Pastor Wang Yi of China’s well-known Early Rain Covenant Church was sentenced to nine years in prison last week. The Chinese government never held a public trial for Pastor Wang, but charged him behind closed doors with “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business activities.”
Pastor Wang was arrested in December 2018 along with several other church members. Prior to his arrest, Pastor Wang prepared a six-page statement refuting what he guessed the government would charge him with as the leader of a popular underground church.
These latest kangaroo court proceedings are just one more nail in the coffin for religious freedom in China.
Joe Handley with Asian Access says, “In China, they’ve been hearing reports for the last two years basically of more and more crackdowns. So this forces the Church into a new era. How do we operate? We can’t operate like we have in the past. We can’t have what we would think of as a nice traditional church down the street.
“Younger generations might not know how to do this so they’re having to learn from the older generations that lived under secrecy [and] couldn’t have a public building or meet in a huge hall. So they’re having to shift altogether.”
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SOURCE: Mission Network News, Lyndsey Koh
CALL TO ACTION
- Pray for Pastor Wang and his family, that they would sense the strength and comfort of the Holy Spirit.
- Ask God to give Chinese believers wisdom and grace as they represent Jesus in their communities.
- Pray for more people in China to know the love of Christ as their hope above any political regimes.
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