A Chinese house church pastor being held amid a broader crackdown on his congregation says authorities attempted to use concern for his young children to compel him to confess.
Pastor Liu Zhenbin described the alleged pressure in a letter written from detention, according to ChinaAid, a U.S.-based organization that documents religious persecution in China.
Referring to information from people familiar with his case, Liu said a prosecutor in Beihai, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, sought to obtain a confession by telling him, “Your children are still very young. You need to consider them.” Chinese legal standards prohibit authorities from using a detainee’s family as coercive leverage during questioning or evidence collection.
Liu argued that the criminal allegations against him are intended to frighten unregistered Christian congregations across China, deter others from entering pastoral ministry and pressure detained church leaders to surrender under the threat of prosecution.
His family members have also accused detention officials of restricting his correspondence by refusing to deliver letters, photographs and books sent to him.
Born in the 1980s, Liu earned a master’s degree from Taiyuan University of Technology in Shanxi Province before beginning full-time ministry in 2016. He later served with Beijing Zion Church and oversaw its congregation in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao. Liu and his wife have three young children.
Beijing Zion Church has declined to affiliate with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the state-controlled body responsible for officially recognized Protestant congregations. Church leaders maintain that government registration would compromise their independence.
Authorities closed the church’s physical meeting site in 2018. The congregation later expanded its online services during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced further growth.
A coordinated nationwide campaign against Zion Church began on Oct. 9, 2025, when authorities questioned or detained about 30 pastors and congregants. Two days later, officers reportedly took Liu from his Qingdao residence and confiscated his belongings.
After holding him for several months, investigators changed the initial allegation of illegally using information networks to the more serious charges of illegal business operations and fraud.
Eight Zion Church leaders and workers remain detained: Liu, Wang Lin, Gao Yingjia, Yin Huibin, Lin Shucheng, Wang Cong, Wang Zhong and Wu Qiuyu.
The church’s senior pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, was released after nine months in custody and entered the United States on July 4 following diplomatic engagement between Chinese and U.S. officials. Jin, 56, spent a total of 266 days in detention.
ChinaAid founder Bob Fu estimates that more than 10,000 people have been arrested during China’s decade-long campaign against Christians. An estimated 44 million believers attend state-approved churches, while approximately 115 million worship in unregistered congregations, a figure projected to double before 2030.
