ICC note:
A house church in China has been ordered to stop meeting. In August, the church was notified that they were required to destroy their “illegal structures” within a month. In response, the church has started meeting every day, sometimes meeting in the wilderness or at night to avoid detection. Church members were urged to join the state-recognized church. China only recognizes the state-run Three-Self-Patriotic-Movement church which bans families raising their children in the Christian faith. Recently, China has even encouraged people to report on parents who send their children to religious schools or raise them practicing religion.
10/25/2016 China (The Gospel Herald) – A house church in China’s central Henan province is refusing to bend to the demands of the Communist government, rejecting an order to stop all religious activities and remove all Christian signage from the building despite ongoing threats.
ChinaAid, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness to religious freedom violations and support persecuted Christians in China, reports that in September, government personnel informed the members of Emmanuel Church that they lacked the appropriate documents to meet legally and threatened to arrest anyone who continued to attend the church’s services.
Zhao, the woman in charge of the church, told China Aid the local religious affairs bureau then issued a notice on Aug. 24, commanding the church to move out of its building by Sept. 25 and requiring its attendees to destroy any “illegal structures” within three days or face penalties.
“If we don’t move,” Zhao said, “they said they will throw away our materials, seats, and quite a lot of our other things.”
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