BEIJING: China's government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and several provinces, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China.
The campaign corresponds with a drive to "Sinicize" religion by demanding loyalty to the officially atheist
Communist Party and eliminating any challenge to its power over people's lives.
Bob Fu of the US-based group
China Aid said over the weekend that the closure of churches in central Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing in recent weeks represents a "significant escalation" of the crackdown. "The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief," he wrote in an email.
Under President
Xi Jinping, religious believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. Fu also provided video footage of what appeared to be piles of burning Bibles and forms stating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith.
A Christian pastor in the Henan city of Nanyang said crosses, bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his church on September 5. The pastor, who asked not to be identified by name to avoid repercussions from authorities, said several people entered the church and began removing items.
Chinese law requires religious believers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities, but many millions belong to so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions.
In Beijing, around 70 officials stormed into the Zion Church - housed on the third floor of a nondescript office building in the north of the capital -after its Sunday afternoon service. A notice posted Sunday on the website of the Chaoyang district government in Beijing said the Zion Church had been closed because it failed to register with the government.
China has an estimated 38 million Protestants, and experts have predicted that the country will have the world's largest Christian population in a few decades.
