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China: Government Is Pressuring Believers Not To Raise Their Children In The Christian Faith

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Christian rights advocates are concerned that believers in China are being pressured by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to discourage their children from entering into faith in Christ, Christian Today (CT) reports.

The CCP has systematically sought to suppress Christianity in China, advancing a wide-ranging program of Sinicization requiring allegiance to the government. According to Release International, an organization that helps persecuted Christians worldwide, Chinese schoolchildren are now being ordered to declare whether they are Christian. They are also being told they must sign a document renouncing Christianity, CT reports.

In a statement to CT, Release International’s Chinese partner, Bob Fu, said Christian parents may suffer negative governmental repercussions if they raise their children in the faith. “If parents and grandparents refuse to cooperate in making their children denounce their faith, then their job security is jeopardized,” he said. “Cases show that grandparents can lose their public health and welfare if parents fail to dissuade their children from believing in Christianity.”

Release CEO Paul Robinson added: “The Communist Party portrays Christianity as unpatriotic and pro-Western, and therefore a threat. It wants to control the Church, and what it can’t control, it seeks to eliminate.”

China ranks 19th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted. In a website statement about the situation facing Chinese Christians, the Open Doors international Christian advocacy group says: “Persecution and discrimination are slowly spreading throughout most of China.”