CHINESE (NON) ENTERTAINMENT

The Economist magazine recently reported that “according to an order that took effect on Jan. 1st this year, China’s 34 satellite television stations must limit ‘excessive and vulgar content’”. The Economist noted that “compared with offerings in other countries, China’s television fare is already quite tame. Viewers looking for sex, nudity, gore or crude language will search in vain”. That sounds wonderfully unbelievable! But things are evidently getting tighter still: since Jan. 1st in the 7.30 p.m. – 10 p.m. Chinese “Gold Time” viewing slot there must now be two 30 min. news broadcasts and only 90 min of lighter shows. A much loved singing contest “Super Girl” has been axed. Chinese tastes are clearly being brought to heel!

I found this action from an atheist dictatorship very intriguing. Obviously the government was not acting out of any Christian moral imperative! In fact the article went on to make clear that the reason for this "entertainment" reduction was that the leadership considered the youth of China were being poisoned by such stuff, the poison being a foreign culture and ideology which would “westernise and divide” China. In other words, the government’s motive was totally political and anti-western.

Imagine this censorship happening in Britain! It would be an immediate end to David Cameron. The fact that it can actually happen in China indicates how strong a grip the government still has over the people, despite the enormous strides to free expression the Chinese people have taken. But that grip will soon loosen, and China may burst into its own “Arab Spring” with a new and more successful Tiananmen Square revolt. That is what the Chinese government most fear, and what makes this bit of news (in a year when Chinese leadership will change) all the more surprising. If China does have its “Arab Spring” then it can burst into “freedom” and enjoy as much sex and gore as it pleases – it will have become truly civilized! What an extraordinary choice we have here; political freedom and all the uncontrolled media flood of moral decadence or dictatorship with a realistic censorship on such decadence.


Though expressly political, I suspect that the authorities are also motivated by the fact that much of western behaviour as portrayed on television is decadent behaviour, and not in the long term in the interests of a vigorous state. Be that as it may, China, along with other large cultural areas of the world has come to identify the West with pleasure loving and loose behaviour. Western permissive liberalism is seen not only a political but a moral affront as well. We need to remember that, though embraced by many, such permissiveness is despised not only in China but by many across the world. There are many eyes that are not blinded to the fact that modern western “democracy” has some very dark features. It’s a sad reflection on our society when even atheistic communism has to repel its invidious influence. It’s even sadder when such permissiveness is actively associated with the concept of Christianity. But when we see the continuous moral decline on our own television screens, and see it hour after hour we should not be surprised.

It leaves me more than ever grateful for the advance of the gospel world-wide that western society by the grace of God provided over the last three centuries from the 1700s. As a consequence of that China will have its millions of Christians who will despise an evil television diet and will not need government legislation I’m thankful that genuine Christian mission continues to do the same today through so many faithful witnesses. But it means there is a continuing and desperate need for all Christians to propagate a genuine Christian message of a life of joy and peace through righteous and godly living.



Bob ( N.B.There will be no blog next Tues (14th))

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THE PLIGHT OF MAN

The title of this column, “The Plight of Man” seems rather old fashioned, but it conveys the sense of a desperate need in humanity, a need which has not gone away with the years. I have recently felt the weight of that need more and more, and I cannot find a better phrase.

This phrase has come afresh to me as a result of a more intensive look at the nations of the world and especially perhaps at looking at India. Operation World, the Prayer Guide to Every Nation, says quite bluntly, “India has more human need than any other nation”. It goes on to note that poverty affects hundreds of millions, a poverty that often means utter destitution; forty per cent in India live below the poverty line. Poverty abounds not only in the vast cities but throughout the whole of rural India. This is the truth behind a nation which now boasts a middle class of 350 million and the fourth largest number of billionaires. These merely stand astride a mountain of people in poverty and do not hide the plight of most.

One could add much more to that picture of need. For example an estimated 900,000 people (almost a million) in India die through drinking unclean water or through pollution, 35 million children under 15 are orphans whilst 20 million are child labourers and 1.2 million are involved in prostitution. This is just scratching the surface. The list of such appalling needs is a very long one.

I have cited India, but the truth is, of course, that gross human need, human suffering and distress abound wherever you turn in the world. It affects billions. In the U.K. we are remarkably sheltered from what so many suffer, and the weight of it scarcely touches us, even if we are by no means entirely sheltered from the experiences of need and suffering. It does us no harm to look hard and wide at this panorama of distress and let the “plight of man” start to weigh heavy on heart and mind. It certainly galvanises prayer.

This panorama does not speak simply of widespread and appalling physical and social need, however. It also speaks very loudly of a profound moral plight among mankind. For the simple fact of the matter is that a vast amount of the need and pain and suffering is due to the failings of human behaviour. The plight of man is in fact fundamentally a moral problem. Selfish greed and desire for power spawns corruption and violence. Corruption, feeding on the growth of wealth in the world, is a fast growing and world-wide moral disease. It is avid corruption, not least in high places, which in large measure keeps India and Africa in their backward and needy positions, and corruption is increasing rapidly in the West. The new rich India makes very little progress in getting its act together for the relief of its poor.
The fact is that the responsibility for the plight of mankind rests at mankind’s own door, and mankind on the whole shows a remarkable disinterest in helping its own kind.

Some will no doubt say I should look at things from the other end and see the good in the world – see the glass as half full, not half empty. I think that, however, just evades facing the fact of the desperate nature of the plight of man; it’s rather like saying look at your good finger when four others are broken. No, we need to face what we are like and the awfulness of our predicament. The plight of man is his massive moral deficiency, his huge fall from grace, causing mayhem among his own species.

That plight is, of course, precisely what God is earnestly seeking to impress on people. What has so recently weighed on me is the utter blindness of humanity to its moral predicament. Such blindness has brought incalculable pain to this earth. It’s the blindness of self-seeking. Much as people react against such a biblical expression, the truth resounding all around us is that “the wages of sin is death”. Humanity’s despite of such an expression is the measure of it’s plight, and more than that, it has brought a complete failure to recognise that what we see on this earth as a consequence of our “sin” is a picture of what we shall see intensified after death if we do face up to our moral failure. We should not be too quick to dismiss eternal pain when we see pain all too readily spread out before us every day of this life.

After all, this is precisely what Jesus came to point out. Eternal consequences were not a matter he touched only lightly; it was a major theme. He not only made a strong call to repent now and live uprightly before our fellow human beings, but he spoke of eternal life to come and he spoke of with severe warning of the need to make peace with our Maker through his death. The plight of man is a matter for now and for eternity. That is what makes it so weighty.

The plight of man is much, much deeper and dangerous and threatening than we are prone to think. We should all be better if it made us shudder.


Bob


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THE POWER AND HOPE OF THE GOSPEL

I mentioned a fortnight ago that my local church is engaged in a month of prayer over January. My own involvement has been in leading prayer for the world. The research and reading behind that world prayer (much of it from “Operation World”) has given me a fresh sense of spiritual hope as we walk into a very uncertain year ahead. Two of the areas of the world we have majored on in prayer have been China and Africa (China having the larger population!). When we look back over the last century we find that, from the point of view of the gospel and the growth of the church, both these areas show something quite staggering, something that releases a deep joy.

I was reminded yet again that the number of evangelical Christians in China has grown from some 2.7 million in 1975 to over 75 million (some would say more) in 2010. There has been a huge and ongoing revival, with demonstrations of New Testament power. Christians are now to be found in every stratum of Chinese society, with many vibrant urban professional churches. There is a very high commitment level in the church, and “missionary vision” is widespread. There is already a strategic and growing Chinese “diaspora” across the world, a ready vehicle for witness.

We see something similar when we look at Africa. In the 20th century evangelical Christians grew from 1.6 million in 1900 to 182 million in 2010. This is as many as all evangelicals in the Americas combined and is the largest evangelical population of any continent. African Christianity has established itself as a truly potent force, both on the continent and on a global level. It has some of the largest churches in the world, some of the largest prayer gatherings and initiatives and a strong world mission vision.

It was not simply this growth in itself, however, that brought a fresh sense of hope. It had, for me, much more to do with the fact that this had all happened against a background of appalling historical events. The 20th century was not a peaceful century. Europe virtually destroyed itself and its empires by widespread murderous wars. But neither was it peaceful for China; Japanese invasion in the 1930s devastated the proud “Kingdom”, and after W.W.2 the Communist revolution brought further devastation and widespread death, both to the nation and the church.
And yet out of all that carnage came the staggering growth of a massive evangelistic and missionary minded church of a kind which has been described as having “no parallel in history".

When we look at Africa we see the same basic story. Dominated and exploited by European powers for the first half of the 20th century, the second half saw Africa dominated by the struggle for independent nationhood, and that brought a worse story of corrupt despots, war, genocide, displacement of millions and rapid expansion of diseases, including the scourge of AIDS. It still continues. Yet that is the background to the massive advance of the gospel of Jesus in Africa.

One is left full of praise to God that despite the self centred wrath of man and the devastations it causes, God has been utterly faithful to his promise that Jesus would be a Light to the world and his gospel would be preached in all the world. Yes, “the people who lived in darkness have seen a great light” Isaiah 11.


When I see the portents of chaos for the coming century it is difficult in the natural to feel optimistic. But one thing is absolutely certain; whatever may come in the way of the judgement of God or the wrath of man, nothing will stop further years of the fulfillment of God’s purposes. That is the lesson of history. As Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”. The warlike, cruel and corrupt earthly principalities, try as they might, will not hold back the Kingdom of God. There will be further great harvests. That is a matter for great rejoicing, for those whose “citizenship is in heaven”!

In all thiis we are not merely talking about church statistics, but about the lives of people who will find hope and an eternal salvation. That's the real joy. It is for that reason that Paul wrote, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord”. Prayer is a very important part of that work.




Bob


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