***News Release***
Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition Prays for Pastor and Christians Detained in Chinese Raid
Well-Known Pastor and 100 Parishioners in Custody After Arrests Sunday
WASHINGTON—A well-known pastor in China and over 100 Christian parishioners were arrested in China on Sunday night, and now, the attacks against Chinese Christian families are ongoing, according to The Hill.
Dr. Bob Fu, a member of the Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) Coalition, which advocates on behalf of the 215 million persecuted Christians around the globe, said the raids are evidence of heightened Christian persecution in China.
“The massive overnight attack against members of the independent, renowned Early Rain Covenant Church represents a major escalation of religious persecution in China,” said Fu, founder and president of ChinaAid and a close friend of Pastor Wang Yi, who was arrested Sunday. “Ironically this largest scale of arrests and clamp down on the international Human Rights Day shows (Chinese President Xi Jinping’s) regime deliberately making itself the enemy of universal values, such as religious freedom for all. ChinaAid calls upon the international community to condemn these arbitrary arrests of innocent religious believers and urges the Chinese regime for their immediate release.”
In September, Pastor Yi was the first to sign a letter of protest against increased restrictions on Christian communities in China that has now been signed by at least 350 other Chinese pastors and faith leaders willing to defend their faith to the death if necessary.
“As trade talks continue, Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition encourages the Trump administration to address this escalating brutal wave of persecution of people of faith in China, including Muslim Uyghurs and multiple Christian communities,” said Dede Laugesen, director of the Coalition. “Freedom of religion and belief is a matter of national security for the United States, and China needs to know that we are alarmed by the oppressive and violent actions targeting citizens in their country.”
The Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition seeks to bring awareness about Christians in China who are being watched, arrested or worse through the “The People of the Cross” exhibit, a series of vertical traveling banners that details Christian persecution in various countries around the world.
Banners feature images, facts and quotes from recent news stories about the persecution of Christians in multiple countries, such as North Korea, where Christians are tortured or worse; Syria, where Christian girls and women have been sold into sex slavery; East Africa, where terrorists are exterminating Christians with genocidal intent; and China, where Communists are increasingly hostile to people of faith and churches and shrines are being demolished.
The STPC China banner shares the shocking fact that Christians are tracked in this communist nation and many are powerless to stop the destruction happening at their churches.
“The Communist Party represses its citizens, imprisons human rights lawyers and pastors, demolishes churches, and has engaged in large-scale forced abortions and organ harvesting,” the banner reads. “China forbid religious education, collects DNA and biometric data from religious believer, and tortures and kills prisoners of conscience, including many Christians.”
The exhibit was designed with the help of a consultant to the national Holocaust museum and premiered in July at the U.S. Capitol for lawmakers as a side event to the first ever U.S. Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom hosted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. Since then, the exhibit has been touring the United States and is available for display in many states. Learn more about the exhibit here.
The STPC Coalition works diligently to disseminate actionable information about ways in which Americans can help Christians worldwide who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. Especially in light of immense global oppression, raising awareness about Christian persecution is crucial, as violence toward and imprisonment of Christians occurs so routinely it rarely makes the news.
For example, according to Open Doors, 255 Christians are killed worldwide every month. 104 Christians are abducted. 180 Christian women are raped, sexually assaulted or forced into marriage. 160 Christians are detained or imprisoned without trial. And 66 churches are attacked. Every month.
With such staggering statistics, and the knowledge that most of these crimes are not covered in the media, the STPC Coalition developed a dedicated news aggregator—www.ChristianPersecutionNews.com—to capture current instances of persecution that do make the news and to provide readers an easy way to share these heartbreaking stories with others.
One of the simple and economical ways Americans can render support is by encouraging their pastors and faith leaders to visit www.SavethePersecutedChristians.org and to order a free banner to display in front of their houses of worship. These simple banners feature a graphic “Save Us” plea with a cross and the coalition’s website where Americans can learn about the global persecution of Christians and find out more about what they can do to help stop it.
With so much of the world’s population attacked, imprisoned or exiled for their beliefs—such as Christians in China—the need for the sort of movement the STPC Coalition is working to foster has never been greater. Its efforts are modeled after a campaign that helped free another population suffering from heavy persecution, Soviet Jews, by holding its persecutors in the Kremlin accountable and imposing real costs for its repression of people of faith. The Coalition’s movement in our time aims to provide American policymakers with the popular support they need to effect real change worldwide and alleviate the suffering of those persecuted simply because they follow Jesus Christ.
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