China sometimes calls itself the Middle Kingdom, but it’s paving a way to the netherworld with a new effort: rewriting the Bible to make it compatible with socialism. Moreover, it’s doing the same with the Koran.
In fact, Beijing is instituting new religious rules, set to take effect February 1, that may essentially make the state the church. As AsiaNews.it reported, under the rules, “Every aspect of the life of religious communities — from formation, to gatherings, to annual and daily projects — is subject to approval by the government’s religious affairs department.”
“In addition to widespread control of all community activities, the new measures require religious personnel to support, promote, and implement total submission to the Chinese Communist Party among all members of their communities,” the site continued.
In accordance with this are the “reports that China is in the process of rewriting the holy books of major religions, including the Bible and Quran … [as President] Xi Jinping has declared that the ideologies of religions be interpreted according to the core values of socialism,” Vision Times adds. “Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, supervised a meeting of religious experts who attended the conference on modifying the texts.”
The irony is that the Beijing regime itself isn’t compatible with socialism. While for marketing purposes it deceitfully claims to be peddling the ideology (it can’t lose its raison d’être), it long ago instituted market reforms. Note here that under Marxist doctrine, “socialism” is what people generally think “communism” is: government ownership of the means of production. Thus was the USSR the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
But while Beijing is more like a “fascist” regime today, it’s not just that this label doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s that neither China’s ideology nor its new “theology” has anything to do with Truth or reason — it’s about power.
As the Epoch Times writes after quoting Karl Marx’s religion “is the opium of the people” line, “This anti-religious philosophy on the part of the left is pervasive worldwide, and the distrust and hatred for religion are shared by all socialist regimes to one degree or another. This hatred from the left is acted out on many levels even in the United States and is ultimately based on eradicating any competition for absolute power” (video below).
Statists seek worship of the state, the little g, not the big G. If citizens honor and make primary God and His laws, then when they conflict with the government’s laws, the people will defy the latter. Thus do statists want government considered the highest power — especially when they’re pursuing an ungodly agenda.
That the Chinese government is competing with God explains its religious persecution. As an example, “A large body of photographs and detailed reporting has been smuggled out of China that shows a large complex of concentration camps, churches being burned to the ground, and many forms of pressure on individuals who don’t compromise their religious beliefs in favor of socialism,” the Times also informs.
Yet the Chinese are competing a tad more smartly than the Soviets did. Rather than try to eradicate religions, “socialists have concluded that it’s easier and more effective to create parallel religions that submit to socialism and only pretend to submit to God in order to entice the naïve,” the Times further relates.
This isn’t unprecedented. The National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany also realized the value of co-opting religion and created their own version: Positive Christianity. It taught that Jesus was a Nordic character persecuted by a Jewish establishment.
Sadly, America has its own types of designer religion, generally with a sexual devolutionary bent. Represented well by holier-than-thou presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, these rewriters of the Bible (figuratively speaking) generally claim that sex outside of authentic marriage and prenatal infanticide accord with God’s law.
But here it’s good to note advice rendered by both therapist Dr. Laura Schlessinger and nun Mother Teresa: If you’re going to claim a religion (or any other belief, I’ll add), live it. Be sincere. Don’t kid yourself.
If you don’t believe in Christianity, then come to terms with that. But don’t deceive yourself about what it actually demands.
This matters because the worst kind of deception is self-deception. Deceive others and you may lose friends or trust. Deceive yourself long and often enough — deny the Truth so intensely that you fall out of touch with it — and you may lose reality.
Speaking of lies, the Beijing regime “calls the Bible and the Quran religious classics, and they argue that the revision is justified to ensure the contents conform to the progress of the times,” the Epoch Times tells us.
This “times” argument is also heard in our nation. But anyone making it is merely worshipping fashions that too often are fallacies. The times don’t make the people; the people make the times. And knowledge of Truth and cultivation of virtue make good people — and good times.
As for our times, China should serve as a cautionary tale: When a government makes laws contrary to God’s, you know it’s on the wrong side — and must be defied.
Image: Caíque de Abreu via iStock / Getty Images Plus
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
