The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has decided some fundamental tenets of Christianity mark the world’s largest faith as a cult, and one that needs vigorous suppression. That includes sentencing a 77-year-old man to jail, in part, for helping young Christians find spouses and believing that faith in Jesus gets people into heaven. According to the CCP, these were the “heretical” activities of a “cult.”
Pastor Yang Zhijin was sentenced to three years in prison, along with 30 of his congregants, for “using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law.” The CCP was referring to Yang’s house church, a congregation not part of the state-sanctioned Chinese church, in Henan Province, which prosecutors allege was part of the banned Full Range Church network.
Whether or not that’s the case – under threat of prison, Yang denied it – Full Range itself would hardly be considered a cult outside China. Founded in 1984 by Pastor Peter Xu, it fits squarely in the “born again” Christian movement.
And yet, the CCP has listed Full Range as a cult since 1995. At the time, the label was less a precise legal definition than a CCP designation for religious movements the state deemed politically dangerous, socially disruptive, or doctrinally “heterodox.”
