2025年6月，中国山西省的一家法院以诈骗罪判处杨荣丽15年有期徒刑。她是“金灯台”家庭教会的领袖，而据检方指控，她的诈骗行为其实是向会众收取奉献金。
A court in China’s Shanxi province sentenced Yang Rongli to 15 years for fraud in June 2025. She was the leader of a house church called the Golden Lampstand, and her fraud, according to the prosecutors, was collecting offerings from her congregation.
这是两千年来教会资助自身的常态，“金灯台”的信徒也并未受骗。他们是自愿奉献的，并且清楚钱的去向。然而，在打击独立教会的行动中，北京采取了一种令人不安的倍增策略：将寻常的宗教实践当作金融犯罪来起诉。成都秋雨圣约教会的王怡牧师就是另一个例子：他于2019年被判处九年有期徒刑，部分罪名是与印刷基督教书籍有关的“非法经营罪”。
That’s the way churches have funded themselves for 2,000 years, and the Golden Lampstand’s congregants weren’t deceived. They gave willingly and knew where their money went. But in its campaign against independent churches, Beijing has doubled down on a troubling method: Take an ordinary practice and prosecute it as a financial crime. Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church is another example: sentenced to nine years in 2019, partly for “illegal business operations” tied to printing Christian books.