LINFEN, China — Towering eight stories over wheat fields, the Golden Lamp Church was built to serve nearly 50,000 worshippers in the gritty heart of China’s coal country.
But that was before hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on the mega-church, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries, members and activists say
Today, the church’s co-pastors are in jail. The gates to the church complex in the northern province of Shanxi are locked and a police armored personnel vehicle sits outside.
The closure of what may be China’s first mega-church is the most visible sign that the communist government is determined to rein in the rapid spread of Christianity, with a crackdown in recent months that church leaders call the harshest in years.
Authorities describe the actions against churches as stemming from land disputes, but the congregations under attack are among the most successful in China’s growing “house church” movement, which rejects the state-controlled church in favor of liturgical independence and a more passionate, evangelical outlook.
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That says a lot about the credibility of the story I’m afraid. They’ve spent the past year trying their best to paint obama as a communist fascist dictator (One pundit, Glenn Beck went so far as to devote a segment of his show to linking obama to chairman mao on a big board) to the christian right in america, that news like this is gold to them. “THIS IS WHAT OBAMA WILL DO AMERICA, WAKE UP” They will shout.
- Actually the source is AP (http://bit.ly/4r3F1d) nearly all mainstream news sources, including this one (if we could be called that) select and recycle up to 80% of their news in order to tailor it to their audiences. In this case Fox hasn’t been too bad and I’m sorry for linking to them but you’ll find the story is copied almost verbatim from the original AP source – journalism lecture over
– Phillis
unfortunately one cannot cite directly from the AP…only thru sponsored links such as google or a (gasp!) newspaper. :/
You know what? I think China should create a new church named:
Mankind
Serving
God
To finally prove that MSG is as much a part of China as it ever was.
All the worshippers will be saved, but will unfortunately be insatiably thirsty with headaches.
Communism at work i see. Sad how the state will control what they want you to believe.