Vice President Mike Pence met with an interfaith coalition of religious freedom advocates recently that included 21Wilberforce President, Randel Everett, to discuss what the United States can do to hold China to account as it continues to persecute and abuse religious believers of all stripes.
At the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., Pence and other administration officials met for about an hour with about 10 to 15 advocates from various faith backgrounds assembled by the International Religious Freedom Roundtable.
Among the attendees was Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; 21Wilberforce President Randel Everett; Bob Fu, head of the Christian persecution watchdog organization China Aid; David Curry, head of the international Christian persecution advocacy group Open Doors USA; and Greg Mitchell, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable.
Joining Pence from the Trump administration was U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback and members of the National Security Council.
“There were a handful of leaders from the world dealing with religious liberty who voiced concern about the shocking rise of religious liberty violations in China in the last six years,” Curry, whose organization works in dozens of countries and produces an annual list of top 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution, told The Christian Post.
“We had people from different faith backgrounds but we joined together to give an in-depth briefing on the series of issues that are happening against Christians, Muslims, the Falun Gong and other religions that are being persecuted in China right now.”
As China has consistently been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a “country of particular concern” for the past 20 years, Curry urged the administration to consider new sanctions related to the religious liberty violations.
Along with shutting down underground churches and imprisoning Christian believers, the Chinese communist government has displayed a strong animosity toward believers of all faiths.
Excerpted from Christianpost.com