{"id":9477,"date":"2019-02-14T10:20:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T01:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/?p=9477"},"modified":"2019-06-19T15:51:56","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T06:51:56","slug":"vomk-report-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/2019\/02\/14\/vomk-report-41\/","title":{"rendered":"“THINK STALIN AND HITLER, NOT MAO”: CHURCH LEADERS AROUND THE WORLD URGED TO ADD THEIR SIGNATURES TO DISSIDENT CHINESE PASTOR\u2019S DECLARATION"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Church sanctuaries decked with national flags and leader\u2019s photos. The Ten Commandments edited. Bibles re-translated as state church leaders emphasize the need to free Christianity from its \u2018foreign cultural captivity\u2019. These are the reports emerging from China today. According to many Chinese religion analysts, they represent not a return to the Cultural Revolution but to something even earlier.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:1.2em|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” el_class=”headline”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row overlay_dotted=””][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]\r\n

\u201c<\/span>Put the photos of 1930s German church sanctuaries and 2019 Chinese church sanctuaries side by side. Put the speeches of the leaders and officials side by side. The similarities are striking,\u201d says the Rev. Dr. Eric Foley, CEO of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, part of a worldwide fellowship of organizations aiding persecuted Christians worldwide with roots dating back to World War II. \u201cXi Jinping calls it Sinification\u2014freeing Christianity and other religions from foreign cultural entanglement. Hitler called it Nazification. Both pledged freedom of religion to those who would hang national flags and leader\u2019s portraits in their sanctuaries. Both trotted out theologians who insisted the Bible needed to be re-translated to be properly understood. Both accused those who disagreed of seeking to subvert the state.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\r\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”9530″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]\r\n

\u201cThink Stalin and Hitler, not Mao,\u201d says the Rev. Dr. Bob Fu, founder and director of China Aid, a US-based organization that helps Chinese Christians and reports on human rights and religious freedom developments in China. \u201cChina is now taking a page from the 1930s totalitarian playbook. Whereas before the government\u2019s goal was to stamp out Christianity, now all efforts are directed at co-opting the moral influence of Christianity and other faiths to advance the Communist Party\u2019s social agenda.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]\r\n\r\nFoley and Fu see a parallel not only in the actions of the governments but in the response of the faithful Christians of both eras. They are calling on church leaders around the world to offer today\u2019s dissident Chinese Christians things their earlier suffering German and Russian counterparts were unable to receive: solidarity and global theological endorsement.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was no Internet when the German \u2018Confessing Church\u2019 wrote the Barmen Declaration in opposition to Hitler\u2019s attempt to redefine Christianity,\u201d says Foley. \u201cToday the Barmen Declaration and those who wrote it are revered. But at the time they were cut off from the Body of Christ around the world and forced to suffer while their \u2018Confessing Church\u2019 was crushed.\u201d\r\n\r\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]\r\n\r\nThat has Foley and Fu calling on Christian leaders worldwide to add their names to a declaration of religious freedom written by the former law professor and now-jailed Chinese pastor of the Chengdu Early Rain Church, Wang Yi. The document, entitled \u201cA Joint Statement by Pastors: A <\/a>Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith\u201d<\/a>, was originally published in September 2018 with signatures from 439 Chinese pastors.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs the author of this important document, Pastor Wang and Early Rain were also the ones responsible for gathering the signatures of pastors for it,\u201d says Fu. \u201cNow that Pastor Wang Yi and the Early Rain leaders are in prison and many pastors who signed the statement are facing similar difficulties, we as Christian leaders worldwide must carry on the good work they began. We must sound a global \u2018amen\u2019 that the Christianity for which they are now suffering is \u2018the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\r\n\r\nThe document written by Wang Yi and signed by the Chinese pastors contains four declarations:\r\n\r\n1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Christian churches in China believe unconditionally that the Bible is the Word and Revelation of God. It is the source and final authority of all righteousness, ethics, and salvation.\r\n\r\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Christian churches in China are eager and determined to walk the path of the cross of Christ and are more than willing to imitate the older generation of saints who suffered and were martyred for their faith.\r\n\r\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Christian churches in China are willing to obey authorities in China whom God has appointed and to respect the government’s authority to govern society and human conduct.\r\n\r\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All true churches in China that belong to Christ must hold to the principle of the separation of church and state and must proclaim Christ as the sole head of the church.\r\n\r\nThe full declaration is available at www.chinadeclaration.com<\/a>, the website created by Voice of the Martyrs Korea and China Aid to enable pastors and church leaders to add their own names to those of the 439 Chinese pastors. Those wishing to sign the declaration should do so, along with their church name, role, and a contact email, by the end of March. Voice of the Martyrs Korea and China Aid will verify each signee and present the \u2018signed\u2019 document to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s important to note that the declaration written by these Chinese pastors is entitled \u2018A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith\u2019,\u201d says Foley. \u201cThis is about more than China. It is about the Christian faith. An attack on the integrity of the Christian faith anywhere at any time is an attack on the integrity of the Christian faith everywhere at all times.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201c439 Chinese pastors signed this declaration,\u201d says Fu. \u201cWe are asking the Lord for each signature to yield a hundredfold harvest, which means we are praying for 43,900 pastors and church leaders around the world brave enough to sign this document in suffering solidarity with the pastors of China.\u201d\r\n\r\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”9536″ img_size=”large” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https:\/\/chinadeclaration.com\/en\/”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Church sanctuaries decked with national flags and leader\u2019s photos. The Ten Commandments edited. Bibles re-translated as state church leaders emphasize the need to free Christianity from its \u2018foreign cultural …","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":9527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vomk-report"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ko","en","zh","ru"],"languages":{"ko":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"zh":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}