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Christian pastors across China are now being required to preach Confucius and Christianity, making favorable comparisons in their sermons and their teaching.
Very disturbing.
However, the same kind of State mandate is being practiced here in America. Recent laws demand that Christians and Christian pastors reconcile biblical teaching and biblical morality with the homosexual agenda, or face the force of new laws designed to punish the "intolerant"--- those who do not conform.
Be informed.
As you likely know, Confucius (551-479 BC), is considered the most famous teacher and philosopher in East Asian culture. His teachings are complied in a book called, "The Analects."
The Chinese government's Religious Affairs Bureau has ordered all "Three-Self" (registered Christian churches) pastors to prepare their sermons from a book, "The Analects Encounter The Bible" which was written to reveal that Confucius and Christ are pretty much the same---therefore, the Analects and the Bible are also pretty much the same.
The mandate is to find the similarities and present them in weekly sermons. And in some regions, the State is requiring that pastors hold day-long classes on the similarities, placing comparative charts on the walls of the church.
In fact, the State has required that the participants take pictures of themselves holding the Bible in one hand and the Analects in the other and post the images online.
Sinicizing Christianity.
Bitter Winter, an organization that follows and reports on such things, says the State is "sinicizing Christianity" by forcing the churches and the pastors to comply and advocate a message that is not biblical or true.
A pastor from Yuzhou says the "arguments in 'The Analects Encounter The Bible' distort the teachings of the Bible entirely and are misleading Christians."
He gives several examples, concluding that this has caused "controversy in the Christian community" because some are accepting that the Analects and the Bible are basically the same, while others are strongly rejecting the blending of Confucianism and Christianity as heresy.
Pastors say the mandate is "changing our faith. Since reading the Bible is now the same as reading The Analects, means it suffices to read The Analects and to believe Confucius? This is the erosion of Christianity."
The erosion of Christianity in America.
In recent years our government, under the guise of human rights, has passed a growing number of laws that supposedly protect the rights of homosexuals---and punish those who do not embrace the doctrine of the Human Rights Campaign---the largest homosexual advocacy organization in the country.
As the "Three-Self," or registered Christian churches in China, are being forced to interpret the Bible through the prism of traditional Chinese culture, American biblical Christians are being forced by law to interpret biblical teaching through the prism of the LGBTQ agenda.
Back in 2017, Franklin Graham told Tony Perkins with Family Research Council and Christians across our country and around the world that "Christians in America who oppose the LGBT agenda are being persecuted and singled out over and over and over again."
Franklin said Christian business owners are being forced to either participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies or sell abortifacients even though those actions might come in conflict with biblical teaching and the individual's religious beliefs.
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has become the latest incantation of the progressive mandate to embrace far-left "religious" ideologies. The press worships him and quotes his every word as prophetic and spiritually enlightening.
Pete's gospel has life beginning with "the first breath," according to the Bible, therefore morally affirming that abortion is not immoral---and same-sex marriage is honored by God because God is love, and his own marriage to another man has brought him closer to God.
The doctrine of tolerance.
In the name of "tolerance," many Americans---including many self-identified evangelicals, have accepted so-called gay-"marriage" and abortion because it is an act of tolerance---a biblical virtue.
But it isn't really tolerance that has reshaped the beliefs of these folks, it's coercion. Socially and legally.
And it's indoctrination.
Generations of students have been indoctrinated in public education to believe that the Bible cannot be trusted in its history or the doctrines based in that history.
An increasing segment of the church continues to reject God's clear teaching about the sanctity of marriage and of life itself.
The enforcement of tolerance.
To truly be "tolerant," a person must celebrate, not merely tolerate.
There are hundreds of cases of just how the virtue of tolerance is enforced.
Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington is an example. Two of her longtime homosexual customers decided to get "married." She explained that she was happy to serve them as customers, but could not use her artistic gifts to celebrate something that is not biblical.
The long-time customers and friends sued her for discrimination.
The Washington State Attorney General decided to enforce tolerance on Barronelle. Then the ACLU also sued her.
The court ruled against Barronelle. Her case went to the State Supreme Court. Arguments were heard at Bellevue College on September 15, 2016. The Washington State Supreme Court decided that "Yes, the government can force her to participate in something she doesn't believe in."
She petitioned the US Supreme Court. They sent it back to the State Supreme Court. In June of this year, the State Supreme Court once again ruled against Barronelle.
Alliance Defending Freedom has once again asked the US Supreme Court to take her case.
For centuries the early Christians endured dying in the Roman Colosseum to the taunts of jeering crowds---whose grandchildren would flee Rome as it went up in flames amid moral chaos.
Under increasing pressure by the State in China, biblical Christianity is growing---likely causing some of the political concern by the State.
In America...Well, it's time the frog jumped out of the pan before it boils.
The media, the entertainment industry, and the far-Left progressive segment of our elected lawmakers and public education are all committed to forcing biblical Christians to not merely tolerate what God does not tolerate, but to celebrate it.
Or else.
It has been said, "If we stand for eternity, then history is on our side,"
And it is written: "Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13).
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Watchful. Be Brave. Be Strong. Be Prayerful.