Chinese police raided a house church in a coastal province in China after six members were baptized during Easter.
A day before Easter on April 16, six members of the Shenzhen Trinity Gospel Harvest Church together with its Pastor Mao Zhibin traveled two hours to a nearby coastal city for the members' baptism. The six members had undergone several months of studying the catechumens and new life courses and participated in a 10-day relay fasting and intercession of the 19 other members of the Trinity Gospel Harvest Church. The baptism would officially welcome them to the Christian community.
But trouble ensued when a person known to the church uploaded video and images of the joyful baptism to WeChat, China's official social media network, ChinaAid reported. Pastor Mao then received a phone call from a person who asked him to confirm his identity. Shortly after the call, a police car arrived at their location. Chinese authorities asked the group to provide their identification, COVID status, and allow them to scan their faces.
Pastor Mao was surprised to learn that the Chinese police already had the video of the baptism on their mobile phones. Several other photos of the Christian pastor appeared after the police officers scanned his face.
"The technology used by the government surpasses traditional authoritarian reign and should be called super authoritarianism!" Mao, who majored in information management engineering in college, exclaimed, as reported by International Christian Concern. "However, I also believe that God is and must still reign overall. We just need to trust in Him, walk humbly with God."
This is not the first time Pastor Mao's congregation was questioned by the Chinese authorities. According to CBN News, Pastor Mao planned a trip to a hotel in Huizhou Beach to celebrate Shenzhen Trinity Gospel Harvest Church's fifth anniversary in September 2021. They also planned to baptize new Christian believers during the outing. But on the day of the anniversary celebration, Chinese authorities reportedly swarmed the beach to prevent the baptisms from taking place.
In July 2021, officials with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) raided a virtual church service with Pastor Mao and Elder Chu Yanqing who served at the Shenzhen Trinity Gospel Harvest Church. Chinese police surrounded the church building and ordered the pastors to stop preaching. The moment Pastor Mao expressed his support for Early Rain Covenant Church Pastor Wang Yi's "A Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith," his own church had been targeted by the CCP.
In August 2021, Radio Free Asia reported that Chinese police in the northern province of Shanxi in China detained nine members of the Golden Lamp Protestant church in the province's capital of Taiyuan. The reason for their capture was because the church refused to join the CCP-backed Three-Self Association of churches.
On August 7, 2021, Chinese police in Shanxi's Linfen county arrested nine church leaders and members, including Pastor Wang Xiaoguang and preacher Yang Rongli, who were not strangers to detention as they have been previously jailed for other religious activities.
A Golden Lamb church member remarked, "They detained Wang Xiaoguang and eight other people. It was probably because they were carrying out a house church baptism."
