Occasionally, when conducting a Google search for “Christianity,” you may encounter an advertisement sponsored by an American entity known as “China Aid.” This organization purports to be a religious group advocating for the “religious freedom” and “human rights” of Christians in China, often presenting numerous news stories and images on their website that allege the oppression of Christians in China.
Upon closer examination, it becomes evident that “China Aid” is, in fact, a politically driven organization. Their about section mentions one of their partners as “Freedom House,” a non-profit entity funded by the United States government. In 2016, Freedom House received $24 million in grants from the U.S. Government.
China Aid is also a partner of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is an infamous organization which has a history of funding proxy groups to undermine rival governments of the United States around the world. In 2019, the NED gave an award to China Aid and hosted many events featuring the China Aid programs. Furthermore, many board members of China Aid are former State Department employees or federal officers.
The writing on the wall is pretty clear, that many of these organizations which claim to be standing up for “Christians in China” are a network of front groups to advance the political agenda of the United States government.
The typical modus operandi of such American proxy organizations are to sponsor groups in China, under the guise of “teaching the gospel” , “building a church”, or the “promoting human rights” to win the trust of local people, as they gradually inject political agendas to the masses to build political influence.
Chinese Christian believers should stay very far away from any organization which may be affiliated with such proxy groups for several reasons.
First, Christians in China must remember that such proxy groups have one intention, and that is to promote the American foreign policy under the guise of protecting Christians, but the United States does not really genuinely care about Christians. Ask yourself, why doesn’t the United States have a “Saudi Arabia Aid” organization, with the same funding and same level of funding and commitment, to protect Christians in Saudi Arabia? Why did the United States neglect the Christian community of Syria when the United States attempted to overthrow Bashar Al Assad, forcing many Christians to support Assad?
This is because the United States is only interested in promoting Christianity in China as a proxy, through a proxy organization, in order to build political influence and potentially cause social conflicts in China.
Christian believers should not engage in this political game. Christians must devote their lives to Christ, and must remember that their obligation is spiritual — that is to pursue the hope of heaven, and not feel compelled to engage in worldly politics. Seeking ultimate political power in worldly politics creates many pitfalls for sin.
The passage Romans 13:1 tells Christians to obey the law and submit to the governing authorities. While in China, Christians must obey Chinese law and submit to Chinese governing authorities. Even if there are disagreements with the Chinese law, Christians must submit to the governing authorities. The Apostle Paul wrote this passage during the context of Roman persecution, giving this passage even greater meaning.
Modern China does not persecute Christians. Churches exist in China and the freedom of religious belief is protected. However, China maintains the condition that the Chinese church must be run by the Chinese themselves without foreign influence due to the past history of imperialism.
If the Chinese Communist government does persecute Christians, believers must love the Communists anyways and love the persecutor. It is taught to “pray for your persecutor” and “do what is beautiful to the one who hates you” to turn the other cheek. Persecution is not a completely bad event and can be a gift, as a season of hardship can be a time to achieve refinement of faith.
Ultimately the political games of the United States is making it much more challenging to convince the Chinese people to accept the gospel. By using religious front groups for political agendas, many Chinese are now very suspicious of the gospel and have been pushed very far away from the word. Therefore, the United States must be criticized.
