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WASHINGTON – The officially atheist Chinese government is surprisingly open to Christianity, at least partially, because it sees a link between the faith and economic success, said a sought after scholar who has relations with governments in Asia. China believes that Christianity is responsible for much of the historic success of Western Europe and the United States, said Dr. William Jeynes, senior fellow of The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., during a presentation at the Family Research Council on Tuesday. But while the Chinese government is open to Christianity, it also “wants to control Christianity.” Those in authority are very...

She attended a morning church service, joining in the carol singing led by a cassock-wearing choir, and then watched a nativity play performed by children from the congregation. But Miss Zhang's Protestant church is an illegal one, and its 1,000-strong members have grown used to worshipping in a variety of office buildings across Beijing in an effort to avoid the scrutiny of the authorities. A 25-year-old graduate and junior manager in an engineering company, Miss Zhang has been a Christian for four years. She says many people, including her parents who are local government officials and members of the communist...

Their families? Left to fend for themselves. So tomorrow more pastors jailed by Chinese atheists will string fine wire for Christmas light insertions into hard plastic containers. A workday: 16-20 hours. Then the items will be marketed global for believers to have Christmas lights for one more December. It goes on and on and on.

LINFEN, China — Towering eight stories over wheat fields, the Golden Lamp Church was built to serve nearly 50,000 worshippers in the gritty heart of China's coal country.But that was before hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on the mega-church, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries, members and activists say Today, the church's co-pastors are in jail. The gates to the church complex in the northern province of Shanxi are locked and a police armored personnel vehicle sits outside. The closure of what may be China's first mega-church is...

BEIJING - As President Barack Obama prepares for his first visit to China, leaders of the unapproved churches there are condemning his administration for indifference to the increasing persecution they are facing. The latest example of that persecution came Sunday as followers of an unapproved church in Beijing were again forced by the government to find a new place to worship. Worship in China, governed by the officially atheist Communist Party, is allowed only in state-approved churches, but millions of people belong to unregistered churches that often face official harassment.

Christians gathering in snow after forced out On Sunday, Novermber 1, Beijing Christians gathered in heavy snow after they were banned from an indoor place.

SHANXI--At 3:00 AM the morning of Sunday, September 13, 2009, a mass of 400 deviants in police suits and red armbands broke into the"Good News Cloth Shoes Factory", on the site of Fushan Church’s new building in Linfin City, Shanxi province. Two shovel loaders tore at the factory and new church building foundations, while the mob, with bricks and other blunt instruments in hand, beat Fushan church members who were sleeping at the church construction site. Within the hour, more than ten church members lay bleeding heavily; some were severely injured and sent to the emergency room. Several people lost...

The Chinese government has reportedly issued a secret directive to crack down on at least several major house churches in Beijing, a U.S.-based group reported Tuesday. ChinaAid Association, a religious freedom group with a focus on house churches in China, was informed by sources inside the country that the public security bureau has ordered the Beijing Huajie Plaza to terminate its rental contract with the Beijing Shouwang house church. The Shouwang house church is one of the largest house churches in the area with more than 1,000 members. For a few years now, it has rented two floors for worship...

Jesson Tian is a graduate student in Beijing working on a master's degree in agricultural biology. After graduation, Tian hopes to discover new ways to make China's farms more fruitful. But he's already learned a thing or two about harvests and fruit—of the spiritual kind. In China, just as elsewhere, college students are exposed to things their parents wouldn't approve of. For Tian, who was raised an atheist, that thing was Christianity. During his sophomore year, a friend introduced Tian to Jesus, and since he became a Christian, Tian shares his faith wherever he can, including to American students studying...

In China, Christians have a choice: Join a government-approved church—which is constantly monitored by the authorities—or join an underground church.Thank heavens things like that don’t happen in the West, you may be thinking. Think again. In Britain, the government has begun sticking its nose in church business, telling churches what to do.According to the Daily Telegraph, starting next year, the British government is going to begin forcing churches and other religious institutions to hire open, practicing homosexuals. It will happen under the provisions of the so-called Equity Bill, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals or transsexuals. The law would “cover...

BEIJING – By all accounts, Shi Weihan was a model Chinese citizen. A kind-hearted man with a sense of social responsibility, he donated funds to send poor kids to school, raised money for those suffering from congenital heart disease, and when the Sichuan earthquake hit, worked tirelessly for the emergency relief effort. But Shi had a fatal flaw. He printed Bibles – and gave them out for free. This week a criminal court in Beijing sentenced him to three years in jail.

John Calvin was a Frenchman, but he is being remembered in Geneva this week because it was here that he built Calvinism. Invited to reform the city in 1541, almost as what would now be called a management consultant, he formed an alliance with the city fathers. Over the next 20 years of preaching and pastoring they turned this tiny city, with a population then of only 10,000, into a model of church government and theology which has changed the world. His followers now form the third-largest Christian grouping in the world. The world alliance of reformed churches claims 75...

Note: Photo included. Note: The following text is a quote: Monday, May 18, 2009 Video Launched to Expose Torture of Christian Attorney Gao Zhisheng US Senators Call on Chinese President to Release Gao from Prison By Michael Ireland Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service BEIJING, CHINA / WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- It has been more than 100 days since Christian human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng has been seen in public. Gao Zhisheng Now two Christian groups, who work for the rights of believers in countries where they face persecution or discrimination, are working together for his release. And a group of...

A murmur of “Amen” echoes softly down a corridor in a luxury Beijing hotel. Dozens of young Chinese are gathered in a beige-carpeted conference room to listen to the word of God. After helping themselves to hot water or tea at the back of the room, they find a seat and chatter with friends. They tuck Louis Vuitton and Prada handbags under their seats, switch their mobile phones to silent and turn to listen to a young woman who takes the microphone to ask for silence and recite a prayer. A casually dressed, grey-haired Chinese man takes to the podium....

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On her first trip to China as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton downplayed the Asia giant's human rights record and instead emphasized concerns over global warming and the world economy. Virginia Republican Congressman Frank R. Wolf has drafted a stinging letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chiding her for diminishing the importance of human rights when dealing with China. Clinton, while stopping in Seoul, South Korea as part of a four-country tour to Asia, told reporters Feb. 20 that other issues were more pressing than human rights. “Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised...

ZHAO XIAO, a former Communist Party official and convert to Christianity, smiles over a cup of tea and says he thinks there are up to 130m Christians in China. This is far larger than previous estimates. The government says there are 21m (16m Protestants, 5m Catholics). Unofficial figures, such as one given by the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in Massachusetts, put the number at about 70m. But Mr Zhao is not alone in his reckoning. A study of China by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, an American think-tank, says indirect survey evidence suggests many...

The congregation seemed to come alive as the worship team led one of the most beautiful and touching songs that I have ever heard in China. The song, entitled "5 o'clock in the morning," comes from a collection known as the Caanan Hymns, miraculously written by a peasant girl in Henan, who could by all accounts not even read music before she wrote almost 1000 hyms. The song is a prayer to God that He will bless China's harvest and bring peace upon the nation. As we sang this song, I could not help but look around and watch as...

BEIJING — Security agents detained an elderly bishop of an underground Catholic church in northern China hours before the closing of the Olympic Games, a U.S.-based group said Monday. Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo, 73, of Zhengding, a city in northern Hebei province, was taken by six government officials from his cathedral on Sunday morning, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. The independent foundation, which aims to promote the Roman Catholic Church in China, said it did not know where or why Jia was being detained. A woman who answered the phone at the city's public security bureau said...

Beijing, Aug. 25, 2008 (CWNews.com) - China's most prominent "underground" Catholic bishop was arrested on Sunday, August 24: the day that also saw the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding was taken into custody by several police officers at Wuqiu cathedral. No immediate reason was given for his arrest, and authorities have not disclosed where the aging bishop is being held. The 73-year-old Bishop Jia, who heads an active diocese of over 100,000 Catholics in the Hebei diocese, spent 15 years in prison, from 1963 to 1978. Since his release he has...

Beijing, Aug 11, 2008 / 11:48 am (CNA).- Sunday morning in Beijing, President Bush attended the Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church.  After the government-established church service, the U.S. president gently encouraged the Chinese government to consider granting religious freedom to its citizens, telling them not to fear Christianity.The president expressed that he and his wife experienced “great joy and privilege of worshiping here in Beijing, China.”  Bush explained that the service showed “that God is universal, and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion.” He also thanked the pastor and the...