[Today’s Prayer] American pastor detained for house church ministry in China released after 18 years
The U.S. State Department announced on the 15th (local time) that Chinese-American pastor David Lin (68) was released from a Chinese prison after 20 years and returned to his home country.
Lin, who lived in California, was banned from leaving the country in 2006 after being investigated by Chinese authorities while establishing a Christian training center in Beijing. He was later detained for unclear reasons and charged with fraud. He was sentenced to life in prison in December 2009, but denied all charges. After receiving several reductions in his sentence, he was scheduled to be released in 2029.
Pastor Lin is known to have been actively involved in the underground house church movement in China. House churches are Christian gatherings that are usually held in private homes, and the Chinese government has designated them as illegal social groups and is cracking down on them. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said, “This movement has long been met with hostility by the Chinese government, and participants face intimidation, harassment, arrest, and harsh punishment.”
Pastor Lin has vehemently maintained his innocence, but has not drawn public attention to the case. His daughter Alice appeared on the radio program “Washington Watch” in 2019 and said, “My father accepted prison as a mission field ordained by God, and he did not make the incident public.”
She added that her father told the family: “The officials forged documents and even asked me to sign a confession, but I told them I had done nothing wrong and would not sign.”
“The plain fact is that my father was in China because he felt a great responsibility to the people who did not go to church,” she said. “He had a vision to establish a church and a Christian training center, and he was imprisoned for his faith.”
Ellis recalled, “The last message my father sent to his family when he was a free man was, ‘Don’t worry. God knows what he’s doing. It’s God’s will for me to be here. There are a lot of people here who need to hear God’s word. Please don’t worry. Just pray for me. I’ll be back in the States soon.’ That was almost 10 years ago.”
American politicians have supported Pastor Lin and called for the release of other Americans detained overseas. “I am very pleased to hear that David Lin has been released,” Texas Republican Representative Michael McCaul said in a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) on the 15th. “His detention underscores a growing trend of hostage diplomacy by authoritarian governments around the world.”
The Dui Hua Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that supports Chinese detainees, welcomed Lin's release and said more than 200 Americans in China are being held in "coercive measures," 30 of whom are banned from leaving the country.
According to the World Watch List (WWL) published by Open Doors USA, China is one of the countries with the most serious Christian persecution. In recent years, China has cracked down on and shut down unauthorized churches, arrested numerous believers, and is strengthening strict regulations and digital surveillance, especially targeting house churches.
Pastor Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, a Chinese Christian human rights group, told The Christian Post in a past interview that “China’s top leadership is increasingly concerned about the rapid growth of the Christian faith, its public presence, and its social influence, as the number of Christians in China far outnumbers the number of party members.” He also warned that the Chinese Communist Party is promoting a “Sinicized Christianity.”
China released Pastor John Kao, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for “organizing illegal border crossings,” in March. Authorities arrested Kao and his associate Jing Luxia in March 2017 and charged them with illegally crossing the border between Myanmar and China. Kao, a Chinese-American living in North Carolina, had set up 16 schools for 2,000 poor minority children in Wa State in northern Myanmar before crossing the border.
In August, the Guiyang Court in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province sentenced house church elder Zhang Chunlei to five years in prison for “subverting state power” and “fraud.” The trial reportedly took place with strict restrictions on public attendance.
Source: News
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
We praise You for Your love for the Church in China and for Your grace in sending Your servants to serve for Your eternal kingdom even in the midst of widespread persecution.
We trust that You will surely reward Your servants with heavenly rewards and crowns for enduring the Chinese government's schemes to communize the church, and for persevering with the gospel.
Like the faith of Rev. Lin, who regarded even prison as a mission field even when he was going to prison, may the underground and house churches in China endure with faith to the end no matter what persecution they face.
Lord, who is strong when we are weakest, make the gospel powerful to the weak and foolish, and make the Chinese church like Mincho strong enough to bring even the Goliath-like Chinese system to its knees.
Also, that the Chinese church is not only defending the faith, but also spreading the gospel and building churches even as they are scattered to the nations in the diaspora to escape persecution.
Raise up one million missionaries from the Chinese church at Your command, so that they may stand as military ministers who will not turn back in the face of death and muster the king's armies from the nations!
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