by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - The Chinese government crackdown on unofficial Christianity continued late summer into early fall, with house churches in Yunnan province and Shandong province shut down in August and October.
In Shandong in October, believers were told "the Bible is banned" by local officials, and that their home group had been "designated as a target of the campaign to 'clean up gang crime and eliminate evil."
"What kind of government is this? They turn a blind eye on evil-doers and criminals, but persecute us Christians," an elderly believer asked Bitter Winter.
August saw police storm into a house church in Yunnan and declare that the believers had to become part of a government-registered Three-Self Patriotic movement church or else disband.
Three-Self Patriotic movement churches also suffered in recent months, with sermons changed by government order and amended to contain communist-friendly themes, crucifixes, and other spiritual paintings removed, and pictures of Chinese President Xi Jinping hung in their place.