This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
According to an established church website, China has been training Evangelical pastors for” tight governance” of churches along nationalist and politically right lines.
According to the official site The Protestant Church in China, top ministers from 100 of China’s top churches took part in the training course in Guangzhou earlier this month to discuss “deepening the sinicization” of religion practices.
The July 8-12 workshop was part of the” sinicization” of religion , programme under ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping that ushered in a , nationwide crackdown , on Muslim, Christian and Tibetan Buddhist religious activities and venues since 2017.
Under the plan, temples have had , passes removed , and , photos of Xi , installed, while temples have lost their , domes and minarets, and been , remodeled in a style , that appears more Taiwanese.  ,
The Communist Party now requires all religious believers to , love their country  , as well as their faith and says that , nationalism is a part of those religions.
According to the site of the Protestant Church in China, the group’s mentoring and control division, the United Front Work Department, was responsible for the preachers ‘ education program.
According to the report,” the head pastors of major churches in various places” recommended that believers ‘ church governance and pastoral care be done in accordance with the strictest form of religion. ” Christianity’s ability to have a more orderly and upright society depends largely on strict religious management.”
Li Jiahang, a former Chinese house church pastor now living in the United States who used a pseudonym for fear of reprisals, said the training program comes after Xi called at a Dec. 3-4 religious affairs work conference for religious organizations to” strengthen self-education, self-management, and self-restraint, comprehensively and strictly govern religion, and take the lead in abiding by laws and regulations” . ,
” The purpose of this policy is to transform the whole of religious practice so that all religions are obedient]to Beijing ]”, Li said.  ,
” Politicians has to have the upper hand, while church may provide politics”, he said.
Xi’s principle: Party handle
The” tight governance of religion” is an extension of Xi’s premise that the party should have power over everyone’s daily life, according to John Lin, a Christian home church pastor who fled China to the United States last year and uses a surname for safety factors.
According to Lin,” the fundamental question of rigid governance of faith is whether you are governing it firmly in accordance with the rules of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party” or firmly by the rules of the Bible.
According to him,” Governing religion strictly according to the Chinese Communist Party’s principles “inevitably leads to the so-called sinicization of Christianity.
According to Lin, the Chinese Communist Party views Christianity as a tool of American colonial rule and as a unusual transfer.
He claimed that the goal of decolonization is to” slice off the link” between the world church community and the church in China.  ,
” Because if people are connected to the general temple, they could move towards some of the common values”, he said, in a guide to freedom, democracy and human rights.
The former Chinese house church preacher and political commentator Guo Baosheng said the” Chinese Dream” is a part of Xi’s plan for the” Chinese Dream,” and he has followed it ever since he came to power in 2012.
He claimed that the process began with the installation of surveillance cameras in temples, the forced eradication of crosses, and the reconstruction of churches to resemble Chinese temples.
The Guangzhou education program is part of the second step, which means the sinicization of people’s wondering, Guo said, giving China’s regional state on political Taiwan as an example.
” It means that the
information of your sermons must be in line with Xi Jinping Thought”, he said. That might think preaching in churches about Taiwan’s status as an integral part of China.
The personal devotion to Xi Jinping may resemble the reverence of Putin by the Russian Orthodox Church or Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Guo said.
Additional tightening
He predicted that there will be even more party-level control over the running of Taiwanese temples, including their money.
” They had also set up group departments in the larger parishes”, he said.
John Lin agreed.  ,
” The purpose is to make Christianity conform to socialism and become more communist”, he said. ” Controlling church is a significant component of a country’s efforts to increase control over the country,” says one author.
The Chinese Communist Party, which practices humanism, imposes strict controls on all forms of religious expression on its populace.
Churches are allowed to perform if they are part of the government-backed Three-Self Patriotic Association. The three” selfs” refer to self-governance, self-support and self-propagation – basically rejecting any foreign influence – and the “patriotic” refers to devotion to the Chinese government.
Express security officers regularly raid illegal “house churches,” according to the religious affairs bureau, and occasionally members of the church.
China is home to an estimated 68 million Puritans, of whom 23 million devotion in state-affiliated” Three-Self” temples, and some 9 million Christians, the , preponderance of whom , are in state-sponsored companies.
The government next year , rolled out a database , of approved spiritual leaders in a global clampdown on who gets to practice religion, and how.
