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World Christian Ministries
China - Pastor Gong Shengliang
In April, 2001, authorities came and arrested me and 16 other leaders, both men and women, at my headquarters church.
They accused me of operating a heretical organization that undermines their law on religious groups. They also made false charges of sexual immorality. They made some of the women leaders take off their clothes and they pressed burning cigarettes all over their bodies to get them to say I had violated them. Most of them suffered terribly trying to say the truth that I had not violated them. Some of them made false confessions, but then recanted after they were released. I forgive them for that.
Chinese authorities cracked down on other house churches this summer. On August 2, two touring American theology students were arrested along with 43 other pastors and believers from our churches in Hebei Province. Sixty-year-old Ms. Ren was repeatedly beaten by the director of the prison. He kicked her, punched her face, and beat her head against the wall with a prison chair. They beat a 17-year-old evangelist so badly he had to be hospitalized.
In Xinjian Province on August 7 police raided a house church in Hejing County and arrested 30 believers. They made the women take off their clothes and parade around naked. Those who refused were savagely beaten.
Pray for us and for the thousands of house church leaders in China who refuse to register their church because they believe that Jesus Christ, not the Communist Party, is the true head of the church.
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Based on those false confessions, authorities sentenced me to death. But in December, 2001, thanks to an international outcry, my death sentence was changed to life in prison. In prison I have been severely beaten, and two soldiers guard me round the clock. My family gets to visit me once a month, but they cannot visit me privately face to face. My wife is in a medical facility. Return