Over 300 Christian children in China were asked to complete a form stating that they did not follow a religion in an effort to limit the growth of Christianity aesthetically.
The World Watch Monitor was informed of the occurrences from a trusted local source in the region.
“It is normal for a school to ask parents to fill out a form which includes questions of faith when a child is first enrolled in school, for many years this hasn’t been an issue,” our source, who wished to remain anonymous, explained.
Education in China is entirely government controlled; therefore the children are saturated in Communist ideology. Further, as a result, some Christian children have faced “shaming” incidents; “but the extent of such shaming was to prevent them from joining the Communist Youth League, thereby denying them any of the perks that come with a progression to Communist Party Member later in life,” World Watch Monitor was told.
“In this case, however, the children were handed a questionnaire in class about faith, which is not normal. It seems this is part of the new push to identify Christians and give them pressure of one sort or another.”
“Children in this part of China would write ‘Christian’ because of 1) their innocence and 2) they come from families of fervent believers who do not compromise their faith.”
In one of the schools which has roughly two hundred Christian students, the teacher reprimanded students who wrote that they were Christians, and they were forced to rewrite the questionnaire to state that they had no religion.
In another school, it was the class perfect who forced Christians to resubmit their papers.
The purpose of such is related to the limitation of religious beliefs in China and to artificially limit the growth of Christianity starting at a young age;  “In these cases it would be using words only. It seems teachers recently were tasked with pressuring children by separating them from the other students to ‘counsel’ or talk to them sternly about the ‘consequences’ of talking about being a Christian believer at school, urging them to write “no religion” on their questionnaire. This is for the child’s sake and to limit any growth of Christianity among young people through evangelism or simply becoming known as the ones who could answer questions other pupils may have about Christianity.”
Children who stick to their faith and choose not to comply with Communist demands are reportedly denied opportunities at school, such as; they cannot be elected as class representatives, and they are in danger of not receiving a graduation certificate from school.