Lead story - This Week CHINA: OFFICE BECOMES NEW FORCE FOR RELIGIOUS REPRESSIONGovernment seminar on house churches, once considered encouraging, results in crackdown.DUBLIN, July 2 (Compass Direct News) – Amid vigorous debate among scholars in China on the status of house churches, one prominent scholar has suggested the government offer more openness and legal standing to house church Christians, but authorities have reacted with raids, arrests, forced church closures and a ban on the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. Scholar Yu Jianrong and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence. The one-year, government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state. A summary of Yu’s findings presented at a government seminar in November 2008 had encouraged some house church leaders, but shortly afterwards the Ministry of Civil Affairs banned the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. More raids over the past month illustrate what Yu described as a confused approach to religion, with authorities leaving some house churches to operate openly while other churches were specifically targeted for arrests and closure.
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