The Chinese connection to the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn so much attention that the media have ignored the Chinese government’s attack on religion. Although the Chinese Communist Party has always been officially atheist, it has not been militaristic in its attacks on believers. Now the Communist government is forcing religious re-education in China.
The Chinese government has started taking religious leaders to “re-education camps.” The State Department of the United States reports that the religious leaders are beaten and tortured in the camps until they are willing to say, “There is no God, there is only the Communist Party.” Since 2016, seventeen-thousand Buddhist monks and nuns have been placed in these camps.
The Chinese government has forced Catholic churches to accept new bishops appointed by the Communist party. Pictures of President Xi have replaced portraits of the Virgin Mary. The government has ordered online bookstores not to sell Bibles. The Communist Party is preparing its own Mandarin Bible, which will say that “the state leads and the church follows.”
Christianity in China dates back to ancient times. Since President Xi Jinping took office, he has instituted religious re-education in China. He has overseen the destruction of most, if not all, church buildings. Bibles have been burned, and any structure with a cross on it has been destroyed. Christians should pray for our Chinese brothers and sisters as the destruction and persecution are only getting worse.
— John N. Claton © 2020
Data from The Week, August 28, 2020, page 13.