Chinese Communist Party officials ordered dozens of churches to replace crosses with the five-pointed star, the symbol featured on the country’s flag to represent the CCP and its role in the nation.
Religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter reports that in August, the Two Chinese Christian Councils in a county administered by the prefecture-level city of Jiujiang in Jiangxi Province ordered its more than 70 affiliated churches to remove the cross from their official seals.
Churches were ordered to erect the five-pointed star, which is used in all other state-run institutions, in its place.
In early September, Jiujiang’s Religious Affairs Bureau ordered official churches to remove Chinese characters for “Christianity” from church seals.
All official churches were ordered to replace their seals so that believers accept the Party as the main leader and follow only it,” a Three-Self Church venue director from Jiujiang said.
“The cross is the symbol of our faith, and that is why it has been inscribed in churches’ seals,” another Three-Self venue director said. “The government replaces it with the five-pointed star to show its power.”
The latest orders are part of President Xi Jinping’s religious sinicization policy, which requires Christianity and other religions to embrace socialism and the leadership of the CCP.
In July, the government of Lanling county’s Dazhongcun, administered by the prefecture-level city of Linyi in Shandong Province, removed crosses from “numerous state-approved Three-Self Church venues,” according to Bitter Winter. Other religious symbols and slogans were also removed from the buildings.
