Churches in a city in southeastern China have been forced to find other ways to teach their children about Jesus since the atheist Communist Party has tightened restrictions on faith education and warned against Christianity’s influence.
According to Reuters, Wenzhou is known as “China’s Jerusalem” due to its sizable Christian community. When the government officially banned Sunday Schools earlier this year, Christians in the area began finding ways around it.
Churches have started teaching children in private homes or other venues, started disguising Sunday School as daycare, or moved it to Saturdays, in an effort to keep Christianity alive.
Some Christians said that “the resolve of the community in Wenzhou suggests the party will struggle to exert control over the next generation of the country’s 60 million Christians.”
A number of provinces, including Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Henan and the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, have also banned children from faith-based summer camps and other activities, World Watch Monitor reports.
