The 50,000 member Golden Lampstand Church was detonated with dynamite and demolished by the Chinese government.
On the heels of once again being named one of the worst persecutors of Christians on the planet, the Chinese government used dynamite to blow up and then destroy an evangelical megachurch in one of the neediest regions of the country. The brazen persecution of Christians who do not abide by government-controlled religion is just one example of the inhumane treatment of Christians in many countries today.
A History of Persecution
Despite being in a low-income area, church members donated $3 million to build the Golden Lampstand Church.
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” – 2 Timothy 3:12.
According to reports:
“One of the largest evangelical churches in China was completely demolished in a shocking government campaign on January 9th. Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi Province has been around for nearly a decade with 50,000 congregants. But it wasn’t registered with the Chinese government.
“It’s an unregistered church, but it was completely paid for by many of the Christians there,” reports Anthony Rhodes with Voice of the Martyrs Canada. “The church has a history of being persecuted by government officials and state police in that area…. Previously, there were harassments and some of their leaders were arrested and interrogated.”
Then, last Tuesday, officers of the People’s Armed Police went to the Golden Lampstand Church and announced because it was an unregistered church building, it would be demolished.
“They actually cleared the church of the congregants and put dynamite in the church and blew the church up. They actually blew up the building and completely destroyed the church. There’s video footage of this happening, and then you see many of the workers cleaning up the rubble and bulldozing what was left of this church.” (source).
As Beginning And End previously reported in our article “Christian Persecution And Genocide ‘Worse Than Any Time In History'”, China was named on Open Doors USA World Watch List, which details the 50 worst nations on the world where Christians are persecuted. Its Communist regime forces all churches to register with the government – who can then monitor, regulate and even instruct pastors on what to preach. On a whim, the government can order a church to remove any crosses displayed on its building and a pastor who resists is met with arrest and imprisonment. Poor Christians families are cut off from government assistance if their churches are in violation of any arbitrary government rule.
Pray for China’s Underground Church Movement
Believers worship at an underground church service. Pray for their faith in the face of persecution.
This oppression has helped spawn an underground church movement – where believers risk their freedom, jobs and lives to worship in unregistered churches. The underground church movement has exploded with an estimated 60 million Christians attending nationwide. These believers live out their faith in Jesus Christ despite knowing that at any moment, an unregistered church can be raised by government authorities and all Christians arrested. Continue to pray for believers in China to maintain their faith under this oppressive regime and for the light of the gospel to continue to shine in the hearts of those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” – Luke 6:22-23.
While the act is shocking, why did the church leaders/members not register the church if they planned to spend $3 million on a building? That is, it is one thing to meet privately/secretly in someone’s basement or an abandoned building and be unregistered. It is quite another to build a huge building without approval of the civil authorities – be unregistered – and expect the local authorities to ignore it.
There is something wrong with this report. I hold the church organizers at fault for wasting the members’ money, for one thing. I also wonder why the authorities didn’t take over the building rather than demolish it. Perhaps it wasn’t built to code or the building details couldn’t be verified as meeting code? The communists in the past would convert churches to stables or other demeaning uses – but the buildings/churches were re-used. So, this is another aspect that needs explanation.
I would like to be more supportive, but some things defy common sense or responsible behavior.
Hi Trueseeker,
Thanks for your comments. You ask a good question: why not just register with the Government? The answer is that the Chinese government exerts authoritarian control over the churches that are registered. State registered churches are not free to preach and teach whatever they like and can be told to remove a cross or end a service on a whim. This is why millions of people in China risk their safety, freedom and lives to worship in underground churches.
For more on this see our recent article on 2017 being the worst year for persecution worldwide. God bless. -B&E
It took a considerable amount of time to complete this huge construction project. Knowing Communists as I do, they were fully aware of the construction as Communist Party members are organizers in every neighborhood. Due to the increasing aggressiveness of the Chinese government they most likely waited until the building was completed and then destroyed it in order to thwart the efforts of other Christians to build places of worship or meet together.
Over the past few years China has become bolder in asserting their influence and ideology throughout the world. Their land grab in the South China Sea and establishing military bases in Africa clearly reveal their mindset. Christian values and thinking have no place in Communist ideology and China will use whatever means necessary to eliminate them.
Pray for the Philippines as it is a Christian nation that currently has an administration which has yielded to China’s influence.
I can agree with all of that Brother Dave, but that doesn’t explain why they would build witout approval and spend/waste $3 million. I’m sure that the communists would want them to put every ‘dime’ into the project before they tore it down. It would be that mush harder to build something else.
And changing its constitution to allow Xi to be president for life shows how corrupt and lawless that society is. Failure to respect the rule of law will be the Reds downfall. A society cannot have innovation and risk-taking it the ‘rules of the road’ are not clear at the start. No one will take a risk. Short of espionage, the Chinese will lag in innovation. This will eventually cause unrest. But that is good news for us!
A $3 million megachurch gets built in the poorest part of America? Cause for suspicion and concern.
A similar church get demolished in China? A human rights tragedy/travesty.