When Grace Jin Drexel got a text from her father in China last Friday, it seemed routine — a simple request to “pray for another pastor.”
But hours later, that message took on chilling significance.
Her father, Jin Mingri, one of China’s most prominent underground pastors, had vanished too.
What followed was the largest mass arrest of Christians China has seen in decades.
It was a sweeping crackdown on at least 30 members of the Zion Church network, which Jin founded.
“We never thought it would be this big,” Drexel told the BBC.
Crackdown On Faith
The arrests come amid what activists call Beijing’s escalating campaign to crush unregistered “house churches.”
These are independent congregations that reject state control.
Officially, China says it protects “freedom of religious belief,” but recent laws, online sermon bans, and detentions tell another story.
Zion Church, with more than 10,000 followers across 40 cities, had long been a target.
Authorities once demanded CCTV cameras inside its worship hall; when the church refused, it was shut down in 2018.
Still, Pastor Sean Long, now in the US, says faith won’t fold under pressure.
“Zion is the chicken,” he said, invoking a Chinese idiom. “They’re killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”
History, he added, offers a quiet reassurance: “Where there is repression, there’s revival.”
