for the first time a Christian house church won a legal challenge against the state.
It was unclear whether Kobia’s ecumenical delegation would be able to go beyond the government backed program and churches and visit the house church or other reportedly persecuted Christians.
Apparently realizing the sensitivities, Kobia said that "until we see how people live in a rural situation, we really can’t get to know what a country is all about." He reportedly spoke to a group of over a thousand parishioners gathered at the Qian Deng Church, built on land provided by the local government in rural Kunshan, in Jiangsu province.
His visit came as BosNewsLife learned that in the neighboring coastal Shandong province for the first time in recorded history, a Christian house church won a legal challenge against the Communist authorities.
LENIENT DECISION
It was unclear if the apparent lenient decision was timed to go inside with Kobia’s visit. "A penalty against the house church was revoked," said advocacy group China Aid Association (CAA) in a statement to BosNewsLife.
"It is the first successful Christian case due to a legal challenge by CAA and an international media campaign," the group added.
Christians Tian Yinghua, Wang Qiu, and Jiang Rong in Wendeng City of Shandong Province, filed a legal challenge against their 10-day detention in June.
The local Public Security Bureau reportedly arrested the three believers during a regular Sunday worship service on charges of "violating the religious management regulation, holding an illegal meeting, and illegal evangelism."
LAW SUIT
The three Christians disagreed and filed a law suit. They eventually reached an out-of-court settlement and as a result the Wendeng PSB "revoked the administrative penalty decision" and the three Christians withdrew their lawsuit.
However," this is a milestone in the history of the Chinese house church," said Rev. Bob Fu, a former Chinese house church leader and current CAA president, in a statement to BosNewsLife. "For the first time Chinese house church Christians have been successful in getting the government to admit that they should not violate the religious freedom in the name of the law. We praise God who led us on this path several years ago…" he said.
Yet, that does not mean Chinese Christians do not face challenges, his organization stressed. CAA said it had learned that in recent weeks another Christian was arrested in Xinjiang, which it claimed was "the third such religious persecution event" in the Chinese province in the past 2 months.
MISSIONARY DETAINED
It said "Christian Sister Tian Maishi," a 53-year-old missionary worker and a retired English teacher from Kashi Educational Institute was detained last month. "A second generation Christian in her family, Sister Tian moved to Uramqi, the capital of the area, and engaged in missionary work after retirement."
She was taken to a detention center October 18 on charges of "illegal evangelism and engaging in superstitious fraudulent activities," CAA investigators said.
Her husband discovered her only three weeks after her detention as "not one legal procedure was followed nor were any friends or relatives informed of her arrest," and whereabouts, the group explained.
"What the police did in this event tramples the very basic human rights stipulated in Chinese constitution, the abduction is ethically unacceptable." said Fu. "This is not only an event of religious persecution, but also a violation of very basic human rights. The Police are to be held legally and morally responsible for what they have done."
NO PROTEST
Kobia son far did not publicly mention reports of persecution, focusing instead on what the WCC calls "he reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement and its role in the 21st century in the midst of the changing landscape of Christianity."
He was to visit Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing and Xi’an to discuss these issues wit the leadership of the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
Meetings with state officials, staff of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, and social scientists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences are also scheduled during his weeklong trip which will end November 22, the WCC told BosNewsLife.
The WCC member church in China, the China Christian Council, is a post-denominational church linked with the National Committee of the government backed Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. Kobia’s predecessor, Rev. Konrad Raiser visited China in 1994. The ecumenical organization claims to have a global membership of over 340 churches and denominations with a total of about 550 million Christian members in more than 120 countries. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from China).
