Welcome back to Liberty Insider.
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Before the break I
was talking with my guest,
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Scott, about Global
System Decline, his book
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and in particular China. Right.
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And as I thought
a number of times
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hearing you talk about it
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and I think China was really
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what got you mind percolating
on--on this whole topic,
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because it was probably
an overwhelming experience,
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the scale, both
of the population
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and of the Chinese society,
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and of the damage that
made to the environment.
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You're absolutely
right, the seeds of my book,
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Planet in Distress were planted
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while I was working in China.
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I saw things there for instance,
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one of the things
I saw was a village
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that was being
moved, building by building.
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Now that's in itself
I guess not so unusual.
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The interesting thing is though
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they had fouled the fields
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so much with pesticides
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and too much
fertilizer and by making bricks.
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Sterile land. It was
sterile, it was useless.
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And they moved the
village on to the farmland
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so that they could farm the land
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that was under the village.
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Hadn't China move
something like 10 million people
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on the Three Gorges Dam?
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A lot of people, I don't know,
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the numbers is big, I
don't know the exact number.
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They're not averse doing that.
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But here what you say
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they had to because it
was just blighted landscape.
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And they're expected -- in China
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the air pollution is incredibly
bad, the water pollution,
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the surface water is almost
universally toxic in China.
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No such thing as a
fresh flowing stream
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as we can occasionally see
in other parts of the world.
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But in China, you know,
it has come to the point
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where it is
dramatically impacting
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their ability
to feed themselves.
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And in this sense
because they've used
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way too much pesticides
and way too much fertilizer,
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and have had another--number
of other adverse practices,
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we are beginning to see in China
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what will happen to
the rest of the world
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which is following
them shortly thereafter.
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Yeah. Do you think--
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I had to pause for a second
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because it just hit me apart
from the system degradation
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that you're
describing, China historically?
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And I studied
Chinese history in college.
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So I have a pretty good
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understanding of
their ancient history.
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And they've not been expensive
or an expansionary nation.
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They're very introspective,
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because they believe
that the rest of the world
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is basically barbarians
and worse than barbarians,
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sort of non-humans.
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It's the middle kingdom
as I remember they call it.
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But it could be
that this desperation
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they're bringing on themselves,
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they might be forced to move out
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in forage in the
rest of the world.
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Well, what you find,
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when it comes to foraging
to the rest of the world,
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what you find is
that no other nation
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is quite so
aggressive as China in going out
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and securing
resources. Absolutely.
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In a trader sense and
tying up access to resources.
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Access to food,
access to minerals,
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access to energy
oils specifically,
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no other nation is as aggressive
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as China and they have to.
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Tell me something,
I'll try to compare
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my experience with yours.
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I was gonna say, I
haven't been to China,
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it's not technically true.
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I have been to Hong Kong
since it became fully China.
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And I've looked
across into the new territory
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that was always
China and still is.
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But I remember what
changed me irreversibly
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when I was
barely out of my teens.
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My father took our
family on a quite a long trip
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through around the
world, but through India.
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We flew into Amritsar,
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took a train across
South of India to New Delhi
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and we spend a few
days doing all of that.
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And I've got to
admit decades later
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my view of humanity is still
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colored by what I saw
there with the teaming masses,
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it's just, it's
something oppressive
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about people just everywhere,
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swirling around
living at all levels.
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Well from the
most degraded streets
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sleeping public
defecation that you can imagine,
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all the way up to
yes, wealthy classy homes.
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But it was
almost oppressive to me
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and I've had great
trouble regaining a sense,
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which the Bible does portray
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that we're all
created in the image of God
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and we're
sovereign human beings.
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I think in China
it must have been
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shocking to your
system the same way
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and it's testing
of the principles
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that God wants us all to know.
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That we respect and love
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and support our
fellow human beings.
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Well, not just that,
you're absolutely right,
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but what really
opened my eyes in China
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is that when you've
got that many people
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and you begin to
have resource shortages,
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the role of government
becomes dramatically expanded
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and far more
oppressive at the same time.
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Because in order for everyone
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to have a little you
have to have regimentation.
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Well, two child
family policy is an example.
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One child I think. It was one.
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Oh, one child. Yeah.
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But anyhow the children
are being killed and aborted
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and all sorts of horrible
things have been visited
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on children and
parents because of that
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and they've been
forced to, I mean,
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they wouldn't
challenge the state normally.
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Well anything that
upsets the equilibrium
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and for my
thinking when it comes down.
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That's a very
Chinese statement of course.
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It is, oh, well I was
in Asia for seven years.
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That's the whole
idea even on medicine
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to keep the balance within
the body and in the cosmos.
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You know, you're in
Asia for seven years
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some of it rubs off on you,
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so it rubs off on me. But--
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Which is not a Christian view,
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you know,
Christianity has goodness
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and evil and good
has to overcome evil.
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As the light
overcome the darkness.
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Yeah. But the
Chinese philosophically,
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eastern philosophical view
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is to keep things in-- Balance.
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In stasis and I
think myself that comes,
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that's really Satan has somehow
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communicated that to mankind.
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Well, I think the yin
and the yang is also part of,
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yeah, what's
being discussed here.
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The light and the dark,
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the hot and the
cold, it's only opposites.
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Yeah, when it comes to
Eastern thinking though,
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you know, Chinese thinking.
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I mean, these aren't bad people.
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Wonderful,
wonderful friends in China,
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but these are people in
China who are experiencing
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what the rest of the
world will soon experience,
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which is growing
resources shortages.
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Fortunately they have--
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they're in
better financial shape
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than many other countries.
They can deal with some of it.
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And yet this
should be a solid warning
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to the rest of the world.
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You know, there are
not only hard times coming,
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there are times
coming that fulfill prophecy.
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It's very much like, you know,
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forgetting the
American publicist
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who wrote that these are
the times that test men's souls.
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Oh, yeah, I know the quote
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but I can't help you
with the attribution.
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But I was moving toward,
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I think Chinese society
has always been this way,
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Asian societies.
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But with the
stress that's coming,
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the individual gives way
to the demands of the whole
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and that is already there
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and if it comes
more so into the west,
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it's going to be the
almost the death knell
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for liberty of conscious,
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for religious freedom. Exactly.
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And seeking your
own way to the creator.
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When you have
resource shortages,
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you have more
totalitarian governments.
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You have more
oppressive governments,
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more
regimentation, and the liberty
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that we have to work,
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the freedom that we have to
proclaim Christ is curtailed.
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Inevitably-- Yeah.
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And you know, we can't
change this by talking about it,
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but I think it's a solitary
lesson for the viewer and us,
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we need to recognize
that this is the dynamic
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that's marching upon us. Yes.
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And so if we value the
civil and religious freedom
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we've got to be at prance
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to protect them
against this center,
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because there is a
certain logic with it,
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it's the logic of survival
in some ways for the species
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from the point of a
view of a secular society.
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Got to control and control,
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but when such a group
asks something in view
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that against your conscious,
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you know, where do you go?
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Or even just limits
your ability to pursue
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those things that
are important to you,
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in this case,
witnessing for Christ.
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You know we were told,
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we've been told for sometime
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that where we fail to work
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when the times are good,
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we will have to work
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when the times are bad. Yeah.
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And interestingly enough
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what I'm trying
to say in my book is,
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it's not just
something that we think
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we might be able to see a
little bit on the horizon.
00:09:05.83\00:09:07.84
We can actually see the--
Oh, it's beginning rapidly.
00:09:07.85\00:09:10.27
We can see the
clouds billow and darken
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and we can feel
the wind begin to blow.
00:09:11.92\00:09:14.79
We need to take to our heart
the warning that we have now.
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Work while we can.
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And we should, I
should clearly point out
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what you know, that
Christianity for example,
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is growing a
place in China or even
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in this difficult times. Yeah.
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It's a strange
combination of official
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government control
the religious entities,
00:09:30.75\00:09:33.33
the three self movement,
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which is not a
good dynamic but within
00:09:34.84\00:09:36.94
that dynamic people of faith
are flourishing and outside
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that in the
home church movement.
00:09:40.96\00:09:44.85
No one can really
put numbers on it.
00:09:44.86\00:09:46.44
But it's clearly large.
00:09:46.45\00:09:47.47
Ever now and
again the government
00:09:47.48\00:09:48.68
clamps down on it and
makes public statements.
00:09:48.69\00:09:50.30
So we know that
the Chinese government
00:09:50.31\00:09:52.47
is self seizing is
something they must deal with.
00:09:52.48\00:09:55.95
Man is naturally spiritual
00:09:55.96\00:09:58.04
and the interesting
thing about the dynamic
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that we're
coming, the new paradigm
00:10:01.05\00:10:02.31
if you want to put it that way.
00:10:02.32\00:10:03.55
End time paradigm,
00:10:03.56\00:10:05.29
is that as you get
resource shortages,
00:10:05.30\00:10:08.83
as you get
conflict, as you get tension,
00:10:08.84\00:10:11.27
man turns back
toward a spiritual nature.
00:10:11.28\00:10:15.04
This, it's
difficult times coming,
00:10:15.05\00:10:17.75
but it's also tremendous,
tremendous opportunity.
00:10:17.76\00:10:20.27
Absolutely. We have
an article coming up
00:10:20.28\00:10:22.52
that I was telling you about as
00:10:22.53\00:10:23.66
we were
traveling to this program.
00:10:23.67\00:10:25.68
In Liberty Magazine,
00:10:25.69\00:10:26.72
we've got, the
spread's already done
00:10:26.73\00:10:27.96
and it's a little article
called the Promise Persecution.
00:10:27.97\00:10:30.64
And it quotes Jesus about how
00:10:30.65\00:10:32.17
persecution is to
come at the end of time.
00:10:32.18\00:10:34.95
And it tells
stories in modern day China,
00:10:34.96\00:10:37.64
about Christians struggling
for their Religious Freedom.
00:10:37.65\00:10:42.13
That's a nice little article,
00:10:42.14\00:10:43.25
it's all against double spread
picture of a city skyline.
00:10:43.26\00:10:48.05
Very impressive
and a number of people
00:10:48.06\00:10:50.41
who have come into my
office and have looked at it
00:10:50.42\00:10:51.69
and they have
said, that's New York.
00:10:51.70\00:10:53.54
Well, actually
it's Shanghai. Shanghai.
00:10:53.55\00:10:56.08
A modern vibrant city,
00:10:56.09\00:10:59.63
but yet at the same
time a huge persecution.
00:10:59.64\00:11:01.69
And so a lot of
what you're saying,
00:11:01.70\00:11:04.10
I think comes to roost there.
00:11:04.11\00:11:05.89
Even in this modernizing context
00:11:05.90\00:11:08.53
where they're just sucking
drive the natural resources.
00:11:08.54\00:11:11.66
Religious Freedom
is struggling against
00:11:11.67\00:11:13.88
the inhibition
and succeeding. Yeah.
00:11:13.89\00:11:16.19
Well what we've always had
00:11:16.20\00:11:17.68
we're going to
have less and less of
00:11:17.69\00:11:21.51
and other parts of the world,
00:11:21.52\00:11:23.19
yes, have advanced tremendously
00:11:23.20\00:11:25.12
and had become very
competitive and very large.
00:11:25.13\00:11:28.07
But they have
the same needs as us.
00:11:28.08\00:11:29.53
The need for religious freedom
00:11:29.54\00:11:30.99
to honor and serve the Creator.
00:11:31.00\00:11:32.57
Yeah,
absolutely and so you know,
00:11:32.58\00:11:36.17
I mean one of the
things to take home
00:11:36.18\00:11:39.06
and to take--
not just to take home
00:11:39.07\00:11:40.19
but to take to heart
is that the age in which
00:11:40.20\00:11:43.98
we have grown up as a church,
00:11:43.99\00:11:47.01
an age of relative peace
00:11:47.02\00:11:48.82
and relative plenty
has really come to an end.
00:11:48.83\00:11:51.87
The world has
reached a tipping point
00:11:51.88\00:11:53.71
and it's downhill from hereon.
00:11:53.72\00:11:55.69
So will we rise to
our calling as Adventists
00:11:55.70\00:11:58.60
and as Christians
to spread the word?
00:11:58.61\00:12:00.72
Will we tend to take
the work that's at hand?
00:12:00.73\00:12:03.31
What does Religious
Freedom mean to you?
00:12:05.46\00:12:08.60
A few years ago, I
filmed a short promotional video
00:12:08.61\00:12:12.20
during the World Conference
00:12:12.21\00:12:14.11
of the Seventh-day Adventist
Church in Toronto, Canada.
00:12:14.12\00:12:16.80
With a rowing cameraman
00:12:16.81\00:12:18.07
we moved around among
the international crowd
00:12:18.08\00:12:20.87
asking them the
leading question.
00:12:20.88\00:12:23.11
What does Religious
Liberty mean to you?
00:12:23.12\00:12:26.40
We got some wonderful responses,
00:12:26.41\00:12:28.54
but the one that
struck in my mind
00:12:28.55\00:12:30.03
the most was we came
up to this middle aged
00:12:30.04\00:12:33.04
and perhaps a little
older Chinese gentlemen
00:12:33.05\00:12:35.91
and put the camera in his face
00:12:35.92\00:12:37.86
and microphone underneath
00:12:37.87\00:12:39.07
and asked him the
question and he said,
00:12:39.08\00:12:41.16
Religious Liberty
means everything to me.
00:12:41.17\00:12:43.50
He said, I spent
20 years in prison
00:12:43.51\00:12:45.95
in China for my faith.
00:12:45.96\00:12:48.70
That's still the
case for some people.
00:12:48.71\00:12:51.15
Religion is
struggling for free expression
00:12:51.16\00:12:54.28
in the communist
country of China.
00:12:54.29\00:12:56.29
A country that is making
the industrial world fear
00:12:56.30\00:12:59.62
because of its rising dominance,
00:12:59.63\00:13:02.05
but the spiritual
world must pay attention
00:13:02.06\00:13:04.79
because God's people
00:13:04.80\00:13:06.86
even in China are
determined to serve God,
00:13:06.87\00:13:10.13
to find God, to worship God,
00:13:10.14\00:13:12.48
no matter what the penalty,
00:13:12.49\00:13:14.96
that is clearly
Religious Freedom.
00:13:14.97\00:13:19.54
For Liberty
Insider, this Lincoln Steed.
00:13:19.55\00:13:22.60