The government does not wish to create martyrs.” The government official in Beijing, China, spoke privately and quietly. “They make religion uncontrollable.” Perhaps this officer of a government bent on controlling and abating the growth of the church within its borders knew the effect of suffering and martyrdom upon the Kingdom of God: It expands it.
He might very well have been speaking of nineteen-year-old Liu Haitong.
Liu was a member of an underground Protestant house church in the city of Jiaozuo in Henan Province. Because of Henan’s thriving house-church movement, the province had been at the centre of a two-year campaign by the government against unregistered church groups.
Police discovered and raided an underground worship service at a private home on 4 September 2000. Liu was targeted for his simple faith in Christ. He was arrested, taken into custody, and beaten.
“At any one moment,” explained one underground house church leader, “there are probably well over a hundred Christians detained for their faith and receiving severe beatings from sadistic policemen.”
Liu was left without adequate food or provisions for hygiene. Within days he began vomiting and developed a high fever, but jail officials refused to provide medical care. On 16 October, Liu died of injuries sustained during his beatings and from neglect.
Liu Haitong’s death was “a bad mistake”, according to government officials who wanted to suppress Christianity. Because of his faith and the faith of others like him, the Kingdom continues to expand throughout the country like wildfire, unrestrained and uncontrollable by those who fear it.
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