians meet illegally in “house churches.” Their membership numbers are rumored to be approaching those of the Chinese Communist Party. So, leaders are…

EDITOR’S NOTE: China’s government has for 16 weeks been coming down hard on Beijing’s 1,000-member Shouwang Church — banishing some members from the Chinese capital, pressuring employers and landlords to shun members. The following, provided by the China Aid Association, is an account of how a close friend of Pastor Jin Tianming attempted to visit him. By Yuan…

A 63-year-old British nun caring for leprosy patients for three decades in Bangalore, India, was preparing to leave the country Monday after the Indian government refused to extend her resident permit without giving any reason. “I’m leaving with a heavy heart. I feel it’s not my loss alone but a loss to thousands of patients…

Editors note: This account by prominent Chinese attorney Gao Zhisheng is provided by the New York-based China Aid Association. Gao is currently missing after being taken into police custody in April 2010.  Gao is a Chinese human rights attorney and dissident known for defending activists and religious minorities and documenting human rights abuses in China. Because…

Editor’s Note: For 14 Sundays in a row, police have forcibly detained any members of the 1,000-member Shouwang Church in Beijing who show up at an outdoor meeting place. The church’s leadership is under house address. Many members have lost their jobs, been evicted from their homes and forced to leave the Beijing area —…

For 13 weeks, the Chinese government has blocked the 1,000 members of Beijing’s Shouwang Church from being able to meet for Sunday services.  They are among an estimated 70 million to 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to worship in the government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Association, which bars children from attendance and whose government-paid pastors deliver government-approved…

Shi Enhao, a leader in China’s growing underground church movement, disappeared last month — and it turns out he’s been in police custody, held on “suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement.” Shi is one of as many as 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement — the only Protestant…

Nepal’s Christians are concerned that the Himalayan nation’s new constitution will make evangelism illegal. As currently proposed, the new constitution would make it a criminal offense for anyone to play any part in another person changing their religion – with a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a hefty fine, according to the Christian advocacy groups Release International and Compass Direct. Nepal’s…

Churches in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, Africa, are now being fitted with metal detectors because of threats of bomb attacks. Worshippers in Christian churches are also having their bags and persons searched over fears of explosives being smuggled inside. Nigerians, who traditionally give gifts frequently, are being warned that the gifts, too, can be rigged…

      Chinese Christians Chu Xiaodong and Yu Xingmei spent their 12th wedding anniversary in jail. Their crime? They showed up for church in China’s capital of Beijing. They were promptly arrested as the Chinese government’s campaign against the 1,000-member Shouwang Church entered week 13. Sunday night, the couple were the last two remaining detainees who had not…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners