By Wang Jiapu
Q: If America is a Christian nation, why is there so much greed, corruption, drug abuse, and violence?
A: There is no doubt that America was founded upon Christianity. This has been reflected in her Constitution, her cultural heritage, her economic system, and her people. Despite all the social ills mentioned above, most of us Chinese students studying here would say that America is still the greatest nation of today, and it is hard for us to imagine how great she was in her early years, before atheistic and socialistic ideas corrupted her youth.
A careful study of America’s recent history clearly reveals the fact that her moral decline began due to a group of socialists planting poisonous seeds of rebellion, class hatred, covetousness, and self-centeredness into the minds of young Americans through public education, entertainment and media. Their agenda has been to turn America into an atheistic, socialistic state, and they have largely achieved their goals over the last 50 years. The outcome of their success is for everybody to see.
There is still hope for America, but the lesson we can draw from the history of this country is that the Bible is true in saying, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Our prayer and hope is that China will wash away her sin in the blood of Jesus and rise up in righteousness! Yes, China will become a Christian nation!
Q: Does it really make any difference what kind of government a country has as long as it allows free enterprise?
A: The Bible teaches that God is the Creator and sovereign Master of everything in this universe. Nations are His political creations. Just as He established all the physical laws to hold the material world together, He also has His eternal standards for every nation to live up to. These standards of God and the principles derived from them are universal in nature and encompass every conceivable area of life in any human society, such as the judiciary system (law-making, court system, etc.), agriculture, family, business, religion, individual life, and international policy. A nation can make a conscious decision to live by those principles – God calls such a nation righteous; or it can choose to ignore the sovereignty of God and live apart from them – God defines this kind of attitude and action as sin.
Free enterprise is but one of many things that a nation is supposed to practice in obedience to God. A government that claims to allow free enterprise and yet allows outrageous corruption go unchallenged, deprives the people of their unalienable rights endowed by their Creator as enumerated in the Bible, sheds innocent blood without remorse, has in reality set itself up against the Master of the universe. This great sin causes everything in the land to suffer: babies die, women are treated as inferior, and the environment is abused. In a country tyrannized by this kind of government, free enterprise simply cannot survive.
Having said all this, it must also be noted that even the best free enterprise system is doomed to failure unless the hearts of the people are internally governed by God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A song named “America, the Beautiful” expressed these ideals of the American people: They asked God to “confirm America’s soul with self-control, her liberty in law”; they also asked God to refine their nation “till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine.”
Q: If Christianity is the truth, why do the majority of scientists today no longer believe in it?
A: Unbelief did not begin in our age. Yet there is something special about our time: Evolutionary theory is taught as established fact in the public schools of almost every country. There is definitely a group of people that are doing everything they can to keep the public (even a lot of scientists) unaware of the overwhelming amount of scientific, archaeological and anthropological evidence that testifies to the truthfulness of the Bible. Despite all these concerted efforts, more and more scientists are coming to see these facts and many are becoming Christians.
Of course, the unbelievers did not take God by surprise. He knows the hearts of men and said in the Bible that His divine nature and eternal power are clearly seen in the creation; that deep down inside every man knows that there is a Creator-Master to whom he has to give an account of his thoughts and actions; that because of men’s wicked lifestyle, they choose to deceive themselves into worshiping created things (be it Buddha, animals, Mao Zedong, movie stars, oneself, wealth, science, etc.) rather than the righteous Creator, and in doing so, their thinking becomes futile and their foolish hearts are darkened. In other words, sinful men’s thinking always tries to justify what they desire and lust after, being deceived and deceiving others.
So the fact is, the truth stands in spite of the ever-complicated ways of deception invented by men, and I challenge you, dear friend, to honestly study the facts for yourself. Jesus Himself will never disappoint those who earnestly seek the truth, and He promised to liberate them from spiritual and intellectual darkness.
If you have questions about Christianity that you would like us to answer, or if you would like more information on how to follow Jesus, please write to The Mandate, P.O. Box 14394, Durham, North Carolina 27709-3892.
