by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - China will roll out new measures to further circumscribe the spiritual activities of its citizens on February 1st in the New Year, as state news reported Monday that the 42 articles of the Administrative Measures for Religious Groups had been approved.
The articles, which follow the ratification of the Regulations on Religious Affairs published in 2018 that have left in their wake plaques of the ten commandments replaced by photographs of President Xi Jinping in state-run churches, oversee all of a church community's life, activity, and gatherings.
Article 17 states unequivocally that "religious organizations must spread the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party...educating religious personnel and religious citizens to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, supporting the socialist system, adhering to and following the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics."
The process of "sinicization" has already been well underway in state-run Three-Self Patriotic movement churches, with communist officials writing socialist-friendly sermons for pastors and the government reviewing plans to re-translate the Bible with a Chinese socialist edge on the way to creating a new religion.