Dr Paul Allen

Regulations For Chinese Ministry New government measures, which will include a database of church leaders, look set to introduce even more state control over Christian ministry in China. It was confirmed this week that the Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), first announced in November 2020, will come into effect on 1 May 2021. New government measures require all church leaders to “support the leadership of the Communist Party of China … [and] practice the core values of socialism” Key among the new measures, according to Article 33 of the document, is the creation by SARA of “a database of religious personnel” listing all those authorised by the state to perform religious ministry. Church leaders not registered in this database will not be permitted to undertake ministry. In order to be registered church leaders must, according to Article 3, be those who  “love the motherland, support the leadershi...

Chengdu, Sichuan Province, persecution of the church continues,  Multiple police officers appeared at the home of Elder Li Yingqiang of Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church and stopped him from attending Sunday worship. Police arrived at 8:20 am that morning and did not leave until noon. According to China Aid and Elder Li’s Facebook page, two undercover officers with several guards and uniformed police officers broke into his home, (included one uniformed officer, Director Dai of Qingyang District Caotang Road police station), Elder Li challenged the officers and asked if they had secured official paperwork to detain him. Police stressed that they did not come to enforce the law at this time but to “chat” (communicate). Even though Elder Li said that he did not want to chat, officers insisted that he talk with them. Elder Li explained to the officers why he risked returning to Chengdu and why he remains committed to the church with several hundred congregants experiencing persecutio...

IS THIS POSSIBLE? Communist Party officials in China have rewritten one of the Bible’s most powerful accounts of Jesus Christ’s grace and divinity by blasphemously claiming the Saviour stoned to death the woman caught in adultery.  Barnabas Fund reports that the well-known New Testament account in John’s Gospel (8:3-11) is completely altered to depict Jesus Christ as a devious murderer, and self-proclaimed “sinner”, in a “professional ethics and law” textbook used in Chinese vocational secondary schools. The textbook’s amended version of the account states,  “The crowd wanted to stone the woman to death as per their law. But Jesus said, ‘Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.’ Hearing this, they slipped away one by one. When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, ‘I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.’” The Biblical account describes how the scribes and Pharisees attempt...

During the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, missionaries trapped in a home in T’ai Yüan Fu decided their only hope for survival rested on running through the crowd that was calling for their deaths. Aided by weapons they held, they escaped the immediate threat. However, Edith Coombs, noticing that two of her injured Chinese students had not escaped, raced back into danger. She rescued one, but stumbled on her return trip for the second student and was killed. Meanwhile, missionaries in Hsin Chou district had escaped and were hiding in the countryside, accompanied by their Chinese friend Ho Tsuen Kwei. But he was captured while scouting an escape route for his friends in hiding and was martyred for refusing to reveal their location. In the lives of Edith Coombs and Tsuen Kwei we see a love that rises above cultural or national character. Their sacrifice reminds us of the greater grace and love of our Savior. As Jesus awaited His arrest and subsequent execution, He praye...

COURTESY OF CHINA AID Weibo photos of recent cross removals. When a megachurch's walls  came tumbling down in China's Jerusalem  last month, the forced demolition drew widespread international attention thanks to photos circulating on Weibo, China's version of Twitter. Now, Weibo photos have documented how local authorities have continued their campaign this May to de- Christianize the skyline of wealthy Wenzhou , one of China's most Christian cities, and surrounding areas. IMAGE: WEIBO A cross removed from a Wenzhou-area church The latest in the reported "Three Rectifications and One Demolition" campaign comes from the city of Ningbo, where famous missionary James Hudson Taylor once worked. Officials have ordered services to halt at the 1,000-member Xiaying Holy Love megachurch, and  demolition work has reportedly already begun after the church refused to tear down the large cross atop its 10-story building. Meanwhile,  The New York T...

Even when life is “easy” it is hard to show mercy to our fellow sinners. When enjoying order, safety, and congeniality, serving others can still be a challenge. But when you are drowning in poverty, murder, violence, lawlessness, sickness, injustice, pain, and desperation, showing mercy to sinners amplifies the sin in yourself. As a sinner, it is difficult to love someone who doesn’t return your love. So how do you respond when the one you hope to serve desires to kill you? Our full-time team of a dozen missionaries serves in Honduras . This country is incredibly hard to live in, let alone minister to. For five years running Honduras has been the most murderous country in the world. Its people are the second-poorest in the Western Hemisphere. The average first birth occurs at 15 years of age. Hospitals are closed, police are outgunned, pastors are driven from the country, babies starve, treatable illnesses lead to death, and indifference and apathy are endemic. Our fences have ba...

PHOTO FROM CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA (SUBMITTED TO CT) Despite the effort of hundreds of Chinese Christians who formed a " human shield " to defend their brand-new megachurch, reports of its demolition have emerged from southern China . Wenzhou 's Sanjiang Church—an impressive eight-story structure that government officials previously called a "model project"—took six years and  $3.2 million  in donations to build, according to  The Washington Post . The congregation is listed under the  government-approved   Three-Self Patriotic Movement ,  reports   AsiaNews , yet it occupies five times more square feet than what regulations originally designated— complicating the common narrative  of "atheist government persecutes Christians." Image: World Watch Monitor While excavators spent Monday, April 30, tearing down the church, Communist Party officials  insisted the destruction was because of city zoning, not religious persecution,...

English: Reproduction of drawing of the Cross and part of the text from Nestorian Stele, Xi'an (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Experts have this week identified a recently discovered site in China as an early Christian burial site with origins in the Nestorian Church . The researchers date the site to some time between the fourth and tenth centuries, making it the earliest known Nestorian burial place in China, UCANews.com reports. The site lies in the Longmen Grottoes , a UNESCO World Heritage site in central Henan province , around 730km south of Beijing. Now known as the Assyrian Church of the East, the Nestorian Church is believed to be the earliest movement to spread the Gospel across China. It was regarded by the Vatican as schismatic but in 1994, the two Churches signed a common declaration of doctrine. The discovery of the site, which features a niche in a stone wall with a cross carved above it, was made in 2009. Precise dating is still ongoing, but historians place the...