Beijing Waging ‘War on God’ in Persecuting Faith, Congress Hears

Religious persecution is ‘a warning sign that freedom itself is under siege,’ says the former ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador-at-large of international religious freedom, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 4, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging a “war on God” in its repression of faith, and appeasing such persecution will only invite greater aggression to the world, former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told a packed congressional hearing on Feb. 4.

Brownback, testifying at the House Subcommittee on Africa, cast religious freedom as a “stabilizing force” to ensure lasting peace and threats against it as a “major global security issue.”

“Religious persecution is not an isolated human rights concern,” Brownback said. “It is a warning sign that freedom itself is under siege, and when regimes crush faith, they are rehearsing the suppression of every other liberty that follows.”

Communist China, he said, is leading an “alliance of communist, authoritarian, totalitarian regimes” that “literally stop at nothing to control people of faith.”

“They see people of faith as a threat,” he said. “The people of faith are the ones that will be first attacked and the last ones left standing.”

The scale of the issue can be seen in the dollars spent, he said.

“Communist China will spend billions of dollars this year alone to suppress every faith that exists in that country,” he told the lawmakers there. “They‘ll suppress the Uyghur Muslims, they’ll suppress the Tibetan Buddhists. They'll suppress the Christians, and they save their greatest anger and bile for the Falun Gong, a domestically grown group.”

The Falun Gong spiritual discipline and meditation practice features slow-moving exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After its introduction in 1992, the practice spread rapidly, and by the late 1990s, official estimates had put the number of those practicing it at around 70 million. In 1999, the CCP turned on Falun Gong, launching a brutal persecution that continues today, including subjecting those who refuse to renounce their belief to torture in black jails and labor camps, and even forced organ harvesting.

In 2025, more than 4,800 Falun Gong practitioners are confirmed to have been subject to arbitrary arrest or police harassment, with more than 750 people sentenced for refusing to give up their faith, according to Minghui.org, a U.S. website dedicated to tracking the persecution. It has recorded 124 deaths for the year so far.

The CCP’s persecution of Christianity is also on the rise in China, Chinese American Grace Jin Drexel testified at the hearing.

Her father, Ezra Jin, has been in a Chinese jail since October, following a coordinated raid on the Zion Church. Over the past year, authorities disrupted church gatherings during Sunday services, and more than 150 pastors and church members have faced threats, detention, or interrogation, she said.

Grace Jin Drexel, daughter of founding pastor Ezra Jin of Zion Church in China, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 4, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Chinese officials have framed the persecution as being about “making religion more Chinese,” but Jin Drexel called it “propaganda designed to obscure repression.”

“Let me be clear, Chinese Christians have been Chinese for generations. We use Chinese Bibles translated by Chinese scholars. We sing indigenous hymns composed by Chinese believers. Our house churches were led by Chinese pastors,” she said, noting that both her father and his congregation are Chinese.

“Sinicization and practice means removing crosses and replacing them with portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong. This means replacing hymns with propaganda songs. It means rewriting scripture to a sermon to align with Party ideology,” she said. “What they actually mean is a complete subordination of religious life to Communist Party control.”

International Freedom Summit

The CCP’s suppression of religion in China was front and center throughout the hearing and at an earlier event at the Capitol.

“China remains the world’s most sophisticated persecutor,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) at the morning event, pointing to forced organ harvesting as one example.

The two events mark the third day of the International Freedom Summit, during which advocates called for sanctions on China over the CCP’s religious persecution. In the afternoon, persecuted faith groups from the Jewish community to Falun Gong joined a panel, speaking up for each other’s freedom of belief.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who spoke at the morning gathering, concurred on the importance of more concrete countermeasures.

“Sanctions are definitely one tool that countries of the world should use against those countries that suppress religious freedom, whether it’s China or any other country in the world,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) told The Epoch Times. “It should be opposed, and we should use every tool we have.”

He added that “how a country deals with religious freedom should be part of any negotiation with any country on any level, including trade.”

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) also expressed concern about the oppressive environment in China.

“I uphold the American system of democracy where we have a First Amendment right to talk about anything that we want, and I certainly wish that all countries would do the same, but we know that’s not the case in China,” she told The Epoch Times.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) speaks during a press conference with other House Democrats in Washington on June 27, 2024. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Brownback, speaking later in an interview, said that the religious freedom issue in China is so glaring that it’s hard to look away.

“You’ve got three genocides going on in China right now, of the Uyghurs, Falun Gong, and cultural genocide of the Tibetans. So that can’t stay,” he said.

Since she began advocating for her father, Jin Drexel said that her mother has received threatening phone calls from individuals impersonating federal agents and her car’s tires slashed inside her garage. Her husband has suffered several hacking attempts and she has been watched and stalked in Washington.

Jin Drexel said the Chinese regime “wants the world to know that speaking out carries consequences, even in America.”

She said she’s sometimes fearful, but as a Christian, she believes “we are called to courage, trusting that God stands with us.”

“I believe God is also testing us during this time, like refining silver, painful, but full of love, and that God has not abandoned us,” she added.

The persecuted groups are “our greatest ally,” said Brownback.

“These are people behind enemy lines that will stand up to the regime, that will stand up to the oppressors, because they overcome their fear with their interior faith, they will fight, even if it means their life. And often it does mean their life.”