On July 17th, 2018 Communist Authorities demolished a well-known Christian Church. The state-sanctioned Church was built in 2006 and has all the necessary paperwork.
Droves of Authorities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party arrived at the Liangwang Catholic Church and forcibly removed Pastors from within the church and confiscated cellphones. Then authorities razed the Church in fifteen minutes.
Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness, a group that regularly covers Christian Persecution in China, later posted several pictures of the scene on Facebook.
Previously, several other Churches have been demolished by Communist authorities for little to no reason at all. However, the Liangwang Catholic Church was reportedly destroyed because of urban zoning or commercial purposes.
The building itself was located next to an exit on the Xi’an-Hanzhong highway and it is also thought that the government likely destroyed the church to diminish the local Christian presence.
Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager, said, “The disproportionate manpower used to demolish this church goes to show that China is fearful of Christians. The government knew that the demolition in the name of urban zoning would be met with resistance, so it ensured success by taking extreme measures. Despite their best efforts to intimidate the Church with actions like this, the government cannot destroy the faith and resilience of Chinese Christians.”
At the end of 2017, it was reported that Communist Authorities were forcing Christians in the Jiangxi province’s Yugan county to replace Christian symbols and images of Jesus Christ with pictures of the Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping.
In addition, in April of 2018 China banned all sales of Bible’s from online retailers, to further control Christianity. Furthermore, two days before the Bibles were banned from online purchase, the Chinese government released a document outlining how it intends to promote “Chinese Christianity” over the next five years.
According to the document, one of the government’s key objectives is to reinterpret and retranslate the Bible in order to enhance “Chinese-style Christianity and theology.”
ChinaAid and other Watchdog groups who are familiar with the matter have reported that the persecution of Christians in China is at its highest level since the Cultural Revolution of Mao.
Pastor Bob Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid, has said that President Xi Jinping will go down in history as “a sort of Chairman Mao, Jr.,” who carried out a “little Cultural Revolution.”
The owners of a Pennsylvania farm have been ordered by the Sewickley Heights Borough to cease and desist holding Bible studies on their private property.
Borough leaders accused Scott and Terri Fetterolf of improperly using their 35-acre farm as a place of worship, a place of assembly and as a commercial venue.
They were served a cease-and-desist order in October 2017, the Post-Gazette reported.
The Independence Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the farmers against the borough alleging an egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution.
According to the lawsuit, the Fetterolfs were threatened with fines of $500 per day plus court costs for having Bible studies at their home, having meetings where religious songs are sung, conducting any religious retreats for church leaders or seminary students or conducting any religious fundraisers.
“The borough has no business overseeing a group of people reading and discussing a book together on private property – even if that book is the Bible,” attorney Randall Wenger said in a statement.
The lawsuit accuses the government leaders of violating religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and equal protection.
“Government should not target religious activities for punishment, particularly when similar secular activities are permitted,” attorney Jeremy Samek said. “In America, no government can categorically ban people from assembling to worship on one’s property.”
To that point, the lawsuit alleges the borough allows other activities and gatherings – ranging from political rallies to a Harry Potter event.
So if government leaders allow muggles to cavort in Sewickley Heights Borough, they should afford the same rights to Christians gathering for Bible study on private property.
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