"Can you stand up for your faith against the police?"

Worshipping In Fear
Sky News

Christians in China are calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury to demand greater religious freedom as he continues his visit to the country this week.
As Sky's Dominic Waghorn discovered, increasing numbers of Christians are only allowed to worship in state-sanctioned churches, while unofficial churches are the subject of a crackdown by authorities:
They call it the chairman's tour - the red carpet treatment laid on by Chinese hosts for visiting CEOs designed to impress their guests.
The visiting dignitaries are feted and charmed but only shown the China their hosts want them to see. The Archbishop of Canterbury is being treated to the ecclesiastical equivalent in his visit to China this week.
His office says his visit is designed "to provide a deeper understanding of the Christian communities in China and the varied context in which they are developing".
But a look at his schedule suggests he is only being allowed to look at what his hosts want him to see.
His aides have told Sky News there were no plans for the Anglican leader to visit any underground churches. In fact, to tell you the truth, I am not sure the person we spoke to was even sure what they were.
But these illegal churches are where the only really free Christian worship is allowed to happen here and where the vast majority of Chinese Christians practice their religion.
Tens of millions do so, but they do so at risk of arrest and persecution.
His hosts are the joint Three-Self Patriotic Movement China Christian Council and the State Administration of Religious Affairs. Through them China's ruling Communist Party controls Christianity here. It appoints all ministers and decrees what can and can't be said in church.
Not surprisingly tens of millions of Chinese Christians, perhaps as many as 80 million, reject those controls and worship in house churches instead, gathering illegally.
We went to the kind of Church the Archbishop won't be seeing.
Our Christian contact told us to move quickly - in the slum alleys of his parish, preacher Zhang Mingxuan never knows when the police are watching.
Despite government harassment his small shack of a church was packed. But what really struck you was the fervour and spirit of the congregation.
At the start of the service they all chanted at once, hundreds of personal prayers being uttered together.
China is a reserved society. Passion can be a dangerous thing especially if politically motivated, but here it was all coming out..
"Your rights come from God," the preacher told the congregation, "and no one else."
And as three new converts lined up for baptism, as well as the vows we are familiar with in the West, they were asked by the preacher: "Can you stand up for your faith against the police?"
The comparison is often drawn but witnessing this kind of secret worship, you couldn't help thinking of the early Christians gathering in homes to practice their religion in the days of the Roman Empire. For China's Christians hiding from their own oppressive empire, the similarities are all too obvious.
"In this country there is no religious freedom," Zhang told me. "But even without freedom I have to follow Jesus' teachings and help more and more people to see the light."
The baptisms he had just carried out are what worries the Chinese Government.
Christianity is exploding in popularity. It fills a spiritual void left by the failure of communism. There are now more Christians in China than members of the communist party.
On their own the old ladies, young men and mothers with babies who were in that church aren't a problem, but China's government is paranoid about anything that brings millions of people together, because it fears that organized religion one day, could become organized unrest the next.
One day last August, 3,000 Christians had gathered to consecrate the church they had saved up to build on the outskirts of Hangzhou, one of China's more prosperous towns.
They were joined by more than 500 police and several hundred security guards and demolition teams with diggers.
The police cleared away the crowds and the diggers tore the building down.
There were scuffles and witnesses say people were beaten up and others arrested, people whose only crime had been turning up to consecrate a church that was officially not recognized by the state.
This is normal practice for Chinese authorities and normally they get away with it unwitnessed by the outside world. But in this case the demolition was filmed on mobile phones and the footage was handed to Sky News.
We decided it should be broadcast during the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit, to help "provide a deeper understanding of the Christian communities in China and the varied context in which they are developing".
And in our report we also interviewed a man who's just emerged from his second stint in a labour camp, his only crime practicing his faith and documenting how Chinese authorities are demolishing churches and persecuting Christians.
Xu Yonghai may be out of jail but he is still under police surveillance. So we met in a tea house, but he was more than happy to be filmed.
I asked him what he would say to the Archbishop of Canterbury and he told me:
"The religious freedom of China's house churches is being infringed. I hope he can do something about this and to protect religious liberties".
The Archbishop could do it quite easily. If he asks, the British Embassy should be able to provide him with any number of underground churches and underground Christian contacts.
I would love to take him to one. He need only take a taxi and go.
His hosts will hate it but they can hardly stop him. He would learn a lot and his visit would highlight the plight of the tens of millions of Christians being persecuted for practicing what they believe in.
It would be a controversial addition to his Chairman's tour, but well worth it.