Two versions concerning the story of the house church crackdown in China

In late February several well respected online presses published alerts that about 50 house church goers in China have been arrested. It is reported that 3 of them were church leaders and the series of crackdowns lasted for three months. The presses reported that the crackdown was due to a DVD titled "The Cross: Jesus in China". It is a film on the persecutions and hardships Chinese house churches had been receiving.

However, Wenjie Xie, the film producer and the president of China Soul for Christ Foundation as well, published a letter denying certain things in those reports.

He clarified that just 3, not 50 were arrested. And he denied that those arrests were by any means because of the production of the film.

"The arrest of Deborah Xu and the other two brothers has nothing to do with the video. We do not interview her; nor do we interview the other two brothers. Deborah Xu has been on government watch list for a long time. Nobody should be surprised that she is arrested. It is strictly a coincident that she was arrested after the video is released," Mr. Xie said.

He urged the publications to be careful with information sources before putting them in print.

He did not deny the possibility that the Bureau of Religion spread fears among overseas Christians so that they will not try to help fellow Christians in China.