By Victor Ochieng
Christians aren’t very safe in many locations in China. There have been numerous cases of church members being persecuted, churches brought down or instruments of worship completely destroyed. In some areas, churches are forced to operate in secret.
Now, thousands of Christian villagers have been ordered to completely remove images of Jesus, crosses, or gospel messages from their homes and places of worship. This is in line with a government hatched propaganda towards transforming “believers in religion into believers in the party.”
According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), officials drawn from the Communist Party of China (CPC) visited Christian homes in Jiangxi province in Yugan county and ordered that they replace their religious displays with posters and banners of President Xi Jinping. The Post reported that over 600 people heeded and removed all Christian symbols from their homes and 453 went ahead and hung pictures of the Communist Party leader.
Why would the government do something like that? Well, the move is part of government efforts to alleviate poverty in areas, believing that the families are facing financial challenges because of their religious beliefs. The replacing of the images and symbols with the president’s posters is in an effort to encourage the people to believe in their leaders to better their livelihoods rather than their Savior.
“Many poor households have plunged into poverty because of illness in the family. Some resorted to believing in Jesus to cure their illnesses,” the head of the government campaign told SCMP. “But we tried to tell them that getting ill is a physical thing and that the people who can really help them are the Communist Party and General Secretary Xi.”
Even though the party has distanced itself from the activities, some Christian residents of Yugan county said they were threatened that should they fail to remove the religious images and signs, they’d be omitted from the government’s roster of those who qualify for humanitarian assistance.
The allegations are coming not long after CPC held its national congress, in which Xi re-energized his effort to strengthen party power and passed a historic law to enshrine his political philosophy into the party’s constitution. SCMP referred to Xi as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao” Zedong, whose leadership was also characterized by widespread a personality cult that encouraged people to place the leader’s portrait in their homes.
Brent Fulton, president of ChinaSource, said Xi is following in the footsteps of many Chinese leaders’ efforts to assert state power in all the country’s economic and social sectors, including threatening social movements that appear to challenge it.
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