Pastor David Tang is the founder and senior pastor of Purpose Driven Church. According to a post on X by Day of Prayer and Fasting for Persecuted Churches in China, Pastor Tang, a church financial administrator and five church workers were arrested at around 7:30am on 5 August.
The charges against them have not been disclosed and their current location is unknown.
Wenzhou is known for having an unusually high Christian population. The exact percentage of Christians in China is hard to ascertain due to many attending unregistered house churches, but is estimated as being between two and nine per cent. In Wenzhou anywhere between 11 and 20 per cent are believed to be Christian.
Despite this, authorities in the province of Zhejiang have not held back from anti-Christian actions.
A crackdown from 2014-2016 saw crosses removed from over 1,500 churches. More recently, in June of last year, the mayor of Wenzhou personally led a team into Yayang church. Locks were broken and the mayor and his team set up a flagpole and raised the Chinese national flag at the church.
In the following months church members were repeatedly summoned by authorities and threatened and on a single night in December hundreds were brought in for questioning, with over 1,000 police committed to the operation.
At the beginning of 2026 authorities began demolishing the Yayang church building, completing the job in May.
Across China many Christians, particularly in Church leadership or administration roles, have faced arrest. In some cases those responsible for managing church collections have been accused of financial crimes, despite no claims of wrongdoing from the congregation.
Mervyn Thomas, founder and president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said, “We are deeply concerned at the incommunicado detention of Pastor David Tang and six other members of Purpose Driven Church in Wenzhou with no information provided regarding their whereabouts or legal status. Enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention are serious violations of international human rights standards.
“We urge the Chinese authorities to disclose immediately the whereabouts of these Christians, ensuring they have access to legal representation and their families, and releasing them unless credible evidence of a recognisable criminal offence is produced. No one should face detention simply for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief.”
