• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
  • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Shouters: Crackdown Continues, Devotee Sentenced in Beijing

05/29/2021Qi Junzao |

In Beijing, Jiangsu, and Guangxi local communities were forced to close. Several members remain in jail.

by Qi Junzao

Anti-Shouters propaganda in China.
Anti-Shouters propaganda in China.

This month (May 2021) the Beijing Municipal Court sentenced a man called Lin Xianzan to a jail term of three years under Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code for having “used a xie jiao,” i.e., having been active in a banned religious group. The court sentenced Lin as a member of the “Shouters.”

Churches in the tradition of Chinese ministers Watchman Nee (1903–1972) and Witness Lee (1905–1997) continue to be targeted by the CCP. Under the nickname “Shouters,” they were banned as xie jiao banned in 1983, well before an official list of the xie jiao was compiled in 1995.

In fact, “Shouters” is a generic and somewhat misleading label for a constellation of different groups. Some of these groups accept the teaching of Nee but not those of Lee. The name “Local Church,” used in the West to designate Lee’s group (but dating back to Nee’s days), is also ambiguous in China. Some distinguish between the “old Local Church” (Laodifangjiaohui, 老地方教会), who accepted Nee but rejected Lee, and the “new Local Church” (Difangjiaohui, 地方教会), i.e., Lee’s own organization.

According to American scholar J. Gordon Melton, “Interestingly, the Shouters remain banned as a xie jiao but not the Local Church. This means that the Nee groups that do not recognize Lee are not considered xie jiao, but as part of the unregistered Christian congregations that constitute the unofficial Christianity about which the government is so concerned. But the situation of the Lee groups is in turn unclear. Since we are dealing with a network of independent congregations very much different from one another, perhaps the listing as a xie jiao should be, or will one day be, interpreted as referring only to certain Lee groups and not to all of them.”

Recently, however, the CCP seems to be cracking down on all groups in the Nee-Lee tradition. Bitter Winter has learned that in Beijing, Wuxi, in Jiangsu Province, and Nanning, in the Guangxi region, members of congregations they refer to as “Local Churches” have been arrested and sentenced again. Their churches have been forced to close.

This is not the first time these communities are attacked. In Nanning, three men called Lin Zhe, Chen Xianyang, and Chen Weiyi are in jail from two years, although no trial date has been set for them. A man who goes under the name John Yang is also in jail in Wuxi.

Tagged With: Religious Persecution, Shouters

bw-profile
Qi Junzao

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Khalistan Movement Attacks Hindu Temple in Canada

    Khalistan Movement Attacks Hindu Temple in Canada

  • London Has Now the First Shrine for Persecuted Christians in Europe

    London Has Now the First Shrine for Persecuted Christians in Europe

  • Covenant Home Church Banned in Shanxi

    Covenant Home Church Banned in Shanxi

  • Yu Baiqing, Falun Gong Practitioner, Sentenced to 8 Years in Qingdao

    Yu Baiqing, Falun Gong Practitioner, Sentenced to 8 Years in Qingdao

Keep Reading

  • Sichuan Tibetan Intellectual Sentenced to Four and a Half Years in Jail
    Sichuan Tibetan Intellectual Sentenced to Four and a Half Years in Jail

    Tudan Lödup (Luo Zhu) defended the use of Tibetan language. He has been sentenced for “separatism.”

  • House Churches Attacked and Banned in Several Provinces
    House Churches Attacked and Banned in Several Provinces

    In Beijing, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Jilin, and Sichuan police raids targeted churches that refused to join the CCP-controlled Three-Self Church. Orders came from Xi Jinping himself.

  • A Uyghur Remembers the Urumqi Massacre
    A Uyghur Remembers the Urumqi Massacre

    The killing of Uyghur slave workers in Shaoguan, Guangdong, on May 26, 2009 was the cause of what happened in Urumqi on July 5.

  • 安倍暗殺:統一教会はヘイトスピーチと差別の犠牲者である
    安倍暗殺:統一教会はヘイトスピーチと差別の犠牲者である

    元総理が殺されたのち、統一教会の信者たちは殺害の脅迫を受け、職場や学校でいじめられている。

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back by Gulfiye Y
  • Zhanargul Zhumatai: “Help Me, I Just Want to Leave China” by Ruth Ingram
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 1. The Aesthetic Mind by Massimo Introvigne
  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents by Wang Zhipeng
  • Japan Religious Donations Law. 4. The Return of Brainwashing by Massimo Introvigne
  • Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated by Gladys Kwok
  • The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet by Marco Respinti
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 3. Art as Communication by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 4. Art and Illustration by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 5. Professionals vs. Amateurs by Massimo Introvigne

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

Instant Exclusive News
Instant Exclusive News

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

Follow us

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY