One door, many locks
Date
07/07/2026
Hosted By
One door, many locks
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WORLD Radio - One door, many locks
China released Pastor Ezra Jin after President Trump raised his case with Xi Jinping, but the wider crackdown on religious believers continues. WORLD’s Mary Reichard talks with human-rights lawyer Knox Thames, who warns against mistaking a diplomatic gesture for reform.
Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri and daughter Grace Jin Drexel, 2015 Associated Press / Grace Jin Drexel
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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 7th of July.
Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.
First up: A prominent Chinese pastor is free after spending months in jail.
Pastor Ezra Jin founded Zion Church in Beijing, one of China’s largest unregistered congregations.
Chinese authorities arrested him last October during a crackdown on independent Christian churches.
His daughter is an American citizen. Grace Jin Drexel announced the release over the Fourth of July weekend. President Trump had personally raised Jin’s case with Chinese president Xi Jinping when they met in May.
EICHER: Joining us now to talk about what Pastor Jin’s release means and the fate of other Chinese Christians still behind bars is Knox Thames. He is the Executive Director of the Everett Center for Global Religious Freedom. He is a well-recognized human-rights lawyer, advocate, and author.
REICHARD: Knox, good morning.
KNOX THAMES: Morning, thanks for having me.
REICHARD: We're really glad you're here. This is very good news, the release of a persecuted Christian, and yet eight members of Zion Church are still locked up as I understand it. So is this just an isolated concession from China or is it something more?
THAMES: Well, we first, you know, thank God for his release and the release of others and their ability to come to the United States where they'll be able to live in safety and security and with religious freedom, something that China does not respect. I think we can only view this as a deliverable that when President Trump visited, he made some requests about Pastor Jin, also Jimmy Lai, and Chairman Xi wanted to give something.
And so this pastor was turned over as a gesture, as a deliverable, as something to help build the relationship. But it's a far cry from seeing the systematic change we need to see in China so that this doesn't keep happening. The jailing of pastors, the raiding of churches, as well as the assault on the Uyghur Muslim community, Tibetan Buddhists, is ongoing. It has not stopped. And so while very thankful for President Trump engaging on this. It's a very small first step and a very long journey. And we need to keep the pressure up on Beijing and not just pull back that we've got this one important person out, but so many more remain behind.
REICHARD: I found it curious that the Chinese government did not accuse Pastor Jen of preaching the gospel, say. It accused him of subverting the state and illegally disseminating information online. Now, is that how authoritarian governments use criminal laws to disguise religious persecution?
THAMES: I mean the bad guys are good at being bad. And in September twenty twenty five, a whole raft of new cyber laws were passed, basically closing off the online church services, online prayer networks, and making the simple acts of connecting with other people who share a faith illegal.
And so it's not surprising that they use these tools to crack down further on Zion Church and others. And you know, Beijing is savvy. It'd be unlike them to just come and close everything down.
It's gonna be this slow squeeze that will take the oxygen away and then eventually they'll be able to control all faith in the country.
REICHARD: Right. Well I know the family credits President Trump for the release and yet we as you mentioned we still have a Chinese communist party, so what more can we do for the others who are left?
THAMES: The United States needs to intertwine concern about religious freedom in every element of our foreign policy globally, but in particular with China. The first Trump administration, which I was a part of, it was their efforts on religious freedom were systematic, you know, forming alliances, launching summits, leveraging the ability and power and influence of the United States to engage a whole range of countries.
The second Trump administration has been more episodic. So October last year, President Trump focused on Nigeria, which was long overdue. And then there was there's just been silence until we had this May trip to Beijing where he focused on a prisoner. Again, these are good things, but we have the ability to have much more robust engagement on this topic around the world and with China.
And if we're only going to be asking for deliverables, then they're going to be able to play us off. and it's gonna take everything that we have, our influence, our economic power, our military might, our soft power diplomacy to see change come. And it's really only the United States that can do this. And so I'm hoping for more, but I haven't seen it yet.
REICHARD: That brings to mind a common thought I think Americans have is that religious freedom is is just really the right to go to church, but you have knowledge from around the world in this context. What would you say once a government assumes authority to control religious belief, what other freedoms are sure to disappear?
THAMES: Well, I like to talk about religious freedom as a bundled right, and that for it to be fully protected and respected, a whole host of other rights are bundled with it. So just think about if you go when you go to church on Sunday. Of course you have freedom to believe, you have freedom of worship, but you also have rights like freedom of movement, the ability to get to church, freedom of assembly to gather, freedom of expression to wear distinctive religious dress like a yamaka or hijab, freedom of speech to give a sermon, to say a prayer.
We often say religious freedom is the canary in the coal mine for the overall health of a human rights environment. Because if religious freedom is respected and protected, then by definition, all these other rights are respected and protected too. But then the opposite is true.
When religious freedom is restricted, then these other rights are also implicated. And I think it's incumbent upon us to think about what these blessings of liberty and prosperity that God has bestowed upon us, what is our obligation as Christians, as Americans, to fight for these rights elsewhere.
REICHARD: Knox Thames is the Executive Director of the Everett Center for Global Religious Freedom at Dallas Baptist University. Knox, thank you so much.
THAMES: Thank you for having me.
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