The Chinese government has been busy re-writing the Bible to strengthen its grip on religion in the country.

It was first reported in 2019 that representatives of all the main religions in China were asked to review Chinese translations of their religious texts so that they conform with "the requirements of the new era," Le Figaro reported. For the rule of President Xi Jinping, the authorities demanded a "a complete re-evaluation of existing translations of religious classics". If by the end of the process some texts were found not to confirm, they were to be "modified and translated again."

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Some four years later, Christian campaigning group Persecution Org. have slammed the results of such government meddling. According to U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government is rewriting portions of the Bible in to increase its control over religion in country.

Rep. Gallagher said in a meeting of the House Select Committee on the CCP, that Chairman Xi is on a “quest to make the faithful serve the party rather than God.” Rep. Gallagher pointed out two striking examples of the new look Bible in China. Firstly, in the Gospel of John, where Jesus tells a woman caught cheating on her husband to “go, and from now on sin no more”. In the original text, Jesus adds: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her”.

Since the order for change to religious texts were given, a textbook from a Chinese university concludes the same account altogether more violently, according to Rep. Gallagher it read: “Jesus himself stoning the adulterous woman to death.”

In another case, this time from Exodus 20:3, even the 10 Commandments have been twisted in the Henan province as the authorities “forced Protestant churches to replace the Ten Commandments with Xi Jinping quotes”. Never mind the first commandment reading “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”. The new version as pushed for by the CCP says: “Resolutely guard against the infiltration of Western ideology.”

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