Some 100 kindergarten students in China took part in “preventative education” before a field trip in October in a practice that Christians say is teaching the students about what Chinese officials call “illegal religion.”
According to religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter, 100 students ages 3 to 6 were taken to the district of Jiaocheng in the Fujian province to visit the Ningde Science and Technology Museum in October. The museum offers train and helicopter simulations.
But before the students were taken to the museum, they were given picture booklets and seated to watch what Christian activists called “propaganda” movies.
“They had to go through a program of ‘preventative education’ against xie jiao (i.e., religious movements banned as ‘heterodox teachings,’ sometimes translated as ‘evil cults’) and ‘illegal religion.”
In one movie, the Church of the Almighty God was presented as “xie jiao,” and children were warned that God is “wicked” and a “superstition.”
The initiative to teach these beliefs to young children is part of China’s communist government, which strictly regulates religion in the country.
In one case, a Christian mother living in China told reporters that her child initially enjoyed hearing about God’s creation before the child started school.
“But after being taught at school, my child is like a different person. In atheistic China, these pure and innocent children have been taught to hate God,” she said.
In another case in September, dozens of students and staff members at a Christian high school were arrested in China’s Heilongjiang province. Officials raided the school and gathered computers and documents from the Maizi Christian Music High school.
“As crosses are being removed throughout the country, those who refuse to cooperate will be accused of opposing the Communist Party,” a Christian said. “We are pressured to give up our faith, but we will persevere.”
Open Doors has ranked China at 17th in its 2021 World Watch List where Christians suffer the most persecution.
Photo courtesy: Alejandro Luengo/Unsplash
Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. She blogs at The Migraine Runner.
