After easing the COVID-19 lockdown, the
communist government of China has
intensified its crackdown on state-
controlled churches, removing crosses
from their rooftops and closing them down
in the southeastern province of Jiangxi,
according to a report.
In Yugan county, authorities shut down at
least 48 Three-Self churches and meeting
venues between April 18 and 30, according
to Bitter Winter , an Italy-based online
magazine on religious liberty and human
rights in China, published by the Center for
Studies on New Religions.
Of the more than 1 million people who live
in Yugan county, over 10 percent are
Protestants who attend over 300 officially
registered Three-Self churches.
A member of a local Three-Self church,
who was not identified, said that officials,
including the mayor, of the Shegeng town
stormed the church in April and forcibly
removed its podium, cross and all other
religious symbols.
“Some congregation members wept in
distress,” the believer said. “If you try to
protest, they will accuse you of fighting
against the Communist Party and the
central government.”
A believer in Yugan’s Daxi township told
the magazine that a village Party secretary
told area Christians that authorities wanted
to shut down churches and demolish
crosses because “there were too many
believers in the county.”
“When so many believe in God, who will
listen to the Communist Party? There is no
other choice but to remove crosses from
your churches,” he quoted the secretary as
saying.
On Open Doors USA’s World Watch List,
China is ranked as one of the worst
countries in the world when it comes to
persecution of Christians. The organization
notes that all churches are perceived as a
threat if they become too large, too
political, or invite foreign guests.
Bitter Winter reported that “countless
number of churches” were ordered to
remove their crosses in Jiujiang, Fuzhou,
Fengcheng, Shangrao, and a few other
cities in the province in April.
A believer in the Yangbu town said local
authorities in mid-April demolished the
cross of a Three-Self church, with plans to
convert the 300-square-meter church into a
facility for the elderly.
The churches that are outside of the
government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic
Movement are considered illegal by the
Chinese Communist Party, and are,
therefore, persecuted more severely.
Gina Goh, a regional manager for
Southeast Asia at International Christian
Concern, recently said that China has
clearly resumed its crackdown on
Christianity after the threat posed by the
coronavirus pandemic has reduced.
“In recent weeks, we have seen an
increased number of church demolitions
and cross removals on state-sanctioned
churches across China, as house church
gatherings continue to face interruption and
harassment. It is deplorable that the local
authorities not only conducted this raid
without proper procedure but deployed
excessive use of force against church
members and bystanders,” she said.
The crackdown on churches has been
underway since before the pandemic
began.
David Curry, president and CEO of Open
Doors USA who was in China on a fact-
finding trip days before COVID-19 emerged
from Wuhan province, “witnessed firsthand
how the Chinese government is using mass
surveillance and data modeling to monitor
and punish citizens who choose to attend
church or share religious material.”
“The forced closure of thousands of
churches and the removal of crosses from
buildings are now-commonplace tactics by
the Chinese government in order to limit, if
not extinguish, Christian practice,” Curry
wrote in an op-ed for The Christian Post .
Even charitable coronavirus relief provided
by people of faith is strongly discouraged
by the regime.
Last December, at the height of the
coronavirus epidemic, numerous crosses
were removed from Three-Self churches in
Hegang, a prefecture-level city in the
northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
In November, government officials ordered
the removal of the cross from the Ranfang
Church in Gushi county in the central
province of Henan, telling believers that it’s
“the Communist Party that gives you food
and money, not God.”
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