The CCP’s War on Faith — and the Power That Endures

Good morning. Thank you to Providence and the Institute on Religion & Democracy for the invitation to speak at this important gathering. 

This conference reminds us that faith and freedom are inseparably connected. As the Founders well understood, here on Earth, governments are chartered not to establish rights, but to guard and guarantee rights that have already been gifted by God against those who would seek to take them away. 

It’s a timely discussion, as just last week, Chinese authorities detained Pastor Jin Mingri, founder of Beijing’s Zion Church — one of China’s largest underground Christian congregations — at his home in Beihai.

Pastor Jin has family here in Washington, some of whom I believe are here today, reminding us that the CCP’s war on faith reaches across oceans. It touches our institutions, our friends, and our families. 

If you’ll permit me, I'd like to do something a little unconventional with my time today. Instead of delivering a prepared speech, I'd like to read to you a letter which is now en route to Jimmy Lai, who has for nearly five years been a prisoner of conscience inside Staley Prison in Honk Kong. 

Lai has been a courageous champion for freedom and truth in Hong Kong. He is the founder of the Apple Daily, which brought news from the world and the truth to Hong Kong from 1995 until 2021 when the CCP closed its doors. 

Today, though Jimmy Lai may be chained in a dark prison, he remains “still in heart and conscience free.” 

Dear Mr. Lai, 

We have not yet had the opportunity to meet, but your story and your struggle have been deeply inspirational to me and all freedom-loving people around the world. On the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which I have the privilege to lead, your testimony to what President Reagan once described as the “irresistible power of unarmed truth” has served as a North Star that helps guide our work. 

Your beloved Hong Kong has been a focal point of our work because in Hong Kong, we see the future that the Party seeks to create globally—one in which the rule of law no longer exists, where once-independent institutions have been bent to the CCP’s will, where free expression comes with a jail sentence. As a solemn reminder that we cannot let Hong Kong’s present become the world’s future, a copy of the final edition of Apple Daily hangs proudly in our office. 

I’ve often wondered what it is about you that is such a threat to the Chinese Communist Party, and what it is about you that they hate so deeply that they deny you Communion, even in captivity. 

The answer, I’ve come to believe, is your faith—not just in democracy, but in God. 

There’s a passage in Tom Holland’s Dominion, about the enduring global influence of Christianity, that observes--“Crucifixion was not 

merely punishment. It was a means to achieving dominance: a dominance felt as a dread in the guts of the subdued. Terror of power was the index of power. That was how it has always been, and always would be. It was the way of the world. For two thousand years, though, Christians have disputed this.” 

The CCP fears you and even hates you because you too have disputed this. You have disputed this for a hundred reasons, borne not just from scripture, but from all you know. 

You know that the CCP fears faith because it cannot control it. You know that no matter the instruments of repression, both new and ancient, employed by the Party to consolidate its control, its power will always pale in comparison to God’s. You know that all human beings are born free, that truth exists beyond the reach of the state, and that no government can claim ownership of the soul. 

You know that this is why, under Xi Jinping, the CCP has declared war on faith itself. 

You know that across China today, the Party is carrying out its most systematic campaign of religious persecution since the Cultural Revolution. The Party calls it the “sinicization of religion.” But you know what it really means is subjugation. You know that the Party demands that every conscience, every congregation, and every creed bow before its rule. 

You know that religious leaders who refuse to join Party-controlled “patriotic” churches are detained, disappeared, or silenced. 

You know that crosses, crescents, and domes are being torn down. Religious architecture is being stripped and rewritten to erase faith from public life. 

You know that independent congregations are being shut down — about 90 percent of Catholic churches in Wenzhou have been closed, and one-third of mosques in Ningxia have been shuttered since 2020. 

You know that high-tech surveillance now watches over every place of worship, tracking who prays and who preaches — even following exiles abroad. 

You know that new laws make it nearly impossible to operate unregistered churches or host foreign missionaries. 

You know that unrecognized groups like Falun Gong and the Church of Almighty God face detention, torture, and there are even reports of forced organ harvesting. 

You know that in Xinjiang, more than half a million Uyghur Muslims remain in camps — victims of an ongoing campaign of genocide and forced assimilation. 

You know these are not isolated incidents. They are the work of a system that cannot tolerate allegiance to any authority higher than the Party. 

You know that the CCP’s campaign to “sinicize” religion is an effort to replace God with the state. The message is simple: worship the Party or pay the price. 

You know that is not strength. That is fear. A regime confident in its legitimacy does not need to bulldoze mosques or arrest newspapermen or pastors. It does not need to surveil prayers. 

You know that faith terrifies tyrants because it teaches that human beings are created, not owned. That our dignity is divine, not distributed by the state. That even in a prison cell, a man can be freer than both his jailer and those outside the prison walls who dare not speak the truth. 

You know that your captors think they can outlast you. But you also know that history has never been kind to governments that try to erase belief. From Rome to the Soviet Union to Beijing, you know that power built on fear eventually collapses. What endures are the truths that men and women suffer to defend. 

You know that a regime that fears the faith of its own citizens will never respect the freedom of its neighbors. You know that its hostility toward conscience is the same instinct that drives its hostility toward the free world. 

All that you know makes you today the freest man in Hong Kong. 

So, Mr. Lai — and to all those who suffer for truth — I hope you know this: we see you, we pray for you, we speak your names in the halls of Congress and around the world, and we will not cease holding those responsible for your imprisonment accountable until you are free. 

The CCP may think power comes from fear. But we know that power rooted in fear cannot last. 

Isaiah wrote “the grass withers and the flowers wade, but the Word of the Lord is forever.” 

This is also true of the Party’s authority. It too will fade, but the truth — the kind you live for — will endure forever. 

Thank you, and God bless.