General

My summer reading included Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (her husband). Jung Chang is considered one of the first brave writers to take the mask off of the history of Red China. 

Her epic 615 page book comes with 150 pages of footnotes and source material–showing the depth, breadth and accuracy of her research.

Wow, is it an eye-opener.

Two important principles stood out to me from her book about Chairman Mao. This week I will examine the first that we should apply to our own lives and nations.

It is: when it comes to history, oftentimes, things are not what they seem.

First a little background on the remarkable Jung Chang. She was born in Sechuan Province in China in 1952 and worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker and an electrician before becoming an English language student and then assistant lecturer at Sichuan University.

Jung fled China for Britain in 1978, married Jon Halliday, and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of York in 1982–the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British University.

In 1991, she wrote an inspiring book on her family heritage called Wild Swans which startled the world with its insider glimpse of Chinese life during the Communist years. The award-winning book sold more than 10 million copies in thirty languages.

That’s a mega best-seller. Why?

Because she was one of the first to tell the truth about what really happened in China during the 20th century.

After fourteen more years of research, including clandestine interviews with Chinese figures both inside and outside mainland China, Jung Chang and her husband followed up with Mao: The Unknown Story–which I’ve just finished reading.

Its revelations got me thinking that one of the biggest surprises for all of us in eternity–when we stand before God and learn the truth about human history–is that reality was significantly different from what we thought or were taught.

Thus, we need to constantly pursue God’s perspective on history and events so that we do not become lost in the lies of human life.

True, we will never see things with perfect accuracy here on earth. But we can get closer to  reality if we are prayerful, diligent seekers of the truth. And when we know the truth, that truth can both set us free and allow us to be emancipators of others through the grace and power of Jesus Christ (John 8:32).

Now a little glimpse into Mao: The Unknown Story. This week I will talk broadly about history and next week, delve a little more closely into the actual character of Mao Tse Tung (Zedong).

Next week’s article will be titled The Face of Evil.

That’s because we should really use Mao–rather than Hitler–as the poster child of evil tyrants. Hitler was certainly Lucifer personified in killing 6-8 million people before and during World World II.

But real history will record that Mao Tse Tung, the communist revolutionary who took over China in 1949 and led the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, was the greatest satanic tyrant to date–killing probably 70 million fellow Chinese citizens before he died in September 9, 1976.

That’s ten times more murders than Hitler.

And most of what we’ve been taught about Mao and the communist revolution, according to Jung Chang, is wrong.

Things are not what they seem.

Some examples:

• Popular consensus is that communists played on the hopes and fears of the peasantry to launch their take-over of Chinese civilization. We’ve all heard that communist revolutions take place when poor workers are mobilized to fight the landowners and wealthy–that it is the exploitation of the rich that leads to an uprising among the poor. But Mao himself came from an upper class background in Hunan province. He never cared for peasants or the disparity in income and power in feudal China. Jung lays to rest the myth that communist dictators like Mao are modern-day Robin Hoods. She pain-stakingly chronicles that Mao Tse Tung was nothing less than a power-hungry thug. Most of the 70 million murders were committed against the peasant-peoples.
• I have always assumed that the Chinese Communist Revolution was launched and funded in China–that is, it was an internal civil war first against the Manchu dynasty, and then the nationalists, led by Chiang kai-shek, against the communists (or CCP) led by Mao and others. That’s what I was taught in school. But that is not even close to the truth. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and gaining strength on the 20s and 30s, the whole of the Chinese Revolution was financed and led by Soviet Russia, especially under leadership of Stalin. Russian agents and double agents coordinated all of its developments from Shanghai, Stalin himself made all the key decisions from Moscow, and Mao would never have conquered China without millions of dollars of monthly Bolshevik support (a large sum of money eighty years ago). The final conquest was due solely to the Russian supply of equipment and arms. Stalin’s main purpose was to use a “united” (and Communist) China to defeat Japan. This was Russian empire-building via blood and money. It then became Chinese empire building–because Mao’s ultimate goal was to rule the world–by way of torture and bloodshed.
• I’d always heard that the famous “Long March” that brought Mao to the pinnacle of power in 1934-35 was an heroic escape from the bandit-lands of central China that endeared Chairman Mao to the Chinese people. I envisioned him leading bedraggled troops, akin to George Washington at Valley Forge, with great personal sacrifice and courage. Not a whiff of truth! Mao, who loved luxury, always lived in the nicest of dwellings even when others were freezing to death and bloodying their feet around him. In fact, during the vast majority of the 6000 kilometer march, as an 80,000-man army was reduced to 10,000 via famine, exhaustion, executions, and desertion, Mao and his top leaders were lavishly carried in sedan “litters” by the peasant soldiers–wining and dining while those around them perished. This was tyranny with “a smoke and a smile”.
• In every phase of Mao’s rise to power, from the early days in Hunan, to his decade of leadership in the Yellow Earth Plateau, to his triumphant rule in Peking, every step he took was via lies, deception, purgings, deliberately-mis-leading orders to suppress his rivals, torture, mass murder and betrayal. His rise to power was nothing less, at every step, than sadistic satanism without any regard, to wives, children, friends, comrades, or any other human being. Next week I will take a broader look at Mao’s character, or lack thereof, in “The Face of Evil.” It’s the only phrase that comes to mind when studying Mao Tse Tung’s leadership style.

What I gleaned from Jung’s amazing expose of China’s real 20th century story is that things are not what they seem.Much of history and what we “see” is a lie, or at the least, extremely in-complete.

How do we appy this to our own life and times? Here are just a few examples:

1. We need the truth about what happened in Ben Ghazi, Libya when Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed. We were first flummoxed to believe it was the result of a You Tube video. Now we are slowly learning that the cover-up may have taken place because the United States was involved in an illegal arms deal to Syria.

Things are not what they seem.

2. The uprisings of the so-called Arab Spring did not take place to usher in a season of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. The election of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt did not portend the coming of liberty to the land of the Nile.

Things are not what they seem.

3. American’s economy in 2013 is not getting better, real estate values have not hit bottom, real unemployment is not seven percent, and seventeen trillion dollars in debt is leading us toward a financial Armageddon.

Things are not what they seem.

4. We must not forget that life on earth is a titanic struggle between good and evil. The Devil and his demons are unseen actors–angels and their commanders do the Lord’s bidding–and much of what we are told in the secular world about history and reality is one big scam from the satanic underground.

So what are we to do to combat our ignorance?

Talk to God about all things. Let his Word be your compass and inspiration. Choose your counselors and sources wisely. Do your homework and don’t believe the demonic cheerleaders. Seek the truth about all events and histories and ask God to enlighten you.

Truth is power– in your own life and in the life of nations.

Don’t just accept what you hear and see. Always remember that, because of the magnitude of human and satanically inspired propaganda, things are not what they seem.

I’ve been thinking lately about “family” from a number of standpoints.

This week we finalized the sale of our family home–the house we birthed one child in and in which we raised five others. We treasure many fond-memories from that quarter-of-a-century of blessing.

All of our parents are in their latter years–the pillars of the two families we brought together through marriage in 1976. Most days I’m in town, I go to visit with my 93-year old dad and faithful mom who cares for him. I cherish these family moments which will soon be altered.

Last night I heard a passionate commentary from Bill O-Reilly on the desperate need to re-build the African-American family. You can watch his moving video here.

But Michael Barone puts in historical perspective why the American family is our secret to national success.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is one of the wisest and studious analysts on the American scene. In the following article, based on the new book America 3.0 by James Bennett and Michael Lotus, Barone argues that it is the genius of the nuclear family that stands at the apex of American exceptionalism.

What he doesn’t say is that the American idea of family is a God-given concept that comes straight off the pages of the Bible.

The influential founders of this nation were God-fearing, Bible-based people who came to the New World to practice their faith unhindered by governmental restraints. Their beliefs had deep roots in Christian Europe and its magnificent Reformation which gave rise to civil liberties, free enterprise capitalism, faith-based republics, and an array of discovery and freedom that changed the trajectory of the world.

America’s European colonists took those ideas one step further–building their societies around the nuclear family where husbands loved their wives and were “prophets, priests and kings” in their homes, and wives respected their husbands and raised their children in the “fear and admonition of the Lord.”

This best-in-history expression of the Christian nuclear family is the secret of American freedom, prosperity, mission and greatness.

Read Barone’s article below and add America 3.0 to your summer reading list.

And treasure the family you came from (even with its heartaches), build the family you have on the sure biblical foundation, and pray for all families to experience a re-birth of greatness.

With Its Roots in the Nuclear Family, the Nation Evolves Into America 3.0

By Michael Barone

The Fourth of July is always an occasion to think about what the United States of America has been, is and will be. A good way to reflect on that is to pick up a copy of “America 3.0” by James Bennett and Michael Lotus and ponder its lessons.

As the title suggests, Bennett and Lotus see the nation as having evolved from an agricultural America 1.0 to an industrial America 2.0 and struggling now to evolve again into an information age America 3.0. That’s a familiar framework.

Where they differ from other analyses is that they see the roots of American exceptionalism, our penchant for liberty and individualism, stretching far back — more than 1,000 years — beyond 1776. Back to the Anglo-Saxon invaders of England after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Drawing on the 19th century historians Edward Augustus Freeman and Frederic Maitland and contemporary scholars Emmanuel Todd, Alan Macfarlane and James Campbell, they argue that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them a unique institution, the absolute nuclear family, “the continuous core of our distinct American culture.”

In nuclear families, individuals, not parents, select spouses; women have comparative freedom and equality; children have no rights of inheritance; grown children leave parents’ homes and are not bound to extended families.

On each point this is contrary to longstanding family patterns in the rest of the world.

This enduring family pattern has consequences. It has made Americans liberty-loving, individualistic, keen for equal opportunity but not equal outcomes, venturesome, mobile and suspicious of big government.

From early on in England and then in America, the absolute nuclear family fostered a market economy, property ownership and the common law, which evolves through individual court cases rather than a rigid code like Europe’s Roman law.

These mores have promoted economic growth and enabled societies to adapt to economic changes. America 1.0 had very decentralized government, with new states left to pursue their own policies and courts determined to protect the common law. It peaked at the end of the Civil War.

Economic innovations required changes. Railroads and giant corporations required military-style bureaucracies. Rapidly booming cities required larger governments.

The result was America 2.0. Politicians experimented with German models but settled in the 1930s for a “Social Lockeanism” that “wisely left room for individual initiative and entrepreneurship.”

World War II policies put 16 million Americans in uniform, rationed food, controlled wages and prices, and converted factories to war production. “The end of World War II,” Bennett and Lotus write,”was the moment of maximal centralism and minimal autonomy in America.”

Wartime success gave great prestige to America 2.0 and confidence that it could continue in place indefinitely. But with economic change it started sputtering. “2.0 corporations, unions and governments,” the authors write, “have been rendered unworkable.”

Big corporations flailed, and government got bloated. Lower birth rates meant there wouldn’t be enough taxpayers to finance benefits for the elderly.

Responses included deregulation in the 1970s, lower tax rates in the 1980s, welfare reform in the 1990s. But that was not enough.

Barack Obama has made the trajectory worse, the authors say. They ridicule “the strange assumption that Americans genuinely want government-run health care.” Polls back them up.

They believe public debt is unsustainable and call for discharging much of it in bankruptcy (“the Big Haircut”). They grant that the Treasury can keep selling bonds, but only so long as other countries’ credit is worse.

They see families moving far out in the exurbs (using self-driving cars) and earning money increasingly from individual enterprises rather than W-2 jobs. Therefore we should abolish the federal income tax and devolve government except for defense, civil rights and free internal trade to states and localities.

Most ambitiously, they would allow states to split into parts or to form compacts with other states, so likeminded citizens can have congenial policies.

Looking abroad, they see “a global collapse of the 2.0 model.” America should continue to purchase weapons (but get rid of defense procurement rules) and maintain our alliances.

But the U.S. should give up on nation-building and democratization. Other cultures — Iraq, Afghanistan — simply don’t share our concepts of freedom.

America’s main task is to police “the world’s maritime and aviation commons” — which Britain or America have been doing off and on for three centuries.

I don’t agree on every point. But I share the authors’ optimism that America can once again adapt consistent with our enduring values.

I agree!

Especially if we fight for the revival of the biblical family.

It wasn’t as riveting as the OJ Simpson verdict a generation ago, but last weekend’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin certainly captivated the nation and led to some violent protests in the streets.

I teared up when the verdict was announced.

I followed the case closely, primarily because of Fox News ( it wasn’t easy to escape the 24-7 coverage). CNN and MSNBC also chose around-the clock coverage–as if nothing else was happening in the world.

What can we learn from this Florida verdict and apply to our life and times?

First of all, for those of you who don’t tune into American cable news, here are the facts of what happened on February 26, 2012:

• A seventeen year old African-American named Trayvon Martin was visiting his father’s home in Sanford, Florida, He purchased some items at a convenience store and was walking home in the rain to his father’s house.
• 28 year old Hispanic resident, George Zimmerman, was on neighborhood watch that night in the vicinity where Trayvon Martin’s father lived. The area had experienced a recent crime wave. Zimmerman was lawfully carrying a concealed weapon.
• At some point, the two had an encounter, a fight ensued, and Trayvon Martin was shot and killed. George Zimmerman said from the outset that he shot Trayvon in self-defense. The mainstream media–especially NBC–labeled it a white-versus-black hate crime, and the African-American community and the Obama campaign used it to stir racial tensions during the 2012 presidential election (The president opined that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.”
• At first, George Zimmerman was not charged due to lack of evidence and belief in his story that he acted in self-defense. But after national pressure built, the Sanford police chief was fired, a special prosecutor was appointed by FL Governor Rick Scott, Zimmerman was arrested on second degree murder charges, and the case proceeded to trial.
• On Saturday, July 13, a six member, all-woman jury pronounced Zimmerman not guilty of either second degree murder or manslaughter.
• Since that time, various protests have been launched demanding “justice for Trayvon.” 

I learned long ago to try to see people and events through the eyes of Heaven. That means seeking for the truth from God’s perspective, keeping in mind that there is a demonic realm that wants to destroy us, and that we live in a fallen world.

Having this desire doesn’t give any human being exact vision in our murky world, but I believe things become clearer when we’re humbly striving to understand things from God’s point of view.

Here’s my analysis.

1. As many people have stated, including both legal teams, the event was a tragedy in which there are no winners. Trayvon Martin’s family have lost a precious child and George Zimmerman and his family will be impacted for life due to the incident.

Some people said that it was a tragedy that never should have happened. That is true except for a point articulated by Zimmerman’s lead attorney, Mark O’Mara, who stated that Trayvon Martin’s pummeling of George Zimmerman gave his client “no choice” but to react in defense to save his life. At that point, it “had to happen” to save his life.

2. The state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman acted with malice in the killing of Trayvon Martin. In fact, many of the prosecution witnesses actually bolstered the claims of the defense.

Though one can haggle the details, the overall evidence in the trial  backed up George Zimmerman’s story that Trayvon Martin was the aggressor in the fight, that Martin was on top of Zimmerman hitting him the face and pushing his head against the asphalt (confirmed by the only eye witness), that Zimmerman was the person heard screaming on the 9-11 call (five of six jurors agreed), and that Zimmerman pulled his gun and shot Martin during the scuffle because he believed that he was in grave danger (confirmed by ballistics experts).

As tragic as Trayvon’s death was, a man is innocent until proven guilty. The facts in this case clearly pointed toward George Zimmerman’s version of events. The vast majority of legal analysts agreed. “Facts” in human life are rarely one hundred percent. The jury took their limited facts and made a fair decision.

3. The jury of six women should be commended for their courageous decision, diligence with the details, and sound reasoning that led to the not guilty verdict. Juries make mistakes as the infamous trials of OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony demonstrated to the world. That’s because all human institutions are fallible–even majority votes.

But using citizen groups–in this case–demanding unanimity in a decision that could lead an individual to spend thirty years in prison–is a wise check and balance in a fallen world. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best imperfect human beings can do.

I want to be honest here. For some time, I’ve been pondering an article on the problem of juries in America because of the way people are weeded out and the general lack of character in our culture that has eroded wise jury judgment. Bad cultures produce bad juries (just like bad constituents elect bad leaders). A jury is never better than the “content of the character” of the individual jurors.

And oftentimes, people of strong morality and character are the very ones not allowed to serve.

However, the jury in the Zimmerman trial has delayed that article and restored my faith in the jury system. The six women, five of whom were mothers, did not respond with emotion or without sound moral judgment. On the contrary, though half of them initially leaned toward convicting George Zimmerman of “something,” their better instincts and understanding of the law led them to unanimously vote for acquittal.

They should be applauded for their diligence. They helped restore our confidence that human systems of justice can be impartially fair.

I stand corrected and encouraged by the Sanford Six.

4. This case was used by race hustlers and profiteers to ignite racial animosity in our nation during the heat of a presidential election in which the black vote was very important.

Let’s blame the mainstream media first, and in particular, NBC News. It’s now a well-known fact that they deliberately altered their reporting of the 9-11 call to make it appear that George Zimmerman was a white racist who had profiled Trayvon Martin. Unfortunately for them, and probably good for America, they will probably be sued and lose a good chunk of change for their refusal to report the truth.

George Zimmerman was not a racist. He mentored black youth, lived in a home with people of color–and during 36 FBI interviews, not one person reported that he had any grievances toward the black race.

He was also not white–but Hispanic.

NBC lied–and they will pay for it. Other liberal outlets followed, creating the racial hysteria.

But the greatest culprits were race hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Benjamin Jealous (president of the NAACP) who took the bogus facts and used them to lead marches and protests to “turn out the base” and aid in their fund-raising campaigns.

Let’s face it. Some people make money off kindling the fires of racial division. The unthinking masses are guilty too, but let’s rightly place the greater blame on the Pied Pipers who stoke the fires.

America in 2013 is not America in the 1950’s–or 1850’s for that matter. We elected an African American president twice. I’d guess that 90% of all American’s–including southern ones–are not racists. We believe in equal opportunities and rights for all.

The race hustlers are wrong and are perpetuating strife. Let’s hold them accountable.

5. Here’s another interesting reality: It now appears that the African-American community is more racist in America than the white one. This has been confirmed in a number of recent polls, including data on what black Americans think about themselves.

It’s time for American blacks to stop blaming and defaming. Ditto for any white race hustlers.

6. We must get real about serious violence and justice issues and not focus on one tragedy in Florida. Chicago is currently the unequivocal murder capital of the United States with over 200 murders committed over the Fourth of July weekend alone.

Over 90% of those murders were blacks killing blacks.

Murder rates are related to poverty and the chaos it produces. Poverty comes primarily from broken homes and absent fathers–which is endemic in the African-American community.

If we want to deal a death blow to racism, and help minority (and all) communities in this nation, then we should concentrate on strategies for building healthy marriages and families. That’s the debate that should rise the the forefront.

7. There is a demonic world behind the  hatred, injustice, murder, and race peddling in our nation and  world. They are also behind the rioting which takes place after verdicts like the Zimmerman case. When people smash windows and loot stores to protest what they believe is injust, you know that you are looking at the invisible incitement of demonic hordes.

Think about it. Unjustly breaking windows to protest injustice? That kind of logic only works in hell or places influenced by it.

8. Justice on earth will always be tarnished by human sin and mistakes. However, societies who fear God, strengthen families, teach character, and enact laws based on biblical principles and God-given rights, will experience the greatest amounts of justice and freedom.

Only in eternity will perfect justice be rendered.

What really happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman on that fateful February 26, 2012 evening, will only be fully known when we all stand before the Judge of the Universe. Only then will their hearts and actions be fully revealed.

So will be yours and mine. Are you ready for that truly just moment through repentance for your sins and faith in Jesus Christ?

Our hope is not be found in justice, but redemption. That’s how we should pray for both the Martin and Zimmerman families–and the healing of American race relations.