Greed Wins Again!

“Greed is the inventor of injustice as well as the current enforcer.”

Julian Casablancas

Earlier this month (October 8^th), a fan was kicked out of a basketball game for holding up a sign calling for freedom for Hong Kong and for yelling a freedom-for-Hong-Kong slogan. One of the teams on the court was a Chinese team from Guangzhou, the Loong Lions. But this game wasn’t being held in Beijing or Peking. It was in Philadelphia…the birthplace of American freedom. Just feet from where our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence, Americans were told that they couldn’t show public support for basic human freedoms in China. This was right after the NBA forced an apology onto the Houston Rockets general manager for tweeting, “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” Why? Greed!

  The NBA is poised to make $1.5 billion off its streaming agreement with Chinese media company, Tencent, over the next five years, so the NBA is willing to slam dunk basic human rights to increase their bottom line.

  Basketball is the most popular sport in the world’s most populous country. There are more NBA fans in China than there are people in the United States. The NBA is willingly being fiscally blackmailed by a repressive nation known for forced abortions, harvesting organs, and the abuse of religious minorities, like the Muslim Uighur community.

  That’s not to mention China’s recent blood-drenched history. Chinese Communists make the Nazis look like Boy Scouts. There’s a general consensus among historians that after Chairman Mao and the Communists came to power,  political purges caused the deaths of tens of millions.

  Today most have forgotten the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. What’s ironic is how quickly the NBA was ready to boycott North Carolina over bathrooms a few years ago, but now kowtow to a brutal Chinese government…all for the love of money.

  Yet, the NBA is hardly exceptional. In recent years, American and European companies have made a regular habit of apologizing for their accidental contradictions of China’s Communist Party line. Last year, Marriott fired a social-media manager for liking a post complimenting the hotel chain for its (unintentional) endorsement of Tibetan independence. Around the same time, Mercedes-Benz issued an apology for quoting the Dalai Lama on Instagram. After learning that one of its t-shirts featured a map of China that didn’t include Taiwan or various disputed islands in the South China Sea, the Gap expressed its regrets and affirmed its respect for “China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Versace apologized for a similar offense last August, saying, “Versace reiterates that we love China deeply, and resolutely respect China’s territory and national sovereignty.”

  By itself, U.S. consumer brands’ disinterest in advocating for Tibetan independence or democracy in Hong Kong isn’t especially concerning. But capitulation on these largely symbolic issues (symbolic in the sense that Gap T-shirts won’t make or break the “Free Tibet” movement) clearly indicate that corporate America is virtually absent of a moral compass or compassion for the oppressed or brutalized. Greed massacres freedom!

  Christians have largely been concerned about Big Brother, and the oppression of biblical values but been oblivious to Big Business’s oppression of Christianity. But corporate America is no friend of grace or the people of God. Think about it. If corporations won’t support the defense of basic human rights by an oppressive regime like China, do we believe that religious freedom won’t also be sacrificed? Giant corporations like Google, Twitter, Facebook have been caught censoring Christian posts and organizations.

  Just consider the malicious media slandering and political blackballing of Chick-fil-a because their owners dare to espouse a biblical worldview. Yet, it’s common knowledge that Chick-fil-A serves, employs, pays, and offers benefits to people who consider themselves gay, queer, lesbian, bi, and any other sexually-specific identity a person wants to claim. They don’t discriminate or show partiality or prejudice. They simply sell chicken sandwiches in clean restaurants (except on Sundays).

  What infuriates those who hold a different worldview is that the owners of Chick-fil-A are Christians who personally hold to a belief in the biblical moral ethic. That’s it! They’re believers striving to honor God and live in obedience to His Word. That obedience means loving others, serving others, helping others and doing all things (even selling chicken sandwiches) as though they’re working for God Himself and not for man.

  Even an innocuous site like Pinterest censors and blocks certain Bible verses and Christian terms in its search engine. While a quick search makes it clear that some Bible verses are still allowed on Pinterest, one employee whistleblower revealed that the company’s auto-complete function was modified and there is hostility against some Christian beliefs. 

  Yet, none of this should surprise us. Jesus promised that, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). While in America we should defend our Constitutional rights while we can, just as the Apostle Paul defended his rights as a Roman citizen, we must also be known as the people of love and grace. We’re to turn the other cheek (Mt. 5:38-40), and love and pray for our enemies (Rom. 12:14-21).

  Most vocations are no longer exempt from the conflict between career and convictions. As Christians, we must develop a “theology of getting fired” and answer the tough questions before they’re forced on us: “What am I willing to take a stand for and get fired over?” God’s grace is sufficient. He has called us to live as His light in an increasingly darkening world. We’re not the first who’ve faced these dilemmas. As God has been faithful to all those who have come before us, He will be faithful to us!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Light in the Persecuted Church

“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.”

Carl F.H. Henry

  How many Bibles do you own? If you add a version of the Bible that you have on your computer and smart phone, how many do you have? If you needed a Bible, how much trouble would it be for you to purchase one?

  Recently, Chinese social media users began noticing that they couldn’t find Bibles listed on some of their nation’s most popular e-commerce platforms. Shoppers who searched the word “Bible” on internet retailers began receiving a “no results” response. Why? The Chinese government had banned Bibles from online purchase but only Christianity is being targeted.

  Among China’s main religions, which include Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and folk beliefs, Christianity is unique for having its writings banned from commercial brick-and-mortar bookstores. Until the internet, Bibles could only be obtained in church bookstores but Christians rightly suspicious of being seen purchasing a Bible were wary of purchasing of them publicly. Sadly, millions of Chinese now have no means of attaining a Bible.

  This latest crackdown on China’s Christians comes two months after the government began implementing other regulations on faith. Now religious groups must have government approval for any sort of religious activity, including using one’s personal home for a religious practice, publishing religious materials, calling oneself a pastor, or studying theology. One provincial government engaged in a multi-year campaign to remove crosses from the tops of churches. Last fall, the Communist party reportedly visited Christian households in the Jiangxi province, forcibly removing dozens of Christian symbols from living rooms and replacing them with pictures of China’s President Xi Jinping.

  In Iran, Islamic Clerics are warning against the spread of Christianity.  House churches are hunted down. Conversion to Christianity is viewed as an action against national security. Still Christianity has been growing at a fast rate in the last couple of decades in Iran, which greatly concerns the Islamic government. Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian News Agency, reports that this high rate of conversion is occurring despite the rigorous Islamic indoctrination of the youth. Waves of arrests and harassment of Christian converts is taking place with many facing long prison sentences.  

  World Magazine (03-31-18) recently reported on the work God is doing in Vietnam. Since 1975, when the United States left Vietnam, the evangelical population in Vietnam has multiplied nearly tenfold from 160,000 to 1.57 million. With the Fall of Saigon, the Communist government kicked out foreign missionaries, commandeered Christian schools and hospitals, and closed churches. Some Vietnamese pastors fled the country on U.S. military planes, leaving their flocks without shepherds.

  Pastor Huy Le of Grace Baptist Church, who was 7 years old at the time, recalls the hunger and suffering his family faced those first few years. The North plundered the resource-rich South and implemented collectivist rice farming, which led to extreme food shortages. Local officials often called in Le’s father, then the pastor at Grace Baptist Church, for interrogations. Authorities closed all the Baptist churches except for Grace Baptist (which only experienced a temporary closure). Le believes it was spared because of its location in Ho Chi Minh City and because his father decided to stay.

  Pastor John Nguyen (not his real name) a house church pastor in Ho Chi Minh City, grew up hating the North Vietnamese. But God worked in his heart and he determined to plant a church in the heart of Vietnamese Communism. He moved to Hanoi and started a small seven-member house church. By 1998, it had grown to 20. Often God kept Nguyen from getting caught by the authorities. Police showed up at Bible training minutes after he stepped out of the room. Once while walking to a training class, he saw police rushing toward the meeting location, so he stayed back. For a time, he moved his Sunday service to 5 a.m. so it’d be over by the time the police started their workday. Pastor Nguyen said, “After being persecuted severely, more churches have been planted. Some places only had one church, but after persecution, it became five. Facing difficulties cannot deter the growth of the church.”   

  God is working! The gospel is reaching the unreached and seemingly unreachable. Some of His greatest work is taking place in what are considered America’s enemies. That’s always been the case for the gospel.

  In Acts 2, Peter preached the gospel to the very ones who crucified Jesus weeks before. The national enemy of those Jews were Romans, yet Paul longed to share the gospel in Rome. Eventually, he went, not as a missionary but as a prisoner and was probably martyred, according to some accounts by the Emperor Nero.

  Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:10-12, 44). 

  Are you obeying? Do you love your enemies? Even our nation’s enemies? Loving your enemy means you pray for them. It means forgiving them. It means praying that God will send out more laborers to work in His harvest fields. Will you pray that God will send more laborers? Will you pray that God will send them out from our own church? 

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Pray for the Persecuted Church!

“If I’m following Christ, why am I such a good insurance risk?”

Ernie Campbell

  According to a disturbing new report, police in China arrested a woman, Xu Shizhen, along with her daughter and 3-year-old grandson, for singing Christian songs in a public park. Recently, China passed even more restrictions of practicing faith that make it illegal to publicly minister if you’re not inside of a church that’s been registered with the government. Christianity Today reports that, according to Chinese advocates inside the country, since the arrest, the three have not been seen.

  “The new religion regulations are sweeping in scope and, if fully enforced, could mean major changes for China’s unregistered church, not only in its worship and meeting practices, but also engagement in areas such as Christian education, media, and interaction with the global church,” wrote ChinaSource president Brent Fulton. “Yet the nature of these activities and, indeed, of much religious practice throughout China, makes enforcement extremely problematic.”

  It appears enforcement, at least in Xu’s Xianan district of Xianning, is going to be very strict. The regulations which include prohibitions against publishing religious materials without approval, accepting donations without approval, or renting space to an unregistered church, don’t even officially go into effect until February 2018. Other provinces have been coming down especially hard on religious education for children. In Zhejiang province—where hundreds of crosses were ripped off of churches over the past several years—elementary and middle school children weren’t allowed to attend church or Sunday school this past summer. In Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang province nicknamed “China’s Jerusalem,” officials warned more than 100 churches to keep their teenagers home from summer camps or Sunday schools. North of Zhejiang, officials in Henan province also forbid church summer camps, claiming the “hot summer temperatures would be unhealthy for youth.”

  China’s young Christians drew international attention over the summer when two were killed by ISIS in Pakistan. Meng Li Si, 26, and Li Xinheng, 24. These two Chinese martyrs were teaching in a private school in Quetta when they were kidnapped and murdered. Their deaths prompted scrutiny from both China and Pakistan. Meng and Li were in Pakistan on business visas, two among thousands of Chinese sent West to help build infrastructure and trade routes as part of China’s “One Belt, One Road” trade push. Chinese believers are using their careers in China’s trade initiatives to send out thousands of lay missionaries to spread the Gospel. Only God could use an atheistic government to unknowingly finance bi-vocational missionaries to share the Gospel in anti-Christian Islamic ones. With the boldness of the early church, believers living under the iron heel of Communism are being imprisoned in their own country or martyred in another for their faith. Not only are Chinese believers sharing their faith in China – risking their lives, children, and property but they’re fanning out over the fields of the world to share the message of God’s grace. And because there are so many of them, and they must be covert, there are no accurate numbers of how many, but there are lots of them.

  At Grace today we are participating in the Annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. It’s tempting to act as if Christianity is American and wrap our faith in the Stars and Stripes. We too easily forget that we have more in common with Christians in China (and around the world) than we do with our unregenerate neighbors who live across the street. They worship the same God, have the same worldview, live life with the same blueprint (the Bible), and hold to the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation and restoration of a relationship with a loving, holy God. They have the same final destination in that we will spend eternity with them worshiping the One who died so that we might live.  

  My heart is often broken as I learn of the suffering of brothers and sisters around the world for the sake of the Gospel. Lately, I’ve been mulling over: When did we start to think that Christianity is supposed to be safe?”

  Christianity has never been safe. Jesus warned us in John 15:20, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” We truly know so little of persecution in Western Civilization. Having a “friend” not invite you to the annual Super Bowl Party or making fun of you behind your back, or even losing your job for your faith – is hardly persecution.

  According to Open Doors USA, a Christian advocacy group focused on ministering to persecuted Christians, 1 in 12 Christians today experiences high, very high or extreme persecution for their faith. Nearly 215 million Christians face high persecution with 100 million of those living in Asia. It’s estimated that between the years 2005 and 2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred. That’s an average of 90,000 Christians each year. 
  How dare we play it safe? How can we rationalize not sharing the Gospel with a lost friend or co-worker because they might not like us anymore? How can we keep silent about our faith with our family because it might cause tension at the annual holiday get-together? Obviously, we should never be rude, insensitive or obnoxious (which sometimes Christians are), but isn’t it time for us, as Christians in America, to stop playing it safe? Jesus didn’t play it “safe” when He came to earth. The Gospel is risky and revolutionary. It should turn your life upside down. It’s also the only hope for a decaying world. True Christianity is anything but safe! 

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.