This week the Chinese Communist leaders have taken the persecution of Christians to the highest level in a generation and in the process have even gone to the point of destroying several large churches. See in the video above the $2.6 million Golden Lampstand Church blown up. It was the home of 50,000 worshippers. Also last month a Catholic church in a nearby province was similarly destroyed.  From the Christian Post:

An evangelical megachurch was destroyed by Chinese Communist authorities Tuesday in the country’s northern Shanxi province, sparking fears among Christians that the persecution they suffer will soon get worse.

China Aid said in an update Wednesday that Chinese military police detonated explosives inside Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen…

The order to demolish the church reportedly came from China’s top officials, who control the military police.

"The repeated persecution of Golden Lampstand Church demonstrates that the Chinese government has no respect for religious freedom or human rights," said ChinaAid President and founder Bob Fu.

<Read the whole article>

Response: The Chinese Communists tried to eliminate Christianity in the past but the number of Chinese Christians grew exponentially under persecution from 900,000 or so in 1949 to over 100 million today. As the numbers grew, many Chinese congregations came out of the homes and secret meeting places and started building worship centers such as the one destroyed above.

The Chinese officials have responded by trying to get the churches to join the officially recognized government sponsored and controlled organizations like The Protestant Three-Self Church and China Christian Council, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church. That effort substantially failed as the majority of Chinese protestant Christians continued to worship in unregistered churches like the mega church destroyed above and Chinese Catholics continued to attend the churches directed by the Vatican rather than the ‘Patriotic’ ones with leaders and Bishops chosen by the government.

A new round of government persecution began last year with the pulling down of thousands of crosses displayed in public and with the arrest of many major church pastors along with a demand that the pictures of Chinese Communist leaders be displayed prominently in homes rather than crosses and pictures of Jesus.

Now the Communist leaders have started to destroy churches which takes the persecution to a  level that is almost reminiscent of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ under Mao. This effort by the government will also fail. I have seen a number of demographic estimates that put China well on its way toward becoming a Christian majority nation in a generation or so. This possibility is probably what sparked the newest round of persecution by the Communist officials who fear that their ruling authority might eventually be challenged by an uncontrollable group of Chinese Christians with an entirely different world view.               *Top

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