Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Scott Christiansen
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000174B
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00:03 Welcome back to Liberty Insider.
00:05 Before the break I was talking with my guest, 00:10 Scott, about Global System Decline, his book 00:14 and in particular China. Right. 00:17 And as I thought a number of times 00:19 hearing you talk about it 00:20 and I think China was really 00:22 what got you mind percolating on--on this whole topic, 00:25 because it was probably an overwhelming experience, 00:27 the scale, both of the population 00:30 and of the Chinese society, 00:32 and of the damage that made to the environment. 00:37 You're absolutely right, the seeds of my book, 00:41 Planet in Distress were planted 00:44 while I was working in China. 00:47 I saw things there for instance, 00:48 one of the things I saw was a village 00:51 that was being moved, building by building. 00:53 Now that's in itself I guess not so unusual. 00:57 The interesting thing is though 00:58 they had fouled the fields 01:00 so much with pesticides 01:02 and too much fertilizer and by making bricks. 01:05 Sterile land. It was sterile, it was useless. 01:08 And they moved the village on to the farmland 01:10 so that they could farm the land 01:12 that was under the village. 01:13 Hadn't China move something like 10 million people 01:17 on the Three Gorges Dam? 01:18 A lot of people, I don't know, 01:20 the numbers is big, I don't know the exact number. 01:22 They're not averse doing that. 01:24 But here what you say 01:25 they had to because it was just blighted landscape. 01:28 And they're expected -- in China 01:31 the air pollution is incredibly bad, the water pollution, 01:35 the surface water is almost universally toxic in China. 01:39 No such thing as a fresh flowing stream 01:41 as we can occasionally see in other parts of the world. 01:44 But in China, you know, it has come to the point 01:47 where it is dramatically impacting 01:49 their ability to feed themselves. 01:52 And in this sense because they've used 01:55 way too much pesticides and way too much fertilizer, 01:58 and have had another--number of other adverse practices, 02:02 we are beginning to see in China 02:05 what will happen to the rest of the world 02:07 which is following them shortly thereafter. 02:11 Yeah. Do you think-- 02:13 I had to pause for a second 02:14 because it just hit me apart from the system degradation 02:18 that you're describing, China historically? 02:21 And I studied Chinese history in college. 02:23 So I have a pretty good 02:25 understanding of their ancient history. 02:27 And they've not been expensive or an expansionary nation. 02:33 They're very introspective, 02:34 because they believe that the rest of the world 02:36 is basically barbarians and worse than barbarians, 02:39 sort of non-humans. 02:40 It's the middle kingdom as I remember they call it. 02:44 But it could be that this desperation 02:46 they're bringing on themselves, 02:47 they might be forced to move out 02:49 in forage in the rest of the world. 02:51 Well, what you find, 02:53 when it comes to foraging to the rest of the world, 02:54 what you find is that no other nation 02:57 is quite so aggressive as China in going out 03:00 and securing resources. Absolutely. 03:02 In a trader sense and tying up access to resources. 03:06 Access to food, access to minerals, 03:08 access to energy oils specifically, 03:12 no other nation is as aggressive 03:14 as China and they have to. 03:16 Tell me something, I'll try to compare 03:18 my experience with yours. 03:20 I was gonna say, I haven't been to China, 03:22 it's not technically true. 03:23 I have been to Hong Kong since it became fully China. 03:26 And I've looked across into the new territory 03:28 that was always China and still is. 03:32 But I remember what changed me irreversibly 03:35 when I was barely out of my teens. 03:39 My father took our family on a quite a long trip 03:42 through around the world, but through India. 03:44 We flew into Amritsar, 03:47 took a train across South of India to New Delhi 03:50 and we spend a few days doing all of that. 03:54 And I've got to admit decades later 03:58 my view of humanity is still 04:01 colored by what I saw there with the teaming masses, 04:04 it's just, it's something oppressive 04:06 about people just everywhere, 04:09 swirling around living at all levels. 04:12 Well from the most degraded streets 04:15 sleeping public defecation that you can imagine, 04:18 all the way up to yes, wealthy classy homes. 04:22 But it was almost oppressive to me 04:24 and I've had great trouble regaining a sense, 04:29 which the Bible does portray 04:31 that we're all created in the image of God 04:33 and we're sovereign human beings. 04:37 I think in China it must have been 04:39 shocking to your system the same way 04:40 and it's testing of the principles 04:43 that God wants us all to know. 04:44 That we respect and love 04:46 and support our fellow human beings. 04:48 Well, not just that, you're absolutely right, 04:52 but what really opened my eyes in China 04:54 is that when you've got that many people 04:57 and you begin to have resource shortages, 05:00 the role of government becomes dramatically expanded 05:04 and far more oppressive at the same time. 05:06 Because in order for everyone 05:08 to have a little you have to have regimentation. 05:11 Well, two child family policy is an example. 05:16 One child I think. It was one. 05:17 Oh, one child. Yeah. 05:18 But anyhow the children are being killed and aborted 05:22 and all sorts of horrible things have been visited 05:26 on children and parents because of that 05:28 and they've been forced to, I mean, 05:30 they wouldn't challenge the state normally. 05:32 Well anything that upsets the equilibrium 05:34 and for my thinking when it comes down. 05:36 That's a very Chinese statement of course. 05:38 It is, oh, well I was in Asia for seven years. 05:41 That's the whole idea even on medicine 05:42 to keep the balance within the body and in the cosmos. 05:46 You know, you're in Asia for seven years 05:48 some of it rubs off on you, 05:49 so it rubs off on me. But-- 05:51 Which is not a Christian view, 05:53 you know, Christianity has goodness 05:56 and evil and good has to overcome evil. 05:59 As the light overcome the darkness. 06:01 Yeah. But the Chinese philosophically, 06:04 eastern philosophical view 06:05 is to keep things in-- Balance. 06:08 In stasis and I think myself that comes, 06:12 that's really Satan has somehow 06:14 communicated that to mankind. 06:16 Well, I think the yin and the yang is also part of, 06:19 yeah, what's being discussed here. 06:20 The light and the dark, 06:22 the hot and the cold, it's only opposites. 06:24 Yeah, when it comes to Eastern thinking though, 06:29 you know, Chinese thinking. 06:31 I mean, these aren't bad people. 06:35 Wonderful, wonderful friends in China, 06:37 but these are people in China who are experiencing 06:42 what the rest of the world will soon experience, 06:44 which is growing resources shortages. 06:47 Fortunately they have-- 06:49 they're in better financial shape 06:51 than many other countries. They can deal with some of it. 06:53 And yet this should be a solid warning 06:56 to the rest of the world. 06:57 You know, there are not only hard times coming, 07:01 there are times coming that fulfill prophecy. 07:04 It's very much like, you know, 07:07 forgetting the American publicist 07:12 who wrote that these are the times that test men's souls. 07:15 Oh, yeah, I know the quote 07:16 but I can't help you with the attribution. 07:18 But I was moving toward, 07:20 I think Chinese society has always been this way, 07:25 Asian societies. 07:26 But with the stress that's coming, 07:28 the individual gives way to the demands of the whole 07:31 and that is already there 07:34 and if it comes more so into the west, 07:36 it's going to be the almost the death knell 07:39 for liberty of conscious, 07:40 for religious freedom. Exactly. 07:43 And seeking your own way to the creator. 07:47 When you have resource shortages, 07:49 you have more totalitarian governments. 07:51 You have more oppressive governments, 07:56 more regimentation, and the liberty 07:59 that we have to work, 08:01 the freedom that we have to proclaim Christ is curtailed. 08:05 Inevitably-- Yeah. 08:07 And you know, we can't change this by talking about it, 08:09 but I think it's a solitary lesson for the viewer and us, 08:13 we need to recognize that this is the dynamic 08:16 that's marching upon us. Yes. 08:18 And so if we value the civil and religious freedom 08:22 we've got to be at prance 08:23 to protect them against this center, 08:25 because there is a certain logic with it, 08:26 it's the logic of survival in some ways for the species 08:30 from the point of a view of a secular society. 08:34 Got to control and control, 08:36 but when such a group asks something in view 08:39 that against your conscious, 08:40 you know, where do you go? 08:41 Or even just limits your ability to pursue 08:47 those things that are important to you, 08:48 in this case, witnessing for Christ. 08:50 You know we were told, 08:52 we've been told for sometime 08:53 that where we fail to work 08:55 when the times are good, 08:57 we will have to work 08:58 when the times are bad. Yeah. 08:59 And interestingly enough 09:01 what I'm trying to say in my book is, 09:04 it's not just something that we think 09:05 we might be able to see a little bit on the horizon. 09:07 We can actually see the-- Oh, it's beginning rapidly. 09:10 We can see the clouds billow and darken 09:11 and we can feel the wind begin to blow. 09:14 We need to take to our heart the warning that we have now. 09:17 Work while we can. 09:18 And we should, I should clearly point out 09:20 what you know, that Christianity for example, 09:24 is growing a place in China or even 09:26 in this difficult times. Yeah. 09:28 It's a strange combination of official 09:30 government control the religious entities, 09:33 the three self movement, 09:34 which is not a good dynamic but within 09:36 that dynamic people of faith are flourishing and outside 09:40 that in the home church movement. 09:44 No one can really put numbers on it. 09:46 But it's clearly large. 09:47 Ever now and again the government 09:48 clamps down on it and makes public statements. 09:50 So we know that the Chinese government 09:52 is self seizing is something they must deal with. 09:55 Man is naturally spiritual 09:58 and the interesting thing about the dynamic 10:01 that we're coming, the new paradigm 10:02 if you want to put it that way. 10:03 End time paradigm, 10:05 is that as you get resource shortages, 10:08 as you get conflict, as you get tension, 10:11 man turns back toward a spiritual nature. 10:15 This, it's difficult times coming, 10:17 but it's also tremendous, tremendous opportunity. 10:20 Absolutely. We have an article coming up 10:22 that I was telling you about as 10:23 we were traveling to this program. 10:25 In Liberty Magazine, 10:26 we've got, the spread's already done 10:27 and it's a little article called the Promise Persecution. 10:30 And it quotes Jesus about how 10:32 persecution is to come at the end of time. 10:34 And it tells stories in modern day China, 10:37 about Christians struggling for their Religious Freedom. 10:42 That's a nice little article, 10:43 it's all against double spread picture of a city skyline. 10:48 Very impressive and a number of people 10:50 who have come into my office and have looked at it 10:51 and they have said, that's New York. 10:53 Well, actually it's Shanghai. Shanghai. 10:56 A modern vibrant city, 10:59 but yet at the same time a huge persecution. 11:01 And so a lot of what you're saying, 11:04 I think comes to roost there. 11:05 Even in this modernizing context 11:08 where they're just sucking drive the natural resources. 11:11 Religious Freedom is struggling against 11:13 the inhibition and succeeding. Yeah. 11:16 Well what we've always had 11:17 we're going to have less and less of 11:21 and other parts of the world, 11:23 yes, have advanced tremendously 11:25 and had become very competitive and very large. 11:28 But they have the same needs as us. 11:29 The need for religious freedom 11:31 to honor and serve the Creator. 11:32 Yeah, absolutely and so you know, 11:36 I mean one of the things to take home 11:39 and to take-- not just to take home 11:40 but to take to heart is that the age in which 11:44 we have grown up as a church, 11:47 an age of relative peace 11:48 and relative plenty has really come to an end. 11:51 The world has reached a tipping point 11:53 and it's downhill from hereon. 11:55 So will we rise to our calling as Adventists 11:58 and as Christians to spread the word? 12:00 Will we tend to take the work that's at hand? 12:05 What does Religious Freedom mean to you? 12:08 A few years ago, I filmed a short promotional video 12:12 during the World Conference 12:14 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Toronto, Canada. 12:16 With a rowing cameraman 12:18 we moved around among the international crowd 12:20 asking them the leading question. 12:23 What does Religious Liberty mean to you? 12:26 We got some wonderful responses, 12:28 but the one that struck in my mind 12:30 the most was we came up to this middle aged 12:33 and perhaps a little older Chinese gentlemen 12:35 and put the camera in his face 12:37 and microphone underneath 12:39 and asked him the question and he said, 12:41 Religious Liberty means everything to me. 12:43 He said, I spent 20 years in prison 12:45 in China for my faith. 12:48 That's still the case for some people. 12:51 Religion is struggling for free expression 12:54 in the communist country of China. 12:56 A country that is making the industrial world fear 12:59 because of its rising dominance, 13:02 but the spiritual world must pay attention 13:04 because God's people 13:06 even in China are determined to serve God, 13:10 to find God, to worship God, 13:12 no matter what the penalty, 13:14 that is clearly Religious Freedom. 13:19 For Liberty Insider, this Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17