International Christian Concern | September 2013

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Choosing to Face Persecution so Others Don’t Have To

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My cell phone vibrates and an unknown number appears on the screen. It’s time. They’ve arrived, and I make my way towards the hotel lobby to greet them. Halfway there I see a group of faces, familiar from the reports I’ve been receiving for almost two years, already walking towards me.

It’s strange. I’m in Beijing, and among the group walking towards me are some very high-profile dissidents—men and women who have spent years publicly campaigning for everything the Communist Party is opposed to, from greater religious freedom to multi-party Democracy. All of them have faced arrest, harassment, and even imprisonment to different extents. If at any point during my visit to China I am at risk of facing a police raid and deportation from the country, this is it.

FA C I N G T H E B R U N T O F S I L E N T P E R S E C U T I O N

There are many activists and human rights lawyers throughout China, but this group is made up of Christians; subsequently they have experi-

Choosing to Face Persecution so Others Don’t Have To

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K E Y P L AY E R S

ence dealing with and defending fellow believers who face persecution at the hands of the Chinese government. In fact, from my meetings with house church pastors themselves, I discover that in today’s China, it is the Christian attorneys fighting on behalf of house churches that now face the brunt of persecution for their work. In essence, these lawyers and activists choose to face persecution so that other believers are spared the suffering.

Frequently, when an attorney steps in on behalf of a house church, the authorities back away from the church for fear of drawing too much atten-tion. The attorneys, however, are not spared, and often risk being arrested or disbarred for taking on the cases. The men and women meeting in my cramped Beijing hotel room this evening are truly frontline soldiers in the battle for greater religious freedom across China.

M R . G U O : S E E K I N G W I S D O M

The informal leader of this group, Mr. Guo, has been practicing law since 1997. At the time, Guo wasn’t even a Christian himself; but after wit-nessing a life-changing transformation in a former classmate who became a Christian, he became curious. He remembers reading from Proverbs

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9:10,“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (NIV). Guo need-ed wisdom and realized that many of the figures he strived to replicate, from Sun Yat-Sen to George Washington, were Christians as well. He gave his life to the Lord and everyone in the room acknowledges that Guo and his wife are a powerful testimony of God’s transforming power.

M R . Z H E N G : A P R E P A R E D H E A R T

Mr. Zheng, another Christian attorney in the room, says it was witnessing the love of God in Guo and his wife that also led him to accept Christ. Watching his face light up with joy, one would never know that only a few short weeks before our meeting, Zheng was detained by police for visit-ing one of China’s notorious “black prisons,” unofficial detention centers where victims, including Christians, can be incarcerated for months or even years without trial. He has been tortured by police and placed under house arrest countless times. Reflecting back on his life, Zheng says that he can see how even before he gave his life to Christ, “the Lord was pre-paring me through my family and my career for His calling. My steps have been ordered of the Lord, and the knowledge that the Lord is with me has greatly strengthened me.”

M R . X U : S E E I N G G O D ’ S L I G H T S H I N E

The oldest among the group is Mr. Xu. He became a Christian while serv-ing 17 years in prison. He was marked a dissident in 1989 for participating in Tiananmen Square protests. In 1992, he planned to rent a helicopter and drop pro-democracy leaflets over Tiananmen Square on the anniversary of the massacre. Simply planning this event was enough to get him ar-rested. He was convicted (along with 16 others) and sentenced to twenty years behind bars for his dissidence. A former professor of linguistics at the University of Beijing, Xu says, “Even in dark places like prison, God’s light can shine bright.”

Throughout his career, Xu was tortured, interrogated and told that he had to become less active in human rights. He has not obeyed, however, and today he helps to organize several house churches in Beijing, including

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one specifically focused on prison ministry and one dedicated to reaching out to human rights activists. He says the churches are monitored 24/7.

M R . P E N G A N D M R S . Y U : U N A F R A I D

Among the last few members of the group to speak are Mr. Peng and his wife, Mrs. Yu, both of whom were detained for a week by the authori-ties just a few days after our meeting. In 2012, Yu was sentenced to two years in a ‘re-education through labor’ camp for a tweet she sent that was deemed a threat to national security.

During her two-year incarceration in Henan province, Yu counted at least 50-60 house church Christians coming and going in the camp. Many were locked up repeatedly after they refused to stop attending unregistered (and therefore, illegal) services. One elderly Christian lady had been thrown into the camp for a year for admitting to police that she owned an unau-thorized copy of the Bible. Nevertheless, Yu says, “The Christians I met in the camp were all strong in their faith. They weren’t afraid of anything.”

As our meeting draws to a close, I say a small prayer of gratitude. For almost three hours we’ve been left undisturbed and I’ve had the chance to record amaz-ing testimonies. I can’t help but notice that throughout our long meeting the group has exhibited an almost rowdy, joyful, devil-may-care attitude. They are vet-eran soldiers on a frontline who carry the brunt of persecution so that others are spared. They eat, breathe, and sleep with the constant threat of being imprisoned for following the call of God that is on their lives, but “fear” is the last adjective you would ever use to describe them.

They are, in a word, inspiring.

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E V E N I N T H E DA R K P L AC E S L I K E P R I S O N,

G O D’S L I G H T C A N S H I N E B R I G H T.

- M R. X U, CHRISTIAN HUMAN RIGHTS AC TIVIST

C H I N A

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