As those children grow, however, their religious rights in China will likely depend on the whims of their authoritarian state.
Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, those rights are at their lowest point since the reign of brutal dictator Mao Zedong, former U.S. diplomat Sam Brownback said on “Washington Watch” Thursday.
Mao was the first chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who ruled from 1949-1976, decades characterized by political repression, forced labor, famine and arbitrary justice.
Jinping’s government also includes “a war on faith, a war with God,” Brownback, the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, told show host Tony Perkins.
Since Mao’s death in 1976, China had seen limited improvement in human rights, primarily in economic and social rights, though political rights remained severely restricted.
“You're getting back now to the way it was under some of Mao time period,” Brownback warned.
No single picture more clearly illustrates Brownback’s war on God theory than the story of jailed pastor Ezra Jin Mingri.
The founder of Zion Church, one of China’s largest unregistered urban Christian networks, was arrested last October during a sweeping crackdown by Chinese authorities.
The Ezra Jin Mingri story
The 56-year-old pastor, who holds a doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary and is a graduate of Peking University, established Zion Church in Beijing in 2007 after leaving the state-sanctioned Protestant church.
The church, which grew to serve an estimated 5,000–10,000 members across 40+ cities, operated through hybrid online and house church meetings after its physical location was banned and shut down in 2018 for refusing to install government surveillance cameras.
Seventeen other church leaders were arrested along with Jin Mingri “for doing nothing other than to preach the gospel,” Grace Jin Drexel, Ezra Jin Mingri’s daughter, also a Thursday guest, told Perkins.
The CCP shut down the church building, but the church’s spirit grew and thrived, Jin Drexel said.
“The Chinese Communist Party tried to shut our church down but couldn’t. They shut down the actual location of the church and wouldn't allow any place to host us. So there was no place to worship at all. We were forced to do this online model, but beyond anyone's imagination, God is great and gracious, and during COVID, the miracle happened,” she said.
Online participation ballooned.
“Instead of seven years of desert, we saw seven years of harvest for Zion Church. We were able to minister to more people than we ever had before,” Jin Drexel said.
The CCP was watching online, too.
Now Ezra Jin faces horrible prison living conditions. He is cut off from his family and, Jin Drexel believes, isn’t receiving medication for Type 2 diabetes and other health issues.
“He's not a very healthy person in general. And we know that the prison is not giving him the medication that the doctor prescribed for him,” she said.
Sanitary and health conditions inside most Chinese prisons are notoriously poor.
“Often in these jails in China, they're way overcrowded. They get no sleeping conditions. It’s all very unsanitary. It’s a sort of persecution and penalty … and dehumanization,” Brownback said.
For its purposes, the CCP appears on track to categorize Christianity with other non-Christian faiths.
The government bans numerous groups, primarily labeling them as "evil cults" (xie jiao). Unregistered Christian house churches and groups loyal to the Vatican (rather than the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association) also face severe restrictions and persecution.
Solid record, but work to be done
“They make these blacklist groups, and unfortunately now, the Christians, it appears, are going to be put into this blacklist like they've done Falun Gong and the Muslim Uyghurs and Tibetan Buddhists,” Brownback said.
Brownback praised Trump for his work on religious freedom interests but says more can be done. A first step would be filling the now-vacant ambassador position.
Rashad Hussain, who also held the position of Special Envoy to the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, served under Joe Biden from 2022-2025.
Trump’s second-term nomination of Mark Walker expired in the Senate amid lack of total Republican support.
“I wish they’d do more. This president has done more on religious freedom than any president in the modern era. He’s raised it. He believes in it. He’s done the domestic commission on it; he’s gone at Nigeria. Praise be to God for all of it,” Brownback said.
