Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: May 25, 2018
Bitter Winter has learned that the Wantan town government in Zhongmou County, Zhengzhou city had threatened to remove the cross of a Christian church in Lixianwu village under its jurisdiction. To protect the cross, the believers wrapped it in a black net.
A believer in his sixties who attended this church revealed that the town government visited the church many times and asked the believers to remove the cross. “The cross is the sign of the church, and it cannot bother the government in any possible way. There is no way we are going to remove the cross! Our church’s director asked us to wrap it in a black net so that it’s not so noticeable. If the government dispatches people to demolish it, we elderly believers will surround and protect the cross. We won’t let them do it,” said the believer.
This church was established around a dozen years ago, hosting meetings and services for Christians from Lixianwu village and several adjacent villages. The believers were only compelled to wrap the cross in a black net, for the sake of protecting it.
Bitter Winter reports on how religions are allowed, or not allowed, to operate in China and how some are severely persecuted after they are labeled as “xie jiao,” or heterodox teachings. We publish news difficult to find elsewhere, analyses, and debates.
Placed under the editorship of Massimo Introvigne, one of the most well-known scholars of religion internationally, “Bitter Winter” is a cooperative enterprise by scholars, human rights activists, and members of religious organizations persecuted in China (some of them have elected, for obvious reasons, to remain anonymous).