Chinese Christians jailed for faith memorize Bible because not allowed to have one

An American pastor who went to China to train faith leaders experiencing Christian persecution quickly realized he had more to learn from them.

Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, shared about a recent trip to China with 22 Christian leaders in the communist country, 18 of whom had been imprisoned.

He said they told him they smuggled Bible passages on small pieces of paper for others to memorize. Their meeting was underground.

"If we get caught what will happen to me?" the pastor asked the Chinese Christians who took a 13-hour train ride to attend the leadership meeting, held in a 700-square-foot hotel room with no air conditioning.

"Well, you will get deported in 24 hours, and we will go to prison for three years," they responded.

The 22 Chinese Christian leaders from the Hunan Province, the mountainous area in southern China, oversaw 22 million people in total in the country with 1.3 billion people.

In the beginning, short on Bibles, the Hawaii megachurch pastor asked them to turn to 2 Peter and he realized one of the women handed her Bible to another leader but she managed to recite the entire book.

During a break he asked her about it. She said they have a lot of time in prison.

"Don't they confiscate the Bible?" Cordeiro asked.

They smuggle in pieces of paper with portions of Scripture on them.

"That’s why we memorize it as fast as we can because even though they can take the paper away, they can’t take what’s hidden in your heart," she shared with him.

At the conclusion of the three-day study, Cordeiro asked them how he could pray for them.

One man responded that he wanted to be free to worship: "Could you pray that one day we could just be like you?"“I will not pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,” he responded.

Christine Caine, a Christian activist and evangelist, shared a similar story at "Heaven Come" conference in Los Angeles in May.

Caine was invited to a gathering with 500 leaders of the Chinese underground church who asked her to teach them how to lead young people, worried they were losing them to Western values.

"'We don't understand anything about leadership, we don't understand about Western leadership methods. Could you help us? All we know how to do to is pray, all we know how to do is believe God. That's how we had revival in China when we're not allowed to carry the Word of God. The only leadership training we give our people is, we teach them how to witness to their executioner on their way to their execution.'

"She froze and then asked them to lay hands on her and pray for her.

"I thought, 'what am I doing here?" she said. "I literally said, 'I'm not sure if I'm a Christian.' You're asking me? No, you can all lay hands on me. You can all lay hands on me and give me the kind of faith that says, 'I'm going to witness to my executioner on the way to my execution... I want the kind of faith that causes Jesus to marvel."

https://www.foxnews.com/faith-value...e-guards-cant-take-whats-hidden-in-your-heart



(To be sure, Christianity technically is not wholesale completely illegal in China, but that does not mean persecution does not exist. There are numerous totalitarian laws to control religion, although they are not always enforced. It's technically illegal to be a member of a church that is not under the direct control of the government, and these state-run churches are required to do things like teach patriotic Communist Party propaganda and are not allowed to have the last part of the Bible, The Book of Revelation. Religious publications have to be approved by the government. Some provinces and local governments will also not permit churches to be built, do not allow the display of crosses on church buildings, forbid the church from running summer camps or Sunday schools, forbid them from organizing public protests or contacting church members in other countries. These are just some examples. In 2002, it was announced that the leaders of 5 different underground churches had been sentenced to death.)

 

Same as the US.
People forget there are 2 constitutions, one for the fed and one for each state.
the fed says you have the right to not only your religion but to exercise your religion,you can take it to the streets.
the states on the other hand with possibly 2 exceptions only give you the right to pray, you better not take it to the streets.
If your state constitution does not recognize your right to 'exercise' you religion you dont have it.
Not that the fed is any better since they are the ones that bankrupted the baker who refused to bake a gay cake.
It now becomes a matter of who is more or less 'harsh' in their totalitarian measures.

 

Religious persecution is alive and well all over the globe, just as it has been for centuries.

 

Well Democrats love some China, we can see their anti Christian hostility on display as well. Gov is "gawd" And he hates competition. A jealous gawd, he is.

 

and everyone here had the lovely opportunity to watch first hand the neoatheists try to sell atheism as nonreligious, with the intent of promoting an atheist gubmmint with impunity to any garbage it produced, regardless how religious that garbage is.

 

I wish his struggle, what he's been subjected to, the sacrifices he's made, and the heroism he's shown weren't being cheapened by people dishonestly comparing what has happened to him to what is happening in the US.

 

China has a dictator, we voted our dictator wannabe out thankfully

 

Trump is the one with a secret Chinese bank account

 

I know a guy who worked as a missionary in China back in the 90's. What he basically did was hand write the Bible or parts thereof for distribution. He said they knew they weren't supposed to be doing it and the government knew they were doing it, but as long as you didn't draw attention to yourself they really didn't much care. Otherwise, it would have made the government look bad and they would rain sulfur down on you. They didn't hand these things out on street corners. They just passed among people as privately as a love letter and that was fine as far as keeping the wolves away.

 

It's so "secret" we know about it. An international real estate tycoon with offshore bank accounts, who'da thunk it?

 

Yes, we know about it now that it has been leaked. The 17.5 million deposit still hasn't been explained.

 

Wow!!!!!!!

Beginning in 1990 I began to pray and ask for wisdom especially as it relates to our being able to do something helpful for groups of people who are in danger.

I do have a basic idea to begin a gambit that could lead to Chinese Muslims, Chinese Falun Gong members and Chinese Christians and other religious minorities freed and living in the White Elephant Cities of China!

We are now living in an era where the persecution suffered by other could become the topic for documentaries, movies and TV series within ten, twenty or fifty years from the time that the events are fulfilled in a manner that may be producing somewhat more fear than perhaps is necessary?


Artistic Hollywood style "Armageddon" could bring world out of recession?!

 

I really don't know much about this phone company.... but I personally am worried about the Chinese being given the right to install 5 G all over the USA and Canada.


Is Chinese 5G technology dangerous?


On a scale of one to five how dangerous do you think Made in China 5 G is?

1. 
   One out of five... not too dangerous... not much more dangerous than any other source of 5G.
   2 vote(s)
   14.3%
2. 
   Two out of five.... somewhat dangerous.
   2 vote(s)
   14.3%
3. 
   Three out of five... a serious threat to our privacy and national security.
   2 vote(s)
   14.3%
4. 
   Four out of five... a significant threat to our privacy and national security.
   0 vote(s)
   0.0%
5. *
   Five out of Five.... Made in China 5G technology would give the Communist Party of China power!
   8 vote(s)
   57.1%

Change Your Vote

 

we know about now... sometimes secrets are discovered, such as this one

 

oh I agree, all non-American 5g hardware should be banned from our towers

 

I think this thread is begging for us to keep our eye on the ball here and not to be distracted by silly debates about 'neoatheism' or whether atheism is a religion. Plenty of exhausting threads on that topic. What we need here, is an effort to persuade the Chinese govt not to engage in religious persecution against any of the religious minorities over there. See if the new administration can persuade China to lighten up, let its people congregate in Christian churches, Muslim Mosques and Buddhist temples and pray, and celebrate their faiths. But before we can do that we have to gain leverage, and that means ditching these failed tariffs and boycotts over trade policy.