Members of the Early Chinese church known as the Rain House have been threatened with eviction.
A number of Early Rain Covenant Church members in China have received eviction warnings from their landlords, who seem to be acting under pressure from the communist government. The church has endured significant persecution over the last several years.
Early Rain Covenant Church | Early Rain Covenant Church
International Christian Concern, which is based in the U.S., says that Shu Qiong and her husband are among the families from the Chengdu-based ERCC who have been given notices to leave.
The Christian couple questioned the landlord about whether he was under government pressure to evict them when they got a call from him about it, but he denied it and offered to refund their breach penalty and rent.
Shu explained to the landlord that she recognized his stress.
All I want is for God to keep your complaints in mind. She was reportedly cited as saying to the landlord, in part, “I can appreciate the difficulty you are under.”
But I am a Christian, and even though I am poor—so poor that I need to rent a home and a car—I still know that coveting unfair money in this manner is not acceptable to God. Shu and her husband insisted on staying put till the lease was out since they had violated no rules. She went on to say that she and her husband were ready to face the legal consequences of their choice if they had to.
Gina Goh, the regional manager for ICC in Southeast Asia, recently said that “China’s continued campaign against ERCC is the best illustration of how Beijing continues to neglect religious freedom for its people even though the Constitution provides this right.”
The government has continued to harass and persecute the house church after the imprisonment of ERCC Pastor Wang Yi and elder Qing Derfu in 2018. To totally control Christianity in China, the government wants to see all house churches exterminated.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old veteran opponent of China’s communist government who was detained in Hong Kong in May for his participation in an organization that is no longer in existence but assisted those who took part in the massive pro-democracy rallies in 2019, was tried last month.
The judge let Zen’s case proceed after Hong Kong police testified against him during the trial, according to ICC, who also noted that his next court date is October 26.
He might be fined if found guilty. Zen is also being looked at for “colluding with foreign forces,” a crime for which he may get a life sentence.
After the communists gained control of China some seven decades ago, Zen, a previous bishop of Hong Kong, escaped to Hong Kong from Shanghai. Many foreign groups, including the Vatican, denounced his detention in May.
When China regained sovereignty over Hong Kong from the British in 1997, it agreed to a “one country, two systems” agreement that gave the city certain freedoms. Critics claim that China’s newly enacted security legislation undermines the promised autonomy.
More than 97 million Christians are believed to reside in China, according to Open Doors USA, which keeps tabs on religious intolerance in more than 60 nations. Many of these believers attend unlicensed or “illegal” underground churches.
The Buddhist Association of China, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association are the five state-sanctioned religious organizations in China.
Even associations with the five recognized faiths may be the target of monitoring and restrictions.
Between July 2020 and June 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) kept track of more than 100 cases of Christians being persecuted in China, where the communist government tried to force independent religious groups to become tools of the Chinese Communist Party.
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