Pingxiang house-church raid in Jiangxi: 27 Christians swept up, Ding Xing'an and Liang Youping still criminally detained over alleged 'illegal border crossing' tied to overseas theological training
ChinaAid reported on October 27 that house-church leader Ding Xing'an and coworker Liang Youping remain in criminal detention in Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, after an October 18 raid swept up 27 Christians; the other 25 were released, and the two men's families received criminal detention notices on October 20. Authorities reportedly accuse the men of 'illegally crossing the national border,' in connection with a trip Ding and others made to Indonesia in September for a seven-day theological training course; the specific alleged violation remains unclear. [1]
Why it matters
Three features make this case worth recording. First, the charge itself: rather than the more common 'illegal gathering' or 'fraud' counts, police used 'illegal border crossing' tied to an overseas theological training trip — overseas religious training is becoming a high-risk red line for house-church leaders, in the same logic as the case of Shanxi preacher An Yankui, who was sentenced to a year in prison in 2022 over attending a Christian conference in Malaysia (a case also in this site's records). Second, the gap between the scale of the operation and its outcome is telling: about 40 armed police, two meeting sites and 27 people taken away, yet only the two leaders remain detained — a pattern of targeted pressure on church organizers rather than the congregation at large. Third, Ding's background — he resigned a state-owned-enterprise management post and a higher-education teaching job in 2022, and his wife resigned as a middle-school teacher, to return to their hometown and plant the church — shows the detained men are not career preachers but lay believers whose congregation, now about 80 regular participants, focuses on outreach to the elderly, the ill and people with disabilities. Local authorities have issued no public statement, and neither the details of the allegations nor further legal proceedings have been made public; this record is therefore marked as under ongoing verification. [1]
Full report
According to ChinaAid, at about 9:30 a.m. on October 18 approximately 40 armed police officers and other law enforcement personnel targeted two meeting sites in the Pingxiang Economic Development Zone. Local believers said officers entered a private home in Phoenix Mountain Villa, where Ding was sharing scripture; ChinaAid had previously reported on the entry into the home. The raids swept up 27 Christians in total. Police released 25 of them, while Ding Xing'an and Liang Youping remain in criminal detention; their families received criminal detention notices on October 20. [1]
On the allegations: authorities reportedly accuse the men of 'illegally crossing the national border,' in connection with a trip Ding and others made to Indonesia in September for a seven-day theological training course, and the specific alleged violation remains unclear. Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, said the authorities' harsh treatment of overseas theological training means the space for ordinary house-church gatherings is being further restricted, and sends a clear message that any attempt to bypass official religious institutions and establish transnational faith connections will face extremely high legal risks and political costs. [1]
On Ding's background: Ding, in his forties, and his wife embraced Christianity while living in Hainan Province. In 2022 he left a managerial position at the state-owned Haikou Urban Investment Company and a teaching position in higher education, and his wife also resigned from her job as a middle-school teacher in Haikou. The couple returned to their hometown of Pingxiang to establish a house church and began outreach to older people, those who were ill and people with disabilities. The congregation gradually attracted younger participants and expanded to two regular meeting sites; about 80 people now regularly participate. [1]
Context from the report: China generally requires organized religious worship to take place through government-approved institutions and venues, and independent Protestant congregations operating outside that system have faced raids, closures and detentions. Christians attending religious events overseas have faced similar accusations — An Yankui, a house-church leader in Shanxi, received a one-year prison sentence in 2022 in connection with attending a Christian conference in Malaysia, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. An's renewed detention by Taiyuan police on September 29, 2025 is covered in a separate record on this site. [1]
Verification note: the core facts of this record — the timing and scale of the October 18 raids, the 27 Christians taken away and 25 released, the two men's continuing detention and the October 20 notices, and the link drawn between the 'illegal border crossing' allegation and the Indonesia training trip — all come from a single ChinaAid report of October 27 sourced to local believers. Pingxiang authorities have issued no public statement and no details of the legal proceedings have been made public. This site cannot independently verify those details; attribution is preserved throughout, the record is marked as under ongoing verification, and we will follow the two men's cases. [1]
Links above point to the original publishers of the cited reports or articles. Their conclusions are attributed in the text and do not imply that this site has independently verified every factual claim.