According to VOM, at least 125 unregistered church buildings have been destroyed throughout China since last summer.
CBN.com �?(CBN News) - Nearly 15 years have passed since the Chinese crackdown at Tiananmen Square. The images were replayed countless times on international television, and they are forever burned into our memories. And now a decade and a half later, more shocking video from China. A daring photographer covertly captured the destruction of an unregistered church building in China's Zhejiang Province.
The church was Tu Du Sha Church at Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City. While it has been more than six months since a bulldozer leveled the church building last June 26th, the images were only recently smuggled out to the West.
The Voice of the Martyrs received the video from its contacts inside China.
Tom White, Executive Director of VOM, says, "We have never received film of actual destruction taking place of Chinese churches in the 36 years of our ministry. This church was founded by the China Inland Mission over 70 years ago. It had 1,500 members who were faithful to the Lord, who fasted for three days before the bulldozers came."
Dozens of officials with the Public Security and Religious Affairs Bureaus were joined by Land Management and People's Court personnel. They were reportedly surprised when they arrived at the church, just after 3:30 a.m., only to discover 300 believers inside kneeling in prayer.
According to VOM, electricity was shut off to the church, and officials returned four hours later accompanied by 200 military policemen. Some sobbing Christians were dragged from the church and placed in a van for transport to the police station.
Just before 9 o'clock, a bulldozer moved in to force the collapse of a kitchen wall at the front of the building. The total destruction of the church was completed in less than an hour.
According to VOM, at least 125 unregistered church buildings have been destroyed throughout China since last summer.
Tianyun Samuel was imprisoned in China more than seven years for preaching the gospel without government approval. He is the author of the book, "Heavenly Man." Yun said that the bulldozing of churches in the Provinces is counter to Chinese National Law.
Yun adds, "Even this general law proclaims there is religious freedom, but at the local level in different parts, there are other laws that are undermining the main law of the nation."
Because nearly 90 percent of Chinese Christians refuse to register their churches with the government, they are often labeled as subversives, counter-revolutionaries or members of an evil cult. Yun says nothing could be further from the truth.
He says, "While members of these meeting places destroyed, they are really filled with love to their government, love to their nation and they are really good people. They are not criminals in any way."
So, why won't the vast majority of China's 80-million believers join the state-controlled Three Self Patriotic Church?
Pastor Peter Xu of the born-again movement has been imprisoned five times for illegal church activity. He says while many born-again believers have joined the TSP movement, even Religious Affairs Bureau officials admit the TSPM is not a church.
"We have to first of all understand that Jesus Christ is not the Lord and the head of the Three Self Patriotic Movement," Xu says. "That movement is a political force for the party, and their Lord is the Communist Party."
Regardless, a crackdown continues against the leaders of the unregistered house churches. Recently arrested 47-year-old house church historian Zhang Yi-nan is currently serving a three-year sentence of ‘re-education�?through labor, for attempting to subvert the national government. Among the evidence used against him? Words in a prayer journal advocating spiritual warfare to fight atheism.
More recently, Xu's sister Deborah, who was arrested January 24th because of her evangelistic activities, cannot be found.
Xu says, "We don't know where she is…we don't know where she is locked in. Her health is very weak."
Xu asks that Christians worldwide pray for his sister, and other Christians who have been arrested for the sake of the Gospel.
Chinese house church leaders say they expect more arrests in the days ahead. That is because hardliners won out in a debate at a national religious working conference in Beijing recently. They were critical of a new DVD, called "The Cross."
"The Cross" is a look at the growth of the house church movement in China, but the hardliners say it is subversive and undermines national religious policy," says Xu. "They have called for all copies of the DVD in China to be confiscated, and the house church leaders depicted in the video to be detained for questioning.
Yun says Christians in China are determined to share their faith with non-believers despite the cost. He says, "All those who are committed to follow after Jesus, they have to be ready to pay a high price for their commitment to their calling. Pray for the church, that the church will be even more bolder, and even if there are mighty waters flowing over us, the Lord remains as the king and the ruler."
To see the smuggled video discussed in this story, showing the actual destruction of the Du Sha Church, please see www.persecution.com/China.
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