Last week, The Vandenberg Coalition presented the Trump administration with a letter signed by over two dozen conservative national security leaders requesting that in his upcoming summit with Xi, President Trump advocate for the end of the persecution of Christians in China, and in particular, the unjust imprisonment of Pastor Ezra Jin. Just as the equally unjust detention of democracy activist Jimmy Lai demonstrates the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility towards the unalienable right of free speech, the arrest of Pastor Jin and his colleagues shows the CCP’s utter contempt for the unalienable right of freedom of religion. Along with Lai’s release, freeing Pastor Jin and his fellow imprisoned Christians should be at the top of President Trump’s list of demands.
Pastor Jin, who founded a network of underground churches in China known as Zion Church, has been imprisoned alongside other Christian leaders since October 2025. He is one of thousands of Christians persecuted for their faith around the world. What unites many of these cases is not just the victim’s identity as Christians, but the perpetrator: authoritarian regimes and movements. Whether Islamic extremists (Nigeria, Somalia) or atheistic communists (China, Cuba, North Korea), authoritarians have continued to target Christians, subjecting them to persecution, imprisonment, torture or death. Shockingly, over 340 million Christians were subject to persecution in 2025, though there was nowhere near the amount of global attention that figure deserves.
Why are authoritarians united in their fear of Christians and the Christian faith? To me, it is obvious. First, Christianity is a religion of liberation. Both the Old and New Testament are filled with stories of freedom, spiritual deliverance, and importantly, individual dignity, the concept that all men are created in the image of God. Such a concept, of course, is as anathema to those authoritarians who demand subservience as it is central to the American ethos.
And second, because of all the things Christianity asks of its believers, one is primary: to center one’s life around God, not man.
In reading the stories of the persecution of Pastor Jin and others, I am struck by words shared last year by former Congressman Peter Roskam, who referenced famed bible translator JB Phillips:
“I was, and indeed am, impressed by the fact that the New Testament letters were written not in some holy retreat but sometimes from prison, sometimes from ordinary, probably Christian homes. Moreover, they were written to be people who were called to live Christian lives in a thoroughly pagan world. Moral standards of all kinds were low, and there was nothing remotely resembling a Christian public opinion. There were no Sundays, no church buildings, and very little leisure for most people. Slavery was, of course, everywhere and so was dire poverty and unrelieved sickness and disease. The great persecutions had not yet started, but smaller ones had. A man could lose not only his friends but his livelihood in a place like Ephesus if it became known publicly that he did not believe in the goddess Diana. A man could easily be looked at askance if he disowned the local gods, and he could be considered very odd if he broke with his previous companions in alcoholic revelings. And it could have been very easy to frame a charge against a man who set Jesus Christ above the Emperor of the Roman Empire.”
With these words, we are reminded that Pastor Ezra Jin and his fellow Christians have been targeted for one single “crime” – because they set Jesus Christ above “emperor” Xi Jinping. If the United States is serious about preserving Western civilization – itself a Judeo-Christian creation – we must start by being serious about preserving the fundamental truth that each individual possesses a God-given intrinsic dignity that affords them certain unalienable rights. And when an authoritarian government violates those rights, whether the freedom of religion in Pastor Jin’s case or freedom of speech in Jimmy Lai’s case, we must stand up for the persecuted and the oppressed. As we approach the Trump/Xi summit, we will continue to call on President Trump to put this demand at the top of his agenda.