In Beihai-China, dozens of pastors belonging to one of China’s largest house-church movements were swept up in a sweeping-arrest crackdown over the weekend, exposing how tightly Beijing is moving to control religious devotion and faith communities beyond state control. At the center of the storm is Pastor Jin Mingri, popularly known as Ezra Jin. The founder of Zion Church, who was detained on Friday night in his home in Beihai.
Jin Mingri, 56, has long walked a difficult line. After training at seminary and rising through China’s evangelical movement, he founded Zion Church in Beijing in 2007, choosing to remain unaffiliated with state-sanctioned Protestant bodies.
What made Zion Church unusual and increasingly so in congregation, and have attracted official scrutiny, was its explosive growth during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. With state churches restricted or shuttered, Zion expanded its reach through small in-person gatherings and online meetings, zoom sermons, chat groups and continuous livestreaming that brought-in thousands of members scattered across at least 40 cities.
Away from being a place or platform of worship to many followers, Zion church has been become a community or city of refuge, and in some ways a spiritual lifeline in a time when public life has often brought uncertainty. Grace Jin, Pastor Jin’s daughter, who is living in the United States, speaks of her father’s commitment that despite the risks, Jin would not leave his flock behind. “He felt that as a pastor he had to be with the flock,” she said.
On October 10-11, authorities arrested almost 30 pastors, preachers, and church members of Zion Church in cities including Beihai, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Sichuan and Henan. Out those arrested, about 20 persons are still in detention.
The charge against Jin is illegal use of information networks. It is tied to the new rules from China’s religious affairs regulator, forbidding unauthorized online preaching or religious teaching by clergymen, as well as any claim of foreign influence or collusion. Supporters fear that the pastors may ultimately be indicted under charges of disseminating religious information illegally via the internet. This is a crime which could inflict seven years in prisonment.
There are also concerns for their welfare. Pastor Jin has previously been hospitalized for diabetes, and his family says he requires medication. Lawyers apparently have been denied access to many of the detainees, according to families and church representatives.
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