{"id":2726,"date":"2025-11-17T18:46:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/?p=2726"},"modified":"2025-11-17T18:46:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:46:23","slug":"christians-from-45-countries-call-for-release-of-chinese-pastor-church-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/?p=2726","title":{"rendered":"Christians from 45 countries call for release of Chinese pastor, church leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2642\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2642\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2642\" src=\"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-300x169.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-1024x576.webp 1024w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-768x432.webp 768w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-1536x864.webp 1536w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-750x422.webp 750w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China-1140x641.webp 1140w, https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pastor-Jin-Mingri-of-China.webp 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2642\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pastor Jin Mingri<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hundreds of Christians and church leaders in more than 45 countries have signed an online prayer petition showing solidarity with arrested church leaders in China.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Drexel, the son-in-law of Jin Mingri, one of the arrested pastors, said he believes this is the first time Christians around the world from countries with close ties to China have jointly spoken out for the persecuted church in China. Pastor Jin, who is sometimes known as Ezra Jin, founded the Zion Church of Beijing, an independent Christian church.<\/p>\n<p>In October, around 30 Christians linked to the Zion Church network\u00a0were arrested in China as part of the country\u2019s crackdown on underground churches. It\u2019s believed around 18, including Pastor Jin, remain in detention centres and are likely to face formal sentencing.<\/p>\n<p>The online prayer, which was written and circulated by Jin\u2019s family, calls on China\u2019s leaders to release the Christians because \u201creligious freedom strengthens rather than threatens nations\u201d and to create \u201ca future where Christians in China can worship freely, serve their communities openly, and live out their faith without fear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It continues: \u201cMay they know they are not forgotten, and that Christians around the world stand with them in spirit and in prayer, and that the world is bearing witness to their treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>This story was <a href=\"https:\/\/premierchristian.news\/en\/news\/article\/hundreds-sign-online-prayer-in-solidarity-with-china-s-imprisoned-christians\">culled<\/a> from Premier Christian News.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Hundreds of Christians and church leaders in more than 45 countries have signed an online prayer petition showing solidarity with arrested church leaders in China. Bill Drexel, the son-in-law of Jin Mingri, one of the arrested pastors, said he believes this is the first time Christians around the world from countries with close ties [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2727,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions\/2727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}