A city in southern China is offering $1,500 to citizens willing to inform on “illegal religious groups,” ramping up China’s crackdown on underground churches.

The Guangzhou Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs officially announced the offer of the reward on its website, saying that anyone who provides information about the structure of an illegal religious group, or information leading to the capture of key members and leaders of those groups would receive 10,000 Yuan. The announcement comes as part of Guangzhou officials’ increasingly severe crackdown on Christian churches that have not registered with China’s communist government. . .

Guangzhou authorities raided and shut down Rongguili Church in December of 2018, claiming that the unregistered church had violated China’s Religious Affairs Regulation. The church, which served a congregation of roughly 5,000 Christian faithful, was one of the most prominent centers of Christian worship in southern China. Christians in Guangzhou, however, are not alone in suffering persecution from Chinese government officials.

Shortly before the closure of Rongguili Church, authorities in Chengdu shut down Early Rain Covenant Church and arrested its pastor and 100 of its 500 members. Authorities in Beijing shut down Zion Church, which served 1,500, in September of that year. Chinese authorities have repeatedly kidnapped and detained pastors and priests who refuse to submit to the Chinese Communist Party. At least four regional governments have also banned children from attending church and any other religious activity and threatened any believers caught taking a child to church with severe penalties. (Read more from “Chinese City Offering Rewards for People to Turn in Christian Groups” HERE)

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By The Daily Caller. China lashed back Saturday at the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom’s claim that Beijing is “at war with faith,” calling it slander.

Sam Brownback urged China in a Friday speech in Hong Kong to allow investigations of its detainment camps, in which former Uighur Muslim detainees said they experienced inhumane conditions, torture and brainwashing, and also said the Chinese government must correct the wrongs it has committed against religious freedom in general.

The Chinese foreign ministry’s office in Hong Kong in turn demanded that critics stop their “slander” of China’s policies and stop using religious issues to interfere in Chinese affairs. . .

The office called on U.S. officials to “cease their slander of China’s policies on religion and the situation with freedom of faith and cease using religious issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” according to The Associated Press.

Brownback said the Trump administrations is “deeply concerned” by China’s oppression of Uighur Muslims, which he characterized as “a deliberate attempt by Beijing to redefine and control these Muslim minority groups, [their] identity, culture and faith.” (Read more from “China Is Furious With U.S. – Here’s Why” HERE)

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China Protests U.S. Criticism of Policies on Religion

By AP. China has issued a protest over remarks the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom made criticizing Beijing’s polices toward Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist minorities and saying the country was “at war with faith.” . . .

China’s constitution and laws protect freedom of religion and critics should “cease their slander of China’s policies on religion and the situation with freedom of faith and cease using religious issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” the office said in a statement.

U.S. officials and UN experts say China is believed to be holding 1 million Uighurs, Muslims and members of other majority Muslim ethnic groups in political education camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. and other governments have criticized the crackdown. (Read more from “China Protests U.S. Criticism of Policies on Religion” HERE)

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When scientist He Jiankui announced he’d conducted an experiment that led to the birth of twin girls with CRISPR-edited genomes in November, the international scientific community swiftly condemned him. In the uproar that followed, the Chinese government, He’s university, and the hospital where the babies were born distanced themselves from the researcher, who claimed he was the first scientist known to use CRISPR to edit human embryos resulting in a live birth — and that a third CRISPR baby was on the way.

But there were also glaring inconsistencies in the official version of events. As the Washington Post reported, a hospital executive appeared on camera in an Associated Press video applauding He’s work, which seemed strange given that the hospital later denounced him. And an informed consent form He used stated that his university funded the experiment. . .

Shortly after He announced his experiment, China’s National Health Commission ordered an investigation of He’s research. In January, an initial government report found that He “seriously violated” state laws in pursuit of “personal fame and fortune.” His university, the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, fired him and said his experiment was done “outside of the school.” . . .

Overall, He has been painted in the media — including in China — as a rogue actor and bad apple, tinkering quietly in a lab while smashing through norms and local laws to feed his ego. He also claimed that he privately funded the work while on unpaid leave from his job as a professor.

But according to a slide presentation, the clinical trials registry, and patient consent forms obtained by journalist Jane Qiu for Stat, three Chinese government institutions were listed as the funders of He’s experiment: the Ministry of Science and Technology (the nation’s federal science agency), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission, and Southern University of Science and Technology, where He was a professor. (Read more from “CRISPR Babies: The Chinese Government May Have Known More Than It Let On” HERE)

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The Chinese government is supervising a five-year plan to make Christianity more compatible with socialism in which there will be a “rewrite” of the Bible, a prominent religious freedom activist has told Congress.

The Rev. Bob Fu, a former Chinese house church leader who immigrated to the United States in 1997 and founded the persecution watchdog organization China Aid, provided great detail during a House hearing Thursday about a plan enacted by leading state-sanctioned denominations in China to “Sincize” Christianity.

As China’s crackdown on religion has seen many house churches demolished and thousands of crosses removed from churches nationwide, Fu warned upfront that what is happening right now in China represents the highest degree of persecution for independent faith groups the country has seen in decades. . .

In a written testimony, Fu said that under the new regulations religious activity sites will “accept the guidance, supervision, and inspection of relevant departments of the local people’s government regarding the management of personnel, finances, assets, accounting, security, fire protection, protection of relics, health and disease prevent and so forth.” . . .

“There are outlines that the new Bible should not look westernized and [should look] Chinese and reflect Chinese ethics of Confucianism and socialism,” Fu told The Christian Post after the hearing. “The Old Testament will be messed up. The New Testament will have new commentaries to interpret it.” (Read more from “China Trying to Rewrite the Bible” HERE)

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