2025 Report

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简体中文

English

简体中文

Chapter 3: Legal and Administrative Tools: Analysis of Persecution Mechanisms ​

If Chapter 1 outlined the contours of the storm for the entire year, and Chapter 2 depicted the specific shapes this storm took across various regions and churches, then Chapter 3 aims to present the entire institutional structure of persecution suffered by house churches: those seemingly neutral legal provisions and administrative regulations, how they are rearranged and combined to become a "toolbox" targeting house churches. The tightening of economy and resources, the narrowing of gathering order and information space, the operation of lengthy and opaque procedures, and the distinct enforcement styles across regions together constitute the institutional background of persecution.

This chapter, from the two levels of law and administration, sorts out several categories of legal and administrative tools commonly used by authorities against house churches between December 2024 and November 2025: handling offerings and publications with economic charges like "fraud" and "illegal business operations," constraining offline gatherings and outreach with order-related charges like "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," blocking online pastoral care and cross-city networks with new charges like "illegal use of information networks," while intensifying economic pressure through means like banning venues and freezing accounts. For readers unfamiliar with the law, this chapter can be viewed as a decoding of the "legal labels" involved in the previous cases: behind every charge corresponds a specific scene of church life and a compressed survival space.

3.1 Economic and Resource Control (I): "Fraud" and the Characterization of Offering Funds ​

In the North China and Central China sections of Chapter 2, we have already seen the concentrated crackdown on churches like Golden Lampstand, Covenant Home, and Ganquan due to offerings and financial management. This section starts with the legal constitutive elements of "fraud" to explain how authorities, by redefining offerings and church finances, transform the act of offering—which should be voluntary based on faith—into an entry point for criminal prosecution, thereby exerting long-term and profound pressure on house churches at the economic and resource level.

According to Article 266 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, the crime of fraud refers to the act of swindling public or private property of a relatively large amount for the purpose of illegal possession, by using methods of fabricating facts or concealing the truth.[1] In other words, there must be subjective intent to deceive, objective fraudulent behavior, and elements such as the victim delivering property due to being deceived. However, in house church cases, the normal religious act of believers' offerings has been redefined by judicial organs, sparking huge controversy. Offerings are usually property voluntarily donated by believers to the church out of faith, and there is no "cheating" circumstance in the traditional sense. But in recent years, authorities have frequently characterized churches accepting offerings as "fraud" or illegal fundraising, criminalizing religious donation behavior.[2][3] As legal scholars have pointed out, this characterization essentially criminalizes the Christian tradition of "tithes," attempting to cut off the church's economic lifeline.

Typical Case: Golden Lampstand Church ​

The Golden Lampstand (also known as "Golden Lampstand") House Church case in Linfen, Shanxi, is a typical example of the controversy caused by such characterization. The church has long been regarded as an "illegal organization" for refusing to register and join the official "Three-Self" system. In 2021, multiple leaders were arrested and prosecuted for "suspected fraud." In the first-instance verdict in 2025, founder Preacher Yang Rongli was sentenced to 15 years, Pastor Wang Xiaoguang to 9 years and 7 months, and multiple other coworkers were also sentenced.[4][2:1] The court did not clearly identify specific victims; the main basis for the verdict was determining that offerings between believers were "illegal fundraising" or "fraud."[4:1] "Even if these offerers claimed they were not deceived, the court still insisted that 'they were indeed deceived'."[2:2] This practice has been widely criticized by the legal community as lacking legal basis and carrying obvious ideological bias.[2:3] Scholars pointed out: "The case amounts to using economic charges to punish normal religious activities," which is an extremely shocking and dangerous precedent.[5] In addition, during the case handling, there were incidents of police pressuring young believers with threats like "if you believe in religion, you cannot take the college entrance exam,"[6] further highlighting the political suppression color of such cases. The Golden Lampstand Church case shows that authorities can portray pastors as "fraud ringleaders" based solely on the amount of offerings and the scale of the church, without the need for victims to report the crime.[4:2][5:1]

Recent Cases: Ganquan Church and Others ​

In November 2023, Ganquan House Church in Hefei, Anhui, was suddenly raided by police in the early morning. Pastor Zhou Songlin, Elder Ding Zhongfu, and 16 others were criminally detained on suspicion of "fraud."[7] Most coworkers were released on bail successively, but the two main persons in charge have been detained to this day (as of mid-2025).[7:1] The indictment accused the church of suspected fraud in collecting offering funds. The prosecution initially faced a dilemma of insufficient evidence: at the first pre-trial meeting in July 2024, defense lawyers questioned many issues in the indictment, leaving the prosecutor speechless at one point and forcing the suspension of the meeting.[7:2] The case was postponed to May 2025 for trial. Families and supporters were deeply indignant at this practice of criminalizing voluntary offerings and issued a public statement pointing out: "Treating property voluntarily offered by house church believers according to biblical teachings as the crime of fraud for punishment is an infringement on believers' freedom of belief, persecution of pastors and elders, and blasphemy against God."[8] The statement emphasized that if this characterization holds, all believers who persist in offering to the church are treated as criminals, which is absurd and unacceptable.[8:1] The trial of the Ganquan case also exposed a large number of procedural issues (detailed in Section 3.5 later), including pressuring witnesses: police visited church believers multiple times to question and threaten them, attempting to force them to testify against the two pastors and sow discord within the church.[8:2] Family members revealed that under pressure, some church coworkers publicly cut ties with the pastors, and some even opposed families hiring rights lawyers, creating internal strife.[8:3] These unconventional means all point to the same purpose: to prove that offering is an act of being deceived. But in fact, Ganquan Church believers generally believe that offering is a voluntary act of faith and do not feel deceived. This sharp conflict between official and believer perceptions is the core controversy of the fraud characterization in religious cases.

Application in Other Churches ​

Fraud charges have been replicated in multiple house church cases in recent years. For example, Elders Hao Ming and Wu Jiannan of Early Rain Qingcaodi Church in Deyang, Sichuan, were accused of "concealing the use of funds" and defrauding offerings because the church provided a living subsidy to the wife of a full-time elder, and were detained for more than two years.[9] When the case was pronounced in 2024, the court determined that the above subsidy constituted accomplished fraud and sentenced Elder Hao Ming to 3 years in prison with a 5-year reprieve.[10] The defense opinion pointed out: The church's collective decision to give appropriate financial support to the families of full-time coworkers belongs to an open and transparent internal arrangement, and there is no situation of concealing the truth from members.[10:1] However, the court still found fraud established on the grounds of "violating promises to members."[10:2] In another case, the Xi'an Abundance Church case in Shaanxi, Pastor Lian Changnian and 3 others have been detained since August 2022 to date, and the "fraud" involved also stemmed from church offerings. There was even an absurd phenomenon: a female believer named Qin, allegedly a "victim," insisted on appearing in court to testify that she had not been deceived or suffered loss, but was subjected to retaliatory administrative detention by authorities and fired by her employer to prevent her from testifying.[5:2] The above cases reflect that in the absence of victim cooperation, authorities first incriminate and then collect evidence, manufacturing evidence of "being deceived" through coercive means. This case-handling logic not only deviates from the essential element of "victim disposing of property based on wrong understanding" in the crime of fraud in criminal law but also infringes on believers' freedom of religious offering. As a family member in another religious case in Linfen said: "Officials actually identified the universally recognized Christian tradition of offering as fraud." Some believers were pushed to the brink of suicide for refusing to give false testimony to frame pastors, showing the extreme nature of law enforcement means.

Overall, the application of "fraud" in house church cases breaks the boundaries of legal constitutive elements: without scams and victims in the traditional sense, the crime of "fraud" is forcibly determined. This trend has triggered strong questioning from the legal and religious communities, who believe that its essence is to use the name of economic crime to carry out criminal crackdowns on house churches, reflecting the trend of legalization of religious persecution.[5:3][8:4] From a pastoral perspective, this forces churches to be more cautious in financial transparency, collective decision-making, and teaching on offerings, while also reminding believers: offerings are first to God, not to men. In an environment of intensified persecution, the church needs to try its best to avoid misunderstandings institutionally on the one hand, and on the other hand, be prepared to bear the misunderstandings and costs arising from offerings, bearing burdens together through mutual support and prayer.

3.2 Order Control: "Picking Quarrels and Provoking Trouble" and Other Order-Related Allegations ​

Corresponding to the economic crimes targeting offerings and finances in the previous section, this section turns to the main axis of "order control," focusing on how authorities use highly elastic order-related allegations such as "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" to characterize originally normal gatherings, outreach, or public expressions as "disturbing social order." Readers can recall specific cases in Xi'an, Yunnan, and other places in Chapter 2 while paying attention to the huge tension between these allegations in legal texts and actual application.

The "crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble" belongs to the category of crimes disturbing public order stipulated in Article 293 of the Criminal Law. It was originally intended to punish acts of wantonly provoking trouble and disrupting social order, including arbitrarily beating others, forcibly taking or demanding, or arbitrarily damaging or destroying public or private property, and creating a disturbance in public places. Since 2013, judicial interpretations have expanded the application of this crime in cyberspace, including acts of maliciously spreading false information causing serious chaos in public order. Its threshold for incrimination lies in the behavior being "flagrant" or having "serious consequences," and the punishment standard is relatively elastic. Because of the large elastic space, "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" is often called a "pocket crime" and frequently appears in political and religious sensitive cases. In recent years, authorities have begun to use this charge to crack down on the speech and activities of religious figures, especially against Christians who publish religious-related remarks, call for religious freedom, or pay attention to social welfare on the internet. Since religious activities themselves involve collective gatherings and expressions of faith, how such behaviors are identified as "disturbing public order" has a very blurred legal boundary.

Cyber Speech Case: Preacher Chang Hao ​

The case of Preacher Chang Hao of a house church in Zhenxiong County, Zhaotong, Yunnan, is typical of the use of the "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" charge for religious speech. Chang Hao attracted the attention of authorities for his long-term concern for social injustice and persecuted churches, and his active participation in online prayer meetings.[11] On April 14, 2023, he was criminally detained by local public security on suspicion of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Police confiscated Bibles, spiritual books, and masks printed with gospel words from his home.[12] The prosecution accused Chang Hao of "repeatedly publishing and forwarding false information and improper remarks on the internet, causing serious chaos in public order and creating a bad social impact."[12:1] This accusation clearly characterized his online speech as an act of disturbing public order. In May 2024, the court sentenced Chang Hao to 1 year and 1 month in prison on this ground.[12:2] (Exactly equivalent to the detention period; he was released in court after the verdict). Chang Hao himself and his lawyer never accepted the charge, emphasizing that his online remarks were expressions based on faith and conscience, and there was no fabrication of rumors or incitement of riots. However, authorities cited clauses on cyber picking quarrels in judicial interpretations to convict him on the grounds of "publishing false information causing bad influence."[12:3] The Chang Hao case reflects: even just forwarding religious-related news or posting calls for prayer for the church may be interpreted as 'disturbing order.' This extension obviously exceeds the legislative intent of the crime to crackdown on public security hooliganism, tantamount to treating religious speech as dangerous information.

Controversy in Application to Gathering Activities ​

In addition to online speech, some offline religious gatherings have also been punished as "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." For example, when Beijing Zion Church was banned in 2018, some believers were administratively detained by police on grounds of disturbing public order for insisting on outdoor worship or gathering for meals and Bible study; individual rights-defending Christians later even faced criminal charges of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." Such situations often occur in religious activities in public spaces: such as street evangelism, square prayers, etc. Authorities may consider these actions to have affected others or "caused bad influence," thus using criminal law for regulation. But the legal community questions: as long as normal religious gatherings do not involve violent conflicts, even if they have not obtained official permission, their impact on public order is limited and hardly reaches the level of criminal disturbance. In contrast, the Public Security Administration Punishments Law already has provisions to deal with unapproved gatherings (usually fines or short-term detention). Resorting to criminal charges at every turn makes the boundary of law enforcement open to question.

Boundary Issues and Risk of Abuse ​

Applying "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" in religious cases highlights the problems brought about by the overly broad extension of this crime: 1) Unclear boundaries of speech. What is "false information" or "improper remarks"? In many cases, they are just religious views or criticisms of social events, without fabricating facts. If these can count as "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," it is essentially restricting the freedom of religious belief and expression endowed by the Constitution. Taking the Chang Hao case as an example, the information he released was mostly related to religious faith or public welfare, not rumor-mongering to confuse the public, yet it was determined to "cause serious chaos."[12:4] This interpretation is too elastic, making almost any speech that does not conform to the official narrative potentially incriminating. 2) The determination of order disturbance is highly subjective. Whether religious gatherings are viewed as an order problem often depends on the attitude of law enforcement officers. In some areas, house church services proceed peacefully, and local governments do not see them as trouble; but in other areas, gatherings of the same scale are treated as "factors of instability." In the absence of objective standards, "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" easily becomes a tool for selective law enforcement. As some comments point out, the abuse of this crime in the religious field reminds people of the past "crime of active counter-revolution," where any voice disliked by authorities could be applied, with penalties ranging from a few years in prison. Although "progress" compared to "killing without pardon" during the Cultural Revolution, the regression in the rule of law in essence is worrying.[13] In short, religious activity itself is not a legally prohibited matter. Forcing its words and deeds into the category of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" actually expands the scope of criminal law strikes and conflicts with the legal spirit of protecting citizens' religious belief and expression rights. Regarding this boundary issue, the legal community calls for strict restrictions on the scope of application of this crime to avoid suppressing normal religious expression through vague accusations. From a pastoral perspective, this reminds churches to be both brave and wise when speaking out in public spaces and on the internet: on the one hand, not to be completely silenced by fear, and on the other hand, to try to maintain truth, gentleness, and moderation in the way of expression, so that human weakness does not become a handle for attacking the gospel.

3.3 Economic and Resource Control (II): "Illegal Business Operations" and Religious Publication Circulation ​

Continuing the discussion on offerings and church finances in the previous section, this section focuses on the production and circulation of publications, audio-visual products, and religious books, explaining how authorities use the charge of "illegal business operations" and related administrative penalties to include the dissemination of Bibles, spiritual books, and gospel materials in the scope of economic and resource control.

The crime of illegal business operations (Article 225 of the Criminal Law) mainly targets acts such as operating franchised or monopoly items without permission, buying and selling import and export licenses, and disrupting market order. An important context related to religion is: China implements strict control over religious publications such as Bibles, allowing only official channels to publish and distribute them. Printing and selling religious books and audio-visual products without authorization is often identified as illegal publishing and business activities. Once profit-making or a large quantity is involved, authorities may pursue criminal responsibility for "illegal business operations."[14] In recent years, many house churches have printed internal teaching materials or obtained Bibles through private channels for the devotional needs of believers. These behaviors have begun to receive close attention and crackdowns from law enforcement departments.

Case of Printing Internal Books: Elder Qin Defu of Early Rain Covenant Church, Chengdu ​

In the "12.9" case of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, which shocked the country in 2018, in addition to Pastor Wang Yi being accused of subverting state power, another important accusation was the illegal operation of church books. Elder Qin Defu of Early Rain Covenant Church was accused of being responsible for printing internal church books, and the quantity of more than 20,000 copies was determined to be "illegal business operations with a huge amount."[15] In fact, these books were mostly Bible lecture notes, pamphlets, etc., for believers' own use.[15:1] During the trial, the defender emphasized that this move was not for commercial profit but for the internal education needs of the church. However, the court still sentenced Elder Qin to 4 years in prison on the grounds of "printing religious publications without permission and disrupting market order."[15:2][16] The official narrative called this case an "illegal business operation of publications case," but the church's position is that this is behavior satisfying faith needs being exaggerated. After the Qin Defu case, many churches began to realize that even printing internal readings might violate criminal law, exacerbating panic.

Religious Electronic Products Case: Shenzhen Bible Player Case ​

This case is representative of criminal prosecution for the sale of religious articles. Several Christians from the "Tree of Life" company in Shenzhen were arrested in July 2020 for selling electronic Bible players and subsequently prosecuted for illegal business operations.[17] The so-called Bible player is a small device pre-installed with Bible readings and sermon recordings, mainly serving illiterate or elderly believers.[14:1] The company obtained a legal business license, but the Bible content belongs to special controlled items. In 2021, the court announced the verdict: company head Fu Xuanjuan was sentenced to 6 years in prison and fined 200,000 yuan, and several other employees were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years to one year and three months, some with probation.[17:1] The verdict also confiscated a large number of players, computers, and other equipment.[18] The handling organ determined that these players, because they contained Bibles and sermon audio, were equivalent to the sale of illegal publications, and the amount involved was large and covered a wide area, posing a shock to the official Bible publishing and distribution system.[14:2] Defense lawyers argued strongly, proposing that the player itself is not a publication and should not be valued together with the memory card content, and emphasized that selling Bible players did not disrupt normal market order nor did it have social harm.[18:1] During the trial, the prosecution once lowered the sentencing recommendation for some defendants (e.g., for receptionist Han Li from a recommended 1 year 6 months to 1 year).[17:2] The court finally adopted the view of "calculating based on the number of memory cards" and slightly reduced the sentence.[17:3] Nevertheless, this case still caused a chilling effect—even Bible electronic products became contraband, and many booksellers and teaching aid merchants stopped related businesses upon hearing the news. Religious figures criticized authorities for monopolizing Bible distribution, saying "selling players is not a heinous crime," yet it sent multiple Christians to prison.[14:3][18:2] This case shows that "illegal business operations" has become a powerful tool for authorities to block the flow of religious information and cut off channels for believers to obtain spiritual resources.

Church Book Circulation Case: Shunde Shengjia Church ​

The Shengjia Church case in Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong, in 2023, which identified internal devotional materials as illegal business operations, is quite typical.

Since 2019, to help believers with daily devotionals, the board of elders and deacons of Shengjia Church decided to internally print the Daily Bible Reading Notes compiled by the Hong Kong Scripture Union and the Member Manual compiled by the church itself.[19] These books and periodicals were not for external sale and were clearly not for profit, intended only for the use of believers in this church.[19:1] However, local religious, public security, and other departments still regarded this as illegal publishing behavior. On May 24, 2023, Shunde Public Security, together with ethnic and religious, education, market supervision, and other departments, raided the church, seized books and periodicals, and took away multiple persons in charge.[19:2] In August, the Civil Affairs Bureau officially issued a document banning the church, characterizing it as an "illegal social organization."[19:3] In December of the same year, the prosecution charged Elder Zhu Longfei, Preacher Deng Yanxiang, and five other coworkers with "illegal business operations" and requested a heavy sentence of more than five years.[19:4] The first-instance verdict in January 2025 was relatively moderate: Deng Yanxiang was sentenced to 2 years in prison, and the remaining 4 people including Zhu Longfei were sentenced to 1 year 2 months to 1 year 5 months (many were released in court as their detention period had expired).[19:5] Although the sentencing was not as severe as initially requested, it is significant that the court still determined that the devotional readings printed internally by the church were illegal. This verdict set a dangerous precedent: even if the church prints materials to consolidate believers' faith and prevent heresy internally, it may violate criminal law.[19:6] The Shengjia Church case shows that law enforcement standards vary across regions (detailed in Section 3.6 below), but the overall direction is tightening—supervision of religious publications is becoming increasingly zero-tolerance.

In addition to criminal penalties, many regions adopt direct destruction or high fines for seized religious books and periodicals. For example, Yang Hui, a Christian lawyer in Xiamen, Fujian, was investigated by the local cultural department in 2021 for buying and transferring second-hand Christian books online and was fined a huge sum of more than 280,000 yuan.[5:4] This administrative penalty was later seen as retaliation for his representation of sensitive religious cases (such as the Early Rain case), but it also reflects the great intensity of official investigations into the circulation of religious publications. In summary, in cases related to house churches, the crime of "illegal business operations" has become a legal weapon against the spread of religious books and periodicals: whether traditional publications like Bibles and hymnals, or emerging media products like devotional manuals and sermon audio, once they spread outside official permission channels, they may be charged with illegal business operations. Its legal boundary is constantly expanded in practice, even covering materials printed by the church for internal use. In this regard, many legal professionals point out: to judge whether it "disrupts market order," one should look at whether the behavior is for profit and impacts the normal market; while most publishing and dissemination behaviors of house churches are for self-use or at cost price, which cannot be called business, let alone causing actual harm to national publishing and distribution.[18:3] Regrettably, under the current high-pressure policy, this defense view is often difficult for judicial organs to adopt. From a pastoral perspective, this reminds churches to respect current regulations and avoid unnecessary risks in publishing and dissemination, while continuing to prepare suitable food for believers who are spiritually hungry: either purchasing through legal channels or passing on to each other in a more scattered and cautious manner, acting uprightly under a bad system while not giving up the mission of "feeding the flock with truth."

3.4 Information Control: "Illegal Use of Information Networks" and Online Pastoral Care ​

In the paragraphs on Beijing and urban churches in various places in Chapter 2, we saw that house churches have long widely relied on the internet for sermons, discipleship, and cross-city fellowship. This section turns to the main axis of "information control," analyzing how "illegal use of information networks" is used to characterize online pastoral care, online offerings, and cross-city church networks as criminal offenses, especially with the latest trends represented by the Beijing Zion Church case.

The Criminal Law Amendment (IX) in 2015 added Article 287-1 "Crime of Illegal Use of Information Networks," mainly to crack down on acts of using the internet to commit illegal and criminal activities. According to legal provisions, if a perpetrator uses an information network to engage in one of the following circumstances and the circumstances are serious, it constitutes this crime:[20] (1) Setting up websites or communication groups used for implementing fraud, teaching criminal methods, selling contraband, and other illegal and criminal activities; (2) Publishing information regarding manufacturing and selling contraband and other illegal and criminal activities; (3) Publishing information for the implementation of fraud and other illegal and criminal activities.[20:1] Its legislative intent lies in punishing typical cybercrimes such as telecom fraud websites, drug and gun trafficking information release, and online teaching of criminal methods. However, as religious activities become increasingly networked, authorities have begun to attempt to use this charge to constrain and crack down on unapproved online religious dissemination. In short, treating religious information as illegal information or treating online church fellowships as network groups suspected of crime, thereby intervening with criminal means.

Beijing Zion Church Case: First Large-Scale Application ​

In October 2025, a shocking event occurred in the Chinese house church circle: about 30 pastors, preachers, and coworkers of Beijing Zion Church were arrested by police in multiple places across the country at the same time, accused of possibly suspecting "illegal use of information networks."[21][22] This operation involved multiple provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Shenzhen, etc., showing a high degree of organizational coordination.[21:1] Zion Church is a famous urban house church. Its gathering place was banned by Beijing authorities in 2018, but believers transferred to small fellowships to continue gathering and used social media to maintain contact. When the arrests occurred, the residences of multiple coworkers were searched, devices like computers and mobile phones were all seized, and some family homes were even sealed.[23][21:2] According to church news, authorities are likely to cite the "crime of illegal use of information networks" as the legal basis for these arrests, but the specific crimes of each person have not yet been clearly charged.[21:3] Public information shows that when Zion Senior Pastor Ezra Jin was arrested across provinces, he was organizing pastoral ministry on the internet, and police took him to Guangxi for detention.[24] Some other pastors and coworkers were accused of being responsible for the church's theological education and finances, suspected of using the network to carry out religious activities not permitted by authorities.[21:4] Although no complete indictment has been disclosed so far, the outside world speculates: officials may accuse Zion Church of unauthorized dissemination of religious messages, organizing believer online gatherings, accepting online offerings, etc., on the internet, thereby applying the provisions in Article 287-1 regarding "setting up communication groups used for implementing illegal and criminal activities" or "publishing information for implementing illegal and criminal activities."[25] If such allegations are established, it will undoubtedly create a precedent for criminalizing general religious online activities. It is worth noting that the Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services implemented in March 2022 clearly require that any organization or individual shall not disseminate religious content online without permission. This means that a church not recognized by the government spreading the gospel or collecting offerings through WeChat groups, live broadcasts, etc., is considered illegal at the administrative level. Now authorities are going a step further, attempting to deal with such violations with criminal charges. Some comments say that the Zion case is the largest-scale joint crackdown on non-registered churches in recent years,[26] and also the first large-scale application of the crime of "illegal use of information networks" in the religious field.

Using "illegal use of information networks" for religious dissemination faces multiple problems in application boundaries:

First, religious belief and dissemination belong to the category of basic civil rights, and both the Constitution and the Regulations on Religious Affairs protect normal religious activities. If believers' acts of reading sermons and transferring offerings are characterized as using the network to implement illegal and criminal activities simply because they have not obtained an online religious information permit in advance, the legal basis is quite far-fetched. The circumstances listed in Article 287-1 of the Criminal Law were originally aimed at behaviors such as telecom fraud websites, drug and gun trafficking information release, and online teaching of criminal methods.[25:1] The online activities of house churches are nothing more than spreading the gospel and shepherding believers, which are completely different in nature from the above behaviors. Far-fetched incrimination easily leads to excessive expansion of the scope of criminal law strikes.

Second, this crime requires the behavior to reach "serious circumstances." Judicial interpretations list some judgment standards, such as group members exceeding one thousand, publishing information exceeding a certain amount, illegal gains exceeding ten thousand yuan, etc.[20:2][20:3] Typical religious groups (such as prayer groups, Bible study groups) usually have dozens to hundreds of members, and although the content released is large, it is all scriptures and sermons, not illegal and criminal information. If law enforcement officers strictly apply quantity standards while ignoring the nature of information, it will cause abuse of criminal law regulations.

Third, difficulty in evidence collection and determination. To prove that religious coworkers "use the network to implement illegal and criminal activities," one must first prove that their religious behavior itself is illegal. As mentioned earlier, although unregistered missionary work in China violates regulations, it is not a criminal offense (unless determined as a cult). Therefore, judicial organs may seek other related charges to apply together, such as accusing church fundraising of illegal fundraising fraud, and then using network tools to spread fundraising information, thereby citing this crime. But doing so is actually a repeated evaluation, adding only to legal application confusion.

In summary, the current Zion case highlights the ambiguity and expansion of the application boundary of this crime: authorities treat normal faith exchanges as cybercrimes, marking the extension of religious control from offline to online, and escalating from administrative means to criminal strikes. This trend has aroused high concern from human rights groups and the legal community. Some comments bluntly state: if even sermons in WeChat groups count as "illegal online activities," it is tantamount to declaring that any religious existence not permitted by officials may be convicted, which is a major retrogression in religious freedom. In law enforcement practice, such allegations are also prone to becoming selective law enforcement: for example, some churches with frequent domestic and foreign religious interactions may be more easily labeled with "illegal use of information networks" to crack down on so-called "foreign infiltration." Therefore, the application of this crime in religious cases needs strict review. Judicial organs should carefully assess the social harm of religious online behavior, preventing the expansion of interpretation from turning criminal law into a tool for stifling Internet religious activities. After all, the purpose of the law is to crack down on real criminal acts, not to restrict citizens' peaceful expression and faith exchange. As the Zion case is still fermenting, many legal professionals call for an open and transparent trial to test whether the charges conform to the principles of the rule of law.[23:1] The result of this case will also become an important wind vane for measuring the boundary of the "crime of illegal use of information networks."

3.5 Procedural Tools: Prolonged Detention, Designated Lawyers, and Case Pace ​

In addition to the charges themselves, authorities also use procedural arrangements such as case filing, arrest approval, delayed trials, designated lawyers, and repeated bail to shape a high-pressure environment of "prolonged detention without judgment, procedure as punishment." This section focuses on how these procedural tools are used in combination in cases like Golden Lampstand, Abundance Church, and Ganquan, making persecution manifest not only in the verdict but also in the long and uncertain judicial process.

In recent years, house church cases have exposed a series of problems in procedural justice, including restrictions on lawyers' rights, extended detention, officially designated defenders, and non-public or delayed trials. These practices weaken the protection of defendants' legal rights and cast a shadow of injustice over case trials.

Lawyer Intervention Blocked ​

According to the law, defendants have the right to hire lawyers for defense. However, in multiple church cases, the intervention of independent defense lawyers has been interfered with or even obstructed by police and courts. Taking the Early Rain case in Chengdu as an example, after Elder Qin Defu was arrested, his family entrusted lawyers to apply for meetings four times, all of which were rejected by police on the grounds that the case involved "national security."[15:3] Before the trial, authorities tried to induce the family to switch to government-appointed lawyers, claiming "government-appointed lawyers are just a formality, as long as you cooperate, he will be released."[15:4] The family did not accept the inducement and insisted on hiring Lawyer Li Guisheng to defend Elder Qin.[15:5] But even so, at the trial scene on November 25, 2019, Lawyer Li was banned by the court from appearing in court for defense.[15:6] Officials finally forcibly arranged a defender under their control for Qin, leaving the entire trial process lacking real defense, and the sentencing was surprisingly heavy. This reflects that in sensitive church cases, authorities tend to exclude rights lawyers to ensure the trial proceeds within a controllable range. In the aforementioned Ganquan case, the wives of Pastor Zhou Songlin and Elder Ding Zhongfu initially hired well-known Christian lawyers Zhang Kai and Li Guisheng to intervene, but this move unexpectedly triggered fierce opposition from some people within the church (suspected of being influenced by officials), demanding the dismissal of the lawyers.[8:5] Although the two wives insisted on not dismissing them, the twists and turns showed the alienation tactics habitually used by officials: trying to pressure parties through relatives or coworkers not to let "serious" lawyers participate. When the case went to trial, the court set up obstacles to refuse lawyers full access to files and restrict defense rights. For example, when the Ganquan case opened in July 2025, the Hefei Shushan District Court arranged a marathon trial for consecutive days without the lawyers' consent, and used the excuse of full public gallery and security checks to shut Lawyer Li Yan out, not allowing him to enter the court to defend the accused.[8:6] In some cases, the court suddenly changed the trial location or advanced the sentencing time, so that defense lawyers could not make it to court. In the second instance of the Golden Lampstand case, the Linfen Intermediate Court hastily announced the verdict upholding the original judgment on August 15, 2025, without notifying lawyers in advance. The lawyer team only received notification a few minutes before the verdict and had no way to attend.[2:4] The above situations seriously infringed on the right to defense, not only violating the procedures of the Criminal Procedure Law but also making the trial a mere formality. It is worth mentioning that despite repeated official suppression, many Christian lawyers still insist on intervening in church cases and arguing strongly for religious freedom. For example, Lawyer Zhang Kai's team has traveled across the country, successively representing the Wenzhou Cross Case, Zion Church Case, Tongliao Church Case, etc. When the first instance of the Shanxi Golden Lampstand case opened on April 15, 2025, Lawyer Zhang Kai went to Linfen to appear in court personally, but the local court banned lawyers from bringing electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones inside on the grounds that the case was "major and sensitive."[3:1] After Lawyer Zhang raised an objection and was rejected, he was even forcibly escorted out of Linfen City by more than ten special police officers, rendering him unable to participate in the trial.[22:1][3:2] This series of practices almost deprived the defendants of their right to effective defense, making the fairness of the case trial results highly questionable.

Bail Pending Trial and Extended Detention ​

Legally speaking, criminal cases allow suspects who meet the conditions to be released on bail pending trial before trial to reduce detention infringement. However, in church cases, main defendants such as pastors and elders are often detained for a long time without bail. For example, Golden Lampstand Church's Yang Rongli and Wang Xiaoguang couple were detained for more than three years from their arrest in August 2021 until the trial in early 2025[19:7]. The length of detention far exceeds the upper limit of the detention period for investigation and prosecution stages under the Criminal Procedure Law (generally no more than 7 months, can be extended with approval in special circumstances but not indefinitely). Authorities usually use the excuse that the case is "major and complicated" to repeatedly extend the investigation detention period, or even evade legal restrictions on extended detention by changing compulsory measures. For example, after Yang Rongli and 6 others were arrested in 2021, some obtained bail the following year, but core coworkers like Yang Rongli continued to be detained. By the second half of 2024, the investigation had long ended but the trial was delayed. Authorities changed the detention measure to "residential surveillance at a designated location," attempting to evade the detention time limit while still restricting personal freedom.[27] In the Xi'an Abundance Church Pastor Lian Changnian case, the pre-trial meeting was held only after two and a half years of detention. Under public pressure, the three defendants were once released home under residential surveillance, but were suddenly criminally detained and imprisoned again a few months later. The advance and retreat were decided unilaterally by the public security. These phenomena indicate that for religious cases, authorities tend to detain for a long time to weaken the church's influence and force it to submit. Even if there is no timely trial, they will not easily release suspects. In contrast, secondary personnel in some cases sometimes obtain bail pending trial. For example, in the Shunde Shengjia Church case, two of the five defendants were bailed during the trial, and the other three were released soon after sentencing, only the principal offender Deng Yanxiang served time[19:8]. But believers who gain freedom are often warned by authorities not to participate in church activities again, otherwise bail may be revoked and they may be re-detained at any time. This conditional bail is tantamount to house arrest, keeping believers in a state of high mental pressure. What's more, some local governments force bailed believers to sign a "guarantee not to participate in gatherings," otherwise threatening to cancel subsistence allowances or evict them from rental housing[28]. Such practices have deviated from the legal track and carry the nature of administrative pressure and disguised punishment.

Designated Lawyers and Plea Bargaining ​

In certain sensitive church cases, if the defendant or family refuses the "cooperation" requested by officials (such as not pleading guilty or insisting on hiring rights lawyers), authorities will arrange legal aid lawyers (commonly known as government-appointed lawyers) to intervene. Although legal aid is a good system, in this context, the defendant's wishes are often ignored, and designated lawyers often align with the official stance, persuading the defendant to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. For example, in the case of Elder Zhang Chunlei of Guangzhou Living Stone Church, according to insiders, authorities demanded he accept a government-appointed lawyer and plead guilty in exchange for a 5-year sentence, otherwise threatening a heavier sentence[29]. In the Linfen Covenant Home Church case, families of some defendants dismissed the Christian lawyers they hired under pressure and switched to lawyers recommended by the local bar association. As a result, these lawyers basically cooperated with the prosecution in court and did not offer substantive not-guilty defense opinions. Even so, the defendants were still heavily sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison simply for insisting on not pleading guilty. It can be seen that the intervention of government-appointed lawyers is usually not to better protect the rights of the defendant, but to facilitate a guilty plea and complete the established trial procedure. When the defendant refuses to compromise, the court will also forcibly advance the trial and increase the sentence. For example, on the eve of the 2025 trial of Xi'an Abundance Church, the lawyers of the three pastors were suddenly "forcibly dismissed" by the court, depriving them of their defense qualifications.[30] With no lawyers of their own present in court and key witnesses detained and unable to appear, the pastors were in an extremely disadvantageous position. Procedural fairness was distorted in advance. It can be said that such church cases present the characteristics of "convict first, go through the motions" procedurally: public security and religious departments have long characterized the case, and the judicial procedure is just a formality to confirm it, not hesitating to violate legal guarantees in the process. For example, when the Ganquan case opened for the first time in May 2025, the court had to temporarily adjourn because defense lawyers angrily exposed serious violations such as public security, procuratorate, and court threatening witnesses.[31] But when the court opened again months later, these problems were not corrected, but instead spawned more procedural violations (such as refusing witnesses to appear in court).[32]

Trial Delays and Non-Public Tendency ​

House church cases generally suffer from long trial cycles and repeated delays. From arrest to court verdict, it often takes a year and a half or even several years. On the one hand, public security often repeatedly extends the investigation period to collect evidence and do ideological work. For example, after 16 people were arrested in the Ganquan case, the prosecution returned the case for supplementary investigation twice, and it took nearly 18 months for the case to enter trial[12:5]. The Abundance Church case has dragged on for nearly 3 years without a verdict, and people were arrested again, which can be described as protracted. On the other hand, authorities intentionally use delays to create "marathon litigation," wearing down the fighting spirit of defendants and church groups. During this period, detainees are isolated from the outside world, and the church also endures continuous deterrence. Even if the court opens, the court tries its best to limit openness and transparency. Many such cases are not tried publicly or are disguised as non-public: either declaring non-public on the grounds of involving state secrets, or controlling the number of bystanders and preventing church believers from entering the courtroom. For example, when the Linfen Golden Lampstand case opened, the court only allowed 2 immediate family members per defendant to observe. A large number of church members who wanted to observe were intercepted outside or even warned not to approach the court[3:3][22:2]. In the Ganquan case trial in July, the court occupied the public gallery in advance, filling it with unidentified personnel, and no church people who truly cared about the truth of the case were allowed to enter.[32:1] In addition, trial records and verdicts are often not released to the public. Media reports are also strictly controlled. Local officials usually do not report, and only civil rights networks, ChinaAid, etc., release some brief news[8:7][5:5]. Authorities obviously try to handle these religious trials in a low-key manner to reduce public opinion repercussions. However, the cost of doing so is destroying the transparency and credibility that the judiciary should have. If many procedural issues are not corrected according to law, it will greatly damage the principles of judicial independence and fairness.

Overall, the procedural chaos exposed in house church cases shows that legal procedures are often used as tools to achieve political goals. Deprivation of lawyers' rights and black-box operations in the trial process mean that religious defendants can hardly get a fair trial under the current system. This not only violates China's own legal procedures but also violates international judicial standards of "trial by law, open and fair." It needs to be emphasized that procedural justice is the premise of substantive justice. If even basic lawyer defense, witness testimony, and public hearing cannot be guaranteed, then even if authorities claim the case has "clear facts and conclusive evidence," it is difficult for the outside world to believe in the fairness of the verdict. To this end, legal professionals call on Chinese judicial organs to effectively guarantee procedural justice in religious cases: allow lawyers to perform their duties normally, eliminate illegal evidence and witness threats, abide by statutory trial limits for timely trials, and try to make trials public to accept supervision. Only in this way can religious contradictions be alleviated and the fairness of the rule of law be manifested at the legal level. However, judging from the current situation, improvement in this regard is still not obvious, and procedural issues will remain a key topic in the struggle of house churches.

3.6 Regional Enforcement Differences: Application of Religious Affairs Regulations and Criminal Law across Regions ​

Chapter 2 has already demonstrated significant differences in persecution patterns across North China, Southwest, Northwest, Xinjiang, and border regions from a geographical dimension. This section compares the stylistic differences in how various regions apply the Regulations on Religious Affairs, Public Security Administration Punishments, and relevant Criminal Law clauses from the perspective of regulatory enforcement, explaining how the same set of textual regulations grows distinctly different "faces" in different regions, thereby shaping diverse church survival situations.

Since the promulgation of the Regulations on Religious Affairs in 2005, and especially since the implementation of the 2018 revision, local administrative enforcement against house churches has shown obvious differences. These differences are reflected in enforcement concepts, intensity, and means, reflecting different responses of local governments under the central policy framework. On the one hand, some regions mainly rely on "soft" means such as administrative penalties and persuasion to disperse; on the other hand, certain regions quickly turn to criminal crackdowns and heavy penalties to "kill one to warn a hundred." The following analyzes this difference from the practices of several typical regions.

North and Central China: Strong Banning Parallel with Criminal Cases ​

Taking Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, and other places as examples, house churches often have a large scale and long history, and local governments mostly adopt strong suppression strategies. Enforcement in these areas usually takes two steps: first ban gathering points and confiscate property according to the Regulations on Religious Affairs, and then file cases for investigation and bring criminal charges against leaders. For example, Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, Shanxi, was raided and sealed by public security departments and its church building demolished as early as 2009. At that time, the basis was the prohibitory provision of the Regulations regarding "holding religious activities without registration," which belonged to administrative banning. In 2018, authorities dispatched large machinery to forcibly blast the church's new hall[4:3], an act belonging to administrative enforcement means, treating unapproved religious buildings as illegal structures. During the same period, Henan Province launched a unified cleanup campaign against house churches around 2018. Almost all unregistered family gathering points were ordered to close and remove religious symbols, and some church property such as audio equipment and offering boxes were administratively confiscated or sealed. According to statistics, Henan banned thousands of family church gatherings within a few months at that time[5:6]. However, at the same time, these regions were not satisfied with administrative means but chose to initiate criminal procedures to deter church leaders. The Shanxi Golden Lampstand case is typical: after years of water and electricity cuts and administrative penalties, the church that persisted in independent gatherings was finally punished centrally as a criminal fraud case[2:5][4:4]. Ganquan Church in Hefei, Anhui, followed a similar path: first identified as "illegal religious activity" by religious departments in 2023, then public security implemented concentrated arrests and froze church accounts in November, the Civil Affairs Bureau issued a document banning the church's cover institution in early 2024, and then pastors and elders were sent to the criminal dock[7:3][8:8]. It can be seen that in North and Central China, this "two-legged" crackdown mode of administrative + criminal is relatively common, and the enforcement style is tough.

Coastal and Southern Regions: Diverse Measures Used, Trend of Tightening Obvious ​

First-tier cities and provinces along the Yangtze River in the south once had relatively flexible strategies toward house churches, but recently they have tended to be tough. For example, first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai used to make it difficult for large house churches to gain a foothold mainly through administrative management, but rarely actively criminally detained pastors. However, this situation is changing: after Beijing Zion Church was banned by civil affairs departments as an "illegal social organization" in 2018, pastors were not immediately criminally detained at that time, only the venue was sealed[21:5]. But the church continued to operate in small groups, attracting a nationwide criminal purge in 2025, initiating filing with charges like "illegal use of information networks"[22:3]. This indicates that Beijing has upgraded from simple administrative banning to criminal intervention. Similarly, Shanghai rarely used criminal law against house churches in the past, but in this Zion case, Shanghai also cooperated in arresting relevant coworkers[26:1], showing that enforcement standards are tightening. In economically developed provinces like Guangdong, enforcement methods reflect a combination of punches: both high administrative fines and criminal accountability. A few years ago, some cities in Guangdong mainly focused on banning venues and dispersing gatherings. For example, after Guangzhou Ren'ai Reformed Church was forced to move in 2018, the pastor was only warned and not sentenced. But the Shenzhen Bible Player Case in 2020[17:4] and the Foshan Shunde Shengjia Case in 2023[19:9] ended with criminal verdicts, showing that Guangdong is increasing judicial crackdown efforts. In these cases, local law enforcement agencies attach great importance to joint enforcement: for example, in the Shunde case, public security, religious, education, and industry and commerce departments all went into battle, completing everything from banning gatherings and confiscating books to arresting and prosecuting in one go[19:10]. Such enforcement intensity was rare in coastal areas in the past. In addition, coastal local governments are good at using soft and hard means such as economic sanctions. When Xunsiding Church in Xiamen was banned, the Siming District Government not only sealed and closed the gathering place but also issued a supplementary administrative penalty decision fining 25,000 yuan[5:7]. The church later filed for administrative reconsideration and hearing, but the final result was still that the fine penalty took effect[5:8]. This practice of fining first and hearing later is criticized in some places as "act first, report later," but local officials believe that illegal religious activities should be punished with zero tolerance and in a timely manner. In contrast, in some economically underdeveloped but sensitive ethnic and religious areas (such as Xinjiang and Tibet), family-style Christian churches were originally scarce, and enforcement is even more simple and crude: directly dispersing on grounds of stability maintenance or counter-terrorism, or even treating as "cults," without needing Religious Affairs Regulations procedures. There is almost no space for independent house churches to exist publicly in these areas.

Differences in Enforcement Methods and Reasons ​

The formation of enforcement differences across regions is closely related to local religious ecology, government attitudes, and social influence:

  1. Church scale affects enforcement intensity. Famous churches in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai have many believers and high education levels, with great influence. Local governments were scrupulous about international image in the early days and tended to handle them gently or suppress them behind the scenes (such as not allowing venue rentals). But when these churches remain active and even contact the whole country, authorities are determined to strike hard with nationwide coordinated enforcement. Conversely, small house churches may be tacitly allowed to exist in some areas if they have few members and are relatively hidden, as long as they do not spread influence externally.

  2. Local leadership and policy factors. Major leaders in certain provinces and cities have a tougher attitude toward religious issues and may demand thorough cleanup. The comprehensive ban in Henan in 2018 is believed to be related to the unified deployment of the province at that time. Similarly, the strong posture shown by Linfen authorities in Shanxi in the Golden Lampstand case is also related to local officials wanting to claim credit and implement superior intentions[2:6]. While officials in some places adopt passive execution and a tacit attitude, allowing some house churches a temporary buffer.

  3. Social opinion environment. The public in the southeast coastal areas is more tolerant of religious diversity, and some local governments once adopted an attitude of "officials don't investigate if people don't report" toward house churches. But in recent years, the central political environment has tightened, and various places dare not be "special" anymore,紛紛 benchmarking the strictest standards. For example, Zhejiang once limited itself to administrative means like removing crosses, but criminal cases against house church leaders have appeared successively since 2021.

  4. Allocation of enforcement resources. Some regions tend to use administrative fines and economic sanctions because they are simple, easy to implement, generate revenue, and have considerable deterrence; other regions with strong political and legal systems tend to use criminal rectification to warn others. Fining instead of punishment vs. banning through punishment, different places make different choices.

Overall, tightening is the general trend: enforcement differences across regions are narrowing, and standards are converging, that is, comprehensive tightening. As some observers pointed out, the 2018 revision of the Regulations on Religious Affairs significantly increased the cost of violations (fines for individual illegal religious activities can reach up to 200,000 yuan, and institutions up to 300,000 yuan), and localities are more emboldened to take action based on this[13:1]. Some places that had concerns before have now joined the high-pressure ranks. This indicates that the central government is urging policy implementation "horizontally to the edge, vertically to the bottom," leaving no so-called "religious gray zones."

However, regional differences still exist and may bring unfairness: a believer in one place may only be fined and warned for the same behavior, while in another province they might be imprisoned for several years. This phenomenon of inconsistent enforcement violates the principle of uniformity of the legal system and also creates insecurity and legal unpredictability for the house church community. In the long run, if religious laws and policies cannot define boundaries clearly and reasonably distinguish circumstances, the situation of each region acting on its own will continue, not only affecting the normal activities of religious groups but also increasing enforcement costs and friction. The solution lies in formulating more transparent and clear enforcement standards and strengthening supervision and accountability of local enforcement to prevent excessive or selective enforcement. But in the current political climate, local enforcement is more likely to choose "better strict than lenient," and the differences only reflect different degrees of severity.

3.7 Economic and Resource Control (III): Administrative Penalties and Property Seizure Trends ​

Compared with the criminal charges mentioned above, this section focuses on administrative means such as fines, bans, sealing venues, and freezing accounts, explaining how these seemingly "non-criminal" measures are used in practice in conjunction with economic crimes to constitute a systematic blow to the economic foundation and daily operation space of house churches.

Accompanying the intensified crackdown on house churches, law enforcement agencies are increasingly using economic and property means to strike at house churches. This trend includes high fines, sealing religious venues, and freezing and confiscating involved property, showing authorities' intention to weaken the church's survival ability economically. Some comments point out, "Authorities found that imprisonment and torture cannot stop Christians, so they are now trying to fine churches, increasing fines time and again, because they believe economic pressure will make Christians submit"[13:2]. The following explains this in several aspects:

Huge Fines Pressure ​

Fines are important penalty measures granted to administrative organs by the Regulations on Religious Affairs and the Public Security Administration Punishments Law. In recent years, local governments have frequently issued high fines to investigated house churches. For example, the aforementioned Xiamen Christian lawyer Yang Hui was fined more than 280,000 yuan[5:9]; and when Xunsiding Church, the largest house church in Xiamen, was banned in 2019, the government issued a supplementary administrative penalty notice two years later, proposing a fine of 25,000 yuan[5:10]. Training classes and bookstores run by some churches have also been heavily fined. Wheat Academy in Fuzhou was fined hundreds of thousands of yuan by the cultural department and ordered to refund tuition fees for alleged unapproved religious teaching. In the Shenzhen Bible Player Case, in addition to imprisonment, several defendants were fined a total of hundreds of thousands of yuan[17:5]. In Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and other places, some believers were fined 5,000 to 30,000 yuan for private gatherings, and were even pursued for offering funds collected in the past few years. Such high-density, large-amount fines make many house churches overwhelmed. On the one hand, church financial resources are limited, and fines often have to be paid by using believer offerings or selling property, which itself is a weakening of the church. On the other hand, the existence of fines also makes some people worry and dare not participate in gatherings (fearing joint fines). In addition, fine records may also affect the parties' personal credit, employment, etc. thereby achieving a deterrent warning effect. Authorities send a clear signal through economic sanctions: believing in religion may not get you arrested immediately, but you will be made to "pay fines for peace." This forms a psychological deterrent to some grassroots believers with financial difficulties, forcing them to give up gatherings or move deeper underground.

Venue Sealing and Closure ​

Blocking and sealing gathering places is a direct means of cracking down on house churches. Many churches originally rented commercial buildings or private houses as activity points. Law enforcement departments would come to paste seals marking "This place has been sealed due to illegal religious activities," prohibiting personnel from entering and using[22:4]. For example, after Beijing Zion Church was banned by the civil affairs department in 2019, its original main hall gathering place was immediately sealed with strips[21:6]. In another case, a house church gathering point in Guangzhou was raided by police, who posted a "sealed" notice on the spot and locked the door to disperse gatherers[28:1]. Some churches moved to family-style small gatherings after being sealed, but law enforcement officers still did not let go and would continue to track new gathering locations to block them. In the Zion case, in addition to venues known to officials, the family residences of some pastors were also temporarily sealed, and families were forced to move out[22:5]. This practice is quite severe, tantamount to depriving involved personnel of their right to residence. The act of sealing houses has precedents in the Golden Lampstand case: in 2009, Linfen authorities sealed dozens of gathering points of the church, sealing all doors with strips[4:5]. With the development of technology, some places now also list banned venues on a blacklist and share information online to prevent re-renting for religious purposes. The trend of sealing venues reflects officials' attempt to end the physical existence of house churches through physical means—without fixed places, gatherings are difficult to sustain, and church influence dissipates. In addition, sealing actions are usually accompanied by the confiscation of property in the venue, such as Bibles, books, musical instruments, equipment, offering box funds, etc. Law enforcement officers will issue a seizure list on the spot and "sweep away" all religious items seen. Sometimes even believers' personal mobile phones and computers are seized for inspection to collect church contact networks[23:2]. Although administrative sealing theoretically has a time limit and should be lifted upon expiration, in practice it is often delayed indefinitely or the venue is simply confiscated. If the sealed house is rented, the landlord will also receive warnings or penalties, so most landlords dare not renew leases to churches. This further compresses the survival space of house churches.

Account Freezing and Asset Seizure ​

Another increasingly common measure is freezing the bank accounts of involved personnel or churches. When investigating religious cases, public security often applies to freeze the accounts of subjects under investigation in the name of investigating funds. In the Ganquan case, multiple bank accounts of the church were all frozen after the incident, breaking the church's capital chain.[8:9] In the Zion case, according to social media news, the bank accounts of pastor families have been frozen, unable to withdraw deposits.[22:6] The direct consequence of freezing accounts is that the economic life of defendants and their families is affected, and expenses such as lawyer fees are difficult to pay, disguisedly weakening the ability to defend. More seriously, once the court finds guilt, it often attaches property sentences or confiscates illegal gains, confiscating frozen funds. In the Golden Lampstand fraud case verdict, in addition to imprisonment, the court fined Yang Rongli 500,000 yuan and Wang Xiaoguang 100,000 yuan respectively, and emphasized the recovery of illegal fundraising funds.[4:6] Although the specific execution situation is unknown, such high fines demonstrate the official determination to crush the church's economic foundation. In the Shenzhen Bible Player Case, the court ruled to confiscate all seized player equipment and several computers.[18:4] These materials were originally company property; confiscation is equivalent to completely cutting off the company's economic foundation. The company's business license was also revoked, and the person in charge was fined personally, suffering heavy property losses. In addition to confiscation at the criminal level, there are also cases of direct confiscation of property at the administrative level. For example, when banning gatherings, local religious departments will confiscate tables, chairs, projectors, and other tools used for illegal activities owned by the church and hand them over to finance for disposal. In some places, church properties used for gatherings, if determined to be illegal structures or unauthorized changes of use, may be directly confiscated or forcibly demolished. The blasting of the self-built church of Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, Shanxi is an extreme example.[5:11] A church in Guizhou refused to register in 2016, and the government simply confiscated and sold the factory church it rented. In view of this, many house churches have tried to avoid accumulating property in recent years, such as not purchasing real estate, not opening corporate accounts, and dispersing economic exchanges privately to reduce the risk of centralized freezing and confiscation. But this also leads to problems such as decreased financial transparency and lack of standardization.

Trend Impact and Evaluation ​

In summary, cracking down on religion through economic means has become an important feature of current persecution of house churches. From an official perspective, this is a way with lower "cost" than directly arresting people and relatively easier to control international perception. An overseas report summarized: "Not only is missionary work prohibited on the internet, but selling related books or Bible players has also become a reason for religious figures to be sentenced to heavy sentences".[13:3] This indicates that authorities are combining legal, administrative, economic, and other means to squeeze the survival space of house churches in all directions. For the house church community, such a trend brings double pressure: one is spiritual and faith-based, the other is material life. Many churches can only switch to small-scale underground operations due to continuous fines and frozen accounts, and some have to shut down. Some pastor families are burdened with huge fines and property losses, and their lives are in difficulty. In addition, individual believers may also have their property affected by participating in gatherings, making some people fearful.

It is worth noting that property seizure often lacks effective remedies. Theoretically, parties can apply for administrative reconsideration or file a lawsuit against administrative fines and confiscation decisions, but the actual results mostly maintain the original penalty; and the property part of criminal judgments is even harder to change. In the high-pressure environment of religious cases, few courts will be lenient on economic penalties. Therefore, economic strikes have become a "sharp weapon" to force house churches to bow their heads. However, from the perspective of legal justice, this practice is open to question. Religious belief should not be labeled as illegal, and the disposal of related property should be more cautious. Practices such as confiscating believer offering funds as illegal gains[4:7] and destroying Bible players as contraband[18:5] actually blur the boundary between illegal and legitimate, violating the principle of proportionality and common sense. Substituting management with fines and control with freezing is not a long-term solution after all. The key to solving religious problems is to respect the legitimate religious needs of citizens and guide activities onto a standardized track through dialogue. If one blindly uses economic punishment means to try to "cut off blood," it will only intensify tensions and drive religious activities into a deeper state of secrecy, which is detrimental to supervision and social stability.

Conclusion: From Legal Tools to Life Situations ​

This chapter outlines how authorities combine legal and administrative means to package persecution of house churches as a set of seemingly "law-based" mechanisms from four levels: economic and resource control, order and information control, procedural tools, and regional enforcement differences. The individual cases and regional differences presented in Chapters 1 and 2 are restored here as a set of institutionalized modes of operation; while the letters from prison, the tearing and watching of families and churches in Chapters 4 and 5 are the testimonies and responses of how specific people live out their faith under the oppression of this mechanism. Readers can take their understanding of these legal and administrative tools into subsequent chapters to understand more three-dimensionally that behind those names, prayers, and tears, there is both spiritual warfare and the long-term effect of institutional injustice.

The series of house church cases in 2024-2025 indicate that Chinese officials are using legal means to systematically suppress house churches. In this process, traditional criminal charges have been given new meanings targeting religion, leading to the constant extension of the boundaries of legal interpretation. Through the analysis of allegations such as "fraud," "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," "illegal business operations," and "illegal use of information networks," this article reveals the legal application controversies and improprieties therein. We emphasize that the life of the law lies in reason and justice. If legal boundaries are allowed to be blurred, ultimately not only religious believers will be damaged, but also the credibility of the legal system itself. It is hoped that future law enforcement and judicial practices can return to the principles of the rule of law and handle religious affairs disputes cautiously; it is also hoped that China's laws regarding religious activities will be implemented more perfectly and transparently. This is not only a need to protect the legitimate rights and interests of tens of millions of believers but also essential for establishing the image of national rule of law civilization.

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