From Jail, Pastor Wang Lin Urges Bearing the Cross
Writing from detention more than a year after the Zion Church crackdown, he frames shared suffering as a sign of one Body in Christ.
In a letter dated October 22, Pastor Wang Lin of Beijing Zion Church, writing from Beihai Second Detention Center in Guangxi, urged fellow Christians to persevere and described their common hardship as a sign of belonging to one body in Christ.
Wang, a former lawyer who earned a doctorate in Old Testament theology from Wheaton College in Illinois, was arrested on October 9, 2025, at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport and later transferred to Beihai. He is one of eight Beijing Zion Church leaders and workers still detained after the October 2025 crackdown. They face charges of fraud and illegal business operations; court proceedings were postponed in August.
“Since ancient times, the scar of bearing the cross has been among the most important marks of the entire Body of Christ,” he wrote.
Life Inside Beihai Detention
Wang described 30 to 40 detainees sleeping on a communal wooden platform of about 40 square meters (430 square feet). By day they crowd into an exercise yard of roughly 30 square meters (320 square feet). He reported insect infestations, including bites and a centipede found in his clothing. Meals consist mainly of boiled vegetables, with an egg each morning and soybeans twice a week. He said care is inadequate for detainees with hypertension and diabetes.
He reported that a 36-year-old detainee died suddenly in October. He did not name the person or the illness, and the account could not be independently verified.
Wang said the loudspeakers that blare daily instructions at high volume distress him more than the physical conditions. “If music can soothe our souls, these loudspeakers seem to tear my soul apart, as if they are trying to shatter my entire being and turn me into a puppet without feelings or thoughts.”
He relies on prayer and perseverance. He draws encouragement from fellow Zion members held only 100 to 200 meters away, whom he has glimpsed occasionally during questioning. Thinking of them, he wrote, turned anxiety and self-pity into gratitude and concern for others.
He closed: “Let us not be deceived by the devil into thinking that we are facing this battle alone,” and asked that the comfort he has received also strengthen family members and friends facing suffering.
Zion Church Under Pressure
Beijing Zion Church, once among China’s largest unregistered Protestant congregations, was officially banned in 2018. Its founder, Pastor Ezra Jin, was released in July 2026 after nine months in detention. Wang and seven others remain in custody.
For Catholics who follow the Church’s teaching on religious freedom and solidarity with persecuted Christians, the letter is a concrete witness: the cross is not abstract when believers are held for their faith, and the Body of Christ is one wherever the scar of that cross is borne.