A young Chinese worshipper attends a Christmas Eve Mass at a Catholic Church in Beijing on Dec. 24, 2014. (Photo: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)
State-sanctioned Christian bodies in Qingdao City in eastern China have established a special committee to promote ‘sinicization’ of Christianity in line with the socialist principles of the Chinese Communist Party, reports a rights group.
The Christian patriotic organizations in the coastal city of Shandong province set up a new “Special Committee To Advance the Sinicization of Christianity,” the first of its kind in the communist-ruled nation in March, ChinaAid reported on April 25.
About 30 people including leaders of Christian pastoral ministries, laypeople, expert scholars, and communist officials from Qingdao attended the inauguration of the committee on March 16, according to the Qingdao Christian website.
ChinaAid reported that the committee was formed after the CCP formulated a five-year plan dedicated to sinicization following a proposal made by President Xi Jinping in 2015.
Xi urged the state-run religious groups to guide religions to adapt to socialist society by developing religions in the Chinese context.
He reiterated his proposal during the National Conference on Religious Affairs in 2021 and the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party in 2022.
Xi asked party officials to “fully and faithfully implement the Party’s policy on freedom of religious belief,” and added that religious groups should “adhere to the direction of developing religions in the Chinese context and actively guide religions to adapt to the socialist society.”
His proposal included specific measures to carry out patriotic education in religious circles and strengthen the ideology of religious people with an emphasis on “cultivating a team of religious people who are adept at the Marxist view of religion.”
In recent years, the CCP has been aggressively promoting sinicization of religion across the country. For example, Communist officials in various provinces have introduced and implemented “Sinicization of Christianity Training Course” for the entire government-controlled churches in Mainland China.
In its academic sense, sinicization of religion refers to the indigenization of religious faith, practice and ritual in Chinese culture and society, according to the Lausanne Movement.
However, the sinicization promoted by the CCP is a profoundly political ideology that aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions based on the core values of socialism, autonomy, and supporting the leadership of the CCP.
Sinicization is among several repressive policies that the communist regime uses to strictly control and monitor religious groups.
Besides, China has seven state-run bodies to oversee five legally recognized religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism and to ensure the religions abide by state policies and regulations.
The fundamental purpose of the sinicization of Christianity is to transform and alienate Christianity, ChinaAid reported citing commentators familiar with Chinese religious regulations.
The Communist Party hopes to reduce Christianity to the point that it operates as a tool, turning it into “Pseudo-Christianity,” it added.
