9/13/2024 China (International Christian Concern) — For decades, China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has tried to control and restrain Christianity within its borders. Its ultimate hope is to see the faith disappear from China altogether.
In 1982, the CCP released its position statement on religion, which asserts that, over the long haul, socialism will eventually take the place of religion.
“Only after the gradual development … of a socialist civilization, with its own material and spiritual values, will … religion gradually disappear,” the statement reads. “Only when we enter this new age will all that shows a religious face in the present world finally disappear.”
Additionally, CCP members are expressly told they must be atheists and are forbidden from following God.
A member of the CCP “belongs to a Marxist political party, and there can be no doubt at all that [they] must be an atheist and not a theist,” the statement explains.
While Chinese citizens are given a form of religious freedom, they are closely monitored to ensure that no anti-China or anti-socialist platforms are spoken about within churches.
To achieve full socialist control over its people, China employs many tactics to muzzle those it views as a threat, often targeting Christianity as a result.
Christians who have spoken out against socialism have been arrested and imprisoned for their faith, and churches that have garnered too much influence for Christ have been shuttered. In addition to overt persecution, the Chinese government has devised more insidious strategies to strike at the heart of Christianity.
One such tactic is sinicization, the process whereby Chinese officials have called for religious institutions to make China and socialist ideas their highest priority and align their ministries with the ideas of socialism. In carrying this process out, authorities reportedly removed crosses from various Christian churches in 2020 because their crosses were higher than their displays of the country’s flag.
In a post on X, Evangelist Franklin Graham expressed solidarity with the persecuted Christians.
“Removing the crosses won’t change the truth of the message of the cross and the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives and save souls for eternity,” Graham stated.
Other moves to demote Christianity beneath socialism came in 2017 when members of the CCP allegedly visited many Christian households in Yugan County. More than 1 million people reside there, and an estimated 10% of its citizens are Christian. Party officials encouraged thousands of Christians to take down crosses and images of Jesus hanging in their homes and replace them with pictures of China’s president, Xi Jinping. CCP officials reportedly told the citizens that socialism and President Xi would help them with health and financial worries instead of their Savior Jesus Christ. Though denied by the government, reports from villagers claim they were threatened with losing state benefits if they didn’t comply.
Additionally, in 2014, a dozen or more Christian churches were either demolished or had their crosses removed. The New York Times reported that it obtained “an internal government document” that evidenced the Chinese government had intentionally targeted the churches to reduce Christian influence in the country. The document “specifie[d] only one religion, Christianity, and one symbol, crosses.”
Another not-so-subtle strategy the Chinese government employs is targeting human rights lawyers in China who defend religious freedoms for citizens. In 2015, authorities arrested, tortured, detained, and disappeared about 300 attorneys for “stirring up troubles” and “creating public disorder.” Several attorneys who were detained reported being tortured and abused while in custody, including being electrocuted, beaten, forcibly drugged, and deprived of sleep. According to the family of lawyer Li Chunfu, he suffered symptoms of paranoia and schizophrenia once released after being forced to ingest drugs, and attorney Jiang Tianyong reportedly lost parts of his memory after many forced druggings while in detention.
Though many of the attorneys have been released, they continue to be harassed and monitored nine years after the incident.
In contrast to persecuting Christians, the Chinese government has softened its views on indigenous Chinese and folk religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Reports assert that China sees Christianity as foreign and, therefore, a threat to its power and views indigenous religions as devices to bring the attention of Chinese citizens back to the nation of China. According to Reuters, the government also began to embrace the deity Mazu of the sea, widely worshiped by the Taiwanese, in an attempt to garner more influence and power among the Taiwanese people.
Despite the rampant persecution, Chinese Christians persist in their faith. Pew Research data from 2018 estimates anywhere from 20 to 81 million Christians were living in China.
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