{"id":21308,"date":"2019-05-27T20:11:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T20:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=21308"},"modified":"2019-05-30T22:38:37","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T22:38:37","slug":"chinas-end-game-elimination-of-home-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=21308","title":{"rendered":"China&#8217;s End Game: Elimination of Home Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21340\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CHURCHES.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"899\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CHURCHES.jpeg 899w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CHURCHES-300x151.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CHURCHES-768x385.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 899px) 100vw, 899px\" \/>China claims the existence of the state-controlled Three Self churches demonstrates its tolerance of Christianity, but the communist government wants all other Christian congregations to disappear, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.org\/2019\/05\/15\/china-wants-house-church-vanish\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">warns International Christian Concern, which assists persecuted Christians around the world<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"left_prom_160 desktop-only\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-BTF_SKY_3\" class=\"desktop-only\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Gina Goh of ICC writes that like Thanos in Marvel\u2019s \u201cAvengers\u201d movies, the Communist Party would like to snap its fingers and make a huge portion of the population disappear.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese Communist Party reported in 2018 that China has 40 million Christians. But Goh says that because of \u201cthe discrete nature of underground churches, some experts believe that the actual number of Christians falls between 80 million and 100 million.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That concerns Beijing, she said.<\/p>\n<p>For one thing, the CCP has only about 89 million members.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour Party is your God versus one loving and just God, Sino-centrism versus \u2018evil foreign influence,\u2019 and socialism versus universal principles,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n<p>The CCP \u201ccannot afford to see its regime threatened by any mass of people it feels like it cannot control.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even if there\u2019s no plan for revolution.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the government launched a new campaign against house churches called \u201cReturn to Zero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Its goal is to dissolve any churches not \u201csponsored\u201d by the government under President Xi, who has targeted Christians in underground churches with threats and torture.<\/p>\n<p>The CCP\u2019s Central Committee has appointed a \u201cCentral Leading Group for Inspection Work\u201d to coordinate the attacks.<\/p>\n<p>The plans include absorbing house churches into Three-Self churches.<\/p>\n<p>Already, government agents have gone to many house churches and warned they will be prevented from gathering unless they join the state church.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor those large networks of house churches, the government\u2019s attitude is to firmly strike and destroy them,\u201d a Chinese source told ICC.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2019\/05\/1-countrys-end-game-elimination-of-home-churches\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">WND<\/span><\/a>-All rights reserved<\/p>\n<div class=\"in-article\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-BTF_MPU_inArticle\" class=\"promo-300x250 desktop-only\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-bottom-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21308&print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21308&print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China claims the existence of the state-controlled Three Self churches demonstrates its tolerance of Christianity, but the communist government wants all other Christian congregations to disappear, warns International Christian Concern, which assists persecuted Christians around the world. Gina Goh of ICC writes that like Thanos in Marvel\u2019s \u201cAvengers\u201d movies, the Communist Party would like to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":21340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persecution","8":"wp-image-borders","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CHURCHES.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bgnN-5xG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21342,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21308\/revisions\/21342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}