USA Bible Sellers not Standing Up for House Churches
If you aren't aware, most of the world's Bibles are now printed in China. However, the Chinese are becoming more and more oppressive towards Christians. Worse still, the Chinese printers have plans to edit the Chinese versions of the Scriptures to make them more 'state friendly'.
Amity Corporation is the largest printer of Bibles on earth. It is both cheap and efficient, with state-of-the art printing technology and presses acquired from foreign companies. But Amity’s reputation may soon take a major hit, thanks to a recent Chinese government directive. It was in Amity’s hometown of Nanjing, in 2018, that Beijing announced it was launching a plan to retranslate or reinterpret the venerable Chinese Union Bible in order to align it with CCP policies. This was part of a new five-year plan to “Sinicize” Christianity. Chinese Christian experts have reason to fear that the forthcoming version will drop the book of Revelation and distort moral lessons through new scriptural commentaries—the account of Jesus forgiving the adulterous woman in John 8, for example, was already altered in 2020 Chinese textbooks (used in government-run secondary vocational schools) to claim that Jesus stoned the woman.
How did Amity react to this alarming directive? It sponsored a celebratory event, dedicated to “the theme of Chinese Bible and Christian Sinicization.” There, officials of the CCP’s United Front Work Department and the CCC, along with the UBS, were photographed joined in a circle dance, toasting the company and receiving VIP treatment. Amity plans to print the new, distorted Bibles. They will be the only Bibles approved by the communist party, effectively denying religious freedom to tens of millions of Chinese Christians. This comes after regulations two years ago that censored the Bible from the Chinese Internet, banned youth from church services and Bible camps, and authorized the burning of Bibles possessed without state authorization.
So far, there has been no vociferous protest from the American publishers. They have not used their leverage to stop the ongoing crackdown on house churches. https://sovereignnations.com/2020/12/28/chinas-threat-bible/
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- · Timothy Yeghian
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THANK YOU!
I keep my version 4 of the German Bible Society's Greek New Testament right here by my desk while I am researching all these other things that I do. The 4th version of the UBS Greek New Testament, 1991/2001, was printed by the German Bible Society, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Germany. I used to read V3, but when V4 came out I retired it. However, once I got it in my hand I thought to look to be sure that it was a UBS GNT by the DBS of Stuttgart, and that was where my eyes stopped. I didn't keep reading to the bottom of the page. How could anybody in the USB not know that Chinese Christians, and in fact, any Christian caught in China is tortured? There is absolutely no way that they do not know this.
You are absolutely correct in my own case. I just opened the inside cover and went all the way down to the bottom of my UBS GNT, and right there is says, back in 2010, it was printed in China! How could I have missed that?They are printed in China, but if you are caught with you, you will be arrested, tortured, and sent to a work camp. Brilliant.
I will let them know at the UBS and the German Bible Society that this is unacceptable for Christians to support the beatings of other Christians. I have been in underground fellowships in China. I am not throwing words around.Thank you.