I am a Christian and here in the USA don't relize how blessed we are I pray for the people around the world that the lord will be with u and help u though these trial that your going though ...love all u Christian in Christ we stand together!!!!

Just as it was in the old Soviet bloc, Christians in China are oppressed and persecuted. The attempt to discourage, or destroy the church under communism has never worked but only made it stronger. For a time it looked like China was relenting in this persecution. With 60-80 million Protestants in this huge land (the majority house churches), Christianity is having a great impact on China, certainly greater that the self centered western nations, where Christianity has greatly declined. So, again we see a cycle of trouble for brothers and sisters such as Gao Zhisheng, another Christian lawyer being held for almost one year now.
We must pray for these Christians.

This is why I do my best to not buy items made in China.

I over came a small trial today at work with thanksgiving and satisfaction in God alone. May God show his glory through the life of this 7 year-old. May she know a husband who displays the sacrificial love of Jesus to her. May she strength others with the strength that God provides to her by his gracious and sovereign hand.

May we as citizens of the USA but primarily subjects of the King of kings pray for the persecuted church to feel the strength of their Savior. May we protect the rights we have been given and not subject ourselves to tyranny. May we fight to seek and save that which is lost by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Desiring God alone to be glorified.

In Christ,
Matt

It seems like CT is stretching to get more jabs in at Obama. This post completely ignores the strong rhetoric Obama delivered to Hu about religious freedom. CT continues to let its republicanism get in the way of clear and honest reporting.

It is a great testimony. True to your Christian faith. Amen

Matt K is correct, this seems like an unnecessary jab. The writer mentions presidential visits to registered churches, but the quote from Hook mentioned house churches. Are those two groups the same? Are 'house' churches 'registered' churches? I have heard criticism of American leaders who visit the 'registered' churches because they have chosen to 'affirm' these places approved by the communist government. I have seen clearly that no matter what Obama does, even if he were to go on TV and read the Bible for an hour, most Evangelicals would find a reason for it to have been a bad idea.

I have seen clearly that no matter what Obama does, it is condoned or ignored by mostly other than Evangelical groups. Politicians especially need to have a spotlight kept on them to keep their power-intoxication in check. Obama is not a savior. He is not transparent. The truth will prevail, sooner or later. And yes, money and greed seems the order of the day as far as relations go with China and the plight of persecuted Christians in China is swept under the red carpet.

Neither Matt K. nor Mark indicated that Obama was a savior, and the implication that anyone who defends something he did thinks he is a savior is pretty unfair. And I think both of them are correct in this instance - while I do hope for Obama to do more on the issue of religious freedom, the fact that he did not visit a registered Christian church in China is not an indication that he will not do so. I've not seen his address to Hu, but I'm encouraged if he pressed the issue of religious freedom. But there are very real differences between the sanctioned, registered church in China and the burgeoning independent Christian movement, seen primarily in house churches. Visiting a registered church does not indicate support for religious freedom - in fact, it could be argued that it supported China's attempts to control religion (although I think that's probably going too far).

The bottom line is that there are certainly things for which Obama can and should be criticized (as with any President, regardless of party affiliation). But this particular instance seems like criticism for the sake of criticism. Nothing in the article tells me why I should make a connection between Obama not worshipping at a registered church and a lack of support for religious freedom. I hope CT can find a way to walk the line between legitimate and prophetic criticism of the current president and partisan politics.

I did not observe a critical tone in this report, even though I think it deserves one. Is it not significant that a president does not follow what his predecessors have done and visit a place of worship to show his (and our) support even in a time of increased persecution? I view it as a continued trend of secularization by this administration. Others might disagree. But this report was far from a "potshot" at the Obama administration.

This is like missing home. When we are missing our home which i like heaven for us thats y its like missing Jesus in Beijing. Its difficult for us to find some pace where we are comfortable specially for the person and teh personality like Mr Obama has.

The critical tone of the article appears most clearly in the first, second and last sentences. The phrase "photo op" is not a neutral term, it says that the photo is taken to highlight the person's agenda. The article intentionally avoided Christians and the Christian issue on his trip. With all of the range of topics, Obama's speech would have needed to be an encyclopedia to get everything in. He did speak about religious and human rights. The detailing of persecution stories, and the strange last line, makes it sound as if persecution in China is a new thing. And as I said, visiting a "registered" church has usually been interpreted as not supporting real religious freedom, but state controlled religion.

Thanks for your piece. For your information, this is a translation of a recent letter from Shouwang Church to its congregation.

A Letter to the Congregation

Beijing Shouwang Church
November 2, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

On October 30th 2009, Shouwang Church moved out of the Huajie Mansion, bidding farewell to a three-and-half-year residence in Huajie, a familiar and warm place.

We believe most brothers and sisters were leaving Huajie with a heart of gratitude.

In Huajie, God let his Shouwang Church have courage and enter into the public square worshipping him in public; In Huajie, God let us form an integrated church out of various fellowships; In Huajie, God let our ministry climb up a new stage.

The growth of the church in Huajie is what each and every brother and sister has deeply experienced. That also includes the growth of each and every one of us with the church.

That Shouwang left Huajie is chiefly due to the fact that the owners of the rooms in Huajie that the church rented were coming under continual pressure in their work and life from the authorities of the Haidian District.

For the love from Christ, the church would not want the landlords to bear the pressure that the church should have borne.

So we decided to agree to the landlords’ request, which came from the authorities, that the rental contracts be terminated ahead of schedule.

We promised that we would leave Huajie on October 30th.

It is regrettable that the government whose mission should have been to “serve the people” has not shown due kindness to the large number of Christians who abide by the law.

Previously, we had left other buildings such as Heng’run for the same reason.

And in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, we faced a crackdown, and the authorities brought pressure to bear on the landlords to end the rental contract with the church.

From then on, we realized that the pressure on the landlords had become a weak point in the development of the church.

With the natural growth in size of the church, it is no longer easy to move from a place to another as during the time of fellowships.

So after last year’s crackdown, we established a group in an effort to solve the problem by purchasing a permanent place for worship.

Based on a lengthy report of the group, the church’s governing committee came up with a blueprint for purchasing a permanent worship place.

After the blueprint was approved by the church’s co-workers and the representatives of the church members, we officially launched the purchasing project in March this year.

Since then, the church has witnessed an unprecedented unity, and we believe God’s gracious hand has always been leading his church.

After rounds of negotiations with the two landlords of the office building that the church wanted to buy, our negotiating team agreed to the price they had set.

Yet, we have not heard of any further response from the landlords within the agreed-upon time frame.

For what reasons, we don’t know yet.

Against this background, the church had no choice but to worship outdoors.

We acknowledge that we were not ready for the outdoor worship.

But we have been experiencing the peace that God has given us.

The peace convinced us that the church had always been under our Lord’s rule.

God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways than our ways.

For human beings, the outdoor worship is of no choice.

For God, though, it is of benefit to his church.

Establishing a permanent church is more than purchasing a permanent worship place. It is building up the life of the congregation and that of each of our brothers and sisters.

We were gratified to see that with the same heart of submission our brothers and sisters braved the wind and the snow attending the Lord’s Day worship at the east gate of the Haidian Park on the first of November.

Since the east gate was closed with a note saying the park was not open to the public that day, we had no choice but to worship on a wide open space outside of the east gate of the park.

The heavy snow, which was the earliest to hit Beijing in more than two decades, added a touch of surprise.

At 10 o’clock in the morning, the worship began with a solemn song of the choir.

The worship procedure, including the hymns, sermon, prayers, sharing of family affairs, was the same as in Huajie.

Pastor Tianming’s sermon was a little bit shorter than usual.

He quoted verses from Hebrews to encourage the church’s brothers and sisters.

In Verse 23-31 Chapter 11, God led Moses and other Israelites out of Egypt by cultivating faith in their lives, and by faith they made the choice to follow.

Pastor Tianming also explained the situation of the church encouraging all the brothers and sisters to follow in the footsteps of the Lord.

Approximately 5-hundred people attended the worship, which was held in a joint service instead of three separate ones as had been done in the past.

Among them, several brothers and sisters were in their 70s.

Keeping spiritual fervor, the worshippers’ prayers were powerful.

At a little after 11 o’clock, the worship ended with everybody exchanging greetings with one another. Their joy was very great.

With the church in such a special period of time, we ask our brothers and sisters to pray earnestly to our God for the following requests.

First, since God determined to let his Shouwang Church enter into the desert, we look forward to God’s special protection in the church’s worship, “the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night.”

We don’t know how many times we will worship outdoors.

All we can do is to pray.

We pray to God that he may let his people have the power to brave the weather of minus 10 degrees Celsius and below during the winter of Beijing.

We pray to God that he may keep his each and every child leading them to walk with his church.

We pray to God that he may let no one grumble and along with his church each one’s life be humbled and tested.

We believe that although we are unworthy of his election, God determined to let all we had been experiencing be of the benefit to building up and using his church.

Second, we hope all our brothers and sisters also pray earnestly to God that he may let us be continually vigilant so that we will not be caught by Satan’s craftiness.

One such crafty scheme is that the church’s temporary outdoor worship will be colored a stain of “politics”.

That the church worships outdoors is of no other choice.

When there is no indoor place to worship together for the time being, and it is against God’s will to have his Shouwang Church worship separately, and according to the Holy Bible we cannot give up meeting together, all we can do is to pray with humility to God that he may protect our temporary outdoor worship.

That we go outdoors is not of protest, not for “political” reason, but to worship our God.

It is a conscience we keep before God.

We pray to God that he may give us the wisdom and let our worship not be affected for some “political”reason.

Third, we hope the church’s outdoor worship is of being temporary.

We plead with God for his mercy to be showered upon his Shouwang Church so that he may let the church enter into his promised good land of Canaan early.

We plead with God for his continued leadership in the process of establishing the permanent worship place so that we may enter into the new building soon.

For the price of the real estate in Beijing is high, we need another 10-million yuan upon the 20-million we have raised.

In this process, we need to continue looking to God for his providence.

And we plead with God that in this period of time he may keep our brothers and sisters giving generously.

We trust God will bring his church to a better place.

So, we pray to God that he may keep all of us looking to him and waiting for him with patience and gratitude.

Last but not least, we express our gratitude to all the churches who have been praying for Shouwang Church and have thrown their weight in various ways behind the process of our establishing a permanent worship place.

May God remember their joint prayers and support in Christ.

And we hope they will continue with their prayers for us in this period of time.

We don’t know what is ahead for the church.

It is a road the people in our generation have never walked.

But we do believe it is a road the Lord has walked.

As long as we are willing to offer ourselves to God and are willing to pay all the cost of following in his footsteps, the Lord will definitely lead us to victory in him and bring us with him to the good land of Canaan.

May God keep his Shouwang Church! Amen!

if everyone would stop trying to bash President Obama for everything he does and pull the beam out of their own eye, then maybe they would understand that everybody (past presidents) who says they are Christian are not..by their fruit (works) we will know who the real Christians are..so I hope these people who down obama (and we all know why they do it) worry about getting themselves closer to Jesus and everything else will take care of itself..pray for our president

winter ugg boots

Obama has been consistent in exhibiting his primary character trait on the world stage --- he is a coward. Whether it is dealing with nuclear issues with Islamofascist, European security issues with Tsar Putin or the lack of religious freedom within his biggest customer -- China; Obama has been very consistent. At least we know what to expect for the next 3 years. Couple this with socialist policy at home and he will accomplish what his radical friends (the Weathermen, Heretic Jeremiah Wright et al) have been, to date, unable to accomplish -- the total destruction of the USA. What bothers me the most is that at least 35% of Americans are perfectly happy to let it happen and 20% of Americans are too stupid to realize it is happening.

This is such a disingenuous and misleading article ...

If you read the pages of CT you get an image of the Church in China that is positive and upbeat. Why? Because the MAGAZINE opts to focus on the official, registered churches of the State-sanctioned Three Self Patriotic Movement.

Timothy, on the other hand, writes about the underground "House Church," suggesting -- as did Leslie Hook in WSJ-Asia, that somehow the President should have visited one. After all, the article suggests, his predecessors did. That is simply not true. Presidents Bush and Clinton went to Church in Beijing at TSPM churches.

Foreigners are NOT PERMITTED to worship with Chinese -- except with the permission of the local Religious Affairs Bureau; and then we are only permitted to attend by invitation at a registered church. Therefore there is NO POSSIBILITY that the President would have been able to go to Shouwang.

Furthermore, the aforementioned "predecessors" went to church on occasions where they were in Beijing on a Sunday. President Obama did not arrive in China -- SHANGHAI -- until Sunday night.

I could say more, but space limitations here wouldn't allow what I'd really like to say.

Keep the Faith
Bishop Raymond Allan Johnson
Nanchang, PRC

Makes you think about all we take for granted in the United States. I know this is a older post. But lets continue to keep praying for the nations!
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Blessings,
Ryan T

Will ever China become a Christian Nation>? I hope to travel to China with the gospel of Jesus.