{"id":18869,"date":"2020-08-28T14:57:06","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T21:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=18869"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:11:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T21:11:22","slug":"china-removes-over-900-church-crosses-in-first-half-of-2020-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/china-removes-over-900-church-crosses-in-first-half-of-2020-report\/","title":{"rendered":"China removes over 900 church crosses in first half of 2020: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Leah MarieAnn Klett<\/a> – August 28, 2020<\/p>\n

In the first half of 2020, over 900 crosses were removed from state-run churches across China amid Xi Jinping\u2019s ongoing crackdown on places of worship, according to the Italian-based magazine Bitter Winter.<\/p>\n

According to the religious liberty magazine<\/a>, crosses were removed from over 250 state-run Three-Self churches in the eastern province of Anhui, which has the second-largest Christian population in China, in the first four months <\/a>of the year. Additionally, 656 state-run Protestant churches in the province saw their crosses removed during the first half of this year.<\/p>\n

A Three-Self church in the city\u2019s Yingdong district, which lost its cross in April, was told by authorities that the cross-demolition campaign was part of national policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a church refuses to remove its cross, congregation members may lose their social benefits, like pensions and poverty-alleviation subsidies, and possibilities for their children\u2019s future employment will be affected,\u201d a church member explained.<\/p>\n

United Front Work Department officials who removed the cross from a church in Hanshan county informed church congregants that any crosses taller than government buildings \u201cmust be demolished because they overshadow state institutions,\u201d a church member told Bitter Winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly churches that look like enterprises are considered legal. To \u2018sinicize\u2019 Christianity, Xi Jinping does not allow churches to have Western crosses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The believer also revealed that government officials warned an elder in the church that \u201cprotesting cross demolitions means protesting against the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.christianpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leah MarieAnn Klett – August 28, 2020 In the first half of 2020, over 900 crosses were removed from state-run churches across China amid Xi Jinping\u2019s ongoing crackdown on places of worship, according to the Italian-based magazine Bitter Winter. According to the religious liberty magazine, crosses were removed from over 250 state-run Three-Self churches in … Continue reading China removes over 900 church crosses in first half of 2020: report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[12,175,177,125,259,241,2220],"class_list":["post-18869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-horse","tag-china","tag-christianity","tag-christians","tag-church","tag-crosses","tag-persecution","tag-xi-jinping"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-4Ul","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18871,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18869\/revisions\/18871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}