The Trump administration is demanding the immediate release of an underground church pastor held in China, whose children are American citizens. The State Department’s request comes in the wake of a sweeping crackdown on unregistered religious groups by Chinese authorities.
Pastor Jin Minli, also known as Ezra Jin, was detained Friday at his home in Beihai, Guangxi province, according to his daughter. Around the same time, nearly 30 other Zion Church leaders and members were arrested or disappeared in multiple cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement condemning the arrests and calling on the Chinese government to allow people of all faiths, including house church members, to worship without fear of reprisal, a position that has become increasingly controversial as U.S.-China tensions rise.
“This crackdown further demonstrates the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility toward Christians who reject the party’s interference in their faith and choose to worship in unregistered house churches,” Rubio said in a statement.
Mr. Jin, 56, is the founder of Zion Church, a supradenominational evangelical congregation that was born in 2007 and has grown into one of China’s largest underground churches. The pastor joined the pro-democracy movement during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, converted to Christianity soon after, and graduated from California’s Fuller Theological Seminary.
Zion Church was officially closed in 2018 after authorities raided its sanctuary in Beijing, prompting the church to move its services online and expand its network across China.
Zion’s virtual services often drew as many as 10,000 participants on platforms such as Zoom, YouTube and WeChat, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, a U.S. Senate staffer who lives in the Washington area, said her father continued to lead the church remotely despite constant surveillance and being barred from leaving China. His wife, Chun-Li Liu, who is Chinese, has been living in the United States since 2018 with their three children, all of whom are American citizens.
“They are afraid of my husband’s influence,” Liu reportedly said in a video interview. Grace said her father recently tried to visit the U.S. embassy in Beijing to renew his visa, but authorities blocked him, drove him to the airport and removed him from the capital. His family has had no contact with him since his detention, and it remains unclear whether he has been formally charged.
Reverend Sean Long, a US-based Zion Church leader, was quoted as saying the church expects Mr. Jin to face charges related to the online spread of religious content. The crime has become more regulated since new regulations were issued in September requiring religious activities to take place only through state-registered channels. Long said church leaders are preparing for the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence for Jin.
Grace Jin said her father had talked about stepping back from his leadership role to reunite with his family. “…I felt like something big was about to happen again,” she told the Times. “We didn’t know when or to what extent it would happen.”
Many members of the Church of Zion have expressed concern that the repression will escalate further. Concerns grew on Sunday as congregations shared news of detentions and missing leaders, with some fearing all church leaders could soon be imprisoned, the newspaper said.
Bob Fu, founder of the US-based group China Aid Association, said the arrests were the “largest and most systematic wave of persecution” against underground churches in China in more than 40 years.
Corey Jackson, founder of Luke Alliance, another US-based advocacy group for persecuted Christians, said the operation was the most important since 2018 and warned that the situation could worsen.
China’s constitution nominally guarantees freedom of religion, but the Communist Party, which officially supports atheism, recognizes only state-recognized religious groups.
Tens of millions of Chinese Christians are believed to attend house churches, which operate without government registration and are often subject to police harassment. Even the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants and the Chinese Patriotic Patriotic Association for Catholics are subject to surveillance, censorship, and control by state-appointed clergy. Some have faced closure or demolition for resisting political directives.
Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has stepped up surveillance of unofficial religious groups, labeling some as cults and encouraging citizens to report them.
Originally published by Christian Post
