Chinese Demonstrators Call for Religious Freedom at Bible Museum Opening

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Chinese demonstrators gathered at the Museum of the Bible at its grand opening last Friday to protest what they call the persecution of Christians in China. Holding signs in both English and Chinese, the protesters gathered to call attention to alleged abuses, most notably to political activist Wang Bingzhang.

“Opening up this Museum of the Bible,” Ye Ning, an attorney, began, “we are here to pray for long mercy and miracle grace to our fellow Christian and brother, Wang Bingzhang.”

Bingzhang, who is currently serving a life sentence in China on charges of espionage and terrorism, is the founder of the Chinese Democracy Justice Party (CDJP). He is considered a political prisoner in the West for speaking out against communism and the abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government.

Roughly 20 demonstrators, representing the Chinese Democracy Party (CDP), a political party also seeking to abolish the one-party communist regime of China, stood before the museum from 9 a.m. to about 11 a.m., taking turns speaking before cameras supplied by their own group. Speakers alternated between Chinese and English as they spoke of the illegal practice of Christian worship in the country, vouching for Bingzhang as a champion of democracy and religious freedom.

“He led us to fight against the satanic evils of communists,” Ning said. “Dr. Wang Bingzhang has been behind us for one-and-a-half decades, and Wang is still suffering from all kinds of inhumane treatment.”

The Museum of the Bible is located at 400 Fourth St. SW, approximately three blocks away from the U.S Capitol. The building, which covers roughly 430,000 square feet and cost $500 million to build, is not part of the Smithsonian series of museums; it is privately owned by the owner of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green. The museum’s focus on the bible is non-denominational and houses thousands of biblical artifacts throughout history, including fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls (though the authenticity of the fragments has been put to question.) Though the grand opening was Friday, Nov.17, it was invitation only; the Museum of the Bible is open to the public starting Nov. 18, entry only allowed by free tickets available online.

Religious practice in modern-day China has been controversial. Since the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong back in 1966, China has officially embraced state atheism. Though that is the case, people can technically practice their religion insofar as government watchdog organizations supervise them. According to the Freedom House, the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has “intensified” its grip over religious practices, with an estimated 100 million people in China facing “’high’ or ‘very high’ levels of persecution.”

Wang Bingzhang is one such Christian; he was imprisoned by the government for his activism, starting a pro-democracy magazine entitled China Spring while he was studying in Canada for his doctorate in medicine in 1982, and corresponding with student leaders to dismantle the communist regime in pursuit of a free, democratic government. As the founder of China Spring and CDJP, which is officially banned by the Chinese government, Bingzhang was abducted in Vietnam in 2002 by Chinese spies. He has been imprisoned in China since June of that year.

As the demonstrators spoke one after another before the cameras, all the while holding pamphlets and signs such as one with the bible colored in by black sharpie, and another reading “God Bless America, God Bless China,” they would intermittently pray on behalf of Wang Bingzhang, who made the request to be prayed for a week before the museum opening, said Wang Juntao. Bingzhang wanted the CDJP demonstrators specifically to speak at the grand opening of the Museum of the Bible.

“We hold such a simple ceremony,” Juntao said, “I think that that will be the most meaningful ceremony we will have for the tremendous building.”

Juntao was one of the student leaders Bingzhang corresponded with. When Juntao was jailed in 1989 and charged as one of the instigators of the Tiananmen Square protests, it was Bingzhang who called for his release. In 2013, Juntao held a demonstration in support of his compatriot by locking himself in a cage in Times Square, a protest which shed light on the conditions by which Bingzhang was suffering and the intolerance and brutality of the Chinese government. Juntao has been living in the United States since 1994.

“They control all the media in China,” Jin Xiu Hong, a CDJP member from Seattle, said. “They control all the resources in China, they send domestic and international spies to divide, to conquer, to try to destroy Chinese democracy and human rights organizations.”

When the conversation turned to living in the U.S., Hong could not say the same.

“Almost none of us were born here, but we are here because we love America,” Hong said. “Freedom of publication, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, all the freedoms you don’t have in China.”