China has seen a surge of Protestantism since the days of Mao Zedong, but the government insists that its worshipers remain in the state-run Protestant movement, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. For this reason, many people who do not want to register with the state do not want their religious practices to be controlled by the government, and instead set up informal or underground churches, known as “house churches” because they often meet in people’s homes. of the congregation. Although house churches are often made up of people who just want a quiet place to practice their faith, house church leaders sometimes come into conflict with the state. At the time of his arrest in 2006, Lin was actively participating in the house church movement.
Born in Taiwan, Mr. Lin studied chemical engineering and came to the United States while working for a Taiwanese chemical company. He settled in Southern California and started his own company supplying latex gloves to his hospital. His daughter Alice Lin said he was “anti-religious” but had a sudden change of heart in the 1990s. “He became really passionate about God,” she recalls. Mr. Lin belonged to Orange County Evangelical Taiwan Church in Garden Grove, California, where he was an ordained lay minister and was active in grassroots efforts.
He traveled frequently to China. “He had a passion and belief that there would be more Christians in China than anywhere else in the world,” Lin told us. “There was hunger, and he had a vision of China becoming the greatest church nation. At one point, God was trying to save China’s leaders so that they would not be hidden and suppressed. He had a vision of building a Christian training center in Beijing.
Mr. Lin drew inspiration from the legacy of Watchman Ne, the founder of China’s house church movement. When Chinese authorities first questioned Mr. Lin in 2006 and banned him from leaving China, Mr. Lin was working to establish a training center in Beijing. He was taken into custody on August 17, 2007 and subsequently charged with fraud. (Chinese authorities commonly use charges of fraud, sometimes related to collection of donations, to punish leaders of house church movements.) Win better conditions and release of Chinese religious and political prisoners through dialogue. According to the Tekka Foundation, which aims to Although Lin maintained his innocence, he was found guilty in December 2009 and sentenced to life in prison. He appealed, but the verdict was upheld in 2010.
According to the Teika Foundation, his sentence was reduced to 19 years and six months in 2012, and further reduced thereafter. His current sentence expires in 2029.
Mr. Lin, now 68 years old, should not spend any more time locked up. He is only allowed to call his family from prison twice a month for five minutes each time. He is considered a prisoner of religious conscience by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and has been designated by the U.S. State Department as wrongfully detained under the Levinson Act.
Mr. Lin is far from alone. China has thousands of political and religious prisoners. He denies his people basic freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. Mr. Blinken will no doubt have a busy schedule when he visits Beijing, but he should pause and make the time to appeal to Chinese leaders for Lin’s release. The Secretary should not hesitate to tell China’s leaders that Mr. Lam is not committing fraud in his efforts to worship God outside the strict control of the state.
Faith and belief are universal human rights, not rewards given or withheld by the Chinese Communist Party and the state it controls.
