The 500 members of the Shouwang church in Beijing met in unusual luxury. As reported by Leslie Book in The Wall Street Journal, they gathered in a small movie theatre off the beaten track. Previously, "attempts to find indoor space were repeatedly rebuffed" and pastor Jin Tianming had to hold services outdoors, even in bad weather, up until now.
In China, all religious organizations ostensibly fall under the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which registers them. The registered churches have around 14 million members, but their evangelical activities are limited by the state and a patriotic message is promoted.
Shouwang is an underground church - also called a "house" church - that operates without government involvement, unless "involvement" means detaining members and clergy to keep them from attending services. The same month Shouwang used the theatre, authorities shut down the Wanbang church in Shanghai, dispersing its 2,000 members. In Shanxi, "the leaders of one of the country's largest house churches, with dozens of branches and tens of thousands of members, (were) arrested in a crackdown."
But you can't keep a good faith down. Despite the repression, house church membership is believed to be 100 million and growing "rapidly as more and more Chinese, particularly well-educated city dwellers, turn away from Communist Party atheism." As the growth continues the state tries to shut down house churches, possibly out of fear of their potential political power. History demonstrates this is a losing proposition for repressive regimes: the Romans, Stalin, Mao and many others have learned it the hard way.
The cinema building was available for a fleeting moment. Permission for its use was granted because the President of the United States was in town and the Chinese government wanted to avoid a scene. The strategy succeeded: the ongoing suppression wasn't brought up by anyone.
The next week, Shouwang church was evicted and things went back to normal. Christians resumed meeting outside or in smaller groups and continued practicing their faith in defiance of the state.
They were lucky. At the same time, five leaders of the Shanxi house church were quickly tried in court for "disturbing transportation order by gathering masses" and "illegally occupying farm land." They had been detained for almost two months since the government destroyed their church building in an aggressive attack that landed people in the hospital, but the trial was apparently delayed for political reasons. As Air Force One's vapor trail dissipated into the Asian sky, they were sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years.
House churches are experiencing a worsening of religious persecution while Chinese Christians call upon the United States and the international community to sound off about it.
Instead, the diplomatic airwaves are filled with the sound of silence.
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Here, we just take it for granted that we can go and worship anywhere. I wonder if we had to live under the same oppression as our Chinese brothers and our faith was tested the same way, how would most of us fair knowing we could be facing seven years in prison, which I am guessing, is not as nice as ours.
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