by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Chinese pastor Wang Yi was sentenced to 9 years of prison on December 30th, following a year of detention in an unknown location in which he was deprived a lawyer by President Xi Jinping's Chinese Communist Party.
Wang, who was first apprehended in December 2018, published a manifesto on Christian civil disobedience against the Chinese President's "sinicization" plan to co-opt Christianity for the Chinese communist state in September, instructing church members to release it if he ever suddenly disappeared.
"I hope God uses me, by means of first losing my personal freedom, to tell those who have deprived me of my personal freedom that there is an authority higher than their authority," Wang said in a statement posted by members of his Early Rain Covenant Church on Facebook.
"I will resist in meekness those who resist God, and I will joyfully violate all laws that violate God's laws," he added.
In addition to 9 years in a communist prison for "inciting subversion of state power," the People's Court of Chengdu in Sichuan Province ruled that $7,000 USD of Wang's personal assets would be confiscated by the government and the pastor's political rights would be taken away for 3 years following his sentence.