Chinese authorities arrested an evangelical pastor known for criticizing President Xi Jinping, and 1oo of his congregants, as part of their intensified crackdown on unregistered churches.
Police arrested Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, hailed by some as “the bravest pastor in china, in the city of Chengdu on Sunday, the day after Wang published a manifesto accusing the Communist Party of instituting “Caesar Worship” of Jinping and calling Chinese Christians to resist government regulations that contradict the Christian faith. Remaining church members said Wang’s manifesto and his open criticism of China’s religious regulation likely prompted his and 100 of their fellow congregants’ arrests.
Jinping’s religious regulations and urged worship of the state are “morally incompatible with the Christian faith and with all those who uphold freedom of the mind and thought,” Wang wrote in his manifesto, entitled Meditations on the Religious War, according to The Wall Street Journal.