The Weeping Believer: A Report from a Chinese Christian

The Three-Self Church is not a real church but a political propaganda agency. Leaving it, however, exposes one to the risk of being arrested.

By Vivian Ren

November 19, 2025

The Three-Self-controlled Beijing Chaoyang Church. Credits.

As an ordinary Christian, recalling my journey from ignorance to awakening, from worship to disillusionment within the Three-Self Church, my heart brims with sorrow and helplessness. Like many brothers and sisters, I once sought the Lord’s comfort within its walls, only to gradually discover this was not God’s sanctuary but a cage forged by a secular regime. Under the guise of “patriotism,” it blinds believers, betraying the Lord’s will by replacing the glory of the cross with the shadow of the five-starred red flag. As an awakened believer, my heart twists in agony: staying means compromise, leaving is a gamble. In this era of “Sinicization of Christianity,” where do we helpless, weeping souls turn?

The Chinese Protestant church currently exists in only two forms: “house churches” and “Three-Self churches.” “House churches” refer to organizations not officially registered or subject to government oversight; they are unofficial, deemed illegal by the government, and face suppression of their activities. Their primary mode of operation involves gatherings and activities held in believers’ homes or similar venues, often disparagingly labeled “underground churches.” “Three-Self Churches” refer to those officially registered with the government, operating under its leadership and oversight. They conduct religious activities in government-designated venues and in ways the state permits.

What is the “Three-Self Church”? Many perceive it as a sanctuary for mainland Christians coexisting alongside “house churches.” Yet, the harsh reality is this: the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee, established in the 1950s, serves as the Chinese Communist regime’s instrument for controlling Christianity. It is not a church but a state-sanctioned secular organization dedicated to substituting “love for God” with “love for country,” thereby harnessing religion to serve political ends. The “Three-Self” principle—ostensibly self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation—sounds independent but is fundamentally distorted. Self-governance means severing foreign ties while submitting to the iron-fisted control of the domestic government. Self-support appears independent of foreign aid yet relies on Party subsidies. Self-propagation demands that Chinese preachers take the lead while distorting doctrine to suit political agendas.

Under atheist Communist rule, Christ—the King of kings—has been reduced to an accessory. The authority of churches no longer emanates from the Heavenly Father but from earthly bureaucrats. Pastors are hired, monitored, and evaluated by the government. Their sermons must avoid sensitive topics like Xinjiang’s re-education camps or Hong Kong’s protests, instead preaching only “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” and distorting the Bible into a tool supporting the “Chinese Dream.”

The state of the Three-Self Church varies by time and place, yet invariably deceives believers. In grand cathedrals of major cities, senior leaders remain entrenched in control: the five-star red flag flies beside crosses within churches, clergy and congregants are required to sing the national anthem, its distorted melody jarringly at odds with Christ’s path of peace. Grassroots churches appear more lenient, with some provinces and cities offering brief respite during periods of political relaxation. Yet overall, their fate mirrors that of the exiled people of Babylon: struggling to survive in a foreign land while gradually losing their purity.

Headquarters of the Three Self Patriotic Movement in Shanghai. Credits.

What once was a heart pure toward Christ is now forced to compromise under stringent political oversight. Some preachers, though reading the Bible and paying lip service to God, hold secular government salaries and official positions, submitting to governmental evaluations and oversight—their hearts long since estranged from Him. Grand-looking churches become hollow shells of “humanistic care, ethical values, and spiritual solace.”

The pulpit has fallen from a golden lampstand to a fragile vase, relying on rituals to maintain atmosphere, using sentiment to cultivate relationships, and substituting so-called charity for being salt and light. Even so, under the broader context of “Sinicizing religion,” many churches still cannot escape the fate of demolition. In September 2025, new regulations strictly prohibited online preaching and evangelism unless conducted on official platforms. In October 2025, nearly thirty leaders and members of Beijing Zion Church—one of China’s largest house churches with nearly 10,000 believers—were arrested, including its founder, Pastor Jin. The crackdown spread across Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangxi, Fujian, and beyond. Government suppression of house churches has never ceased and continues to intensify.

The Three-Self Church appears “safe” on the surface but actually aids and abets oppression, preventing believers from trusting in Christ and achieving true self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. It reshapes faith, restricts personnel, and manipulates finances, transforming churches into Party branches—defying Jesus’ warning: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

How helpless are believers gathering within such a cage! Some yield to weakness and bow their knees; others remain blinded by ignorance; still others, lacking alternatives, can only compromise. Though God preserved seven thousand in Israel who did not bow to Baal (Romans 11:4), how can faithful believers continue to play along under pressure to “pass the test”? To stay or to leave—to honor God or to honor man? The Three-Self Patriotic Movement demands we “make the correct political choice,” or else be labeled “foreign forces.” I once tried to share the pure gospel in a gathering, only to be warned by the pastor, “Don’t stir up trouble.” After awakening, my heart broke. Staying meant watching brothers and sisters be manipulated by ideology; leaving meant facing the risks of underground gatherings—by the first half of 2025, thousands of Christians had already been detained for “illegal gatherings.” We weep because the Lord’s sheepfold is guarded by wolves; we despair because truth gasps for breath amid lies.

Dear brothers and sisters, awaken! The Lord’s love is universal, not bound by national borders. International community, heed the cries of China’s believers and advance human rights reform. May we hold fast through our tears: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Weeping believers refuse eternal silence. I seem to hear the Lord’s call—even in darkness, we must strive to lift high the cross!

Source: bitterwinter.org