The U.S. State Department has called for the immediate release of Pastor Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, a leader of an underground church in China whose children are American citizens, amid a sweeping crackdown on unregistered religious groups.
Jin was detained Friday at his home in Beihai, Guangxi Province, according to his daughter. Around the same time, nearly 30 other leaders and members of Zion Church were reportedly arrested or went missing in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, The New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the arrests, urging Beijing to allow people of all faiths, including house church members, to worship freely. “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,” he said.
Jin, 56, founded Zion Church in 2007, which grew into one of China’s largest underground Evangelical congregations. A participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, he converted to Christianity soon afterward and later graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary in California.
Zion Church was officially closed in 2018 after authorities raided its Beijing sanctuary, prompting the congregation to move services online. Virtual gatherings often drew up to 10,000 participants on Zoom, YouTube, and WeChat, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, a U.S. Senate staffer, said her father continued leading the church remotely under constant surveillance. His wife, Chunli Liu, a Chinese national, has lived in the U.S. with their three American children since 2018. Liu said in a video interview that authorities “are afraid of my husband’s influence.”
Grace said her father had attempted to visit the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to renew his visa but was intercepted, driven to the airport, and forced to leave the capital. Following his detention, the family has had no contact with him, and it remains unclear whether he has been formally charged.
Pastor Sean Long, a Zion Church leader in the U.S., said Jin may face charges related to online dissemination of religious content, an offense increasingly regulated under September rules requiring all religious activity to go through state-approved channels. Church leaders are preparing for the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence.
Members of Zion Church have expressed growing fear as reports of arrests and disappearances spread, raising concerns that the entire leadership could soon be imprisoned. Bob Fu, founder of the U.S.-based ChinaAid Association, called the detentions “the most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution” against underground churches in more than 40 years. Corey Jackson, founder of Luke Alliance, described the crackdown as the most significant since 2018.
Although China’s constitution nominally guarantees freedom of religion, the Communist Party, which officially endorses atheism, only recognizes state-approved religious organizations. Tens of millions of Christians attend house churches, which operate without government registration and frequently face harassment. Even state-sanctioned groups, including the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, are subject to surveillance and government control, and some have faced closures for resisting political directives.
Under President Xi Jinping, the government has intensified scrutiny of unofficial religious groups, labeling some as cults and encouraging citizens to report them.
Adapted from The Christian Post.
