An upcoming regulation in China requires religious clergy to “support the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Observers say the Chinese people will not only be denied their constitutional freedom of religion, but will also be required to pledge allegiance to Communist “doctrines” that contradict religious teachings, a move that signals a further crackdown on religious freedom by Chinese authorities.
New rules contradict Christian doctrine
The Measures for the Administration of Religious Clergy (the “Measures”), which were formulated and published by China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs earlier this year, will come into effect on May 1. Article 3 of the Measures, which focus on religious clergy, stipulates that religious clergy should “love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China and uphold the socialist system.
“The Measures also require religious clergy to resist illegal religious activities and extremist religious ideology and “resist infiltration by foreign forces using religion,” and state that religious clergy who violate the Measures will be subject to public security control in accordance with the Regulations on Religious Affairs In many Western democracies, the government and the church are not the same.
In many Western democracies, church and state are separate, and religious beliefs are distinct from political party ideals. In Christianity, for example, Christians believe in the triune God, “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party’s requirement that believers must support the Communist Party is contrary to the basic teachings of Christianity, which rejects any idolatry above God.
Meanwhile, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party this year, the Chinese Buddhist Association, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Chinese Islamic Association, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee and the Chinese Christian Association recently issued a common initiative to carry out education on the theme of “love for the Party, love for the country and love for socialism” (the three loves). The common initiative for education on the theme of “love for the Party, love for the country and love for socialism” (Three Loves) was issued recently, asking religious believers to systematically carry out a study campaign on the “Four Histories”, focusing on the history of the CPC, as well as the history of the new China, the history of reform and opening up, and the history of socialist development.
Analysts say that the CCP has a long history of controlling people’s minds through ideology and ideological education, which reached its peak during the 10-year civil unrest of the Cultural Revolution. Now that China is gradually improving the so-called “rule of law,” this ideological control is reaching into the realm of religion, which is supposed to be independent of political parties and the political system. According to analysts, the practice of forcing religious people to accept the CCP’s history as the only version of history does not respect historical facts and is unacceptable to the majority of believers.
Preachers: You Prescribe Your Own, I Preach Mine
In an interview with the Voice of America, Yang Fenggang, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Ecumenical East Asian Studies at Purdue University, said that China’s approach to religious clergy management is consistent with the policies of the past few decades, and that China’s adherence to the “four basic principles One of China’s “four basic principles” is “the leadership of the Communist Party of China,” so it is not surprising that China is now introducing this regulation.
China’s religious policy has undergone major adjustments in the past two to three years. Although it used to adhere to the four basic principles, religious clergy had a lot of freedom, but now that freedom has been reduced,” he said. This is because, in principle, the Chinese Communist Party adheres to Marxism-Leninism, which includes atheism. There is a real logical problem here when the Chinese authorities require theistic religious clergy to embrace the Communist Party and embrace atheism’s leadership or rule over them.”
Xu Yonghai, an elder of the Beijing-based Christian house church Holy Love Fellowship, told VOA that China’s demand that religious clergy support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party runs counter to the Christian doctrine of “separation of church and state.
He said, “Insisting on house churches, insisting on the separation of church and state, insisting on the church being spiritual and heavenly, insisting on the church being about changing hearts, putting the heart of Jesus in our own hearts, letting Jesus into our own hearts, giving us the heart of Jesus that loves people. This is the role of the church. The church should not become a social group, much less a political group.”
Guo Yongfeng, a Christian evangelist in Shenzhen, told Voice of America that the mission of Christians is to believe in God and Jesus and to preach the gospel. He said that as a Christian, he does not oppose or support the authorities’ demand that religious clergy “support the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
He said, “Because it doesn’t matter whether we support or oppose it. We just preach the gospel. As officials, if you believe in the Lord, we are happy, and if you don’t believe in the Lord, we have compassion and sympathy for you. There is no question of support or non-support. The Communist Party asks you to verbally embrace, we do not oppose, nor do we support, how you want to engage, that is your business.”
Expert: Beware of Religion Being Reduced to a Tool for Communist Manipulation
The Measures for the Administration of Religious Clergy also stipulates that religious clergy must not only abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations and rules, but also “practice the core socialist values,” adhere to the “principle of independent and self-administered religion,” and adhere to the “direction of Chineseization of religion. They must also “practice socialist core values,” adhere to the “principle of independence and self-management of religion,” and adhere to the “direction of Chineseization of religion.
According to Purdue University professor Yang Fenggang, the introduction of any religion must be adapted to the local socio-political system and culture, so there is nothing wrong with adhering to the “direction of Chineseization of religion” literally, but one must be careful that religion is reduced to a tool for the Chinese Communist Party to manipulate.
He said, “When it comes to Sinicization, even Taoism needs to be Sinicized, it is obvious that the Sinicization that we are talking about now is not just Sinicization, but actually Party-stateization. There are many religious people who have difficulty accepting this.”
Elder Xu Yonghai said that Chinese house churches are the most “Chinese” compared to foreign church places such as churches and crosses. He said, “Chinese house churches have nothing but brothers and sisters who gather in their own homes to study the Bible. If we say Chinese, we are the most Chinese. We only emphasize being saints of Jesus spiritually, but we don’t emphasize anything else, and we can change it all. Because Jesus remains the same, nothing else changes or remains the same.”
Evangelist Guo Yongfeng emphasized that the truth of Jesus Christ is absolute and eternal and cannot be Chineseized. He said, “If everyone wants to personalize faith in Jesus and I want to transform Christianity into a religion that suits me, that is impossible. If every one of us did that, it would be heresy.”
According to China’s second white paper on religion, “China’s Policies and Practices to Safeguard Freedom of Religious Belief,” released in 2018, China has more than 38 million Christians. But according to unofficial statistics, the actual number may be as high as more than 90 million, even more than the number of Chinese Communist Party members. Some of these Christians belong to the official Three-Self Church, and most belong to the officially banned “underground churches” (also known as “house churches”).
The more Christianity is suppressed, the faster it grows
Elder Xu Yonghai said that after the implementation of the “administrative measures,” freedom of religion will be further squeezed, and house church staff and believers will certainly be further suppressed. But the more the authorities crack down, he said, the faster the house churches in China will grow, with the number of Christians in China growing from a few million to tens of millions in the 1990s.
Even if we are forced to go back to the family meeting format, to the underground meeting format, we will still be able to ‘work for the Lord,’ and we are very confident about that,” he said. We are not afraid of suppression, and we are not afraid of shrinking space.”
Xu Yonghai said that it is now the 1920s, and even if the authorities further tighten their control over house churches and even crack down on them, it will be difficult to return to the situation suffered by unofficial Christian church staff and members in the 1950s and 1980s.
In the 1950s, after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, which advocated atheism, the “Three Self Patriotic Movements” (self-governance, self-support, and self-preach) were launched against Christianity, requiring the private churches to join the official “Three Self Churches. However, the heads of 11 independent dioceses in the Beijing area refused to join the official Three-Self Church. Among them were Yuan Xiangzhen, one of the leaders of China’s Christian house churches, and Wang Mingdao, a representative of the independent churches, who were both sentenced to life imprisonment for “counter-revolutionary crimes.
Xu Yonghai said that the independent churches in China did not die out because of this, but gradually developed from what was called “illegal” in the 1950s to “underground” in the 1980s, and then “came to the surface” in the 1990s. “Although not officially affiliated, house churches have now gone from being “clandestine” in the past to being completely open.
Guo said it is normal for the authorities to suppress Christians in China, which is dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. However, he said, the authorities’ persecution of Christianity does not necessarily mean that they can defeat it. He mentioned that in ancient Rome, many Christians were persecuted, but Christianity grew and developed.
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