The daughter of a Christian pastor detained by the Chinese Communist Party alongside nearly two dozen church leaders is warning of a coming “wave” of Christian persecution in China, she told The Daily Wire.
Last week, the Chinese government rounded up prominent pastor Mingri “Ezra” Jin and at least 22 other church leaders and locked them up in a detention center in Guangxi, a region in southern China. Jin and the others detained are connected to the Zion Church, one of the largest underground church networks in China.
Grace, Jin’s daughter, told The Daily Wire that she fears that these detentions are only the beginning of a nationwide crackdown on Christianity.
The detained Christians were from all across the country, including cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, she said. All of the detained pastors have been taken to a central location in Beihei, Guangxi — approximately 1,200 miles south of Shanghai and 1,500 miles from Beijing.
The pastors have been clothed in prison garb and handcuffed, according to Grace.
Their crime? They are accused of illegally disseminating information online. Grace believes additional charges could follow because government officials have been probing the church’s structure and finances.
“This is definitely orchestrated by a high-up central government level” because “they were rounding up people from all across China, and they were all bringing them to one location,” she told The Daily Wire.
“It was almost simultaneous, it was orderly, and it was orchestrated all together at the same time,” she added, noting that the government appeared to be tracking the pastors’ movements in order to track them down and detain them.
On Monday morning, Grace said her grandmother attempted to bring her father a Bible and his diabetes medicine, but authorities would not allow her or other family members to visit their detained loved ones. She also said her father and many others weren’t allowed to speak to a lawyer.
”We don’t really know how they are doing,” Grace said.
She added it was tough to see men who only wanted to spread God’s love treated like criminals.
“The fact that these folks who are just generally always so gentle, so peaceful, so happy to serve others, are seen as this criminal, and treated as criminals, and put into these shameful prison garments, and put into handcuffs and shackles doesn’t make sense,” Grace said.
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Her father first became a Christian after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.
“When the country betrayed them in such a brutal way, it really was shocking, and they lost a sense of direction for my dad,” Grace said. “He then found the sense of purpose and direction in Christianity, and he turned to Christ, and he realized that was the firm foundation that he needed in order to build his life upon.”
After his conversion, Jin initially pastored one of the government-sanctioned churches approved by China, but he soon left after feeling his ministry was being held “hostage” to the whims of the government, Grace said.
The government wanted Jin to use the pulpit to promote communism and the Chinese Communist Party. It prohibited discussions of fundamental Christian beliefs, including the second coming of Jesus, because officials declared that China was already a utopia.
In 2017, Jin started Zion after years of theological training in the United States. By 2018, the government had cracked down on Zion by closing its physical location and freezing the church’s assets.
Grace said that her father has been detained multiple times over the past few years, but never formally charged. Sometimes he has been taken to hotels and harassed, she said. This time, she believes the detention is more serious and they will face a lengthy prosecution.
Jin’s detention last week captured the attention of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called for him to be immediately released.
“This crackdown further demonstrates how the CCP exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches,” Rubio said. “We call on the CCP to immediately release the detained church leaders and to allow all people of faith, including members of house churches, to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution.”
Grace, who is an American, was grateful for Rubio’s swift condemnation and wants to spread awareness about her father’s detention. She said Rubio’s message had already been blocked in China.
China, which is home to nearly 100 million Christians, is regularly ranked as one of the worst offenders when it comes to Christian persecution. Open Doors, a watchdog organization that advocates for persecuted Christians, listed China as the 15th worst country in the world for persecution, according to its most recent standings.
Grace believes that the persecution could get worse, and that her father’s arrest is only the beginning.
“We think that this is just the beginning and that there is a wave of persecution that is coming.”
