The vague provision punishing “disturbing the social order in the name of religion” was enforced against Pastor Park Kwang-Zhe of New Life Christian Church.
by Liang Changpu


These days, the CCP does not need any specific reason to detain Christian house church pastors.
As the document we reproduce, sent by the church’s co-workers to several human rights media outlets, demonstrates, Pastor Park Kwang-Zhe of New Life Christian Church was detained in Shibu town, Xixiangtang district, Nanning, Guangxi province, on August 8, 2023.


The provision enforced was Article 27(2) of the Public Security Law, which punishes those “disturbing the social order… in the name of any religion or Qigong.” This is not to be confused with Article 27(1) of the same law, which punishes the activities of the religious groups banned as xie jiao (“heterodox teachings,” sometimes translated as “cults”).
House church members have long complained that “disturbing the social order” may mean just everything—which allows the police to detain their pastors and devotees for no reason whatsoever. Some police officers explained to them that simply being active in an “illegal” form of religion, including a Christian house church not part of the government-controlled Three-Self Church, already “disturbs the social order.”
Pastor Park should be administratively detained until August 23. This does not reassure the members of New Life Christian Church, however. There have been recent cases when house church pastors, at the end of the 15-day administrative detention time, have been asked to pay a heavy fine. If they do not pay, they are detained for another 15 days; and so on. This happened on August 10 to Pastor An Yankui and co-worker Zhang Chenghao, of Taiyuan’s City of God Reformed Church. They had already been arrested in 2022, then released and detained again.


And of course “further investigation” can always lead to a formal arrest and a trial. It appears that Xi Jinping’s instructions to crack down on house churches until they are either persuaded to join the Three-Self Church or banned as xie jiao are “religiously” followed in all provinces.