Beijing’s Zion Church, Renai Church in Guiyang, and Early Rain in Chengdu continue to be under attack.
by Qi Junzao
There is no pause nor mercy in the CCP campaign to crack down on independent house churches. The limited tolerance granted to some of them in the pre-Xi-Jinping era is gradually coming to an end. Either the house churches join the government-controlled Three Self Church, or their leaders go to jail. It also happens that house churches are labeled as xie jiao, “heterodox teachings,” and their elders and pastors prosecuted under Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code, originally conceived to crack down on banned new religious movements.
Beijing’s Zion Church is one of the most famous house churches in China. In 2018, it was officially “dismantled” and banned by the authorities, which tried to bankrupt it by imposing extravagant fines. It was also accused of being a xie jiao. Much to the CCP’s surprise, however, Zion Church did not disappear. It lost its place of worship, as the CCP persuaded the landlord to cancel the lease, but devotees continued to meet in private homes. A believer told Bitter Winter that there are “hundreds” of Zion Church meeting places, not all of them in Beijing, and the total membership may be in excess of 25,000.
A nurse was accused of blasphemy for her criticism of the government’s reaction to the European Parliament motion censoring the country.
by Massimo Introvigne
Punjab Institute of Mental Health in Lahore, Pakistan, is the largest psychiatric facility in Southern Asia. Scholars of religion know it because although the present facilities were inaugurated in 1900, the hospital’s origins date back to the 19th– century work in Lahore of Hungarian doctor Johann Martin Honigberger. The doctor is the main character in a novel written in 1940 by the famous Romanian historian of religions Mircea Eliade, The Secret of Dr. Honigberger.
Many years have passes since Dr. Honigberger dreamed of a hospital where Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians will work in harmony. Last week, Muslim nurses and paramedics marched around the hospitals’ building shouting Islamist slogans and accusing of blasphemy a Christian nurse, Sakina Mehtab. The nurse has devoted her life to the hospital and is due to retire in two years.
