On April 9, 2018, the CCC&TSPM responded to the "Bible ban" rumor triggered by China's ban on online Bible sales. The incident initially said that China forbade the sale of Bibles and wanted to edit the Bible. The official organizations forwarded the Global Times article West media stir up 'Bible banning' rumor and said that the Bible is still sold inside churches as normal in the editor's note.
It added that the Bible was not available on the Internet because it had no publication serial number but was published through offline channels.
It claimed that the CCC&TSPM supplied the Bible and various kinds of spiritual books through 78 nationwide sales points that sell the Bible to more than 600 churches where Christians can purchase the Bible.
According to the CCC&TSPM, Elder Fu Xianwei, chairman of the TSPM, explained the real reason behind the ban on online sales of the Bible to a six-person delegation from the United Bible Societies (UBS) on April 12, 2018.
He said that the ban was a result of an online law enforcement activity carried out by relevant government departments rather than a campaign targeting religion. It had nothing to do with religious freedom. Believers could get access to the Chinese Union Version (CUV) in nearby churches.
Elder Fu stated that rumormongers who spread the message that China banned the CUV and that the country would retranslate the Bible into Chinese harbored malicious intentions. In addition, there was still a lack of professional Bible translators in the Chinese church.
Rev. Shan Weixiang, vice president of the CCC, introduced the Bible publishing ministry to the visiting team. He said that it proved the development of the Chinese church and good religious conditions for Christians that China, which almost had no Bibles in the initial stage of reform and opening up, has become one of the countries that annually print the most Bibles. Moreover, he shared that the CCC&TSPM had been trying to publish Bibles with new designs and different Chinese Bible versions introduced from Hong Kong and Taiwan that are close to modern Chinese. He added that the CCC&TSPM will hold a series of activities to honor the 100th anniversary of the publication of the CUV version in the second half of 2018.
The Chinese Union Version (CUV) is the predominant translation of the Bible in Chinese used by Protestants in China, originally published in 1919.
