What Will Kerry Do About Christian Persecution in China?

ICC Note: This article asks the very pointed question of what will new Secretary of State John Kerry do to combat religious persecution around the world and Christian persecution in China specifically? As the author points out, religious freedom issues have been very low on the priority list for the State Department in recent years. Without pressure from nations such as the United States countries like China often feel free to arrest, harass, and imprison Christians and other religious believers without fear of repercussion. 
2/21/2013 China (Huffington Post) – Secretary of State John Kerry chose an interesting place to deliver his first foreign policy address. The former Massachusetts senator spoke at the University of Virginia. He was introduced by the university’s president, Teresa Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan noted that the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, had served as the first Secretary of State.
Unlike today’s foreign policy elites, Mr. Jefferson thought religious freedom was fundamental to our political liberties. He authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he introduced into the state’s General Assembly in 1779. It was a world historical event. When James Madison, Jefferson’s loyal lieutenant, pressed that bill through to adoption in 1786, Jefferson was serving as this country’s second Minister Plenipotentiary to France. He took pains to have the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom translated into French and circulated widely in Europe.
All of this is worth noting because religious freedom is not on the back burner in this administration. It ain’t even in the kitchen.
We have seen numerous summits, official state visits, and extensive bilateral negotiations with the People’s Republic of China. None of this has slowed China’s brutal one-child policy. That policy has led to forced abortions and tens of millions of unborn baby girls being killed. This continuing horror has barely gotten a nod from the Obama administration or the State Department.
With the single exception of granting asylum to the blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng (for which we thanked them and gave them our sincere praise), the Obama administration’s record on Christian persecution in China has been one largely of indifference.
Now, we see a new report on how China’s rulers plan to wipe out House Churches. In China, you have to “register” your church. That is something Christians in America resisted in the 1770s, and something the Virginia Statute forever abolished. A House Church, therefore, is one not recognized by the atheist regime. And China’s Communist rulers are not interested in American views of human rights.
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