According to Bitter Winter, a magazine covering religious freedom and human rights in China, churches belonging to the country’s state-run “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” protestant denomination have been ordered to replace displays of the Decalogue with sayings of the Chinese president.
The new order comes reportedly after Three-Self churches were initially told to remove the First Commandment, “You shall have no gods before me,” as Jinping disagreed with it.
Reports indicate that those who have refused to remove any or all of the Ten Commandments have been imprisoned, with leaders and worshippers harassed even in churches that complied with the instruction.
Instead of core Christian values, the displays now preach Communist party ideology, such as, “Guard against the infiltration of Western ideology, and consciously resist the influence of extremist thought.”
At the same time, the Communist party has launched a crackdown on so-called ‘home churches’ which are outside of state control.
An anonymous source told the magazine that the Communist party is attempting to become a God-like figure.
They said: “The government’s first step is to prohibit religious couplets.
“Then it dismantles crosses and…orders the national flag and ‘core socialist values’ to be placed in churches.”
In its report earlier this year, the United States Commission on International Religious…
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