Chinese officials have raided yet another church this month.
According to the South China Morning Post, 60 police officers barreled through Rongguili Church in Guangzahou during a children’s Bible class, last week.
One of the church members posted about the incident on social media writing, “Halfway through the children’s Bible class, we heard the footsteps of dozens of police and officials stomping up the stairs,” CBN reports.
“They then verified our identities again and warned us not to return [to the church] before letting us go,” the church member continued.
CBN News reports that the officials who entered the church with law enforcement officers were from the Communist government’s education and religious affairs department. The outlet reports that the officials stayed at the church until 8:00 pm confiscating books among other things.
On Saturday, following the raid, the Yuexiu district ethnic and religious affairs bureau released a statement noting that the Rongguili Church had violated government regulations and therefore all activities at the church have been suspended.
The church, which was one of China’s first major house churches, was founded by the late pastor Samuel Lamb Xiangao in 1978. The church has stood for nearly four decades.
Hong Kong-based missionary John Short, told South China Morning Post, “Samuel Lamb’s house church, after his release from prison in the late 1970s, was the leading and largest unregistered church in the south, just as Allen Yuen Xiangchen’s was in the north and in the capital of Beijing.”
“These two men, along with Moses Xi in Shanghai, led the post-Mao era of Christian revival in today’s China,” he added.
The raid at the Rongguili Church comes after Chinese authorities shut two other churches down this Fall. In September, authorities closed down a 1,500-member church in Beijing called, Zion Church. Earlier this month the 500-member Early Rain Covenant Church was also closed.
Photo courtesy: Pixabay
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