BEIJING -- It was the first Sunday in December and Beijing's Gangwashi Protestant Church -- China's largest -- was packed. Newly hung Christmas tinsel decorated the ceiling and walls. The church's popular pastor, Yang Yudong, stood up to lead the 7:30 a.m. service.
But just as he reached the pulpit, the front two rows of churchgoers strode toward the altar. Two men flanked Pastor Yang, firmly gripped his arms and escorted the 73-year-old minister from the church.
As 600 people in the congregation gaped in disbelief, a Communist Party member explained why Pastor Yang, long a thorn in the party's side, had to go: The government had decided that pastors must retire at age 70 and had sent some people to ensure he took a rest.
For China's 60 million Christians, Pastor Yang's forced retirement on Dec. 4 was an example of the government's efforts to reassert control over society by cracking down hard -- if erratically -- on even slight violations of rules and regulations.
Besides religious groups, the state has has singled out dissidents for especially harsh treatment, last week sentencing nine people to prison for up to 20 years for questioning one-party rule. Their crime was to have written articles on human rights and distributed mimeographed copies.
China has also become strikingly bellicose internationally, as in trade talks with the United States and in its plans for Hong Kong after the British colony returns to Chinese control in 1997.
The explanation for the new harshness, Chinese analysts say, is the frail health of supreme leader Deng Xiaoping. Ninety years old, and now rarely seen in public, Mr. Deng exerts enormous authority even through his absence.
His near invisibility has left no one firmly in charge of the country, and has left his underlings afraid to make concessions or to toe anything but the hardest of lines. "No one wants to be accused of being too soft on anything," said a Communist Party member at a Beijing think tank. "It's a good time to keep your head down."
Unfortunately for Pastor Yang, reticence was not his forte.
He had a reputation for being something of an evangelist. In one sermon, he went so far as to encourage his congregation to push for "real religious freedom," instead of settling for the limited self-expression tolerated by the state.
Christians increase
Since 1949, the year the Communist Party took control of China, the number of Christians has increased at least ten-fold. And authorities, who tolerate mainstream religions while advocating atheism, are eager to keep it in bounds.
Christians and members of the country's other major faiths -- Taoism, Buddhism and Islam -- are supposed to worship through "patriotic" religious organizations, state-run bureaucracies that carefully control the number of churches, ordained ministers and their funds.
But religious groups -- especially Christians and Muslims -- have been testing those limits.
Many Protestants ignore the patriotic churches in favor of praying at home. Roman Catholics have tried to establish unofficial ties to the Vatican, even though the patriotic church does not recognize the pope as its spiritual leader. Muslims have pushed for greater autonomy and smuggled in copies of the Koran.
Pastor Yang was hardly a radical. But his church supported pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989, and for authorities that made Pastor Yang an undesirable. The local branch of the patriotic church decided that all pastors had to retire at age 70 and, beginning a year ago, agitated for his removal.
The Gangwashi congregation resisted. After authorities formally posted their intentions during a service in October, members of the congregations shouted down public security officers. One member of the congregation was arrested and beaten; photographs show him with his jacket ripped and his eyes swollen shut.
On Dec. 4, the state religious authorities arrived with 200 plainclothes security officers, who forcibly removed Pastor Yang. is not under formal arrest but access to him -- especially by foreign reporters -- is restricted.
With Beijing the country's capital, and Gangwashi the country's biggest Protestant church, Pastor Yang's presence had become embarrassment for authorities.
2 others arrested
He is not the only pastor to be disciplined. State church authorities have arrested two pastors in the northern city of Shenyang, along with 20 members of their congregations.
Earlier this month, 170 underground church activists were arrested in central Henan province for participating in Bible seminars, according to a Hong Kong human rights monitoring group.
Although many groups are suffering under the crackdown, the Christians' situation is better documented because they are more willing to contact foreign reporters.
But foreign contacts have also brought problems.
In 1993, members of a house church in Anhui province were sentenced without trial to four years imprisonment for having listened to gospel radio broadcast from Hong Kong and held meetings.
When fellow church members told a religious news service about the punishment, two more church members were arrested. They were sentenced to two years at the Xuancheng Coal Mine Labor Reform Camp.
Christianity is thriving despite the pressures. At Gangwashi, Pastor Yang's old church, nearly 800 people crowded into each of the three morning services last Sunday -- proof that the church remains popular even when run by a new pastor sanctioned by the state.
Yu Xinli is Pastor Yang's replacement. Just before the end of services, Mr. Yu asked members of the congregation if they wouldn't mind staying home on Christmas. The congregation began murmuring its disapproval.
Then came his explanation:
"We're expecting more than a thousand people for each of the services," Pastor Yu said. "Many of them are young people coming to church for the first time, and we'd like to give them a chance as well.
"So if you can make room for them, we'd appreciate it."