Fighting Fire with Fire in China Chinese Christians Score Legal Victories

on January 28, 2008

It’s about time for some good news out of the People’s Republic of China! In the past several months, there have been multiple arrests of Chinese Christian house church leaders and Christian businessmen. But young Chinese Christian intellectuals and activists have been fighting back—through the Chinese government’s own legal system. And lately, they have been winning the legal battles and demonstrating that Chinese Christians want nothing more than to be good, productive citizens of China.


The new breed of Chinese house church leaders, such as well-known intellectual and author Yu Jie, here pictured with (from l-r) IRD Religious Liberty Program Director, Faith McDonnell; journalist Dr. David Aikman; and Tiannenman Square hero and now pastor Zhang Boli, are helping to bring more freedom to Christians in China.

The latest press releases from the China Aid Association (CAA), based in Midland, TX, report the release of seven Hubei Province house church leaders from prison camp. Not only were the Christians released, but Chinese authorities acknowledged that their sentences “’were not based on clear facts and … not supported by sufficient evidence.’” China Aid Association Founder Bob Fu called the decisions a victory for the rule of law in China.

On January 18, 2008, in what they described as “an unprecedented legal victory after CAA’s legal aid,” China Aid reported that four male house church leaders had been released from labor camp the week before. Du Dongliang (32), Wang Caizhang (34), Ma Zhao (35), and Yang Situan (39) had been arrested on August 6, 2007, along with five female house church leaders, after earlier being accused of “’engaging in organizing and making use of evil cult organization to undermine the enforcement of [s]tate laws.’” Their actual “crime” was having a religious service in a private home. The men were imprisoned in the re-education through labor camp in Enshi City, Hubei Province.

On October 9, 2007, the China Aid Association helped the house church leaders to hire attorney Wu Chenglian from Beijing to appeal the sentence. Wu filed an administrative legal review with the Hubei Provincial Re-education through Labor Administration Committee requesting that the previous sentence, made by the city level of the Re-education through Labor Administration Committee be reconsidered.

After three months’ deliberations, the Provincial Committee overturned the previous sentence on January 8, 2008. In his CAA press release, Fu expressed his satisfaction with the decision and added that he hoped that the three female house church leaders would also be released.

On January 23, 2008, just five days after they called for the women leaders’ release, China Aid reported that the three had been released from labor camp. The women leaders released were Hu Rong (42), Qin Daofang (40), and Ren Xianxue (35). Two other women, Qin Daomin (33) and Li Mei (42), who had been sentenced to house arrest instead of serving their time at labor camp (on account of one being very ill and the other being the mother of an infant), have not yet been cleared.

Also unprecedented in the legal battles of Christian house church leaders in China was, according to CAA, the “formal apology [offered by the labor camp director] to the house church leaders for their wrongful imprisonment.” CAA interviewed one of the male pastors and learned that the labor camp director “stated that he and [the] other officials had learned their lesson and would seek to do a better job in the future” of discerning who were truly criminals and who were innocent civilians. The director exhorted the leaders to be “patriotic and upright citizens.”

Chinese house church Christians believe that as followers of Jesus Christ they are equipped to be the best citizens that they can be. They are witnesses to the power of the Gospel in Chinese society. Rather than using appeasement or denial of the problems faced by Christians in China, as some Western church officials have done, Chinese house church Christians boldly are confronting illegal practices and injustices in their government with truth and grace. They are fighting fire with fire. And true to Biblical injunctions, they are “heaping burning coals” on the heads of those who have opposed and persecuted them.

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