Church in Chains, 6th June 2023 (excerpts)
Hong Kong’s Protestant churches have been told it is time to “sinicise,” (make them more Chinese and more devoted to socialisation) just as churches in mainland China have already been forced to do.
A 2-day seminar was held in May in Hong Kong on “The Sinicisation of Christianity”, jointly hosted by the China Christian Council (CCC) and Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM, the government-controlled Protestant body), and the Hong Kong Christian Council.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been increasing its efforts to control all religions in recent years, to make them Chinese and bring them into submission under the CCP. This programme is now being extended to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.
“More or less voluntarily, some 120 Protestant leaders from Hong Kong had to attend.”
CCC president Pastor Wu Wei explained that President Xi Jinping expects Christianity to adapt to China’s political system, to take the core values of socialism as the origin.
TSPM chairperson Rev Xu Xiaohong said that this was a requirement for Christianity’s development in China and was not intended to change Christian beliefs.
Rev Shan Weixiang said that true Hong Kong Christian patriots are those who make their churches “more Chinese”, as has been done in mainland China.