Monday, September 10, 2018

WELP

It's not like we weren't warned.

China's government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches, and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China. The campaign corresponds with a drive to "Sinicize" religion by demanding loyalty to the atheist Communist Party. Bob Fu of the US-based group China Aid said that the recent closure of churches in Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing is a "significant escalation" and that the "international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief." Under President Xi Jinping, believers are seeing freedoms shrink dramatically even amid a religious revival. Activists say Xi is waging the most severe suppression of Christianity since religious freedom was written into the constitution in 1982.

Warned?  When was that?  Here:

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Here:

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

And here:

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Among many others.

5 comments:

Katherine said...

The Communists in China hate anything that is not under their control. And along those lines, among his other bad decisions, Pope Francis has decided that playing along with the ChiComs might help Catholics in China. Probably a really bad ides:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/02/02/pope-francis-is-giving-in-to-the-chinese-communist-party/?utm_term=.dbe21adcbd40

Katherine said...

Can I post HTML links here, by the way?

Christopher Johnson said...

I guess. Makes me no never mind but some of them might not show up correctly.

I think. ;-)

Unknown said...

I find it amusing that "the international community should be outraged at the blatant disregard of freedom of religion and belief" - Just because it is in the US constitution doesn't mean the whole rest of the world embraces it.

Christopher Johnson said...

I'm not particularly outraged by it. Militant atheism's gotta do what militant atheism's gotta do. I just pointed out that Christians shouldn't be surprised when this happens. As Our Lord warned us 2,000 years ago.