OPINION:
China, land of the dark, is seeing the light — the light of the gospel, that is — with an explosion of Christianity in recent years so great that the American Family Association is calling it nothing short of “astonishing” and “miraculous.”
Make way for the persecution. Actually, the persecution is there. This has leftists everywhere on edge.
China’s communist leaders will not — cannot — tolerate any competing forces that rip from government powers. Kind of like the Democrats in America, yes?
If the people see God as Number One, where does that put the government?
“Even for those who already believe the Bible, it is still astonishing to see the power of the Gospel play out in our world today in an oppressive environment like Communist China,” said Ed Vitagliano, executive vice president of the American Family Association, in a written statement.
Open Doors reports the Christian community in China has been growing at a steady 7%-to-8% rate each year since 1980, and if trends continue, then there will be 300 million in the country by 2030.
“What has been happening in that nation,” Vitagliano said, “has been nothing short of miraculous.”
True. And true especially since communists in the country have been, with increasing frequency, cracking down on religious worship by monitoring and closing churches.
“In China, they’re closing churches, jailing pastors — and even rewriting Scripture,” The Guardian reported in 2019.
It’s a cultural cleansing, all right.
Communists in China have unleashed a campaign to “sinicise” Christianity — that is, to make Christianity subservient to the government. All churches that refuse to preach the good word of the government first, the Bible second, have been put in the crosshairs of the Communist Party and either closed, or scheduled to close. Church leaders say their crosses are being removed and replaced with the Chinese flag; their gospel music with patriotic songs.
“The goal of the crackdown is not to eradicate religions,” said one Christian scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, The Guardian reported. “President Xi Jinping is trying to establish a new order on religion, suppressing its blistering development.”
Yes. Destroy the churches, and make a martyr of the churches — which will then create an intense undercurrent of rebellion that could lead to a resurgence in churches. But change the teaching of the churches and soon enough, speedily enough, quickly enough, the teaching of the church will fit the communist mindset.
Soon enough, the next generation won’t even know the propaganda they’re being fed in church is propaganda.
The very source that freed will have been turned into the source that enslaved.
That’s cultural communism, at its most vile.
And just think: Democrats here in America would love to see the churches just as silenced — just as enslaved. How else to explain the leftist attack on churches during the coronavirus clampdowns?
“Christians in the free world should take great encouragement from the church in China and remember to preach the gospel to our own neighbors because we can — freely and without fear,” Vitagliano said.
Yes. For now.
But Christians in America should also take warning from China’s communist crackdown on churches. It could happen here. Under the coronavirus lockdown, and the government-ordered closing of the churches, it kind of did happen here. And today’s batch of Democrats are really just collectivists with donkey buttons. That’s to say: The Democrats are progressives are democratic-socialists are socialists — are one step away from outright card-toting communists.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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