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Lu says that the balanced style of the group makes it influential and therefore threatening to the government. The fellowship shares "completely identical doctrines with mainstream Christian groups overseas," Lu says.The government, he thinks, also is wary of the close contact that the fellowship has with overseas religious and human-rights organizations. Further, the fellowship has urged other house-church groups not to register with the government's Religious Affairs Bureau or to join the official "Three-Self" churches.Fellowship members have criticized the government's policy prohibiting the conversion or teaching of anyone under 18, which means parents cannot talk to their children about Christ.In Communist China labels determine your future. In Mao's time, the label "rightist" was a consignment to a social hell with constant discrimination, harassment, or even death. In 1999 the government changed its labeling system for many house churches from "illegal religious groups" to "cults."The difference is the difference between life and death. Cult leaders can be executed, as have at least three since 1983. Chinese Evangelistic Fellowship was declared a cult last Fall.The current government crackdown followed government policy meetings and a policy speech Jiang Zemin in September 1999. Jiang called for the party to "energetically give guidance to religion" and to maintain vigilance against "cults." Within a month of Jiang's speech the leader of the heterodox Supreme Spirit Sect was executed.The Christian house churches have gone to great lengths to disprove their "cult" label, issuing an orthodox Christian statement of faith and sending out notices of their unprovoked arrests."We really just want to suffer silently," says a China Evangelistic Fellowship source, "but every time we get persecuted the government accuses us of being a cult."On the CBS news program 60 Minutes last Sunday, Mike Wallace asked whether the Chinese government persecutes Christians."No," Jiang said brusquely, looking away.

Read more about China's religious freedom record at uscirf.org, or at human rights sites like Amnesty International, Freedom House, or Human Rights Watch.Read the testimony of USCIRF's Commissioner, Elliot Abrams, to the House International Relations Committee on the state of religious oppression in China last May.The U.S. State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, released last week, has a reams of information about China's religious freedom record over the last year.Coverage of Jiang Zemin's US visit is available from Reuters, or read a profile of Jiang from CNN.CNN also ran a couple of stories about China and the PNTR debate: the first is about weapons compromise, and the second features Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina proclaiming, "We are not going to rubber stamp the President's plan to reward Chinese Communists. We are going to have a debate."Previous Christianity Today stories about China include:House Approves Divisive U.S.-China Trade Pact | But will permanent normal trade relations status help human rights? (May 25, 2000) China Should Improve on Religion to Gain Permanent Trade Status, Commission Says | Religious liberty in Sudan and Russia also criticized. (May 8, 2000) China's Three Self Churches, Seminaries Bursting | Younger Chinese drastically changing congregational demographics. (Dec. 29, 2000) A Tale of China's Two Churches | Eyewitness reports of repression and revival. (July 13, 1998)

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October 23 2000, Vol. 44, No. 12