China: Six Christians arrested for baptism

According to China Aid, on April 16, Rev. Mao Zhibin of the Shenzhen Trinity Church traveled to a nearby town with a number of new believers to perform baptisms.

After the ceremony, a well-known person in the church uploaded a video and pictures of the baptism on Wechat. A police car immediately arrived at their location. Officers asked the group to provide their identities and Covid-19's status and allow police to scan their faces.

Mao was shocked when found out that police already had the baptism video on their cell phones. Several other photos of the priest appeared after police officers scanned his face.

According to Rev. Mao, the technology used by the government should be called "super-authoritarian"!

This is not the first time Mao and his church have been attacked by security forces.

Christian News reported last September that Mao had planned a trip to a hotel on Huizhou Beach for the church's fifth anniversary. Christians planned to baptize new believers during this journey. However, on the anniversary day, police officers stormed a rally to prevent any baptism.

Also last July, Chinese Communist Party officials raided a Mao Virtual Church ceremony. Church members have been increasingly targeted by security forces since Rev. Mao sponsored a joint campaign of priests called the Declaration of the Christian Faith.

The Chinese government is working tirelessly to eliminate the Christian community. President Xi Jinping has ordered that all religions must follow the Sinicize project to ensure their loyalty to the official party. The project aims to change all the content of Christian meetings and religious teachings based on the national Chinese values and ideology of the ruling party.

Chinese Christians say this is the worst persecution against them since President Mao Zedong.

China is ranked as 17th in the 2022 "Open Doors" World Watch list as most dangerous country for Christians.

 

_{Source and Credit: CBN}