Bible Printing

One of the tactics the Chinese Communist Party uses to try to control and suffocate Christianity in China is to restrict Bible printing to a single facility in eastern China, Nanjing Amity Printing Company, and restrict the distribution of its Bibles to only the Three Self churches that it controls via China Christian Council and Three Self Patriotic Movement.

In response, China's underground church networks engage in clandestine Bible printing, warehousing and distribution, which are imprisonment-worthy crimes in China. Wang Zaiqing, for example, was arrested in 2006, served 2 years for "illegal" Bible printing, and returned beaming (above and right) for having been deemed worthy to suffer for Christ.

For the past two decades, the most efficient way to supply China's underground churches with Bibles actually was to provide them with the Amity-printed Bibles bought at the Three Self churches.

This can no longer be done for two reasons.

First, the Chinese Communist Party is installing face recognition-enabling CCTV cameras at all 60,000 Three Self churches across China. Anyone, including members of the underground church, who buys at their Bible counters will be identified and then tracked by the web of 600,000,000 CCTV cameras that will blanket China by 2020 (see Christian persecution in China).

Second, the Chinese government's planned "Sinicization of Christianity" includes adding annotations to the Amity Bibles and even re-translating the Bible to make it conform to the ideologies of the Chinese Communist Party.

What should be done?

1.  The underground church should continue Bible printing operations inside China, aided by new technologies that allow smaller printing operations that are easier to hide.

2.  Bible smuggling operations should prepare to resume.

3.  Digital Bibles should be distributed to be read and heard via smartphones, computers, tablets, and MP3 players.

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