cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/44150479
In their effort to “exert total control” over religion and to “sinicise” Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the authorities have “ordered the removal of crosses from churches [and] replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi Jinping,” the report said.
The report concluded that “every facet of religious life for Buddhists, Catholics and Protestant Christians, Muslims, and Taoists” was facing pressure to incorporate CCP ideology, and religious elements considered contradictory to the state’s political agenda were being eradicated.
Pictures of Jesus and Mary aren’t (supposed to be) idols
Idol: an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.
I agree that they probably weren’t intended to be idols, but pictures of Jesus, Mary, the cross, etc are just objects of worship.
Jesus’s message of universal love goes beyond the Christian religion, which feels like it only exists to promote itself instead of the values that Christ promoted.
If Jesus were alive today I doubt he would care about the destruction of religious symbols. He’d probably say something like “Why are you concerned with a symbol when you have brothers and sisters who need help? If you really want to exalt God, go out and do His work.”
Like, if people truly believe God is the alpha and omega do they really think they need to get offended on his behalf?
Christianity has done a great job of putting God in a tiny box called “religion” and taking away all his power to the point where dinosaurs, evolution, and science are able to shake their faith.
God/love/the universe is nonsense, and we get to spend our whole lives trying to figure that nonsense out.
https://youtu.be/SzXn4PozUTo?si=h2-x0YJHqZzmuG7n
I would agree that religious symbols should serve only as reminders. Although putting up a photograph of Xi Jingping replacing Jesus is still an insulting statement and we all know what it’s supposed to imply.
But in terms of saving a family or a picture of Jesus in a fire, obviously the choice should be the family.
veneration doesn’t mean worship. there’s a huge difference. Idol worshippers believe the statues / picture / whatever is some kind of living god. Orthodox or catholics who venerate icons of Christ or the Theotokos (Mother of God) or other saints are not worshipping them. They are venerating / showing respect to the icon that is representing the saint who is alive in Christ or God.
Bingo
It’s funny hearing a Protestant make sweeping claims about what is or is not true Christianity.