The decision confirms that Article 300 continues to be applied to the movement, which was banned as a xie jiao in 1983.
by Pan Yuxi
On April 15, 2021, two members of the Christian network of the Shouters were sentenced to jail terms of three years by the Beijing Fangshan District People’s Court, according to a decision co-religionists have put at Bitter Winter’s disposal.
We reproduce the decision here, noting that court rulings of this kind are now rarely uploaded in China Judgements Online, China’s official database of court decisions and the largest legal data base in the world. This is a result of the “great purge” of China Judgements Online last June, when to celebrate in its own way the 100th anniversary of the CCP, the database decided to eliminate most cases likely to be used by critics abroad to prove that human rights and religious liberty are not respected in China.
The case was interesting because the prosecutor argued that the Shouters have a substantial presence in Beijing, and have divided the city in eight areas. This is important if one considers that it is one theological tenet of the Shouters that in each city there should be only one church.
“Shouters” is a confusing label, as Bitter Winter has explained. The nickname refers to noisy worship services, and is applied in China to communities in the tradition of famous Christian preachers Watchman Nee (1903–1972) and Witness Lee (1905–1997). However, these communities are not part of a single network. Some accept the teachings of Nee but not these of Lee, some accept both. Some regard themselves as in communion with Lee’s group as it exists in the United States, where it is know as the Local Church, some don’t. Even the attitude of different communities towards the CCP-controlled Three-Self Church differs. The name “Local Church,” while less ambiguous in the U.S., is used in China both by believers who accept the teachings of both Nee and Lee (sometimes called “the new Local Church”) and by others who accept Nee and reject Lee (“the old Local Church”).
The Shouters were the first group officially proscribed as a xie jiao in CCP times, in 1983. Recently, some communities in China have used as a defense that the ban concerns the “Shouters,” which they characterize as a rebellious group hostile to the CCP, but not the “Local Church,” presented as a group that has no quarrel with the CCP or the Three-Self Church.
The Beijing decision seems to confirm that this strategy is not totally effective, because prosecutors and judges lump together “Local Church” and “Shouters,” do not engage in subtle theological distinctions, and consider “Shouters” groups in general as prohibited as xie jiao, with the result that any participation in their activities is a crime punished under article 300.