China is burning bibles and making Christians renounce their faith to ensure total loyalty to the Communist Party

• Chinese officials are cracking down on Christians on an unprecedented scale
• They have been burning bibles, shutting down churches, and ordering people to renounce their faith
• The government wants to make sure everyone is loyal to the atheist Communist Party before anything else.
• Chinese law requires religious followers to worship only in registered congregations, but millions of people are in underground churches that defy government restrictions.
• All of China's officially recognized religions have been affected by the crackdown. About 1 million Uighurs of the Muslim faith are detained in political or re-education camps.

By Christopher Bodeen

BEIJING — China's government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and several provinces, 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 officially atheist Communist Party and eliminating any challenge to its power over people's lives.
Bob Fu of the U.S.-based group China Aid said over the weekend that the closure of churches in central Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing in recent weeks represents a "significant escalation" of the crackdown.
"The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief," he wrote in an email.
Under Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, religious believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. 

Experts and activists say that as he consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.
Fu also provided video footage of what appeared to be piles of burning bibles and forms stating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith. 

He said that marked the first time since Mao's radical 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution that Christians had been compelled to make such declarations, under pain of expulsion from school and the loss of welfare benefits.
A Christian pastor in the Henan city of Nanyang said crosses, bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his church on Sept. 5.
The pastor, who asked not to be identified by name to avoid repercussions from authorities, said several people entered the church just as it opened its doors at 5 a.m. and began removing items.
He said the church had been in discussions with local authorities who demanded it "reform" itself, but no agreement had been reached or official documents released.
Chinese law requires religious believers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities, but many millions belong to so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions.
A local official reached by phone at the Nanyang city government disputed the account, saying officials respected religious freedom. 

The man declined to give his name, as is common with Chinese bureaucrats, while a person answering phones at the local religious affairs bureau said they were "not clear" about the matter.
The Zion church in Beijing, pictured here in May 2018, was closed by 60 government workers on Sunday.

In Beijing, the Zion church was shut on Sunday by around 60 government workers who arrived at 4:30 p.m. accompanied by buses, police cars and fire trucks, the church's pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, said Monday. 

Zion is known as the largest house church in Beijing, with six branches.
The officials declared the gatherings illegal and sealed off church properties, Jin said, after already freezing the pastor's personal assets in an apparent attempt to force him to comply with their demands.
"Churches will continue to develop. Blocking the sites will only intensify conflicts," Jin told The Associated Press by phone.
A notice posted Sunday on the website of the Chaoyang district government in Beijing said the Zion Church had been closed because it failed to register with the government.
An underground Catholic church in Jiexi county, China, in March.

All of China's officially recognized religions appear to have been affected by the crackdown. In the most extreme example, an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other members of Muslim minority groups in the country's northwest have been arbitrarily detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the Communist Party.
The government says it is taking necessary measures to eliminate extremism, but denies setting up the camps.
China has an estimated 38 million Protestants, and experts have predicted that the country will have the world's largest Christian population in a few decades.

Chinese Communist Party readies crackdown on Christianity

China is set to launch a nationwide crackdown on Christianity. Matthew Carney travels through the country and speaks to churchgoers who are worried they could soon be arrested.
By Matthew Carney

People pray at a small Protestant underground church that operates in a shopfront in Beijing 

The Communist Party has just enacted much tougher laws that criminalise Christians if they do not pledge loyalty to the state.
Xi Jinping has warned that all religions now have to become "Chinese" and the new laws will attempt to bring churchgoers and their leaders under party control.

Taizhou authorities remove the cross topping Ao Huan Christian Church. 

The northern fringes of Beijing are some of the poorest areas in the capital, home to migrant workers who come from all over China, an itinerant community where the state offers little support.
But it is where the church is growing the fastest.
After weeks of negotiation, we have been given access to one small Protestant underground, or home church, and we can hear the sounds of prayers well before we walk in.
It operates in a shop-front and has about 50 members.

Pastor Wang Zeqing leads his congregation.

Wang Zeqing is the self-taught pastor and was a simple farmer until he got the calling 20 years ago.
He says the new laws will be the congregation's greatest challenge, but that their faith will not falter.
"A person who truly believes in Jesus Christ will not lose their faith or become weak due the changing environment," he says.
"God is in charge and he will not let the churches suffer."
There are hundreds if not thousands of these churches all over Beijing. 

They operate in attics, homes, offices, basements and parks out of view of the authorities.
Just in the small neighbourhood we are visiting there are five places of worship.

There are many churches all over Beijing operating out of attics, homes, offices, basements and parks.

The new laws will put the state firmly in charge, giving the Communist Party the ability to hire and fire church leaders and change religious doctrine to make it more Chinese.
That means churchgoers will have to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party first, which Pastor Wang says cannot be done.
"Jesus Christ is my only belief, my only loyalty is to Jesus Christ," he says.
"God says you should love your enemies, if they are hungry give them food to eat if they are thirsty give them water to drink, so we will pray for the non-believers.
"Let the spirit of Jesus move them and conquer them."

Churchgoers have to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party first.

Pastor Wang is careful about what he says. 

He has been arrested before but there is defiance in this small congregation, and on my visit they pray for an hour against the new laws.
The churchgoers don't want to provide their names or the exact location.
An elderly lady who leads the prayers shouts: "We urgently prayer for protection for the church and ask for God's mercy from the new laws from the Party."
A rugged-looking older man rises from his seat and responds with arms outstretched.
"Dear Lord we face harassment from the pagans, the new regulations may destroy our churches, the leaders of our country lack knowledge of God. Lord please protect and real churches and eliminate the pagans," he says.

The governing Communist Party in China is set to launch a nationwide crackdown on the church.

The churchgoers say they are not afraid. 

A small, fragile-looking lady in her 30s says in the face of the Communist Party, God is all powerful.
"I am not scared, I have God and I am happy. God will listen. The spirit lives inside us," she says.
There is good reason to be afraid. 

Chinese authorities have already started the crackdown in the Christian heartland in the southern province of Zhejiang.
It's been extensive and brutal. 

In the past two years they have torn down nearly 2,000 crosses and in some cases demolished churches.
Church leaders and their followers have been arrested and imprisoned.
There's also good reason to why the Communist Party is threatened by the Church.
Some say there are 100 million Christians in China — that's more than Communist Party members.
The Chinese Government admits there are about 25 million Christians registered at state-run churches where pastors are appointed by the state and theology approved by the governments Religious Affairs Bureau.
Hangzhou Chongyi Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in mainland China.

But the big worry for the Party is the unregistered worshippers in the underground churches.
Accurate estimates are difficult to get, but experts say their numbers vary between 40 million and 70 million.
And they say by 2030 China will have the world's biggest Christian population.
The real alarm for the Communist Party is that this signals their new ideology, the China dream 'prosperity for all', is failing and people are finding a deeper meaning, a salvation in religion.

Across Beijing, church leaders are waiting for the first round of arrests and detentions. 

It seems the harassment has already begun. 

When we tried to interview outspoken pastor Xu YongHai, 30 security personnel turned up to make sure we did not.
The police pulled over our car and checked our documentation while security officials filmed us. They instructed us to leave.
Pastor Xu managed to send us video of police monitoring his prayer service and later we managed to speak with him through a video link.
He said he expected more harassment and arrests to follow but said they would continue doing what they are doing.
"We may change location and times, we will not stop, we will be strong," he said.
The Communist Party has tried to destroy the church before and failed.
Pastor Xu said the new laws would only succeed in pushing the church further underground and swelling the ranks of the faithful.