Many Americans are unaware that Chinese cities have enacted some of the most severe lockdowns we’ve seen in the last two years in a major city such as Shanghai. That’s probably because the TV told Americans not to care about this. Meanwhile, Americans are trying to evacuate as the lockdowns turn violent. The response from Christian media has largely been to ignore the crisis. Christian Post, which is more of a news gatherer than The Gospel Coalition, has ignored the plight of the Chinese in favor of simping for Zelensky’s Great Reset narrative. It’s worth noting that the bold moral Christian Post’s neoconservative war propaganda of Ukraine despite the fact the Iraq invasion in which March and April of 2003 had nearly four times the civilians deaths.
Ed Stetzer’s Church Leaders published an article critical of the Babylon Bee for satirizing the Chinese lockdowns as racist.
Christianity Today is took a different approach. They published a rather regime friendly piece promoting how Christians are stepping up and administering Covid tests to their neighbors and having online church. Even a secular sight like Reuters appeared to be more critical of the Shanghai lockdowns than Christianity Today.
Elder Jiang, who is a pilot, has spent the past three years either flying or in isolation. The city’s sequestration allowed him to finally spend time at home with his wife and young son. But when the community called for volunteers, he didn’t hesitate to sign up and spent his days in protective clothing organizing COVID-19 tests and distributing supplies.
A few days later, while he and his wife were infected, his three-year-old son’s antigen test came back negative. This meant, following Shanghai’s quarantine policy, that the couple had to be separated from their child. But Jiang did not regret his choice. He just wished that his family could stay together during the quarantine.
Christianity Today is very nonchalant about the separation of parents and children, the tone of the article is very much under the impression that the lockdowns are necessary. The article is written by a reporter in Shanghai, so it has to be regime friendly for her safety, but the false narrative that the article promotes is tantamount to Chinese propaganda.
It’s rather odd that China is taking a zero-Covid approach two years after the fact. This government narrative should be met with skepticism as China has a history of using lockdowns to crack down on dissidents. After all, it was never about public health.
One Response
Yes, agreed, “It was never about public health.”