The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has activated measures to drastically restrict the availability of Christian content on the internet, Open Doors reported this week.
Last December, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) announced its upcoming “Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services,” a series of regulations designed to eliminate any online religious message that fails to conform to the principles of the CCP.
Without express government permission, no organization or individual “shall preach on the Internet, carry out religious education and training, publish sermon content, forward or link to related content, organize and conduct religious activities on the Internet, or live broadcast or post recorded videos of religious rituals,” the CCP declared at the time.
The new measures went into force on March 1 and the effects are already being felt by Christians throughout China, reported Open Doors, which monitors Christian persecution around the globe.
Online Christian ministry has been restricted to CCP-approved groups with special permits, which are only issued to state-controlled religious institutions, such as the Three Self Patriotic Movement.
The CCP has approved the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, for example, but not the underground Catholic Church faithful to Rome.
Along with the requirement of a special permit to post religious content, even on social media, the CCP has also asserted its right to review all content to make sure it reflects and supports China’s Communist Party.
Everything that is posted “has to fit within the social harmony, the progress of society. These things are pretty typical within the communist regime. It especially restricts the house churches,” stated Kurt Rovenstine of the Bibles for China group.
China Christian Daily reported Friday that Chinese provinces such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, and Anhui have begun issuing notices on the licensing of internet religious information services, which involves the training and hiring of numerous “Internet religious information examiners,” who will comb through religious content to verify its conformity with CCP ideology.
During the long lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese Christians got used to conducting meetings and worship services online, but these practices will now be severely curtailed.
Over the last two years, “online church meetings have become the new normal,” Open Doors noted, citing an anonymous Chinese Christian. “This new law now brings the church’s extensive use of the internet for evangelism and spiritual nourishment to a halt. Consequently, Christians will be cut off from access to online spiritual resources.”
Christians have already begun abandoning religious chat groups and deleting religious content from their social media profiles to avoid unwanted attention from officials.
“We have already observed that in our area, online meetings with a large number participating have ‘disappeared’,” Open Doors added, citing a Christian leader in southern China. “So far, we have been able to hold small online gatherings, with a few church members attending each time. We will continue our meetings online, wherever there is space. We will play it by ear.”
Chinese Christians are also being urged to collect and preserve as many relevant spiritual resources as possible, since they will soon be unavailable online.
Open Doors noted that Christian persecution has been intensifying by the year in China under the rule of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. In just four years, China has leapt from number 43 on the group World Watch List to number 17, a ranking that reflects tightening restrictions on Christian practice in the country.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long seen religion as a potential threat,” declared David Landrum, Director of Advocacy for Open Doors UK & Ireland. “Where it can’t shut religion down, it has tried to contain it.
“In recent years, we have seen some state-approved churches install facial recognition technology, close and destroy churches and rewrite passages of the Bible for educational materials,” Landrum added. “They fear that Christians have another loyalty than to the CCP, and they are correct.”
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