The Chinese government is cracking
down on Christianity, destroying crosses, closing down churches, burning
Bibles, and forcing believers to sign a paper renouncing their faith, the
Associated Press (AP) reports based on accounts from pastors and a religious
freedom monitoring group.
The move comes as the Chinese
government attempts to demand loyalty to the state’s atheist Community Party. “The international community should be
alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and
belief,” Bob Fu of the U.S.-based group China Aid told the AP.
Under President Xi Jinping, China’s
most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, religious believers are seeing their
freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival.
Experts and activists say that as he
consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity
in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese
constitution in 1982.
Fu also provided video footage of what
appeared to be piles of burning Bibles and forms stating that the signatories
had renounced their Christian faith. He said
that marked the first time since Mao’s radical 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution
that Christians had been compelled to make such declarations, under pain of
expulsion from school and the loss of welfare benefits.
A Christian pastor in the Henan city
of Nanyang said crosses, Bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his
church on September 5th. One pastor,
Ezra Jin Mingri, of the Zion church in Beijing said even his personal assets
had been frozen by the government as a means of forcing him to comply before
officials shut the church down. Still,
Jin said that will not deter followers.
“Churches will continue to develop. Blocking the sites will only intensify
conflicts,” he told the AP.
Jay Sekulow, President Trump’s
attorney and Chief Counsel at the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ),
said the ACLJ is addressing the persecution.
“The situation for Chinese #Christians becomes more dire by the day. We are working tirelessly to put maximum pressure
on China stop the persecution,” he tweeted.
The country has roughly 38-million
Protestants – a number experts believe will grow in the coming decades, making
it home to the world’s largest Christian population.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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