Last year, the Chinese government sanctioned a conference to be held at the Beijing Convention Center and attended by more than 2,000 government officials or designees. Christian professionals were asked to address a specific question: “How would opening the door to Christianity benefit China?”
John D. Morris, Ph.D., administrative vice president and professor of geology at the Institute for Creation Research, was asked to lecture at the conference and help plan the agenda.
Although the conference did not take place as proposed, it is interesting to study Dr. Morris’ syllabus for the meetings.
“My proposal was based on several premises,” said Dr. Morris. “In order for government officials to recognize the benefits of Christianity, they must first know what Christianity is…I assumed that they had only heard an incorrect caricature of Christianity, and that they labored under the misconception that scholarship and Christianity are incompatible.”
Dr. Morris planned a syllabus with each lecture building on the material covered in previous lectures, so that an integrated Christian worldview would result. The 13 lectures covered (1) biblical flow of history, (2) origin of the nations (including China), (3) scientific support for creation, (4) ideas have consequences, (5) what is man, (6) Christian principles in human affairs, (7) Christian principles in the business world, (8) impact of capitalism in China, (9) Christian principles in health care, (10) social diseases and their causes, (11) educational philosophies, (12) Christian principles in civic leadership, and (13) Christian principles and personal implications.
“The conference never occurred as proposed,” Morris said, “yet the need still remains for a clear presentation of the Christian worldview and its potential application in Chinese society.”
Here is a summary of Lecture 8, “The Impact of Capitalism in China.”
China has recently opened its doors to capitalism and foreign investments. But, if capitalism is free to grow without constraint, it will bring much evil, since man’s basic nature is one of greed and dominance. Capitalism may prove productive in the short run, but at what cost? The concept of laissez-faire capitalism, with its creeds of “might makes right,” exploitation of the working class, and “survival of the fittest,” has come to be known as social Darwinism. In the long run, it will destroy a society and its economy.
The Bible teaches individual enterprise — man living by the works of his hands. Necessary Christian virtues include hard work, respect for fellow man, honesty in business, etc. Large multinational corporations are not specifically condemned, but unless accompanied by Christian virtues, they will yield harmful results, as they frequently have in the West.
For more information on Dr. Morris’ syllabus, write Institute for Creation Research, P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, California 92021.
An Answer for Challenging Times
We live in exciting and challenging times. As difficult as they may seem, they do not compare to the dark days of the Civil War, when [the U.S.] was nearly torn asunder, and when the American experiment in self-government very nearly perished from the face of the earth. At a particularly perilous and pivotal moment in that conflict, as brother faced brother across a thousand bloody battlefields, Abraham Lincoln received a letter from a clergyman who assured him, “God is on our side.”
Lincoln replied as only he could. “I know that the Lord is always on the side of right,” he said. “But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” His concern was that he was doing God’s work, not the other way around.
Lincoln’s prayer must be our prayer: To be found on His side, not only in what we say, but in how we say it. Not only in public, but in private. Not only in our words, but in our deeds. Not only in what we stand against, but even more importantly, in what we stand for. Not only in who we are, but in who we strive to become.
- Ralph E. Reed, Jr. Executive Director, Christian Coalition
Sign of the Times?
Chances are Karl Marx, the man who reviled religion as the opiate of the masses, never foresaw the day when communism would acknowledge, much less promote, Christianity. Nonetheless, the in-house newspaper of the West’s largest Communist party, L’Unita, gave away copies of the New Testament of the Bible in order to boost sale of its November 1994 edition. (from New Man)
Finding the Truth
On the east wall of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. is a panel titled “The Power of Government.” There is engraved the basis for judicial law: the Ten Commandments. This is the “moral law of God” spoken of in the Bible (Exodus 20:1-17).
Also in Washington is the Jefferson Memorial, engraved with the words of Jefferson:
“God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation remain secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
The Christian Faith of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen was not only the leader of China’s national, political, and social revolutions, but he was also the leader of the Chinese people’s revolution in religion, thought, and spirit.
In his last testament, he wrote, “I am a Christian who was mandated by the Lord God to declare war on sin and Satan. When I die, I want people to know that I was a Christian.”
His son noted, “The day before my father departed this earth, he bore witness to the fact that he was a Christian and that he had fought with the devil for more than 40 years. He said that we ought to fight in the same way and even more than that, we should believe in God.”
For more information, read The (Christian) Faith of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Overseas Missionary Fellowship (see page 18 for address).
Christian Radio in China
Yes, there is Christian radio in China. It’s broadcast from outside the country. If you’d like to tell your family and friends in China where they can listen, write for a free list (in Chinese) of radio frequencies, times, languages, and programs: Far East Broadcasting Company, P.O. Box 2016, Monterey Park, CA 91754; (213) 264-2641 telephone, (213) 264-2669 fax.
Also available on shortwave radio is Hui Dao Sheng Jing (“Back to the Bible”). The daily radio program has been broadcast to China from transmitters in Guam since September 1994. The 30-minute programs are broadcast throughout China, Monday through Friday, 8:10 p.m. to 8:40 p.m., on shortwave radio, 9875 and 9820 on meterband 31.
Christian radio programs generate many letters from Chinese listeners. “I am one of those who has by the Lord’s mercy been saved,” wrote one listener. “God has blessed me so much….I turned on the radio at 8:10 p.m. and heard your preaching. I was so happy.”
Question and Answer
Question: Can [you] by searching find out God? (Job 11:17 KJV).
Answer: And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13 NKJ).
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through Me” (John 14:6 NKJ).
“Search the Scriptures, for in them … you have eternal life; and these … testify of Me” (John 5:39 NKJ).
If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God (John 7:17 NKJ).
Notable Quotes
If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something – some Real Morality – for them to be true about … If the Rule of Decent Behavior meant simply “whatever each nation happens to approve,” there would be no sense in saying … that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse.
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
But for the Bible we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare … are to be found portrayed in it.
- Abraham Lincoln
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous.
- Frederick Douglass, 19th-century abolitionist
