I knew in churches like this one all over China, these cameras were silently watching. They could be in the back of the sanctuary, the pulpit, above the congregation—wherever was best to see and note each person there to worship Jesus.
On my recent trip to China, I saw hundreds of cameras on a simple stroll around Beijing. I wasn’t surprised to read a report that China has more than 415 million public cameras (CCTVs)—and that it’s possible there may be over 2 billion CCTVs on the streets in the next few years.
You might be wondering: Why is China monitoring its people—and its churches? And why might Christians have something to fear from this constant surveillance?
This is why.
A deadly squeeze
The government’s tightening on the Christian community in China—an estimated 97 million people—is real and happening right now. Every once in a while, the Chinese government will arrest some pastors, or shut down churches, or do something aggressive like take down crosses from steeples. But more often, the way they squeeze the church is quieter—and perhaps deadlier.
Their primary fear is that Christians who follow Jesus have a greater allegiance to Him than the Communist Party— and they want to squeeze the life out of that allegiance. There are other things happening in China that suggest the surveillance in churches could be just the beginning.
China has developed an incredibly technologically advanced system to help them keep tabs on Chinese citizens they deem a threat to the state. Their facial recognition software means they can use their CCTV network to pinpoint and identify individuals—and there were recent reports of China requiring all cell phone operators to collect more face scans, which, of course, the government would have access to.
Then there’s the social credit system, first introduced in 2014 and planned to be fully in place in the coming years. The credit system tracks individuals and assigns them a “score,” based on if the government and other citizens approve of them and trust them. That score can then determine how and if Chinese citizens are able to travel, whether they can be approved for loans and more.
And perhaps most chillingly, the Chinese government has already shown what it looks like when they decide a religion is a threat. The government has maintained a notorious series of “re-education camps” of Chinese Muslims in northwest China. Many of these camps are little more than brutal detention camps dedicated to eliminating the culture—and religion—of the Muslims there.
It doesn’t take a big leap of imagination to see how this vast network of surveillance and control could be used against Christians. After all, Christians are followers of Jesus, and He doesn’t fit nicely with a government that requires allegiance to a Communist state above everything.
So, what if they decide Jesus followers are a threat?
