Want to escape poverty? Replace pictures of Jesus with Xi Jinping, Christian villagers urged
Believers urged to replace religious artefacts in their homes with posters of Communist Party leader if they want to benefit from poverty-relief efforts
Thousands of Christians in an impoverished county in rural southeast China have swapped their posters of Jesus for portraits of President Xi Jinping as part of a local government poverty-relief programme that seeks to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party”.
Located on the edge of Poyang, China’s largest freshwater lake, Yugan county in Jiangxi province is known equally for its poverty and its large Christian community. More than 11 per cent of its 1 million residents live below the country’s official poverty line, while nearly 10 per cent of its population is Christian, according to official data.
But as the local government redoubles its efforts to alleviate poverty, many believers have been told to take down the images of Jesus, the crosses and the gospel couplets that form the centrepieces of their homes, and hang portraits of Xi instead – a practice that hearkens back to the era of the personality cult around late chairman Mao Zedong, whose portraits were once ubiquitous in Chinese homes.
![A local social media account said that in Yugan’s Huangjinbu township party cadres “melted the hard ice in their [Christians’] hearts” and “transformed them from believing in religion to believing in the party”. Photo: Lvv2.com](https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/11/14/07363264-c84d-11e7-9743-ef57fdb29dbc_image_hires_142611.JPG "A local social media account said that in Yugan’s Huangjinbu township party cadres “melted the hard ice in their [Christians’] hearts” and “transformed them from believing in religion to believing in the party”. Photo: Lvv2.com")
Under Xi, the ruling Communist Party has made ending poverty by 2020 a top priority. The campaign is not only crucial to the political legacy of the country’s most powerful leader since Mao, but also serves to consolidate the party’s control over the grass roots of society, who despite their vast numbers have been largely neglected in China’s decades-long pursuit of economic growth.