Taiwan Church News

3807 Edition

10 ~ 16 Feb, 2025

Weekly Topical

Taiwan Interceded with Prayers amid International Religious Freedom Summit 2025

Reported by Lin Yi-ying

Rev Fuyan Suda, moderator of the 69th PCT General Assembly, was invited to attend the 73rd National Prayer Breakfast held at Washington DC, USA, on Feb 6, and took the stage to pray and bless Taiwan during the morning prayer amid the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit 2025 held on Feb 5. In the meantime, Rev Ng Tiat-gan, director of the PCT Research and Development Centre, also spoke in an IRF Summit session, taking the autocratic persecution of the late Rev Kao Chun-ming’s to review the struggles of human rights in Taiwan under the KMT’s near four-decades’ martial law period from 1949 ~ 1987.

At the dinner on Feb 6, Ms Chang An-an, a PCT youth woman, and Mr Yang Hsue-yong, son of the founding chairman, Mr Yang Hsien-hong, of Taiwan Association for China Human Rights, led the audience to pray for Taiwan before playing the famous hymn ofBecause He Lives. The sincere prayer of Ms Chang gravely touched and inspired the audience at site.

The National Prayer Breakfast has been held at Washington DC on the first Thursday of February each year since 1953. As a pious Christian leader, former U.S. President Joe Biden regularly attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Capitol Hill in his presidency. This year, 2025, President Donald Trump not only attended the activities organized by the Congress at Capitol Hill, but also attended the prayer breakfast events organized by Fellowship Foundation held at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

In the prayer breakfast at Hilton, President Trump announced the establishment of the Religious Freedom Committee, and appointed Ms Pam Bondi, Attorney General, to set up a task force to eliminate anti-Christian prejudices amid U.S. governments. A total of 127 countries and 2,500 guests were invited to attend in the prayer breakfast assembly at Hilton. Rev Chen Hsin-liang, general secretary of the PCT, and Rev Fuyan Suda were both invited to attend the event.

At the morning prayer of the International Religious Freedom Summit, Rev Fuyan Suda took the stage to pray for Taiwan bilingually in both Amis and English. He prayed God to deliver His kindness and mercy to the people of Taiwan, grant His love and justice shining on Formosa island, and bless Taiwanese people with peace, wisdom and courage to fight against China’s invasion, especially when Taiwan society was inundated with disinformation, misinformation and mal-information. He also prayed for the inflicted households and victims of the earthquake occurred at southern Taiwan in late January 2025. “May God comfort the suffered, heal the injured, and stand by Taiwan and its people,” he prayed.

In an IRF session of human rights, Rev Ng Tiat-gan reported in English on the KMT’s persecution of the late Rev Kao Chun-ming, then the PCT general secretary during KMT’s martial law rulings, to illustrate the significance of religious freedom as a milestone of Taiwan democracy. Rev Kao Chun-ming was sentenced and jailed for four years, three months and twenty-one days in a charge of hiding and supporting a disobedient political leader, Mr Hsih Ming-de. During the trial of Rev Kao, Rev Ng noted, both Pope John Paul II and general secretary of World Council of Churches (WCC), either sent a papal letter to the KMT government or came to Taiwan in person hoping to listen the trial in the military court, but all failed.

In addition, many ecumenical churches delivered their supports for Rev Kao Chun-ming in prison. These international concerns put great pressure on the authoritarian KMT government at that time, prompting KMT to allow an early release of Rev Kao Chun-ming, who had been sentenced to seven years but cut short to about four years and four months later.

In the discussion time after Rev Ng’s presentation, representatives of the Chinese family churches shared their horrific experiences of being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Representatives of Ukraine also reported the devastating status of Ukrainian human rights caused by Russian invasion into the Ukraine since Feb 2022.

At the dinner on Feb 6, Ms Chang An-an, who was from Thomas Barclay Presbyterian Church of the Tainan presbytery and currently working for the China Aid, led the audience to pray for Taiwan before singingBecause He Lives. She prayed God to protect Taiwan’s freedom, democracy and resolution to stand by truth, as well as the honor and dignity of people, and prayed God to crush China’s ambitions to invade Taiwan, protect the oppressed, give them hope, peace and courage to worship freely, and finally let the world see Taiwan as a beacon of hope and freedom. Ms Chang An-an also prayed that our loving God could inspire more people to make intercession prayers for the future of Taiwan.

Rev Fuyan Suda remarked, although the creeds of President Trump’s Christian faith might be different from those of the PCT Confession of Faith, yet from the perspectives of national interests and a long-term mutual trust between the United States and Taiwan, “the United States, whether it is up to the Democratic or Republican Party to lead White House or the Congress, has been always and will continue to concern China’s reckless oppression on Taiwan, maintain the peace of Taiwan Strait, respect Taiwan’s self-determination, and oppose China’s military invasion into Taiwan by force.”

Rev Chen Hsin-liang said that after the end of the International Religious Freedom Summit and the assembly of National Prayer Breakfast, he would visit U.S. congressmen who are long-term friends to facilitate Taiwan’s freedom and democracy. Meanwhile, he would also visited the Presbyterian Church (PC(USA)) and the Taiwanese church in the United States. Through a multiple ministries with US partner-churches, he sincerely hoped those Taiwanese engineers working in TSMC factories at Phoenix, Arizona could be well served and guided with pastoral cares.

Rev Chen also affirmed the humanitarian efforts of Rev Bob Fu, founder of the China Aid, to fight for the Chinese human rights in the United States for decades. Rev Fang Lan-ting, president of the Taiwan Church Press, expressed that Rev Bob Fu’s new book,Religious Freedom as an illusionary Mirage in Communist China – Ironically, It Can Be Pragmatically Incarnated in a Diverse and Inclusive Polity, published by the PCT Research and Development Centre and Taiwan Church Press, is planed to hold a book launch at Taiwan in early March. At that time, Rev Bob Fu will visit Taiwan in person to report the horrendous crimes and cold-blooded injustice under the Chinese Communist Party’s despotic rulings.

Translated by Peter Wolfe