Chinese Police Remove Church's Cross Amid Apparent Crackdown On Religion

In Beijing, police took down a church cross early this week in China’s Jerusalem, one of the cities in Beijing. It was among the crackdown of many houses of worship in the coastal region where lots of people embrace Christianity. Evangelist Qu Linuo said he and other Christians quickly went to the Longgang Huai En Church at Wenzhou to protect the building. They later let the police do their work, whereby they used a crane to take out the 10-foot-tall Red Cross from its steeple.

One member of the Church said that the police were claiming that the cross was violating the limit of the height of building. They took it back to the worshipers, who prayed and wept around it. The authorities at Wenzhou have brought down crosses at over 130 protestant churches. The government has also demolished sanctuaries in a few cases. Authorities said they were implementing building codes, even though they did not specify which ones. They denied they were targeting churches. They also pointed to the demolition of hundreds of other buildings both non-religious and religious, which have broken the regulations. Church leaders in province south of Shanghai, where the incidents are taking place, presume the governments’ agenda is to suppress Christianity, as it is the only fast growing religion.

In 2010, officials said that the number of believers in state-sanctioned churches was 23 million. However, there were also those that met secretly. Reports from Pew Research Center say that in 2011, 58 million Protestants in China practiced the religion, together with 9 million Catholics the previous year. Experts say that the total could be over 100 million. Purdue University sociologist and leading expert on religious issues in China, Yang Fenggang, said he had alarmed authorities. He said it was quit difficult to understand what kind of building codes the crosses were violating. He said that the Zhejiang authorities intended to humiliate believers in the Christian religion by bringing down the crosses. Cao Nanlai said that Shanghai province might have come under scrutiny because of Wenzhou, where many people are Protestant Christians. He said the cross removals and demolitions reflect the occasional political differences by authorities mainly to show who's in control. Reports also say that a few days ago, worshipers at another church in the city managed to protect their cross from police. Images posted online showed several people with injuries on their heads.

Early last week, other images posted on the China social media website, Weibo, showed worshipers at the Longgang Huai En Church holding burners are holding banners and praying while on its steps. The writings on the banners said, "Anti-graft, anti-corruption, protect religion."