WASHINGTON (BP and local reports) – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan panel appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders, released a fact sheet Oct. 29 on Chinese rules that have increased the government’s suppression of faith groups and their leaders since taking effect in May of this year.
The so-called Measures on the Management of Religious Clergy serve as additions to regulations set forth in 2018 that were already imposing “an invasive and comprehensive system of control and surveillance on clergy,” USCIRF’s report said.
The new regulations include requirements that clergy back the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the socialist system, as well as refrain from ambiguous categories such as participating in “illegal religious activities” and adopting “religious extremist ideology,” USCIRF reported.
The rules establish penalties for violations by clergy who must work within a “complex web of state rules and policies” for religious groups approved by the government, according to the report.
The groups are the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, Buddhist Association of China, Chinese Taoist Association, and Islamic Association of China.
“This latest report confirms what many of us suspect about communist China: Ministry is incredibly challenging because of the country’s animosity towards religion,” said Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) in Nashville.
Citing USCIRF’s report of “even tighter state control and surveillance,” Leatherwood said in written comments, “Given what we know about the Chinese Communist Party’s use of these technologies to conduct a genocide against the Uyghur people, this is not surprising.
“The reality is China is a dangerous and hostile environment for people of faith, and this should be deeply alarming for Christians who are concerned about standing up for human dignity and religious freedom wherever they are threatened,” he said.
Leatherwood wrote a commentary published Nov. 2 in The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville regarding approval by Southern Baptist messengers at this year’s annual meeting of a resolution that condemned what it described as China’s “genocide” of the Uyghur people, primarily Muslims in northwest China.
Isaac Six, senior director of advocacy for Open Doors USA, a leading advocate for persecuted Christians overseas, said in a written statement, “China is no friend to faith. USCIRF’s report reveals just how suffocating the Chinese Communist Party’s control over faith has become.
“Every aspect of a church’s leadership is subject to intense scrutiny. The slightest perceived violation of an almost endless list of restrictions could lead to fines, arrest and imprisonment. When you couple these regulations with a judicial system entirely dominated by the [CCP], it means in effect no pastor, priest or minister is allowed to say or do anything out of line with the Chinese government’s political ideology,” Six said.
“This is why millions of Christians in China bravely worship in unsanctioned house churches, choosing to follow Jesus and worship freely, even though it comes at great risk to them and their families,” he said.
The U.S. government has consistently recognized China as a major persecutor of Christians and other faith groups since the enactment by the U.S. Congress of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998. In every report since then, the U.S. State Department has named China as one of its “countries of particular concern,” a designation reserved for the world’s most severe violators of religious liberty.
The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, and the current administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, both declared early this year that China’s repression of the Uyghurs is genocide. Possibly up to three million Uyghurs have been detained in “re-education” camps. Slave labor, forced sterilizations, and abortions also have been widely reported as part of that repression.
Southern Baptists have spoken out on China’s religious repression. The 2021 messenger resolution reportedly made the SBC the first Christian group to denounce China’s campaign against the Uyghurs as genocide.
Messengers to the 2019 SBC annual meeting passed a resolution condemning the CCP and the North Korea totalitarian communist government for “extreme religious persecution and flagrant human rights violations.”
Chinese officials have apprehended and arrested scores of unregistered Protestant house church leaders and Catholic priests since the new rules were announced, USCIRF reported.
According to USCIRF, the new rules enable China to use the state-sanctioned religious groups (see paragraph five above) and government religious affairs bureaus (RABs) to extend authority over clergy who are in the groups.
The five government-approved religious groups “vet, recognize, and ordain” clergy candidates, then provide their information to the RABs at multiple levels of government.
The regulations also require a “clergy database” that is updated by the RABs. Under the rules, the government-authorized religious groups, partnering with RABs, may punish clergy for transgressing state regulations and criminal prosecution may await more serious violations, USCIRF reported.
Tibetan Buddhist and Catholic clergy are particular targets of the rules because of the state’s “heightened political sensitivity toward these two religions with perceived foreign connections,” according to USCIRF.
The nine-member USCIRF tracks the status of religious liberty worldwide and issues reports to the U.S. Congress, the U.S. president, and the U.S. State Department. To view the current annual report, click here. USCIRF commissioners include:
— Nadine Maenza (chair), executive director of Patriot Voices in Spring City, Penn.
— Tony Perkins (vice-chair), president of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Tony Perkins is not related to William Perkins, editor of The Baptist Record.
— Anurima Bhargava. Founder and President of Anthem of Us, an advisory and consulting firm in Los Angeles.
— Khizr Kahn, founder of the Constitution Literacy Center with offices in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington, D.C.
— James W. Carr, president and chairman of Highland Home Holdings, a Texas-based investment fund.
— Frederick A. Davie, executive vice-president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
— Nury Turkel, chairman of the board for the Uygher Human Rights Project and former president of the Uygher American Association.
— Sharon Kleinbaum, senior rabbi of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City.
