The 84-year-old man in Shanxi Province, China, was among a number of Christians in several provinces ordered to remove Christian imagery from their homes and replace them with pictures of Communist leaders, religious rights magazine Bitter Winter reported.

“The township [Chinese Communist] Party [CCP] secretary asked me to take down and throw away the cross and told me to pray to Xi Jinping from then on,” the unidentified Christian told Bitter Winter. “Xi Jinping is a man, not God. I feel saddened for the cross being taken down, but there is nothing I can do.”

Similar reports have emerged from at least five provinces over the last few months, with authorities urging believers — often low-income households reliant on government assistance — to replace crosses and images of Jesus in their homes with posters of Communist Party leaders, or lose welfare benefits.

In June, a village official in Lin County repeatedly ordered villagers through social media to remove all religious symbols from their homes, Bitter Winter reported. 

“He stated that the cross symbolized heterodox teachings, which should be purged as per orders from higher authorities. If not, they will be held criminally accountable. The official stressed that impoverished households must replace the symbols with images of Xi Jinping,” the outlet said. 

Officials in Lin County threatened to cancel poverty alleviation allowances if Christians refused to discard their faith-based books and other items. One Christian told Bitter Winter that every household was ordered to display portraits of Xi and that residents were to provide photos of themselves beside them. 

In the southeastern province of Jiangxi, officials tore down crosses and other Christian imagery in the homes of officially recognized Three-Self Church members. When challenged, the officials told believers they were implementing state-issued orders.

“Though reluctant, the impoverished Christians had to remove the symbols since the officials threatened to cancel their subsistence allowance if they disobeyed. People must follow the party that gives them money, not God, the officials claimed,” Bitter Winter said.

It was previously reported that in April, the government of Xinyu city in the southeastern province of Jiangxi canceled a disabled Christian’s minimum living subsidy and a monthly disability allowance of 100 RMB (about $14) because the believer continued to attend worship services despite government orders. 

In 2017, CCP officials visited believers’ homes in Yugan county of Jiangxi province and removed 600 Christian symbols from Christians’ living rooms, and hung 453 portraits of the Communist leader in their place, according to a report from the South China Morning Post.

SCMP, a newspaper that kowtows to the communist regime, claimed the move was part of a state-sponsored campaign to alleviate poverty in the region since some CCP members believe families’ faith is to blame for poverty.

“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 CCP 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.”

Last year, authorities with the CCP removed the Ten Commandments from nearly every Three-Self church and meeting venue in a county of Luoyang city and replaced them with the president’s quotes.

Following the implementation of revised religious regulation rules in February of 2018, Communist officials have shut down churches, arrested congregations, and attempted to rewrite the Bible in efforts to free religion from perceived foreign influence, 

China’s campaign to sinicize religion originated in a speech by Xi at the National Religious Work Conference in April 2016. At the time, Xi stated that in order to “actively guide the adaptation of religions to socialist society, an important task is supporting China’s religions’ persistence in the direction of sinicization.”

Persecution watchdog Open Doors USA ranks China at No. 23 on its list of 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The nonprofit notes that while China’s constitution protects the right to religion, houses of worship are often tightly controlled and even shuttered if deemed too large, too political, or invite foreign guests.

Source: christianpost.com, Author: Leah MarieAnn Klett

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Chen Wensheng often carries a wooden cross inscribed with the words “Glory to our Savior” and “Repent and Be Saved by Faith” as he shares the Gospel with passersby.

A street evangelist, Chen, who is part of the Xiaoqun Church in Hengyang, located in China’s Hunan province, was sentenced on Aug. 3 after authorities detained him because of his evangelistic activity, persecution watchdog China Aid reports.

Because of his evangelistic efforts, Chen is frequently arrested and detained at the police station, but instead of getting offended, he repeatedly urged the officers to believe in Jesus Christ.

When officers asked him whether believing in Jesus can bring money, he responded that believing in Jesus is not for money, but to gain eternal life.

In his latest detention, his cross was confiscated at the police station. His church sent him daily commodities and arranged someone to visit his family.

These videos shared by China Aid include footage of Chen’s street evangelism booth and of him sharing his faith with officers as he was leaving the station from previous detention.

Source: believersportal.com

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According to Baptist Press, in a video interview by International Christian Concern released last week, a Christian named Liao Quiang, alongside his daughter and son-in-law shared the dangers of being a Christian in Communist China.

Liao had been a member of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu before the Chinese Community Party (CPC) shut it down in December 2018. Liao then fled to Taiwan with his extended family.

He asserted that the CPC, “makes you think that they are willing to compromise, because they know Americans care about freedom of religion. If China makes concession[s] in religious freedom, then [the] U.S. should compromise in trade. It’s CPC who politicizes religious freedom, not Christians.”

Liao noted that members of his church face continued persecution for their faith following its shutdown. The church’s founder, Wang Yi, and a church elder, he shared, were incarcerated.

The CPC also threatened Christian parents, telling them their children would be sent to government re-education camps if they are sent to church schools. Parents with adopted children are at risk of having them given back to their biological families.

“The reason why we left China is because the Chinese Communist Party is limitless in its persecution. They not only threatened us, normal adult, normal church members, but they threatened our children,” Liao said. “Some of our members have adopted children, and CPC forcibly sent the adoptive children back to the original family. That is the main reason why we fled China. Because we can’t guarantee our adopted child would not be taken away by them.”

One church family, Liao share had four adoptive children seized and returned to their birth family before later being distributed to other households.

“This is a living tragedy,” Liao said. “Their constant oppression made me feel we must flee China, because our children are most important to us.”

Liao believes that the CPC fears transparency as it would expose how they are violating religious freedom but fears that exposure could encourage further persecution.

“The biggest help is to report the persecution. Report it fairly. We aren’t saying the U.S. government should put pressure on the Chinese government. This isn’t what we hope for,” Liao said. “What CPC is most afraid of is being exposed. They are afraid of transparency.”

“We don’t want the government or the public to pressure CPC,” he added. “Because under such circumstances, CPC will definitely intensify religious persecution. The worse China-U.S. relations get, the more CPC persecutes Christians.”

The video interview with Liao was released alongside ICC’s latest report on Religious Suppression in China by ICC regional manager Gina Goh, which highlights  “legal underpinnings and practical implications of China’s systematic repression of religion.”

Goh noted that the CPC can redefine words in their Constitution at their convenience such as the word “normal” in the clause concerning the government’s protection of “normal religious activities.”

“Thus, the state will only protect those religions that it deems normal and is not obligated to do so if it deems a religious activity abnormal.” Goh wrote. “As a result, the government has the ability to crack down on certain religious practices or even disband them.”

Source: christianheadlines.com, Author: Milton Quintanilla

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The policy impacts low-income religious citizens who receive government assistance, according to Bitter Winter, a watchdog that monitors reports of persecution in China.

Multiple cities and towns across the country have implemented the policy.

In April, officials from several villages in Shanxi province were called together for a meeting and ordered by the government “to remove crosses, religious symbols and images from the homes of people of faith who receive social welfare payments” and replace them with portraits of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and current President Xi Jinping.

A Christian in one of the villages told Bitter Winter that officials tore down Christian imagery in his home and hung a picture of Zedong.

“Impoverished religious households can’t receive money from the state for nothing – they must obey the Communist Party for the money they receive,” the Christian told Bitter Winter.

A house church pastor said village officials visited his home in May and replaced a cross with a picture of Zedong.

“All impoverished households in the town were told to display Mao Zedong images,” the pastor said. “The government is trying to eliminate our belief and wants to become God instead of Jesus.”

In Jiangxi province, government officials withdrew a monthly disability allowance and a living subsidy from a man who is disabled and Christian.

“Officials told me that we would be treated as anti-Party elements if my husband and I continued attending worship services,” the man’s wife told Bitter Winter.

Sometimes, there’s little warning. 

A Christian elderly woman in her 80s lost her government assistance after she said “thank God” while receiving her subsidy in January. She lives in Jiangxi province.

“They expected me to praise the kindness of the Communist Party instead,” she said.

Government officials in Shangqiu city in the province of Henan cancelled the government assistance for an elderly woman in her 70s after they discovered a cross image on her door.

“They tore it down immediately,” the elderly Christian told Bitter Winter. “Afterward, both my minimum living allowance and poverty alleviation subsidy were canceled. I am being driven to a dead end. I have diabetes and need injections regularly.”

Said a neighbor, “This little money she received from the government was her bread and butter. But it has been canceled because of a cross image, causing great harm to this woman.”

Source: christianheadlines.com, Author: Michael Foust

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Bishop James Su Zhimin was last seen 17 years ago by a Catholic in a hospital in Baoding, Hebei province — six years after he was arrested for his refusal to join the government-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and charged with conducting “unregistered” religious activities.

Bishop Su’s nephew, Su Tianyou, told UCA News that the Chinese Communist Party had asked the Vatican to appoint Coadjutor Bishop Francis An Shuxin in his stead, leading some to believe Bishop Su is dead. 

The outlet notes that Bishop An was Bishop Su’s assistant who was arrested in 1996 for his affiliation with the underground Catholic church. After remaining under house arrest for 10 years, Bishop An was released after agreeing to work for the CCPA. 

However, Baoding’s underground church no longer recognizes him as their bishop, considering him a “traitor who left his faith to pursue a life of comfort,” according to UCA News. 

Bishop Su was a member of the Church, in communion with Rome, and appointed a bishop by Pope St. John Paul II, but unrecognized by the Chinese government as a bishop.

According to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Human Rights Commision, Su spent four decades in prison “without charge, without trial.” Prior to his arrest in 1996, the Bishop was held off and on for 26 years either in prison or forced labor camps. To this day, attempts at memorializing him or holding public events in his honor “have met with hostile police action,” says HRC. 

With the latest demand from the CCP on Bishop An’s appointment, Su Tianyou is asking the Vatican to take Bishop Su’s case and demand his release.

“The Vatican should be able to take the lead in the negotiations and demand that Bishop Su be released,” Su Tianyou said, adding that the Vatican’s cooperation with Beijing is a betrayal of Catholics who have refused to bow to the CCP’s demands. 

“The Vatican cannot forget the bishops in prison, but the CCPA teases them,” Su Tianyou said.

In 2018, the Chinese government signed a deal with the Vatican to regularize the appointment of bishops. However, critics said the deal seemingly legitimized China at a time when it had a long record of oppression against religious groups.

As much as 50 percent of China’s estimated 10 million to 12 million Catholics worship in communities not registered with the Chinese government.

Rights group Amnesty International reports that for decades, many Catholics, Protestants, Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners have been harassed or even imprisoned for practicing their beliefs. 

Since the amended “Regulation on Religious Affairs” came into force in 2018, house churches reported further crackdowns across the country. Authorities have removed hundreds of crosses from church buildings, vandalized church properties, ordered churches to close, and harassed and monitored church leaders and members.

In April, a house church pastor in China’s Hunan province was arrested for “inciting subversion of state power” after he refused to join the state-sponsored church. His whereabouts are unknown.

In December, Pastor Wang Yi, head of one of China’s largest unregistered churches, was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of subversion of power and illegal business operations.

China ranks as the 23rd worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List. China has been named by the State Department for years as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in systemic and egregious violations of religious freedom. 

Source: christianpost.com Author: Mandeep Sanghera

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The congregations were informed that they must raise the Chinese flag, sing the national anthem, and tell “moving stories about China’s battle with the pandemic,” Bitter Winter reports.

Those churches that have reopened are run by the state, and government officials were on hand to oversee the ceremonies as they opened their doors again.  

A member at Guangxi Christian Church in the Shunhe district of Kaifeng described the reopening of their church as “completely contrary to our belief.”

“The church finally reopened after five months, 147 days, or 21 Sundays, but instead of singing hymns to praise God, the government required us to raise the national flag and sing the national anthem, praising Xi Jinping’s ‘victory in fighting the epidemic.'” 

More than 20 members of the Quannan Church, the largest Christian church in Quanzhou city in the southeastern province of Fujian, attended a flag-raising ceremony in their courtyard. A phrase that supports the core communist values was displayed behind the flagpole, according to Bitter Winter. 

“The United Front Work Department and Religious Affairs Bureau demand to hold flag-raising ceremonies and promote patriotism,” one churchgoer said. “From now on, all churches have to do so, or they will be shut down, and their leaders dismissed.”

A pastor from Henan’s Zhumadian city said that in order to reopen the church, he had to attend a meeting and study Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches on controlling COVID-19.

“The government demands to promote these things to congregations after churches reopen,” the pastor explained. “These texts are published in a booklet, over 100 pages long. Preachers must mainly talk about the state’s policies. Those who disobey will be arrested.”

Another pastor believes that the government seeks “to make all people believe in communism only, to ‘sinicize’ Christianity.” 

Requiring churches to abide by specific standards in order to reopen is “disturbing the minds of believers to transform their ideologies and change the essence of their beliefs,” the pastor added.

Source: cbnnews, Author: Andrea Morris

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Bitter Winter reports this movement began in the communist country soon after President Xi Jinping underscored at a national education conference that the fundamental task for education is to train builders and successors of socialism. Since Xi’s speech almost two years ago, the pressure on teachers to indoctrinate students has been building. 

One example is a kindergarten teacher, a member of the state-run Catholic Church, who told the website she was afraid to go to church because of the mounting pressure she was receiving from the school’s administration. She told Bitter Winter that she has been constantly threatened to give up her faith for the last seven months. She said she has received criticism from her superiors, which includes comments like, “some teachers continue to hold religious beliefs while the Communist Party feeds them.”

“The state’s control over ideology is becoming stricter and stricter, particularly in the field of education,” the teacher said. “If teachers hold religious beliefs, not only follow the Communist Party, this becomes a political problem for the government.”

The teacher’s principal also warned her that funding from the government could also be withdrawn from the county if government officials learned about her faith. The funding is given as part of a Spiritual Civilization Award which is given to communities that are designated as “civilized,” i.e., economically developed and free of religion. 

“I learned that another county had all of its civilization awards revoked because an inspection team discovered two primary school students singing Christian hymns,” the teacher told Bitter Winter. 

“Teachers are required to indoctrinate children with patriotic ideology, make them believe and praise the Party,” she continued. “Moreover, schools have assigned special personnel to monitor and report on religious teachers and students. They were told to give up their faith, and some have been designated as key targets of surveillance, the authorities fearing that they will develop ‘counterrevolutionary influence,’ collude with foreign forces, and cause chaos.”

Source: cbn.com, Author: Steve Warren

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In a recent sermon, Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, shared an experience he had on a trip to China, where the church went to train leaders.

The pastor shared how 22 Christians from the Hunan Province took a 13-hour train ride to attend the leadership training held at a 700-square-foot hotel room. Out of the 22 Christians present, 18 had been imprisoned for their faith, the pastor revealed.

“If we get caught what will happen to me?” Cordeiro began by asking.

“Well, you will get deported in 24 hours, and we will go to prison for three years,” the Chinese Christians responded.

After beginning his lesson, the pastor realized he only had 15 Bibles to pass around, so seven people went without.

“I said, ‘turn to 2 Peter 1, we are going to read it.’ Just then one lady handed hers to the person next to her, and I thought ‘hmm interesting,’” he recalled.

As the Christians began reading, he quickly realized why she had given her Bible away: she had memorized the whole book.

“When it was done, I went over to her at a break and said, ‘You recited the whole chapter,’” he said. She replied, “In prison, you have much time in prison.”

“Don’t they confiscate the Bible?” he asked.

She said that while any Christian material is indeed confiscated, people smuggle in scripture written on paper and hide it from the prison guards.

“That’s why we memorize it as fast as we can because even though they can take the paper away, they can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” she explained.

Following the three-day training session, one Chinese Christian man asked Cordeiro, “Could you pray that one day we could just be like you?”

“I looked at him and said, ‘I will not do that,’” he replied. “You guys road a train 13 hours to get here. In my country, if you have to drive more than an hour, people won’t come.”

“You sat on a wooden floor for three days. In my country, if people have to sit for more than 40 minutes they leave. You sat here for not only three days on a hard wooden floor, in my country if it’s not padded pews and air conditioning, people will not come back.”

“In my country, we have an average of two Bibles per family. We don’t read any of them. You hardly have any Bibles and you memorize them from pieces of paper.”

“I will not pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,” he concluded.

China has seen explosive growth in the number of believers over the last several decades. Estimates have even suggested that China is on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030.

About 30 million Christians in China are estimated to attend state-sanctioned churches while many others attend illegal underground house churches that are not registered with the government.

In efforts to stunt the rapid growth of Christianity, authorities throughout China have shuttered a number of prominent house churches and arrested Christians for worshiping without the approval of the government.

Previously, Crazy Love author Francis Chan said he believes the reason the underground Chinese church has grown so large is that Chinese Christians “actually believed they could make disciples and start these gatherings because Jesus was enough.”

“I started to think, ‘This is what made the underground church in China unstoppable. If you have a group of people that actually embrace suffering, how are you ever going to stop them?'” he asked during the “Rethink Church/Rethink Mission” event at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, in October.

Chan argued that the problem with churches in the West is they are “so stoppable the moment it gets too difficult.”

“What if you actually go, ‘I want to suffer for Christ?'” Chan asked. “Will you suffer to obey these things? Will you actually sacrifice? Because it’s a lot easier to come somewhere and be fed than to love [others] as much as Christ loved you, as much as the Father loves the Son, and to break bread with [others] thinking, ‘Christ was tortured for me; would I do that for [others]?'”

The pastor urged Christians in the West to embrace suffering for the glory of Christ “because the Church is that beautiful and that important.”

Source: christianpost.com

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