Elderly House Church Christian Yang Zhijin Arrested on cult charges

(Suizhou, Hubei Province – May 6, 2024) On April 25, 2024, the Zengdu District Branch of the Suizhou Public Security Bureau arrested Yang Zhijin, a 75-year-old member of the All Ranges Church, on suspicion of “sabotaging the enforcement of law by organizing and utilizing superstitious sect or cult organizations”.

The arrest notice states:

With the approval of the People’s Procuratorate of Zengdu District, Suizhou City, our bureau executed the arrest of Yang Zhijin at 16:00 on April 25, 2024, on suspicion of “sabotaging the enforcement of law by organizing and utilizing superstitious sect or cult organizations”. He is currently detained in the Suizhou Detention Center.

The All Ranges Church, also known as the Born Again Movement or Word of Life Church, is a Protestant Christian denomination in China founded in 1968. The founder, Xu Yongze, currently resides in the United States and is known as Peter Xu in the West. The denomination is also called the “Weepers” because they believe that crying is evidence of a person turning to God. Even before China’s government released its first list of cults (non-traditional doctrines) in 1995, the All Ranges Church was listed as a cult and banned in 1988, and has been persecuted ever since. At that time, mainland China was in the period of the “Cultural Revolution.” It was a house church denomination based in Henan Province. Xu Yongze was the first leader in China’s house churches to start theological training. From the early 1980s, he trained a large number of preachers who went all over the country to preach, with an estimated several million members. The American evangelical magazine Christianity Today even claimed, “The Born Again Movement is one of the fastest-growing religious groups in China, with an estimated 20 million believers, almost twice as many as the Three-Self Church that was restored in 1979.”

This Christian denomination that arose in China follows the preaching model of John Wesley in 18th-century England and China’s famous revivalist Song Shangjie, emphasizing that Jesus died on the cross for people’s sins and leading people to repent and confess to God. During this process, some people cry and shed tears, so they are also called the Weepers. As the Holy Spirit worked, more and more people came to believe, making it the largest denomination in China’s house churches, which led to suppression by the Chinese government and some discussions within Christianity. Some well-known overseas church leaders, after careful investigation, have determined that the Born Again Movement is a Christian denomination. Pastor Zhao Tianen of the China Church Research Center often defends this denomination, and the elderly Pastor Zhao Zhonghui has also taught Bible courses at their theological training classes.

It is reported that since the beginning of this year, the All Ranges Church in Suizhou has begun to suffer persecution from the government, with a large number of preachers and Christians being arrested. Most of the believers are too poor to afford lawyers. Yang Zhijin, 75 years old this year, was arrested in early April. Twenty days later, the detention center had originally notified his family to proceed with bail out pending trial, but today an arrest notice was suddenly issued.

As an atheistic totalitarian government, using the charge of “cult” to accuse house church leaders and members is not only a common tactic used by the Chinese government to suppress house churches and violate religious freedom, but also a consistent strategy of the Chinese government to implement high-pressure politics internally.