The looming storm of sinicization of the Christian faith in China is already here. It brought with them the winds of deception, control, propaganda and manipulation to sweep throughout the country.

The 10 Year Strategy

Sinicization, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is to modify by Chinese influence.  The government arm of religious organizations, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China (TSPM) and China Christian Council (CCC), are nearing the completion of their 5 year sinicization plan and moving onto a 5 year promotional plan of Christianity sinicization that is set for the periods of 2018-2022.

The process in which the Chinese government is trying to sinicize the Christian faith is quite simple. Re-write the doctrine that the Christian faith is based on and a cascading event will ensue. Sinicization of the Bible will then bring the sinicization of theological thoughts, church buildings, Christian fellowship, and Christian church history to conform with government needs.

The Chinese Union Version of the Bible is currently the main translation that is used within China. It was translated by a committee of 5 translators along with other Chinese co-writers were C. W. Mateer, C. Goodrich, G. Owen, F. W. Baller and S. Lewis. There were four distinct features that these translators stressed:

1. Translation must be in the popular Chinese national language and not be focused in any one local dialect.
2. Use simple wording so that people of all ranks can easily understand.
3. Be strictly faithful to its source material, but at the same time not lacking any Chinese charm.
4. Stressing the use of literal translations instead of paraphrasing.

However, the TSPM and CCC viewed the Chinese Union Version of the Bible as too far apart from Chinese culture. They even commented that this was the main reason why Christianity failed to spread within the country, because Christianity was just not integrating into the Chinese traditional culture.

From this excuse, they proposed a plan to bring about a new Bible version that would become harmonious with Chinese culture and correspond with socialist core values.  Ding Guangxun, the former chairman of TSPM (from 1954-1997) bluntly commented, “In order for Christianity to integrate into the Chinese society, interpreting the Bible Scriptures correctly (in the perspective of socialist values) is essential.  In this way, Biblical teachings will be perfectly integrated into our excellent Chinese traditional culture. They are complementing each other.” From this action, they may finally sinicize Christian beliefs to bring about true Chinese Christians.

The core idea of sinicizing the Bible and in turn, Christianity is to prevent the further expansion of the gospel through the great commission. Sinicization will effectively replace the theological thoughts of “justification by faith” with “justification by love,” “The only redemption (of Jesus)” with “redemption by good conduct,” and the mandate of the great commission will become the mission to promote community service by universal fraternity. The threat of the great commission implies evangelism through the making of disciples for Jesus Christ. So in changing the Bible’s narrative, they will instead make loyal citizens for the communist party.

The Chinese government has already implemented policies and actions that would make way for a new form of Chinese Christians:

 

• The implementation of the white paper “The Policy and Practice of the Religious Freedom in China”.
  • Mandates all religious activities to be carried out in an orderly manner.
  • Mandatory registration of Christians and churches.
  • Ban of certain demographic groups in entering church buildings and attending church activities.
• Forcing small local churches to join into large national churches.
• Downsizing or removing religious symbols and crosses from places of worship to be replaced by patriotic images.
• Establishing theological and research institutions “Qi Lu Theological Studies Center” that would combine Confusion theology with Christianity to dilute the Christian identity.
• Banning the sale of the Chinese Union version of the Bible.

All in the effort to clear the way for a new harmonious Bible version to make positive Chinese Christians.

Haven’t we seen this before?

In looking back at history, this type of manipulation of God’s word has already been done before, and by none other than Adolf Hitler himself. At the beginning, Hitler also assured Christian churches that their rights and privileges would be protected, but before long he also strived to make positive German Christians.

The Nazi approach in creating their ideal German Christians focused on replacing the “oriental” aspects of Christianity and introduce “positive” aspects that includes:

• Racialism.
• Old Nordic Values.
• Supremacy of the Aryan Race.
• The importance of individual heroic figures.

All in all, this Germanification of Christianity brought about a new religion all together where Hitler himself became the new Messiah to save everyone from the Jews and saw to the swastika becoming the prominent symbol of German Christians.

In the end, the toll of all actions that Hitler forced onto Christians and Churches were as follows:

1. Banning churches in Germany from publishing and passing out Bibles.
2. Replacing all crosses on churches with the Nazi flag.
3. Mandating that all Christians should be good Germans.
4. Disbanding small churches to be combined into a large national church.
5. Change church doctrine to be in harmony with government policies.
6. Churches have to teach their congregations to hate the Jews.
7. Churches to teach the theology of Liberalism and deny Christ as the only way to salvation.
8. Prohibiting churches to teach confessing and repenting for sins.
9. Country and societal functions to replace Christianity.
10. Forcing theological professors to sing praises of Hitler and teach people to worship Hitler.
11. Arresting Christians for made up charges of treason, theft, or other falsehoods as an excuse to kill or banish them.

Now, doesn’t that sound awfully similar to what China is currently imposing upon Christians. Seems like the Chinese copycat culture extends beyond technology and retail to include genocidal views on religion.

God’s word can never be snuffed out!

But fear not, as a famous scholar once said, “A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, a funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put.”

In Germany during WWII, the wife of the Bible Society’s general director hid 2000 copies of the Bible in the basement of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Warsaw, Poland during a Nazi air raid. The city was bombed, the wife caught by Nazis and kept in a concentration camp. But after the war, she went back to find that those 2000 copies of the Bible were still safely kept in the basement. Even though, Warsaw was reduced to rubble after the war, the only standing wall of the Bible Society Building proudly stood to convey the passage written upon it from Luke 21:33.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away”

Just as we can see from the countless times that regimes, dictatorships, and empires tried to snuff out and bury God’s word. All have fallen short and has since wasted away while God’s glory still brightly shines.

So too, will be the fate of China’s efforts to sinicize Christianity. God’s word cannot be silenced or be used to manipulate the masses for man’s purposes. We serve the all knowing God and His Will endures forever.