China's War on Faith

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, President of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program.

It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged, and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here is our host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy Devitt Griggs. Well, as a Chinese citizen, freedom leader, and political prisoner, Dr. Bob Fu has first-hand experience of an increasingly dangerous and inhumane government. Dr. Fu is a Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom at the Family Research Council and President of China International. His experiences as a Chinese citizen include serving as an underground house church pastor, being a student leader during the tragic Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, and ultimately being imprisoned for leading a house church. Bob Fu, we're so grateful to have you joining us today on Family Policy Matters.

Thank you, Tracy, for having me. Start by talking about your own life in China. Was there ever a time that you remember seeing a shift toward clamping down on basic freedoms or has it always been this way? A lot of things have changed. The Communist Party claimed that, of course, they have a high growth economies, sky rises, you know, but one thing has changed for way worse than we have seen in 40 years. That is the persecution against the Christians, against Muslim Uyghurs, and basically the Communist Party launched a war against all independent faith communities. And we have seen for the first time the Communist Party has launched a war against the cross. Basically tens of thousands of crosses were forcefully torn down, burned out, destroyed, demolished from the rooftop of the churches. And many, many, many church buildings were also destroyed. And millions of Chinese Christian children were forced to sign a Communist Party prepared form to renounce their faith. Nobody under 18 years old is even allowed to enter into a government sanctioned church building.

Otherwise they will face expulsion from their school and parents are penalized. And now, thanks to the Apple's complicity to the Communist Party's demand, all the Bible apps were forcefully removed from all the e-commerce stores, including the Apple store in China. So by March 1, a Chinese new law is going to be effective regulating the online content on religion. Basically, if you organize a prayer meeting, if you put on your social media in China on Jesus, you know, on the gospel, then you could be criminalized and sentenced to years in prison.

This is going to happen right now. So, and yet the international community, the International Olympics Committee awarded the Chinese Communist Party with another Olympics that's going on right now, Tracy. And after in 2008, they were rewarded with the Summer Olympics in Beijing. So we hear a lot about the Uyghurs, but it sounds like they're really ratcheting up persecution on Christians. Why do you suppose we're not hearing as much about that in this country? Well, I think in this country, we also have a war against almost Christian faith, like, I mean, not on the same degree or scale, not like a government directly organized persecution, but it's a major cultural war. So unfortunately, all this, the mainstream so-called liberal media, and they certainly want to, out of political correctness, to cover more on the persecution against the Muslim minorities. And there is a genocide. So that's against this between one to three million Uyghur and Kazakhs, and even including some Christians too, are in the modern day concentration camps, predominantly in West China called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. So it is a very intriguing, almost like unprecedented, since the World War II, you have another large-scale genocide, crime against humanity, and ethnic cleansing going on right now. But Christians also facing an uphill battle. We have, you know, a Chinese-American pastor, my good friend from North Carolina, Pastor John Hall, received a seven-year imprisonment for organizing private schools for 2,000 children in Tainan and Burma border area. And that's, he was sentenced, he's still serving in the prison. And Pastor Wang Yi of Early Marine Covenant Church from Chengdu, he met with President Bush back to 2006 in the White House, when I invited him to the US, and he received nine years imprisonment for preaching a sermon based on John 3.16, calling for President Xi to repent for his repressive policy, and offering him the salvation of Jesus Christ from his pulpit, if he accepts.

So that's called Subversion of State Power. And last December, we have two Christian lady received 12 years and 10 years, respectively, for setting up an offering box in their church gathering, worship service, being charged as illegal business fraud, I mean illegal business operation is a fraud. 12 years and 10 years for setting up an offering box. So that is going on right now.

You know, I didn't know that Apple had caved to the Chinese government and were removing all Bible apps. That is crazy. What can we do here in the United States about that? I mean, that's an American-owned company.

It is. I mean, you have, of course, Coca Cola, Nike, NBC, you know, they're sponsoring this second genocide Olympics after 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted by Hitler's Germany. And I think it's really time for us to take some actions.

Certainly we need to pray for those persecuted and pray for the persecutors, too, for their repentance, for the strength of those who are in prison, like Pastor John Paul, Pastor Wang Yi, and many thousands of others in prison. And we also need to tell those companies, I mean, are they still willing to trade their conscience, you know, with some just a business profit? I mean, Apple, tens of millions of Chinese iPhone users, I mean, they are removed from access to the Bible apps. I mean, there's nothing there in the Apple store in China. And of course, the global supply chains, of course, make ourselves more dependent on China. So that's why I think American First policy is very appropriate. We should urge the politicians to seriously, legislatively, incentive, if not mandate, those large corporations who received a lot of taxpayers benefit from American taxpayers to come back and not cotone to the Communist Party's ideology and even become enabler of those persecution. I mean, you have Nike set up factories right in the middle of the genocide, the province of Xinjiang, because Xinjiang's cotton is regarded as the best. And yet the Communist Party used those who are in the concentration camps to manufacture the products for exploitation. Why do you think the Chinese people put up with this?

I know most Americans at least think that we would not stand for this kind of intense persecution. From one perspective, the Chinese people are not really totally surrendering. Because think about this, the millions of Chinese house churches, they were declared illegal, they can be smashed and get arrested anytime. But every week you have close to, if not more than 100 million Chinese Christians continue to defy that Communist Party's declaration order by worshipping in their own homes, in the park or in the caves.

So they are still worshipping the Creator and Redeemer of the Lord. Wow. I would like to repeat what you just said, because you just said that in the face of all of this persecution of Christians there and people going to prison for up to a decade for just having a house church or making a statement, and there are still 100 million Chinese Christians who continue to defy the government and worship every week. Wow.

Every week, yes, yes. Observers said this constitutes the largest civil disobedience moment in history. So the Communist Party only believe in force, in guns, and I think they are not able to cope with the brutal warfare that, you know, this soft civil disobedience that the 100 million Chinese Christians are essentially exercising. They basically, you know, would risk their life in exchange for worshipping the Lord with their freedom of conscience. They are not let up. I mean, they just, you know, even though on Sunday while they have their family worshiped together, house churches, the military police would invade them, radiate them, beaten up, you know, from the mother to children. We have documented that at ChinaAid.org as our website, and yet they are continuing to worship.

They are continuing to sing in the middle of this. So we're about out of time, but there are so many other things that we could talk about, and I'm sure this has raised a lot of questions from our listeners. You mentioned your website ChinaAid. Tell us that website again and where else we might be able to find you and follow what you're doing. Yeah, you can log on ChinaAid.org to get the most updated information about religious persecution, especially persecution against Christians. Follow us at ChinaAid on the social media, on Twitter and Facebook, and we are censored by even Facebook for reporting about persecution stories in China. In China, our Chinese version is being censored.

And of course, you know, go to the FRC website. They also reported, and of course, the Open Doors and the Voice of Martyrs. They also have been partnering with us and made reports about the persecution. Thank you, Dr. Bob Fu, a Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom at the Family Research Council and President of ChinaAid. Thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters.

You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to this show online and to learn more about NC Family's work to inform, encourage, and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family. Thank you.