In one Chinese province, Christians are being required to register on a government app to receive permission to attend services in their congregations.
The situation for Christians in China has been deteriorating to unprecedented levels in recent years, and the latest complaint concerns the province of Henan, where the Religious Department – a kind of government secretariat – imposed the new rule.
This is the same province where a preacher was arrested last year for buying Christian books online.
According to the entity ChinaAid, there is no legal basis for the new requirement of the provincial authorities. Christians who want the right to go to worship need to download the “Smart Religion” app. The measure also extends to Muslims and Buddhists.
Registration in the application requires information such as name, phone number, identification document (equivalent to RG), proof of residence, professional occupation and date of birth. After filling in all the fields, the faithful need to wait to find out if they have been approved to receive permission to attend the services.
Those who are approved need to have their body temperature measured before entering the temple and present a registration code made in the application. In this way, the government even keeps track of how many times a person has attended a service.
There are reports that there have been questions to the provincial government about how elderly Christians, who are not familiar with smartphone technology, can attend services. The government responded by saying that teams would help them register.
The impact of the measure can already be noticed by church leaders in the region: there was a drop in the number of churchgoers. There is tension among worshipers as the communist government has been using surveillance technology like big data, maps and artificial intelligence in the app.
The Open Doors Mission has reported a deterioration in the situation of Christians living in China. Compared to 2022, the country has become more hostile, now ranking 16th on the list of 50 countries that most persecute followers of Jesus Christ.