Under threat of arrest, Christian activists in China battle boldly for the freedom to practice their beliefs unfettered by the government.
JINAN, China – At a highway rest stop just after dawn, Rev. Zhang Mingxuan answered his cell phone and resumed looking for trouble.
“Did you contact the lawyer I mentioned?” Zhang asked the caller, a rural church leader under pressure from his local government. “He will help you.”
The caller was another addition to Zhang’s unprecedented experiment: an alliance of Chinese church leaders, worshipers and public-interest lawyers who share the goal of winning greater rights and recognition for their faith.
With China in the throes of a religious awakening, Christian clerics and worshipers have emerged as an unexpected voice for reform and pluralism. From remote villages to elite universities, Christians form a diverse lobby that is rare in a nation split by class, opportunity and geography.
“Christianity has probably become China’s largest non-governmental organization,” said Li Fan, a leading reform advocate in Beijing who is not a Christian.
Their drive for reform has proved particularly persistent because many Christians consider themselves bound by an authority higher than the government, and their beliefs inspire them to demand greater rights of expression and organization.
“Only by uniting all [unofficial] churches can we preach to all 1.3 billion Chinese people,” said Zhang, a retired barber and grandfather.
Traveling by train and bus from church to church, he serves as a combination pastor-legal adviser. Such activism comes at no small risk. By his count, Zhang has been detained 14 times—most recently just last week.
As China’s Christian population has climbed to an estimated 70 million, a growing number of lawyers and scholars have converted to Christianity and turned their skills to the issue of religious freedom. They are teaming up with churches to challenge the government in court, suing for the rights they believe are guaranteed under China’s constitution.
They take inspiration from the American civil rights movement and the ideals symbolized by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And they hope that holding the country to account for its pledges of religious freedom will nudge China toward greater respect for its citizens’ other rights as well.
China’s Communist Party is wary of independent-minded movements. When the spiritual group Falun Gong agitated for greater recognition a decade ago, it was declared a cult. Its members have been routinely arrested ever since.
The Christian movement is unlikely to face the same fate. Christianity is permitted under China’s constitution, and the government has long supported a network of official Christian churches. But the future of activism is unclear for those who choose to worship outside the state system, in what the Chinese call “house churches.”
There is unmistakable new freedom to press for religious rights in court, but activists who push too far face arrest. The lines around what is legal are unclear because they hinge largely on how local bureaucrats interpret the nation’s laws on religion. Two churches of the same size and openness, for instance, might face very different fates, because one pastor has sought compromises with local authorities while another has rejected official intrusions.
The laws allow freedom of expression—and wide latitude to curb it.
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