When you stop believing in God, you’ll believe in anything
Explains the recent actions by Jan Schmidt, Kamala Harris, Liz McConnell, and Debra Altschiller, eh? Take the next few paragraphs and then ask – why are these folks so hell-bent on having the State (of NH) control the lives of New Hampshireites? Or, in the case of Harris, the US? Emphasis mine, reformatted:
Report: Communist China Replacing Ten Commandments With Quotes by President Xi
Communist Chinese officials have forced one of the largest Protestant groups in the world, the government-sanctioned Three-Self Church, to remove all images of the Ten Commandments from its churches and replace them with quotes and pictures of authoritarian President Xi Jinping and former dictator Mao Zedong, according to Fox News.com. The Chinese regime is cracking down on all religions and forcing them to implement — “sinicize” — the socialist teachings of the Communist Party into their faith and religious practices.
We’ve seen this before in history starting with Russia as the new Communist aristocracy overthrew the old monarchy and replaced it with a “State sanctioned” version of the Orthodox churches – at least those that it didn’t convert to other purposes (such as “museums”). Slice by slice, the Church’s first calling was canceled out. When you remove one of the foundational pillars of a church’s theology, the Ten Commandments, as the Chinese Communists are now doing, the actions are clear:
The State will be all the God you need – we will supply you with every need. Just worship us.
And of course, the flip side is the punishment side as well – you WILL worship The State. For remember, Satan is the flip side and The State will be that personage as well. After all, just look at what the Democrat Socialists are saying and just WAITING to implement for the US. A veritable heaven on earth – just worship us. But as I’ve been writing for a few years now, someone’s notion of heaven is another person’s hell.
“The state-sanctioned Three-Self Church — one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world — has removed the Ten Commandments from almost all their locations, but some have been reportedly shut down for not implementing the government’s plan,” reported Fox News.com.
Most gave in – under duress, I bet, and like some of the mainline church denominations here in the US, they’ve gladly given into the government popular culture that THEY now worship. Others are trying to split the difference but to be honest, they will fail. Like the mainline churches here in the US, their memberships will decrease and they will slowly be absorbed into the State’s culture. How? Fear:
One congregant, according to the human rights magazine Bitter Winter, said “the government is threatening to blacklist anyone not complying, meaning their travels will be restricted and schooling and future employment for their children will be impeded.“
A translation: “Let’s see how strong your faith is. We’re betting it isn’t strong at all because we will put you into Hell.”
While some believers would stand strong on their own, when your children are targeted, it gets tough. Real tough. While I would be able to stand, if harm were to come to the Grandson, it would be real tough. There will be no end to the Tribulations to come as this gets to the heart of the matter:
A Protestant pastor said, “The Communist Party’s ultimate goal is to ‘become God.’ This is what the devil has always done.”
And that is why the Ten Commandments has been removed from the churches as the First Commandment countermands what the ChiCom State is requiring (Exodus 20, emphasis mine):
1 And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Which Prohibition will a Chinese Christian value least? What will their faith tell them to do? Are they willing to follow – God or The State? Following God is voluntary – The State is making it mandatory. And will be wrenching things down harder and harder:
“The government’s first step is to prohibit religious couplets [phrases, terms],” he said. “Then it dismantles crosses and starts to implement the ‘four requirements’ by ordering the national flag and ‘core socialist values’ to be placed in churches. Surveillance cameras to monitor believers and religious activities are then installed.”
“The last step is to replace the Ten Commandments with Xi Jinping’s speeches,” said the pastor.
Change the culture, change the politics. Change the language, control the thought process. Change the symbols, you change the faith. You can’t believe in something that you never knew existed.
The United Front Work Document, another Communist Party intelligence agency, told one church, “The Party must be obeyed in every respect. You have to do whatever the Party tells you to do. If you contradict, your church will be shut down immediately,” reported FoxNews.com. The news report further stated that Chinese officials are stopping people from proselytizing and closing Sunday schools.
The true faithful will do what it has always done during duress – it will go underground. Xi will pursue them – he has the reason, he has the State, and now (thanks to some US software companies like Google, Facebook, et al) the technology to watch every single person they would want to.
The Church of Jesus Christ started, not with mega-church buildings with all kinds of electronics, millions of dollars budgets, multiple campuses and 10s of thousands of attendees. It was simple – person to person that grew to be “house churches” – a few that would meet for worship and fellowship always wondering if the next knock on the door was The State – in that time, the Roman Empire whose Emperor was to be considered a god. Heretical then and heretical now.
But when considering how the Chinese Communists treat religious freedom (remember, there are over a million uighers / muslims in “re-education” camps), how are various political factions now treating people of faith now?
And where on our political spectrum do they now lie?
(H/T: CNSNews)