Rights Defense Commentary: The Crisis of “Freedom of Religion” in China—The Frightening Trend of “Stigmatizing” House Churches!

Special commentator: Paul

A Chinese house-church leader who has experienced extremely profound suffering accurately pointed out: “Looking at the history of missionaries evangelizing in China, if Christianity is to become a mainstream religion in China and be accepted by the Chinese people, as it was in Western European and American societies in the beginning, it will be difficult to achieve this in the near term without the strong attention and participation of the international community.”

“Using one tendency to conceal another, combining one-sided atheist humanist education with such two-sided policies as managing religious activities, restricting meeting venues, and interfering with the dissemination of religion and house-church gatherings, is a major dilemma in the revival of today’s Christian churches.”

At the same time, we observe that behind this “great dilemma” there is an even more hidden crisis: mainland house churches that uphold pure Christian faith are being “indirectly” suppressed in China and gradually losing their freedom. Over the past several years, the authorities have broadly used anti-cult propaganda to label all house churches that do not join the “Three-Self churches” as “cults.” However, this designation may perhaps be somewhat misleading within the “Three-Self churches”; it is not recognized among house churches themselves or in the international community. Therefore, in order to turn black into white and confuse the facts, causing house-church gatherings and the practice and expression of their faith to be “legally” suppressed, and causing them to lose sympathy and legitimate protection in domestic and international society, the authorities began avoiding the so-called “cult” designation in the process of launching attacks against house churches and determining their cases. They have even claimed that the suppression suffered by house churches is “unrelated to religious belief” and is entirely because their conduct violated national law. This stigmatization, which imposes “criminal charges,” is precisely the survival crisis currently facing house churches; human rights and freedom are being “legally” suppressed by the authorities through changed methods and calculated schemes.

We observe that since the much-publicized 2001 case involving the South China Church, a domestic house church, at its initial trial the authorities characterized and adjudicated it as involving “the crime of organizing and using a cult organization to undermine implementation of the law,” “the crime of intentional destruction of property,” “the crime of intentional injury,” “the crime of rape,” and others. Later, under pressure from international public opinion, the Hubei Provincial High Court was forced, unusually, to remand the case for retrial on the grounds that “the facts supporting the original ruling were insufficient and the procedures violated the law.” However, on October 10, 2002, the Jingmen Intermediate Court of Hubei Province hurriedly issued its second-instance judgment, completely avoiding the “cult crime” and instead forcibly imposing sentences for various criminal offenses. What is laughable is that the “injury” and “rape” crimes had no actual victims, and the so-called “evidence of guilt” was even fabricated by relevant official departments. This was not only religious persecution, but also judicial entrapment! It was a wanton trampling of human rights!

We have further observed that in recent years, mainland house churches have displayed more obvious characteristics of “stigmatization” in the course of being suppressed. The charges against arrested and convicted pastors, co-workers, and Christian leaders are extremely varied, but basically none were sentenced under the “cult crime,” because house churches that regard the Bible as authoritative are not themselves cults. Therefore, it would be untenable to directly characterize them as guilty of a “cult crime.” Thus, “the crime of illegal business operations,” “the crime of embezzlement of occupational funds,” “the crime of fraud,” “cybercrime,” “the crime of assembling a crowd to disrupt social order,” “the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” “the crime of injury,” “the crime of rape,” “the crime of inciting subversion of state power,” “the crime of organizing illegal border crossings,” “the crime of endangering national security,” and other offenses “became the official means of framing China’s house churches in accordance with a predetermined tendency toward conviction. Clearly, this is a presumption of guilt that uses one tendency to conceal another: once such “criminal” framing is established, the “cult crime” is also presumed to be established. Once house churches are “stigmatized” and various evil charges are fabricated against them by the authorities, they are naturally condemned by society and public opinion that do not know the truth, and may even be misunderstood by devout people within the church who defend the holiness of God.

Therefore, we call on the international community and churches everywhere to care about and pay attention to the situation of China’s house churches today: not only is religious freedom continuously being trampled upon, but human dignity and rights are being slandered; it is also the authorities carrying out religious persecution acting against the international mainstream community.

For a Chinese nation of more than 1.4 billion people to enter the international mainstream community, it is not merely a matter of economic and trade globalization; fundamentally, it requires the integration of thought, spirit, ideas, and faith. To achieve this goal, it depends not only on the efforts of Christian churches in mainland China, but even more on the participation and efforts of the international community. Neither can be lacking.