{"id":674,"date":"2019-04-26T11:58:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=674"},"modified":"2019-04-26T11:58:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T15:58:08","slug":"chinese-police-beat-christians-bury-bibles-destroy-church-ground-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/04\/chinese-police-beat-christians-bury-bibles-destroy-church-ground-minutes.html","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Police Beat Christians, Bury Bibles and Destroy Church to Ground in Minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-224\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2018\/07\/holy-670718_640-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"holy-670718_640\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>Henan, China\u2019s third largest province, is no stranger to violence from police.<\/p>\n<p>This month, a Protestant church in Henan fell victim to demolition and the authorities\u2019 religious persecution. It was reduced to ruins in just over ten minutes. The next day, the debries were completley cleaned up and there was no trace of the church left.<\/p>\n<p>Over 100 government officials and police officers, led by the secretary of Xianglushan town, arrived at the church and ordered to forcibly demolish it on the grounds that it \u201cviolated building laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The construction of the Three-Self church in Xianglushan town of Yiyang county, under the jurisdiction of Henan\u2019s Luoyang city, was funded by believers. The church covered an area of about 200 square meters and could accommodate over 100 people.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, another incident in Henan earlier this month saw Chinese police officers and SWAT members close down a newly built church, beat dozens of Christians guarding it, and buring Bibles before leaving.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs soon as they entered the church, they smashed the donation box and pocketed the money, which totaled thousands of [yuan \u2013 likely hundreds in U.S. dollars.] They also questioned us about where all of our church\u2019s money was kept,\u201d a church member told Bitter Winter, which monitors religious persecution in China.<\/p>\n<p>The congregation, True Jesus Church in Anping, had opened a new building in July 2018 that cost around $300,000 U.S. However the authorities believed it was built with foreign money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henan, China\u2019s third largest province, is no stranger to violence from police. This month, a Protestant church in Henan fell victim to demolition and the authorities\u2019 religious persecution. It was reduced to ruins in just over ten minutes. The next day, the debries were completley cleaned up and there was no trace of the church&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[189,7,137],"tags":[167,369,112,138],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-christian-news","category-christian-persecution","tag-china","tag-chinese-police","tag-christian","tag-christian-persecution"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chinese Police Beat Christians, Bury Bibles and Destroy Church to Ground in Minutes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chinese police have been ruthless against Christian in the city of Henan, destroying churches and beating those who defend it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/04\/chinese-police-beat-christians-bury-bibles-destroy-church-ground-minutes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chinese Police Beat Christians, Bury Bibles and Destroy Church to Ground in Minutes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chinese police have been ruthless against Christian in the city of Henan, destroying churches and beating those who defend it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/04\/chinese-police-beat-christians-bury-bibles-destroy-church-ground-minutes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta 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