The exact number of those held has not been made public, and no specific charges have been announced. Bob Fu, founder and president of the religious freedom group ChinaAid, expressed "urgent concern" and called on Chinese officials to disclose the names of the detainees, where they are being held, and the legal grounds for their arrest. He also asked that the men and women be allowed independent legal counsel.
Jiaquan Church has met for more than twenty years and counts roughly 1,000 members. It has planted churches in several regions of China. Its leaders also ran Noah Music School in Beijing for over a decade, training worship leaders and musicians, and the congregation has drawn many young city dwellers with its music and fellowship.
The arrests fit a pattern. Last October, coordinated raids struck Beijing Zion Church, and 18 people were formally arrested. As of September 10, eight of its pastors remained in custody in the city of Beihai on charges of "fraud" and "illegal business operations." In Chengdu, police raided a June 14 hotel meeting of Early Rain Covenant Church and detained more than 30 members, then on September 10 took 11 Christians, most of them over 60, from a teahouse Bible reading. That church's founding pastor, Wang Yi, was sentenced to nine years in prison after mass arrests in December 2018.
Notice what is being charged. Not violence. Not theft. These are people who sing, pray, and open the Scriptures without a government stamp on the door.
The chains nobody sees on the evening news
A man can read these names and places and feel that China is a long way off. The Bible will not let him feel that way. The letter to the Hebrews was written to believers who had seen their own friends thrown into prison, and it says this:
"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." (Hebrews 13:3)
Read it slowly. As bound with them. Not as a spectator. The pastor sitting in a cell in Beijing is not a stranger to you if you belong to Christ. He is a member of the same body. When his hand is bound, yours is, too.
Why does a government fear a church? Because a church says there is a King above the state. The apostles were ordered to stop preaching Jesus, and Peter gave an answer that has echoed through every century of persecution: "We ought to obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29) That is not rebellion for its own sake. It is the plain conviction that Caesar is a servant and Christ is Lord. Believers in China pay taxes, raise children, and honor their neighbors. What they will not do is hand the pulpit to the party.
Here at home, we have a President who has said he will speak for people of faith, and it is right that Americans expect the prisoners' names to be on the table when leaders sit down together. Ten senators have already urged as much. A nation that is free to worship ought never grow quiet about those who are not.
But the deeper matter is not diplomacy. It is what these believers already know and what the jailers cannot take from them. A house church can be raided. A music school can be closed. A pastor can be marched out before dawn. Yet the gospel has never depended on a permit. It spread through the Roman Empire under the sword and went on spreading. It has outlasted every regime that tried to silence it, and it will outlast this one.
So ask yourself plainly, my friend: if the doors of your church were sealed tomorrow, would your faith still stand? Would you know the Word well enough to keep it in the dark? The Christians of Beijing are being tested on exactly that question today. Let their courage search your own heart, and let their chains move you to remember them, by name when you can, and in earnest when you cannot.