Originally published in Relevant
A prominent underground pastor in China has been detained along with at least 30 other church leaders in what advocates are calling the most sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian churches in years.
Pastor Jin Mingri, who also goes by “Ezra,” was arrested last Friday evening at his home in Beihai, in China’s southeastern Guangxi province. Jin is the founder of Zion Church, one of China’s largest unregistered house churches, with congregations meeting in apartments, restaurants and karaoke bars across more than 40 cities.
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According to Zion Church pastor Sean Long, who is currently based in the United States, dozens of pastors and church members across six provinces were arrested or became unreachable starting Thursday. Some now face charges for the “illegal dissemination of religious content via the internet”, a common accusation leveled at underground pastors who preach or organise digitally without approval from the Chinese government.
“This is a very disturbing and distressing moment,” Long told the Associated Press. “This is a brutal violation of freedom of religion, which is written into the Chinese constitution. We want our pastors to be released immediately.”
Long said he first learned of the raids through an online group chat with church leaders in China who posted videos and photos of police entering homes and church spaces. At least one female pastor was reportedly separated from her newborn child during her arrest.
“We are witnessing the most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution against urban independent house churches in China in over four decades,” said Bob Fu, founder of the US-based religious group China Aid.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and other government agencies have not responded to media requests for comment. When asked by NPR, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said he was unaware of the arrests but insisted that China “manages religious affairs in accordance with the law” and opposes US interference in what it considers a domestic matter.
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The United States has publicly condemned the arrests. Senator Marco Rubio, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the detentions reveal “hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches.”
“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately release the detained church leaders and to allow all people of faith to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution,” Rubio said in a statement Sunday.
Zion Church was first shut down by the Chinese government in 2018 after refusing to install surveillance cameras in its Beijing sanctuary. Jin’s family relocated to the United States for safety, but he chose to remain in China, continuing to pastor house church gatherings and lead online worship.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Zion held virtual prayer meetings while many state-sanctioned churches remained closed, drawing thousands of new participants. Church leaders estimate that membership has grown from roughly 1 500 before the 2018 raid to more than 5 000 active participants today, meeting weekly in over 100 locations.
“Zion blew up after Covid, so that irked the government,” said Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States. She believes the church’s growing size and visibility may have contributed to the latest wave of detentions. “He became a pastor knowing that one day it is possible that he will be imprisoned.”
Jin, 54, was a student at Peking University during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and later earned a doctorate in ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary in California. Drexel said her father had recently begun preparing video messages for his grandchildren in case he was imprisoned.
“He could have stayed in the US in 2018 and applied for asylum,” she said. “But he felt he had to go back and be with the church while it was suffering.”
The crackdown on Zion is part of a broader campaign by the CCP to bring religion under tighter control. Under President Xi Jinping, authorities have ordered churches to remove crosses, burned Bibles, shut down unregistered churches and pushed to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the Party.
Despite the risks, Zion Church leaders say they plan to continue gathering both in person and online.
“We will still have online service,” Long said. “We will not stop what we are doing. We will share the good news of Jesus Christ no matter what.”
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