China Tells Christians to Replace Images of Jesus with Communist President
Thousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that Communist Party of China (CPC) officials visited believers’ homes in Yugan county of Jiangxi province—where about 10 percent of the population is Christian. They urged residents to replace personal religious displays with posters of President Xi Jinping; more than 600 removed Christian symbols from their living rooms, and 453 hung portraits of the Communist leader, according to SCMP.
The efforts were part of a government campaign to alleviate poverty in the region, since some CPC members believe families’ faith is to blame for their financial woes, according to SCMP. The poster swaps in villagers’ homes represent the party’s desire to have residents look to their leaders, rather than their Savior, for assistance.
“Many poor households have plunged into poverty because of illness in the family. Some resorted to believing in Jesus to cure their illnesses,” the head of the government campaign told SCMP. “But we tried to tell them that getting ill is a physical thing, and that the people who can really help them are the Communist Party and General Secretary Xi.”
Though the party denies the claim, some Christians in Yugan county say they were told they would not be eligible for government assistance unless their posters were removed.
The news comes weeks after the CPC held its national congress, where Xi continued to consolidate party power and passed a historic measure to write his political philosophy into its constitution. SCMP called Xi “the country’s most powerful leader since Mao” Zedong, who also developed a personality cult through portraits in Chinese homes. The news outlet also noted Xi’s efforts to rein in the grassroots of Chinese society.
Xi continues a longstanding tradition by Chinese leaders to assert state power as an ultimate force and to rein in social movements that threaten it, according to Brent Fulton, president of ChinaSource.
Before Christians were asked to take down religious displays from their homes, the Yugan church removed its cross, as dozens of churches across Zhejiang and other Christian areas have done in recent years in order to comply with government regulations.
In September, China passed tighter restrictions regarding religious gatherings, teachings, and buildings. Though they are not slated to officially go into effect until February 2018, Christians in some provinces have already noticed a crackdown on their activity. Police detained leaders of a house church, as well as a three-year-old, who were caught singing in a public park.
In an analysis last year for CT, Fulton wrote:
The CPC’s control over religion is to be exerted not only through law, but also by reconciling religious doctrine with the party’s socialist values. While “religion serving socialism” has been in the CPC lexicon for some time, direct intervention in the beliefs and practices of individual religions—including calls for the “Sinification” of Christian theology—have become more common under Xi.
His speech directed religious groups to “dig deep into doctrines and canons that are in line with social harmony and progress ... and interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China's progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture.”
In an August op-ed for The New York Times, Chinese student Derek Lam called out “perverse” efforts to co-opt Christianity to endorse Xi’s political agenda.
“Judging by recent events, the party is very close to completing its mission of bringing Christianity under its thumb,” he wrote. “Although there is nothing I would love more than to become a pastor and preach the gospel in Hong Kong, I will never do so if it means making Jesus subservient to Xi Jinping.”
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US Report Bashes China’s Religious Freedom Violations
Bhousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
The findings are grim in 2019 report and echo the conclusions from this year’s Open Doors rankings, with China taking the brunt of the critique.
“As a Christian [living in China], your Bible may have been rewritten by the Chinese government, your church shuttered or demolished, and your pastor imprisoned,” the commission wrote. “As a human rights defender who works to protect people targeted for their faith, you may be arrested, or worse, disappeared.”
According to commissioner Johnnie Moore, this year’s report represents “the strongest stance against China in the history of the USCIRF.”
China was a primary focus of the first-ever USCIRF report released two decades ago, along with Russia and Sudan. The world’s most populous nation remains a Tier 1 “country of particular concern” (CPC) today, having made the list in each of the 20 annual releases. China also jumped to No. 27 on the 2019 World Watch List, which tracks the countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.
Christians and adherents of other faiths in China have seen an uptick in persecution as President Xi Jinping has consolidated power and abolished term limits, easing the way for a harsh government crackdown on believers and advocates of religious freedom.
Ministry leaders have weighed whether the moves represent “a step toward tighter government control, an opportunity to further indigenize and contextualize the faith, or perhaps both.”
In the past year, China banned the online purchase of Bibles, shuttered hundreds of churches—including major Protestant gatherings like Shouwang Church, Early Rain Covenant Church, and Zion Church—and pressed hard for the “sinicization” of religious institutions across China. Just last month, Hong Kong pastor Chu Yiu-ming and eight other activists were convicted for crimes related to their participation in pro-democracy movements.
David Curry, president of Open Doors USA, told Mission Network News after the commission’s release, “It’s just stunning the levels to which China is now going to persecute and to hold down the expression of Christian faith.”
But Christians have not been the only ones to suffer. Tibetan Buddhists are forbidden from displaying photos of or expressing public devotion to their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama; hundreds of Falun Gong adherents were arrested for their faith; and a million ethnic Uighur Muslims have been forced into concentration camps. Of the more than 1,400 prisoners of conscience imprisoned in China as of last October, approximately half of them were detained, at least partly, for participating in religious practices “unauthorized” by Beijing.
“If we were to rate the Tier 1 countries, China would be in a category all by itself,” said USCIRF Commissioner Gary Bauer in a news conference in Washington, DC. “The level of persecution—they are an equal opportunity persecutor. They go after anybody, any sect that might compete with the communist, atheistic government of China.”
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan group tasked with making policy recommendations around religious freedom abroad. In this year’s report, the authors noted that China has faced “few, if any consequences” for its abuses of religious freedom, despite US condemnation.
“Policy and practice now must focus on holding the responsible parties accountable,” they said, “ceasing China’s myriad abuses against all faith communities, and documenting the evidence of the atrocities that have occurred.”
The 28 countries and five terror entities USCIRF identifies as the worst in the world in terms of their assaults on religious freedom are nearly identical to the 2018 list, though the commission has recommended additions to the State Department’s official list of CPCs, which is more limited.
According to the commission, the 16 worst countries for their abuses of freedom of religion and conscience are Burma, the Central African Republic, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
All but one of these countries—Russia—make the top 30 most dangerous places to be a Christian according to the World Watch List. The commission notes how faiths and denominations not aligned with Moscow are perceived as foreign, missionary activity can be prosecuted or blanketed as “extremism,” religious groups are readily intimated, and the 2016 Yarovaya Law effectively banned public evangelism.
Per the report’s analysis on Russia: “Religious and other communities can be financially blacklisted or liquidated, and individuals can be subjected to criminal prosecution for social media posts that are arbitrarily determined to offend the religious sensibilities of others.”
Russia earned a spot among the commission’s top-tier countries for the first time in 2017 after it banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremists and was found to persecute religious minorities in Crimea and Donbas.
“In 2018, both state and nonstate actors increasingly used religion as a tool of exclusion to isolate, marginalize, and punish the ‘other’ through discrimination and violence,” says USCIRF.
The commission proposes a variety of policy recommendations in response to what it calls “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.” They include increased sanctions, aid programs that promote tolerance and respect for human rights, and increased funding to antiterrorism and defense programs.
Notably, of the 10 current CPCs listed by the State Department, four countries—Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan—are spared sanctions due to what the report calls the “important national interest of the United States.”
USCIRF’s list of Tier 2 countries, those that don’t meet all the qualifications of Tier 1 offenders but where the government engages in or permits significant religious freedom violations, includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, and Turkey.
The report’s five “entities of particular concern” are the Islamic State, the Taliban, Somalia’s al-Shabaab, and, newly added this year, Yemen’s Houthis and Syria’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.
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China Shuts Down Another Big Beijing Church
Ahousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
Shouwang, which draws more than 1,000 attendees, is the fourth major underground congregation shut down by the Communist government over the past several months, as party leaders and heads of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement intensify efforts to rid religious groups of Western influence and exert control to make them more Chinese.
Similar to earlier incidents at Early Rain Covenant Church in Sichuan, Zion Church in Beijing, and Rongguili Church in Guangzhou, officials interrupted Bible study gatherings at two Shouwang Church locations on Saturday, putting the activities to a halt, interrogating and briefly detaining dozens of attendees, and switching the locks of their buildings to keep them from returning, according to International Christian Concern (ICC).
The church had been charged with violating the country’s Regulations of Religious Affairs and Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations by operating without government registration.
Shouwang members refused to sign a document pledging to never attend the church again, and leaders said the church will continue to worship by adjusting meeting times and locations.
Throughout its 26-year history, Shouwang members have refused to come under Communist authority and persevered despite persecution, with their “underground” services forced outside when evicted from their buildings in 2009 and with their founding pastor Jin Tianming under house arrest since 2011.
“China’s oppression against house churches will not be loosened,” Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, told ICC. “A systematic, in-the-name-of-law crackdown will continue to take place.”
Fu’s organization noted that religious restrictions adopted by China last year “narrow the margin in which unregistered churches previously thrived.”
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned Saturday’s Shouwang raid as “part of #China's continuing and escalating crackdown on house churches.”
The biggest unregistered churches have recognized the growing threat to their ability to continue worshiping, but do so anyway, at a large scale and in public.
“When we heard that Shouwang Church is being persecuted again, […] and other churches facing various pressure from the government, we kneeled down to pray to give thanks and praises to our God, because we are delighted that the bride of Christ is closely following her husband,” Early Rain said in a statement of solidarity.
Early Rain’s pastor Wang Yi remains detained with a dozen church leaders after a raid in December. In a statement Wang prepared in the event of his arrest, he defended nonviolent resistance against the “evil” of Chinese efforts to halt the spread of the gospel.
“I firmly believe that Christ has called me to carry out this faithful disobedience through a life of service, under this regime that opposes the gospel and persecutes the church,” he said. “This is the means by which I preach the gospel, and it is the mystery of the gospel which I preach.”
This week, a New York Times article described Wang’s desire to see Chinese Christianity resist authoritarian structures to improve social conditions in China, not merely save souls:
Some in his congregation objected to his overtly political message. Two years ago, another pastor left Early Rain to start his own church, criticizing some of Mr. Wang’s statements as stunts. But others in the church thought they were necessary.
Mr. Wang’s bluntness made him one of the most polarizing figures in Chinese Christianity. When the government began reducing the public face of Christianity in one province by tearing crosses off the steeples of even government-run churches, Mr. Wang expressed no sympathy for the churches affected. Instead, he said their pastors were wrong for serving in churches controlled by the government.
Earlier this month, Chinese leaders shared more vocal support for the government’s “sinicization” plan, to infuse sectors of society with more cultural and party alignment. “[We] must recognize that Chinese churches are surnamed ‘China’, not ‘the West,’” the head of the state-run Protestant body said. “The actions by anti-China forces that attempt to affect our social stability or even subvert the regime of our country are doomed to fail.”
Tianming, who stepped down from Shouwang last year to focus on missions, had cheered Wang’s example.
“Pastor Wang Yi is our dear brother, a servant whom God has been using for his special purpose within the Chinese church for the last ten years. During his current criminal detention under the charge of ‘inciting to subvert state power,’ many dear brothers and sisters of Early Rain Covenant Church are being persecuted,” he said.
“As a pastor who has received the same call of the Lord and called to serve in the same land, I declare: What pastor Wang Yi declared as his stance on the relationship between the church and the state is also where I stand!”
Leaders of the group ChinaSource recently wrote for Christianity Today about the political, rhetorical, and historical significance of this move. Combined with examples at big congregations like Early Rain and Zion, experts say there’s reason for concern that the government may be “testing” crackdown measures before more widespread implementation.
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Subscribe to CT and get one year free.China Closes Megachurches Before Christmas
Ahousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
On Sunday, 60 police and religious affairs officials interrupted weekly gatherings at Rongguili, ultimately closing the church, seizing materials, and taking cell phones from attendees, Asia News reported.
“Halfway through the children’s Bible class, we heard the footsteps of dozens of police and officials stomping up the stairs,” one member said, according to the South China Morning Post.
“They read out law enforcement notices declaring our venue was an illegal gathering [that had engaged in] illegal publishing and illegal fundraising and confiscated all Bibles.”
The Protestant congregation, which now draws more than 5,000 people to worship each week, was founded in the 1970s by the late pastor Samuel Lamb; it represents one of the few churches in China dating back to before the Cultural Revolution.
Ahead of Christmas, Chinese authorities have continued their ongoing crackdown on underground Protestant churches, which do not belong to the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement and are illegal under Communist rule. The activity has spurred further concern by US officials and American Christians.
The previous Sunday, December 9, officials shut down Early Rain Covenant Church, arresting more than a dozen Christians, including pastor Wang Yi. After he was detained, the church released Yi’s statement explaining and defending his nonviolent resistance to China’s “evil” and “wicked” rulers.
“I firmly believe that Christ has called me to carry out this faithful disobedience through a life of service, under this regime that opposes the gospel and persecutes the church,” he concluded. “This is the means by which I preach the gospel, and it is the mystery of the gospel which I preach.”
Prior to his arrest, he insisted that, in the event of government interference, the church continue to gather. With their church locked and guarded by police, 50 to 60 people gathered for worship outside this week, only to once again be halted and arrested by officials. World magazine reported from China:
A group of about 50 or 60 Early Rain members held a service in a nearby riverside park, singing hymns, praying, and reciting the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Three of Early Rain’s church plants have also suffered persecution over the past week, World wrote. One lost access to their building, one preacher was detained, and another was put under house arrest.
At least 10 Early Rain leaders remain in custody, according to news updates. Those that have been released relayed accounts of being shackled, starved, and tortured while in detention.
“Lord, look at the injustice done against your children,” read a prayer request from Early Rain, shared by the ministry China Aid. “This country is trampling on the dignity of your children, but these children are the apple of your eye. You will heal these wounds with your loving hands and teach us, in the midst of this suffering, the love of God and the endurance of Christ. Lord, come quickly!”
Beijing’s largest unregistered “house church,” 1,500-member Zion Church, was closed in September after refusing a government directive to install security cameras in the sanctuary. This month, another congregation in the Chinese capital, Cathedral of the Immaculate, has been shut down indefinitely for repairs.
Some Catholics consider the repairs to be “a veiled attempt to hamper Christmas celebrations, which attract thousands of people, even non-Christians,” Asia News reported. Others see the repairs as necessary but question the timing during the holiday season.
As CT has reported, government activity against the growing, decades-old underground church movement in China has risen under the current administration, led by President Xi Jingping.
“China isn't backing away from the religious persecution; it seems to be expanding,” said Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, last week, when China once again appeared on the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern list of the world’s worst religious freedom violators.
In February, the Communist Party of China (CPC) officially implemented a wave of tighter regulations designed to preserve Chinese culture and party authority against ideological threats.
“The Chinese government is working furiously to recreate the church in its image,” wrote CT editor-in-chief Mark Galli in an op-ed last month.
“Regulations announced last year formalized policy that has, in practice, been in effect for some years now: Religious leaders are required to ‘conduct religious activities in the Chinese context, practice core socialist values, carry forward the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, and actively explore religious thought which conforms to the reality in China.’”
In certain provinces, the CPC has campaigned to remove Christian symbols from Christians’ homes and replace them with pictures of the president; restricted Christian education for children; and disrupted worship by removing crosses from church buildings, barring access, or destroying them altogether.
It’s in this context that pastor Yi issued his 2,000-word declaration against the government’s attempt to restrict his ministry and the work of Christians across China.
“Regardless of what crime the government charges me with, whatever filth they fling at me, as long as this charge is related to my faith, my writings, my comments, and my teachings, it is merely a lie and temptation of demons,” he wrote in the letter, posted by China Partnership. “I categorically deny it. I will serve my sentence, but I will not serve the law. I will be executed, but I will not plead guilty.
“Moreover, I must point out that persecution against the Lord’s church and against all Chinese people who believe in Jesus Christ is the most wicked and the most horrendous evil of Chinese society,” he continued. “This is not only a sin against Christians. It is also a sin against all non-Christians. For the government is brutally and ruthlessly threatening them and hindering them from coming to Jesus. There is no greater wickedness in the world than this.”
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Subscribe to CT and get one year free.China Mulls Major Restrictions on Online Ministries
Chousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) posted a draft yesterday of new regulations on online religious activities that would “forbid the streaming of religious ceremonies (live on the internet), including prayer, preaching and even burning incense,” reports AsiaNews, which broke the story.
The new measures, contained in 35 articles, are “much more restrictive and analytical” than regulations on religious activities in real life that went into effect in February, according to AsiaNews:
For example they establish that anyone who wants to open a religious site, must seek permission from the authorities and be judged morally healthy and politically reliable.
Organizations and schools that receive the license can only publish didactic material via the Internet in their internal network, accessible only through a registered name and password. The rules emphasize that such organizations can not try to convert someone, and they cannot distribute religious texts or other material.
“They are still in draft form and await comments from the public, but as is almost always the case, the draft is in practice the final text,” reports AsiaNews.
SARA stated the new measures are intended to “regulate internet religious information service activities and maintain religious harmony and social harmony.” It asked for public feedback by October 9 via its website and by email or regular mail.
The previous real-life restrictions were also proposed in September and finalized in October, before being implemented the following February.
CT reviewed a crowdsourced translation of the draft rules, where Article 15 spells out the prohibited online activities. Some would not be objected to by Chinese Christians leaders, such as propogating heresy or using trickery or coercion to obtain assets. Others include:
- recruiting followers or setting up religious organizations, schools, and sites
- inciting minors to participate in religious activities
- selling, marketing, or distributing internal religious materials
- undermining peaceful relations between religions, or between religious and non-religious citizens
- attacking the state’s religious policies and regulations
In other articles, the draft rules prohibit the digital transmission—by text, photos, audio, or video—of prayer, baptisms, reciting scripture, or communion. (The ban would also apply to burning incense and Buddhist prayers.)
Most notably, foreign and non-mainland (i.e. Hong Kong and Taiwan) organizations and individuals would be prohibited from providing “internet religious information services” to mainland Chinese users.
This would apply to a broad swath of online activity: “information involving religion, including that relating to religious doctrine, religious knowledge, religious culture, or religious activities, that is transmitted as text, images, audio or video through means of Internet websites, applications, forums, blogs, microblogs, public accounts, instant messaging, or online live-streaming.”
Providers of such online material must be approved by the state, and must obey existing laws as well as actively adapt religion to Chinese socialism and preserve ethnic unity and social stability. Their license would be valid for three years before renewal.
Such websites, blogs, or other digital ministries would be prohibited from containing in their names the words China, Chinese, or National, while “religious names” like Catholic, Christian, or Buddhist could only be used to the specific religious groups and their schools or sites.
Religious groups, schools, or “activity sites” that obtain license to provide religious information online would be allowed to have religious professionals preach on their platforms and conduct religious education. However, they must have all users registered under their real names, and their interpretation of religious doctrines and rules must be conducive to “social harmony, the progress of the times, and healthy civilization,” according to the crowdsourced translation.
Also, both preaching and education must implement a “real-name management system.”
Organizations and individuals without a license would be prohibited from preaching or teaching online, and even prohibited from forwarding or linking to such content.
In a potentially foreboding sign for Christians on China’s massive social networks, the draft rules state that online broadcasters without the new religious licenses must prohibit their users from publishing religious information on those platforms.
If the draft rules are finalized, existing religious sites will have six months to come into compliance.
CT previously reported how Chinese Christians increasingly face rising red tape as they practice their faith.
