Vigil for Tortured Falun Gong in China
Meant to link this Wall Street Journal article yesterday for anyone who didn’t see it. It reports a growing rebellion among Chinese Protestants who are demanding greater religious liberties in that authoritarian nation. Religion in China today is all state sponsored.
“Let your descendants become great politicians like Joseph and Daniel,” Beijing Zion Church, Pastor Jin Mingri is quoted in the story as recently saying.“Let them influence the future course of this country.”
Words like that would have been unheard of in China a decade or two ago. They are virtually unheard of today. And yet they are beginning to be said, with increasing frequency, from pulpits around that country, The Journal reports.
For those who believe that freedom is the eventual state of mankind, China is in the very early stages of an individualist revolt. The student revolt in 1989 was snuffed out violently in Tienanmen Square, but the China of today is far different from the China of 1989. Its population is better educated and its eyes are open far wider thanks to technology and a taste of economic freedom.
The U.S. appears to be the nation in great social and economic upheaval today. But in my lifetime, or in my children’s lifetime, a far greater upheaval is historically inevitable on the other side of the globe. Freedom is life. It is uncontainable.
That is why I try to tell people to ease their tendency toward protectionist/Sinophobic rhetoric and beliefs. China is clearly ascendant economically and, yes, militarily, but how our relationship develops over time is largely in the hands of a billion individuals that want and deserve to experience liberty. In a slow, but measured way they are realizing that they have the numbers to overcome the illusory power of the “State.”
Well said, SS.