John Chin's beginning

I thank Dave Cunningham for helping to clear up my ideas on the ideology Involved in the question of evolution. I find it disturbing that some of us should spend so much time worrying about where we come from, when it is more important to question where we are going and how we are going to get there. Some people claim that we have a "slimy" beginning, and some like John Chin disclaim this. I think it matters not, so long as we do not crawl before those people in society who regard their fellow-men as being below them, because of their lack of wealth, knowledge or power.

If we study history and look objectively at the world around us, we must inevitably conclude that humans "evolve" in the sense that they are constantly changing the society they live in. For example for a person to be converted to "Christianity' he must overthrow what ideas he has which are not consistent with Christian ideals The Bible itself is a book about change. According to this book, God had to destroy the world in the process of eradicting the evils in it. I refer to the Great Flood and ask Johnny to take note. Further examples, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jericho etc. All these were supposedly destroyed by God's will because he did not like what the people there were doing to each other. Examples of destruction and violence initiated by God abound in the Bible. In the end our Lord Jesus Christ had to allow himself the ultimate destruction, that of his crucifixion.

What was all this for? Jesus died. But out of his death, there was renewal through his resurrection, an attempt to change man. Right through his short life, Christ attempted to change people. He taught that we should love our fellow-men and to show what he meant he set himself up as an example. He shared his wordly possessions with those who had nothing, he exposed those who fought for the status quo as hypocrites i.e. the Pharisees; fought for the rights of all including women (let those who have not sinned cast the first stone); he taught that the rich oppressed the poor and treated them inhumanely (why did Lazarus have to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table and which even his dogs rejected?); he fought against ideas of greed and profit; he taught that if a man is true to his beliefs then he must be prepared to die for them, as he did himself.

To conclude John, look at the history of the Taipings. The very ideas that activated Christ to change man, gave the Taipings such spiritual force that they could conquer a quarter of old and decadent China, to liberate it from ideas which Christ himself fought against. But in the end evil forces like the Western powers chose to help in the destruction of this just force when it threatened their interests in China. So they did not succeed in liberating China. The lesson is that they should have destroyed these evil powers as well. However, at that stage of history they had not developed the physical powers to do so and hence were destroyed themselves. But their ideas have descended to the present heirs who finally liberated that quarter of mankind. That is change. And I would like to say that the descendants of the Taipings and others who have inherited their ideas live among us today. If the message of our Lord rings true, take heed, this is The Second Coming.

Son of Mankind.