The authorities’ vendetta against the Chengdu house church and its members seems to have no end.
by Vivian Ren
On the afternoon of September 11, 2026, coworkers of Early Rain Covenant Church’s Grace Group led church members to a teahouse in Chengdu’s Wuhou District to read together. The Grace Group is composed mainly of elderly believers. Eleven people were present that day, most of them over sixty, with two or three already past seventy. They were reading a publicly available book, “Walking Through Suffering.” Shortly afterward, the police took all eleven away.
On September 12, authorities released nine. Elder Wu Wuqing and Brother Shen Xiaoqing were accused of “illegally organizing preaching,” each placed under ten days of administrative detention and fined 500 yuan and 300 yuan, respectively. On September 22, both completed their detention and returned home. For Wu Wuqing, this was already his second administrative detention of the year: after the June 14 Sunday gathering in Jiangyou, he had been held again. The day Shen Xiaoqing was detained happened to be his mother’s ninetieth birthday.
A book you can buy at any bookstore, a gathering mainly of elderly people reading together, can be interpreted as “illegal preaching.” The activity itself was entirely ordinary, yet the outcome depended on how the on-site law-enforcement personnel chose to define it. For house churches that do not meet in officially recognized religious venues, this uncertainty means that reading in a teahouse or singing hymns on Sunday may later become grounds for public-security penalties.
Although the two men have returned home, the impact has not ended with their release. According to the church, other coworkers have faced pressure, including being forced to move; some members who called the mayor’s hotline to report what happened that day were warned or summoned. There is no need to shut down the entire church or detain everyone. Detaining and fining only a few participants, then extending pressure to housing and subsequent gatherings, is enough to increase the personal cost of attending each religious activity, and the deterrent effect will continue to accumulate layer by layer.
For the Early Rain Covenant Church his was not an isolated incident. On January 6, 2026, authorities raided a gathering and took Elder Li Yingqiang, the person in charge, and several coworkers away. On June 14, about sixty law-enforcement personnel arrived at the Jiangyou Sunday gathering, seized equipment, confiscated microphones, and registered identities; more than thirty believers were taken away in groups for investigation, including a seventy-two-year-old sister. Those left waiting in the hall—several dozen people—were required to sign guarantee statements before being allowed to leave. According to eyewitnesses, two fathers who had brought their young children and carried no objects whatsoever were pressed to the ground by riot-gear-clad SWAT officers. On August 5, member Chen Yunfei was placed under administrative detention in Gansu, and on September 23, Chengdu police formally arrested him on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
In December 2018, Pastor Wang Yi, the church’s founder, and about one hundred members had been arrested; the following year, Pastor Wang was sentenced to nine years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business operations,” and he remains incarcerated to this day.
That day, the Grace Group sat down and read a book. Sunday worship consists of singing hymns, praying, and reading Scripture. Most participants are ordinary residents, many of them elderly. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that citizens have freedom of religious belief. Yet house churches that do not use state-approved venues and gather independently for worship have long faced pressure: authorities investigate meeting points, and they register attendees. Leaders are s administrative or criminal measures. Early Rain Covenant Church’s experience again shows that control over independent house churches has not ceased with time; instead, it has extended to out-of-town gathering sites and now reaches older people and children.
May the suffering believers return to their families soon. May expressions of faith find a more stable space within the framework of law. May the Lord’s light forever illuminate the path on which believers lift high the “cross” and walk forward steadfastly. We continue to pray for our suffering brothers and sisters.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
