An open letter by a Chinese to Christian leaders who wined, dined, and allowed to deliver propaganda speeches in Chicago, Chinese Three-Self bureaucrats whom a USCIRF report called “complicit in the CCP’s systematic, religious freedom violations.”
by Hu Zimo
This article is an open letter by a Chinese to the American Christians who on August 27–29 welcomed in Chicago for something called the “China-US Christian Forum 2024” leaders of the Chinese-government-controlled Three Self Church. The delegation was led by Pastor Wu Wei, the President of China Christian Association, the sister organization of the Three Self Church in charge of the internal ecclesiastical affairs.
This open letter comes with a caveat. It is based on information on the Forum spread by Chinese media. The latter do not exactly have a reputation for telling the truth. It is well possible that statements they attributed to Christian participants in the Forum were not reported accurately or distorted for propaganda purposes. In this case, it would be important that these American leaders publicly state that they were misquoted. “Bitter Winter” would be glad to publish their statements to this effect.
However, the very fact that the Forum was held was a great propaganda success for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which through the United Front Work Department strictly controls the Three Self Church and the China Christian Association. In fact, under the new policy of “Strict Governance of Religion,” this control is becoming even more direct and oppressive.
According to Chinese media, the Three Self bureaucrats did their usual propaganda job in Chicago. Pastor Wu Wei hailed the “great achievements” of the “Sinicization of Christianity” in China. I hope the American audience understood that “Sinicization” does not mean adapting Christianity to Chinese culture but to the doctrines of the CCP. This should now be obvious, but they can read books by both Chinese and American academics clarifying the issue.
Pastor Wu also said that these meetings help Americans understand that in China there is indeed “religious freedom.” Pastor Lin Manhong, the Vice President and General Secretary of the China Christian Association, added that the Forum “let the real stories be heard and preached, rather than being misled by false information.” I wonder whether the American Christian leaders understood that among the “false information” denying that there is “religious freedom” in China Pastor Wu, Pastor Lin, and their United Front handlers include the reports on religious liberty by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and most mainline U.S. media.
According to Chinese media, the American Christians who co-organized the meeting, many of them from the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), praised the speeches by their Chinese counterparts and called for more cooperation in the future. They included Elizabeth Amy Eaton, the chief bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States, Episcopal Church’s Canon Bruce Woodcock, and ELCA theologian Pastor Rafael Padilla. If this is not accurate and in fact these Christian leaders told the Three Self representatives the truth, i.e., that any claim that religious liberty reigns in China is a lie, I will gladly stand corrected, but they should also publicly correct the Chinese media reports.
I was particularly disturbed by a statement the Chinese media attributed to Pastor Rafael Padilla, that “the unity of the Chinese Christian church provides a successful experience that can be used as a reference for the unity of the universal church.” If true, this statement completely misunderstands the situation of Christianity in China and deeply offends thousands of persecuted Christians.
The “unity of the Chinese Christians” within the Three Self Church is not spontaneous. It is imposed by the United Front, the Chinese Communist Party, and the police. It was so in the beginning, when thousands of pastors who refused to join the Three Self Church were incarcerated, killed, or “disappeared,” and it continues to be so today. Weekly, if not daily, Christian communities are told that they should become part of the Three Self Church, or else. Churches that refuse are raided, and their pastors are jailed and sentenced under false accusations of “fraud” or “financial irregularities.” Again, these incidents are regularly included in the reports of the U.S. Department of State and USCIRF.
To propose the forced unification of dozens of different Christian denominations that did not want to be unified into the Three Self Church as a model for other countries is both disturbing and obnoxious. Again, it is well possible that Padilla’s statement was simply fabricated by Chinese propaganda. In this case, he should correct it.
Statements are, however, less important than the event in itself. It was presented by Chinese propaganda as evidence that while the “bad” American government denounces the persecution of Christians in China some “good” American Christians and churches fully support Beijing’s claim that China is a land of religious liberty.
I wonder whether the Anglican Church, the ELCA, and those who attended the Chicago Forum have read the USCIRF 2023 report “State-Controlled Religion and Religious Freedom Violations in China.” The USCIRF, a bipartisan federal commission, denounced the Three Self Church and the China Christian Association as accomplices in the Chinese persecution of Christians. Their purpose, the USCIRF explained, is “to ‘unite and guide’ members of their respective religious communities to ‘support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the socialist system.’”
In practice, the USCIRF report said, this means that they “assist or work with the CCP and government in promulgating, implementing, and enforcing state laws, regulations, and policies—often at the expense of the religious communities they claim to represent.” They are asked to offer their support in tracking down, denouncing, and persecuting the “illegal” religious communities, and they do it zealously.
They lead their affiliates to study the CCP documents and the writings and speeches of Xi Jinping. They make sure that authorized places of worship are “forced to display Communist propaganda posters, including images and quotes of Communist leaders such as Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong… Moreover, state-sanctioned clergy members are forced to incorporate CCP ideology and policies into their sermons or speeches.”
The USCIRF report concluded that organizations such as the Three Self Church and China Christian Association “remain an integral part of the CCP’s institutional control of religion. These organizations are expected to be absolutely loyal to the CCP, to serve as conduits and endorsers of state propaganda, and to facilitate the implementation of the CCP’s religious policies—notably the deeply coercive policy on the Sinicization of religion. The integral involvement of these state-controlled religious organizations in such repression renders them complicit in the CCP’s systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.”
Why the representatives of “organizations complicit in the CCP’s systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations” were welcomed, wined, and dined by American Christian leaders, and (if we believe the Chinese media) even presented as the promoters of model policies for managing and uniting Christian churches, is something that demands an explanation by those who organized the Chicago forum.
