From The Craig Bushon Show Media Team
In China today, the Communist Party isn’t just watching Christianity — it’s rewriting it. Under the banner of “Sinicization,” faith is bent to serve the state. What sounds like “making religion more Chinese” is in reality a project to strip the church of its independence and force loyalty to the Communist Party above all else.
This effort has been building for years. In 2018, new regulations gave the government sweeping powers to close unregistered churches. In 2020, further measures brought finances, leadership, and church programming under direct Party oversight. In 2022, online restrictions made it illegal to post or stream religious content without a license. By 2023, even registered churches were required to align sermons with “Xi Jinping Thought.” In 2024, the Patriotic Education Law cemented the Party’s expectation that religion should be a vessel of socialist values. And now, in 2025, the campaign has reached the heart of Christian life — the songs believers sing.
What Sinicization Really Means
Sinicization is not about cultural pride. It is a state takeover of religion. Sermons and songs are edited to promote Party slogans. Crosses are pulled down and replaced with national flags or images of Party leaders. Pastors are forced into political training sessions where they are told to emphasize socialist ideology. Those who refuse risk losing their pulpits, having their churches closed, or even facing prison time. Hymns that have carried the faith for centuries, like Amazing Grace, are being erased. In some congregations, worshippers are ordered to sing the national anthem before their final hymn of praise to God.
The goal is clear: Christianity must not compete with the Communist Party for loyalty.
2025: When Music Became a Battleground
On May 7, 2025, in Beijing, the official state-controlled church associations unveiled what they called the “Sacred Music Ministry Blueprint for 2025.” About forty church leaders attended as officials laid out the new plan. Its purpose was to replace traditional Christian worship songs with a new library of music infused with political themes and Chinese cultural styles.
The blueprint promised new music teams, Sinicization-themed concerts, and a state-approved song library. Advocacy groups warned that this was more than cultural change. Hymns are theology set to music. Altering the hymnbook means altering the faith itself.
Reports soon followed of what this looked like in practice. In some state-run churches, congregations were told to sing March of the Volunteers, China’s national anthem, before their final hymn of praise. This practice was justified as “patriotic education,” but to many believers it was a declaration that the Party demanded first place in worship.
Censorship extended beyond the church walls. Online Bible sales were banned in 2018. By 2021, Bible apps had been removed from major app stores. Christian music platforms such as “Praise Hymn Net” were shut down. By 2025, almost every digital path to worship music was blocked, leaving only government-approved content.
Pastors and priests were also ordered into training seminars. They were told to add Chinese folk instruments like the erhu into hymns, to rewrite lyrics with socialist values, and to weave Party ideology into their sermons. The erhu is a two-stringed traditional instrument, sometimes called the “Chinese violin.” It’s played with a bow and produces a haunting, almost voice-like sound that has been part of Chinese music for over a thousand years. By requiring its use in worship, the state wasn’t celebrating culture — it was forcing churches to reshape sacred music to look more Chinese and less connected to the global Christian tradition. Some clergy were even sent on “Red Tours” to Communist historical sites for political re-education. What had once been spiritual preparation for ministry was turned into loyalty training for the state.
The Wider Crackdown on Christianity
The attack on worship music is part of a larger pattern. Millions of Chinese Christians worship outside the state system in what are called “house churches.” These underground congregations rotate apartments, split into small groups, and use coded language to avoid detection. But police raids are constant. Hymnals and Bibles are seized, phones are searched, and leaders are detained.
Some of China’s best-known churches have been destroyed or scattered. Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu was raided in 2018; more than one hundred members were arrested, and Pastor Wang Yi was sentenced to nine years in prison. Zion Church in Beijing, one of the largest unregistered churches, was shut down after refusing to install state surveillance cameras. In 2016, Ding Cuimei, the wife of a pastor in Henan, was killed by a bulldozer while trying to stop her church from being demolished.
Catholics loyal to Rome face the same pressure. Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding has been missing since 1997, reportedly held in secret detention. Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou has been repeatedly detained, most recently in 2025, and fined heavily for holding Mass outside state control. Even with a Vatican-China agreement on bishop appointments, underground Catholic communities are harassed, closed, and punished.
Even registered churches are not safe. Sun Zhuang Church, a government-approved congregation in Henan, was demolished in 2020. Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi was destroyed in 2018 with heavy machinery. Cross-removal campaigns have stripped skylines across Zhejiang province.
The message is unmistakable: if faith cannot be controlled, it will be destroyed.
Why It Matters
This campaign cuts to the heart of faith and freedom. Music is not just melody. It teaches doctrine. Rewrite the lyrics, and you rewrite the belief. Patriotism itself is twisted into a tool of obedience. Forcing believers to sing the Party anthem before singing to God turns loyalty to the nation into worship of the state.
Underground Christians are paying the price. They continue to meet, they continue to sing the old hymns, and they continue to resist. In return, they face surveillance, fines, raids, and prison. Families are punished for raising their children in the faith. Congregations lose their homes as bulldozers flatten churches.
And this is only the midpoint of a long plan. The Party’s religious work blueprint runs through 2027. If 2025 was the year worship music was targeted, the years ahead will almost certainly bring further controls on prayer, preaching, and sacraments.
The Contrast With America
Now place this against the freedom of religion in the United States.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that Congress can make no law establishing a religion and no law prohibiting its free exercise. That means the government cannot create a state church, cannot censor hymns, cannot approve sermons, and cannot tell parents what their children can or cannot believe. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples decide their own worship, their own teaching, and their own leadership without state interference.
In China, the opposite is true. Sinicization means the state dictates sermons, censors songs, removes crosses, bans children, and even requires the national anthem before worship. What is voluntary and free in America is mandatory and controlled in China.
In America, a pastor can sing Amazing Grace without asking permission. In China, that same hymn is erased. In America, children are free to learn the faith of their family. In China, children are forbidden from entering a church. In America, the cross stands untouched. In China, it is torn down and replaced with the Party flag.
The key difference is this: in the United States, the law restrains government power. In China, the Party is the law. America’s Constitution protects the church from the state. China’s Sinicization program chains the church to the state.
Freedom of religion means worship belongs to the people. Sinicization means worship belongs to the Party. That is the difference between liberty and tyranny. That is the difference between a nation where faith is free and a regime that fears the truth.
When a government controls what you can sing to God, it has claimed the right to rule over your conscience. That is not culture. That is tyranny.
The Christians of China who continue to gather, continue to sing, and continue to risk everything show the world that true worship cannot be silenced by the state.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are for educational and commentary purposes from The Craig Bushon Show Media Team. Information is based on reports from human-rights groups, U.S. government findings, and open-source news as of September 2025. While sources vary in perspective, the patterns described reflect consistent documentation of restrictions and persecution in China. This piece is not intended to provide legal advice or official policy guidance.
