60 Seconds for China is part of the Great Wall of Prayer Initiative started by a group of veteran pastors, Christian leaders, businessmen, and NextGen-ers that have a deep burden for China. (Identity kept anonymous for security reasons). http://www.60secondsforchina.com/ Like a bride, we are fussing over last minute details making sure everything is right.  Of course we won't get it perfect, but we're trying!  Pray that everything will fall into place, and that people will enjoy using our site to pray for China.  Pray that people will really catch on, and we'll see a multitude converging here for timely prayer.  Amen! http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=21 After 15 months of developments, starts, and stops, we are 5 yards away from launching our beta-site! Please join us in prayer for the success of this site, and send people our way. Use the widgets, e-mail, RSS tools freely to stay in touch and build our wall of prayer for China. Feedback welcome! http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=20 Toleration, instead of true religious freedom, is what prevails in China. Toleration varies by section of the country, by time and place in history, past and present, and by active movement of evil forces and the Hand of God.So, what of this freedom, of this tolerance? As one Chinese pastor has stated, “Religious freedom in China means the bird is free to live inside the cage.” Except for Communist Party members, PSB (Public Security Bureau) and PLA (Peoples Liberation Army… i.e. the military), who are required to be atheists, as well as other people employed in government jobs, who are seriously encouraged not to engage in any non-approved activities, the remaining Chinese are technically allowed to “believe or not believe” in Christianity or any other “non-offending, non-political, officially recognized religion.For example, you can wear a cross as jewelry without consequences, you can register and attend government official churches, where available, and purchase a Bible printed by government official printing operations at bookstores or kiosks at official churches as long as you register your Bible purchase and can account for the location of the Bible if ever asked by a member of the Religious Affairs Bureau.1)You are not allowed to openly evangelize. Only the approved “pastor” or “priest” may deliver the message or sermon. Even the message and or sermon must be submitted by the pastor or priest beforehand to the Religious Affairs Bureau representative so that it may be checked and approved before delivery.2)You are not allowed to teach religion to anyone younger than 18. In general, there are no provisions for Sunday school for the children and youth. If an official church is to have an official visit from an outside group (i.e. official visitors from a Christian country), often “for-show-only” children’s programs are conducted.3)You are not allowed to hold religious meetings outside of government designated locations, approved times, or be conducted and/or lead by non-approved leaders.4)You are not allowed to teach on the Second Coming. This restriction extends to all church leaders, teachers, and those participating in any phase of worship.5)You are not allowed to fully teach the promises of the Resurrection. Pastors and leaders are strictly held to reading only the specific words in the Bible, without comment and/or edification.6)You are not allowed to preach and/or teach on healing and/or the full gifts of the Spirit. The Gifts of the Spirit are definitely held by the officials to be “outside the cage.” To preach or teach on any of the Gifts can lead to arrest, imprisonment, fines, torture, or worse.7)You are not allowed to engage in any religious activities away from your hometown (place of official registration). You are also not allowed to worship (without prior approval) at another official church in another city. Recently all Chinese citizens were required to return to their hometown to process and receive new National Identity Cards. These cards have new embedded, advanced tracking capabilities, thus allowing officials to more precisely track their citizens. Note: the company providing these traceable cards is a U.S. company.Call: Pray for fresh winds of religious freedom to blow in China. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=19 More than 100 foreign Christians in China have been accused of being involved in illegal activities and have been expelled in just a 90-day period, the biggest assault on the presence of Christianity in China since 1954, according to a new report from the Voice of the Martyrs. Most of those who have been expelled are from the United States, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia or Israel, and had been working in or visiting Zinjiang, Beijing, Tibet and Shandong, according to the VOM report. A Christian who had worked in Xinjiang for 10 years told a VOM source that more than 60 foreign religious workers, many who had served people in the area for more than 15 years, were expelled from Zinjiang alone. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=15 Beijing - China's most respected publication on development issues, widely read by international aid donors and local nongovernmental organizations, has been ordered by police to close, the magazine's British founder and editor said Wednesday. The closure of the Chinese-language edition of China Development Brief was seen as a major blow to efforts to build civil-society groups in China, which relied on it as an independent clearinghouse for information about their work. The move appeared to represent at least a temporary victory for forces within the Chinese government that remain wary of allowing unofficial organizations, such as charities, to operate outside – and possibly threaten – Communist Party control. "On the one hand, the government recognizes that civil society can play a positive role in a number of areas," helping the authorities to resolve glaring social and environmental problems, explains Yiyi Lu, an expert on Chinese politics at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, a think tank in London. "On the other it is obviously worried that so-called hostile forces might use NGOs to undermine the government." http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=14 On one side of the debate is a constellation of organizations and individuals who contend that Muslim, communist and other totalitarian governments have launched an all-out attack on their Christian citizens and are getting away with it because the U.S. government, the media, human rights groups and mainstream American Christian churches are silent in the face of the slaughter. Some of the most articulate voices in this camp are Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council; Focus on the Family's James Dobson; Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; New York Times columnist Abe Rosenthal; and Nina Shea, staff member of the human rights organization Freedom House and author of In the Lion's Den. This alliance sees parallels between the Jewish Holocaust and today's events, and they profess outrage that the lessons of history seem to have been so easily forgotten. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=13 "They hung me up across an iron gate, then they yanked open the gate and my whole body lifted until my chest nearly split in two. I hung like that for four hours." That is how Peter Xu Yongze, the founder of one of the largest religious movements in China, described his treatment during one of five jail sentences on account of his belief in Christianity. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=12 http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=11 Christianity came to China not once but on several occasions. The first was during the Tang dynasty in AD 635, when missionaries from the Church of the East (the Persian branch, cut off from the main church due to political tension between the Roman and Persian empires) came to China via the overland route. This church is normally referred to as 'Nestorian' as it follows the doctrines of Bishop Nestorius, declared heretical in AD 431. Nestorianism flourished for a while in China but did not outlast the Tang dynasty owing to the adoption of anti-religious measures in AD 845. Meanwhile, the religion had been transmitted to peripheral areas such as Mongolia. The second time Christianity came to China was during the Yuan or Mongol dynasty (1271-1368), when the Franciscans were commissioned by the Pope in 1294 to carry out missionary activities in China. At the same time, the Nestorian church also returned to China with the Mongol invaders. Rather confusingly, the Chinese used the same name for both versions of the faith, making it difficult to gain a completely clear picture of the situation at the time. At any rate, this second infusion of Christianity failed to survive the end of the Yuan dynasty. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=10 For more than four centuries, the study of China and the conversion of its people have been high Christian callings. Though never a decisive influence on the course of China’s history, Christianity has managed to be on hand for some of the country’s shaping events, present at both creative and destructive moments. Today, as China’s relations with the world become ever more complex, the West’s core religious tradition has once again insinuated itself into China’s ongoing confusion, not only in a day-to-day way but as a subject for longer-term speculation. In the United States especially, efforts in both religious and political communities to make Christianity more salient in America’s international relations generally are bound to make Christianity more conspicuous in United States-China relations particularly. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=9 China's record of human rights abuses is horrific. Since the People's Republic of China was formed in 1949 under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, the government has used a system of 're-education through labour' camps in an attempt to ensure its citizens adhere to the atheistic communist ideals of the country. While in recent years China has been progressing towards a free market economy, there is no indication that any serious attempts are being made to reform its treatment of its own citizens, especially in regards to freedom of religion. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=8 "Understanding the Christian Community in China" is an article written by Dr. Don Snow, a Presbyterian missionary with the Amity Foundation in Nanjing, China Unlike the common misconception in the west that the church in China is in two different communities (the "underground/illegal" and "open/legal" churches), his thoughtful and nuanced article on the Christian community in China describes the Church in China as being made up of five major components each of which differs substantively from the others, but all sharing common Christian beliefs. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=7 An official with China's Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement has refuted the argument made by some people in the West in their wrongful attack against China's system and practice of Christianity. He said these Westerners regard China's Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement as an organization established by the government to control the development of Christianity. "This (argument) totally twists the facts, and is a kind of malicious distortion," the official said. The movement, which advocates self-administration, self-support and self-propagation among the Protestant churches in China, is a patriotic movement formed spontaneously by Chinese Christians who sought to defend themselves against the invasion and bullying of colonialists and imperialists in the early days, according to the official. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=5 If you have trouble filling in the last blank, it’s because the answer is blank. From time immemorial, the Chinese have been the least religious of any of history’s major civilizations. Daoism, Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism are rationalistic quasi-religions lacking any personal relationship with a transcendent deity or deities. The ancestor- and spirit-worship of Chinese folk religion is individualized to families only. This is one reason why China has periodically endured spasms of murderous cultural insanity. In the middle of the 19th century, a fellow from Guangdong Province named Hong Xiuquang read a Christian missionary tract and decided he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, called upon by Jehovah to establish a Taiping Kingdom (taiping means “heavenly peace”) by cleansing China of Ching Dynasty corruption through divine slaughter. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=4 An intense debate has been waged in recent months about Christians in China. At issue is whether or not Christians in China are being persecute, and if they are, what the United States should do about it. On one side of the debate is a constellation of organizations and individuals who contend that Muslim, communist and other totalitarian governments have launched an all-out attack on their Christian citizens and are getting away with it because the U.S. government, the media, human rights groups and mainstream American Christian churches are silent in the face of the slaughter. Some of the most articulate voices in this camp are Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council; Focus on the Family's James Dobson; Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; New York Times columnist Abe Rosenthal; and Nina Shea, staff member of the human rights organization Freedom House and author of In the Lion's Den. This alliance sees parallels between the Jewish Holocaust and today's events, and they profess outrage that the lessons of history seem to have been so easily forgotten. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=3 has developed since at least the 7th century AD. The introduction of Nestorianism, a Christian sect, around 635 is considered by some to be the first entry of the Christian religion into China. While the government claims that 16 million Chinese are Christian, it is estimated that between 40 million [1] to 100 million [2] Chinese are Christian (or 3% to 4% of the Chinese population). Christianity is also the fastest growing religion in China[citation needed]. The Christian population in China comprises Protestants, Catholics, and a very small number of http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=2 That is how Peter Xu Yongze, the founder of one of the largest religious movements in China, described his treatment during one of five jail sentences on account of his belief in Christianity. Mr Xu, 61, is not the only Chinese Christian to suffer for his faith. Both Catholics and Protestants have long complained of persecution by the Communist authorities, and human rights groups claim the problem is getting worse. According to the Jubilee Campaign, an interdenominational lobby group, about 300 Christians are in detention in China at any one time, and that number is set to rise. "China's new generation of leaders are trying to consolidate control of the country as it goes through rapid social and economic changes," said Wilfred Wong, a parliamentary officer for the Jubilee Campaign. "The Communists feel threatened by any popular ideology which is different from their own," he said. http://thegreencompany.org/60_seconds_for_china/prayer.php?prayer_id=1