Well, hello everyone and welcome to the live cast. Good to see you all again. My name is Paul Feasy, and as always, I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_04Hello, Paul Feasy. Here I am in Eastbourne on the Sunshine Coast. Nice to be with you all. Yeah. What are we talking about today, Paul?
SPEAKER_03Yep, today we are talking about um an item in the news that we I think we've talked about it very briefly before because it cropped up last year. It did make the news, but it seems to have resurfaced and it has kind of taken the public interest a bit more now. And it's to do with the situation in China, currently at the moment, in the Xinjiang uh region, where um what we're hearing are reports of uh the internment of the Ouija Muslim community and uh estimate estimates of up to a million Muslims, maybe even two million, some people are saying, um, who have been taken and placed into um camps um where they're re-education camps?
SPEAKER_04Are we what are we saying?
SPEAKER_03Well, this is the thing. So, yes, so the Chinese government initially denied the existence of these camps and then eventually did come clean and say, no, they do exist, but they're re-education centres, people are there voluntarily. Um but actually what people have been claiming what's come out is uh that these are not re-education centres, really they are uh nothing more than concentration camps that people are being uh imprisoned, uh tortured, um some people are being killed, uh that there is forced sterilization um uh going on amongst uh the women. Um and there's just been footage uh again the footage seems to have been around for quite a while, but it it's been just featured in the media recently. Um footage of prisoners um shaved, uh shaved heads, blindfolded, all on the ground, being then uh led onto train carriages um to be taken off to these camps. Um just seemingly come from drone footage. Um it's drone footage from like last year, isn't it?
SPEAKER_042019, I think. Yeah, so where the footage comes from.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I think a lot of this uh it it had come up before people it seems that a lot of news outlets had reported on these things. Not necessarily I don't know about this footage in particular, but I I mean we'd heard about this last year. Um and if you go back and do your Google search, you'll find a number of media outlets have reported on these things going on, but it doesn't seem as if it really gained any traction. You know, it didn't it certainly didn't blow up into a story that everybody was talking about. Um and it's only really in the last week or so when we saw some posts on Twitter, again that were posts um referring to articles from uh a year or so ago, or not not quite a year, but in 2019, um that it seemed to be getting a bit more traction and making some noise on Twitter. So the articles last week were uh initially the ones we saw were to do with uh organ harvesting in China, that China apparently has a very um very short waiting time for organ transplants, and the accusation is that it's because they are harvesting organs of prisoners, and um I don't think that's limited to the Ouija Muslim community. It's certainly put in some of the articles that it may well be happening in those camps as well.
SPEAKER_04Um but it seems that the And the Fehling Gong community, I think, as well. So that they have, you know, for at least the last 20 years um most severely um been a kind of an oppressed, persecuted religion, which the Chinese state um deems a cult. And um certainly reports from their news agency seem to be that organ harvesting is happening from among their number. So again, these are these are all kind of accusations that are that are flying around, and it's just it's difficult to know, isn't it? Because um and it's it's difficult when these stories sort of come out and then nobody seems to make much of them, and you wonder, is this really happening? And if this is really happening, why why isn't more being said about it?
SPEAKER_03And I think uh there were you know that people will look at these things and say, like, oh uh how do we know? And and that that's the thing that strikes me at the moment, particularly in this day and age, that even with footage and stuff there, people are still saying, Oh, we just don't know though. Like I we're so um we've been so kind of affected by the fake news kind of things of the past few years that we don't really know quite what to believe. But I think probably you know, from what we're seeing, it's multiple it's multiple organizations and countries that are leveling accusations at China on this now. The UN certainly has. It looks like the UK, that's what's kind of broken today or in the last day or so, that the UK is now talking about economic sanctions on China uh because of gross human rights abuses. Um I mean people are even throwing around the word genocide. Um But the fascinating thing is, like we say, that this this has been known for a long time, but no one has really got hold of it for quite a while, and uh we seem to have been able to overlook this for various reasons um up until now. Right.
SPEAKER_04Um Right. And I think two two things that have precipitated the the most recent um sort of headline grabbing moments. Um one of them has been uh foreignpolicy.com. Um they've had this uh article that went uh up on the 15th of July, and and they say, you know, two recent disturbing events may finally awaken the world to the scale and horror of the atrocities being committed against the Uyghurs, a mostly secular Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang, China. One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uyghur women. The other was the seizure by US Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair, suspected of being forcibly removed from Uyghurs imprisoned in concentration camps. Now, as somebody who has been to Auschwitz and has seen the the room at Auschwitz that is called the exploitation of the corpses, um that that's a really chilling thing. It's the most haunted, it's the most haunted room I've ever been in to walk through Auschwitz and you see it's the one place that you're not allowed to take photographs in because um there are human remains in that room because there is just tons and tons of human hair that was collected by the Nazis, and and just the kind of the the horrible conveyor belt of death under the Nazi regime that they wanted to extract every last penny from their victims, including shaving their heads. And then you know, there's a big glass case with spectacles in it, and a big glass case with shoes in it, and um obviously that was um uh you know the one of the real evils of the Nazis is they they said, look, go go and have your shower and tie up, tie up your shoes and put your name tag on your shoes here so that you'll know where they are when you come back from your shower. And of course they never came back from their shower. But um, you know, so we have for a long time um spoken of the exploitation of corpses as one of these markers of of genocide. And uh and here in that article from foreignpolicy.com it says uh the Genocide Convention, to which China is a signatory, defines genocide as specific acts against members of a group with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. These acts include a killing, b causing serious bodily or mental harm, c deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group's physical destruction, d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Any one of these categories constitutes genocide. And then foreignpolicy.com says the overwhelming evidence of the Chinese government's deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy the Uyghur people clearly meets each each of these categories. So, yeah, that's um the they're pointing to those those two issues, the the discovery of the human hair and then the forced sterilization. Um but then there was that very interesting um event on on um BBC politics as and Andrew Ma gets the the Chinese ambassador in and um and asks him about the drone footage. Um should we have a look at that um that clip?
SPEAKER_03Let's have a look at this. Hopefully we can see this come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00Let's look at some very disturbing drone footage that's been widely shared around the world. Um this is uh almost certainly over northern China, over Xinjiang. Can you tell us what is happening here?
SPEAKER_01I cannot see uh you know the this video. This is not the first time you show me. I I still remember last year you show me what is happening uh in in Xinjiang. In Xinjiang, exactly. But let me tell you this. Xinjiang, have you been to Xinjiang yourself? No, I never have. You know, Xinjiang is regarded as the most beautiful place in Xinjiang. There's a Chinese saying you you do not know how big China is. Ambassador, that is not that is not beautiful coverage, however, is it? You know, Xinjiang, that is exactly what I'm going to tell you. Since 1990, Xinjiang has completely changed because of the thousands of terrorist attacks.
SPEAKER_00People cannot that was ten years ago. Can I ask you why people are kneeling blindfolded and shaven and being led to trains in modern China? Why what what is going on there?
SPEAKER_01I do not know where you get this bidou tape. You know, sometimes you have a transmission uh transfer of a prisons and prisoners, you know, in any country. Um but but just what is happening here, Ambassador?
SPEAKER_00I do not know where did you get this bido clip? These have been going around the world, they've been authenticated by Western intelligence agencies and by Australian experts who say these are Ouija people, let me tell you.
SPEAKER_01Let me tell you this the uh uh so-called uh Western intelligence keeping up, make this a false acquisition against China. It's that one million people has been uh persecuted. You know how how big how how many population Xinjiang has? It's just about 40 years ago it's a four or five million. Now it's 11 million people, and people say, you know, we impose uh we have uh ethnic cleansing, but the population has doubled in the 40 years.
SPEAKER_00According I'm so sorry to interrupt, but according to your own local government statistics, the population growth in Uighur jurisdictions in that area has fallen by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018. 84 percent.
SPEAKER_01That's not right. Well, I gave you an official figure. You ask me, I gave you this figure as a Chinese ambassador. This is a very authority figure. In the past 40 years, the Uyghur population increased, the the the Qin the population in Xinjiang increased to double. The population doubled.
SPEAKER_04So there's no notice he's talking about the population of Xinjiang.
SPEAKER_00No so-called forced uh uh uh abultion and so on. But there is a pro a program of forced sterilization being imposed on Uyghur women at the moment.
SPEAKER_04And that's what they go on to. They go on to talk about um forced sterilization. Um but you know, notice Andrew Maher is talking about um the reduction of population that that Chinese authorities talk about, 84% um less in in the Uyghur um areas.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04And the Chinese ambassador is talking about Xinjiang. Xinjiang, yes, um, the population has increased um significantly. Uh I think the statistics I was I was looking at um said that um just 20 years ago, I th I think it was 95% Uyghur and 5% um Han Chinese, and now it's about um 60% Uyghur and 40% Han Chinese. Um so you know the the increase in population in Xinjiang seems to be from an influx of of the Han Chinese uh population. Um and so both both stats um stack up, both stats stack up that Xinjiang might indeed be increasing in population even as the Uyghur population is going down and going down significantly. Um but yeah, an ex an extraordinary an extraordinary example really of the Chinese ambassador being sort of held to can held to account in a Western democracy, you know, ha having to face the press um in a way that um you know I don't think a Chinese politician would be used to um on Chinese state TV, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03No. And I think I mean I think the uh I mean at the end of the day, like his job is to defend China in the he he you know. So I mean i you you are you you can understand that in in a sense the BBC are obligated to speak to the Chinese ambassador. Um but I don't think we should be surprised when the Chinese ambassador isn't hugely forthcoming about what's going on.
SPEAKER_04Um Notice the inconsistency about about like he says to begin with, he said, Oh, you showed this to me before. And and then he says, Oh, but I have no idea where this has come from. You know, how how am I expected to respond to it?
SPEAKER_03Well also, I mean This is this is your second part of the cherry. And I mean Andrew Ma quotes the statistic of 84% from their own records, which then he immediately says, No, I'm giving you the official figure. Um he may well be giving them the official figure. Maybe the population has increased by that much, but as we've just said, that is the population of Xinjiang and not the Uyghur community itself. Um So, I mean it's fascinating, and I think the The thing I think that is strikes me most about uh struck me most about this cropping up is that this is an old it is an old clip, you know, or old in the sense not not fresh. Um but yet we it is so the similarities with as you've already drawn Auschwitz are so striking. You know, the shaved heads being laid on, you know, put onto trains, um, and then, you know, the seizing of things where the human hair and things like that. Um the at least the suggestion of experimentation, um removal of organs and all kinds of things like that. It is so strikingly like Auschwitz that you would think that our response would be immediate kind of horror and you know, what have we always said, this will never happen again. Um and it kind of feels like it's crept past us, you know, like we've we've gradually let it happen. Um and y yeah, it's just it's mind-boggling, isn't it, that here we are, you know, still for many people, living memory of those events, and yet uh we seem quite reluctant to respond to this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, someone like Mezet Ozil, um playing for Arsenal, um um, sort of from German and Turkish origin um and Muslim backgrounds. I mean, he back in December on Instagram and Twitter um tweeted out about um persecution of Uyghurs, and you know, that that was very brave of him to do actually back back in the day. Um and he he tweeted out um Qurans are being burnt, mosques are being shut down, Muslim schools are being banned, religious scholars are being killed, brothers are forcefully being sent to camps. The Muslims are sil silenced, their voice is not heard. Um and so, you know, he he tweeted and Instagram that back in in December, and then instantly um, well, first thing that happened was that Chinese state TV withdrew from showing um the the next Arsenal match, which happened to be Arsenal versus the the Premier League champions, Manchester City City, and instead of that they just played a re a repeat of an old game, and um obviously they were they were throwing their their weight around because um Muslim uh sorry the Chinese state TV Um pays more than half a billion to the Premier League for the for the rights to the Premier League football. And then Arsenal backs down and um and what do they say? Uh the content that published by uh the content published is Ozul's personal opinion. As a football club, Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics. And so they distance from him, you know, massively. Um and then of course, you know, when when other when other political things come up, you know, Marcus Marcus Rashford on the on the issue of school lunches is suddenly a national hero and you know makes political gain by talking about lunches.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And we're we're okay being political then. Um why why is Arsenal wanting to distance?
SPEAKER_03We're willing to be we're you know, we're we're willing to be uh pro school lunches, but we're not willing to be anti-genocide. You know, we won't go on record with that. Like that's which is fascinating, isn't it? And and like you say, well, that's because you know and I think it does come down to that China ch China are not going to pull their money out of your club or your you know your broadcasting because you got lunch for kids, you know. Um they may well pull their money out if you are criticizing their government for human rights abuses and you know a genocide. And I mean, and that's and I and I think when we talked about this before last year, we I think we even then we made mention that possibly the reason that so many nations are quiet on this, or had been quiet, or we hadn't picked up on it, was because basically we are so tied into China. You know, e with the if this was a Syria, you know, like a a a country like Syria, um we would be straight in there, as we have been, you know, either either militarily or politically. Um because I think we know in c in cases like that we can throw our weight around and you know, in a military way and not be in any danger. And we know that they don't hold anything over us in terms of the economy, and I think with China what it has shown us is that o I mean obviously military conflict would not be um desirable anyway, um, but of course China are a vast world superpower um and a nuclear power. Um but I think probably more than that is the I I imagine more is the financial issue. Um and my suspicion is that well uh some someone someone put on uh in a comment uh on one of the articles about this, uh they said uh it was to do with Dominic Raab being asked if this was genocide, and he said, Oh, I don't know if I want to use that word, etc. you know. Um and someone put in the comments said, you know, it's not genocide when you're hoping for a post-Brexit deal. Um and then they put hashtag cash-based morality or cash for morality or something like that. Um and I think it uh I think there's a lot of truth in that that we're willing to we're put money before morality, basically. You know, we we would rather have the cash than stand up for human rights abuses.
SPEAKER_04Um the idea of seeing things, you don't see what you don't want to see. Um and it's just it's just a psychological fact of of human nature. You you're going to let the things that disconfirm your narrative just go straight on past. You're gonna let the things that would cause cognitive discipline uh dissonance go right on past. You're gonna um let the things that would um contradict your comfort and ease and prosperity go right on past, and you're gonna focus on the things that confirm your biases and you know. Um and so like part of part of the issue is just you know, will we even see this? Will we even make space for this? Will we will we will we even notice what's going on?
SPEAKER_03Well, I was th saying to you that again we we overlook these things, so uh I I shared a little bit on social media in the past week about these articles, and just saying, you know, I I you know I was seeing these things about organ harvesting and I was saying, does anyone know any more about this because uh this is very disturbing? And then yesterday I shared the BBC's article about you know what was going on in China in the camps and and again I kind of said, you know, this is this is very, very concerning, and I've not heard a lot about it, it seems to have passed us by and and very few people have engaged with it. And I said, you know, but if I post a p if I post a video of me falling off a swing, everyone will be all over it, you know. Um And it it's it's just it's fascinating just to see how we can let stuff pass us by. Um you know, and we're all guilty of it, I'm sure, in many ways. Um but particularly when it seems so obvious and so extreme, you know, by with the the footage and the trains and the camps, uh, you you would think it would elicit a reaction in us, um, but it's it doesn't seem to Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean there's the apocryphal tale of you know when um when the Titanic went down, you know, the Dundee Herald um instead on its front page said, you know, fishing boat sinks and and two local fishermen die. Um and you can you can sort of un understand that because within that local community, of course the loss of those two fishermen might actually impact the locality a lot more than um a thousand people drowning uh around the other side of the world and you know there there is that kind of provinciality to to all of us that um things don't um don't strike us as as important when they happen far away um but I mean at the same time we we saw how you know the events in Minneapolis echoed around the world yeah so there's there's there's lots more um going on about what is it that we take notice of and w what is it that we feel connected to. And it would be it would be sad if we don't feel connected to Uyghur Muslims. I mean they it it's it sounds so exotic there they are in Xinjiang province and you know it's in the you know in the wilds of China which already is a is such a mysterious land to us. It is just much harder to get that sense of of fellow feeling, that sense of common humanity um to to strike us and and I think at that stage you you start to see um that the the doctrine of of um human equality is non-obvious actually that that actually my my flesh does feel a lot more affinity um for the tribe that's around me and it feels a lot less affinity for those who are more distant to me. And you can you can therefore understand in a Chinese context it is alien to them to have this more Christianized concept that we have of the you know the universality of human rights. And even though China are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, um they are consistent um you know violators of it. And it just makes it makes you see that their civilization and their certainly the culture of the the Chinese Communist Party I don't think it's obvious to them why you should have fellow feeling with you know far-off tribes. And actually our our deep-seated you know liberal sense that everyone is equal and and and that a the the the death of someone around the other side of the world is equal to the death of someone in your own town. That's actually a non-obvious um doctrine and it's but it's but it's Christianity that's taught it to us.
SPEAKER_03I think you know one of the things that struck me ha has been like how do I respond to this as a Christian? So if I keep if I see this and I I just don't do anything about it you know and in in there's one sense in which I can't do anything about it. You know it's it's it's different to you know homelessness in my town, you know, when I could pull something together, you know, and go out and feed people or talk to people like that. You know the these people on the other side of the world under a a a huge government, one of the biggest nation you know the biggest nation on the planet um in a sense there's nothing I can do as an individual but but I feel like I've got to say something for a number of reasons. Firstly because everyone is made in the image of God and regardless of you know whether this group of people are Muslims and do not believe the same things as me, um they are still people made in the image of God, men, women and children um who therefore have a value um and you know the the things that are being done to them are horrific. So I feel I need to stand on that front, but also I feel that it there's a it's just an issue of if if we don't stand for things like this. I I I mean I I I I made light of it a week or two ago didn't I that you know we'll we'll make noise about chocolate eggs but we won't make noise about genocide. It just seems bananas and I think if the if there's any way for the church to lose even more face in the West it's by not speaking up about actual genocide you know um i which yeah the so that that that concerns me and it it it reminded me a bit of when we when we went to Brefos, the the conference on abortion and my my views on abortion before that had been very much kind of I I do think it's wrong but I I think um you know basically some people are gonna want to do it and it causes so much of an issue to talk about these things and so on. Um let's it's easier not to say anything and just so on. Um but I remember A shy pro lifer. Like you know so many evangelicals with yeah with sort of natur naturally just sort of shy prolifers but it was you know you know for me the moment that kind of really brought it home was hearing you know the the talk being given preaching on the Good Samaritan um and I realized just you know when sometimes you have those moments when something just hits you between the eyes and I kind of realised well I I if I do that, if I don't speak up I'm no different to the person who just sees someone on the road and walks on by because you know I don't want to cause too much of a fuss. I don't want to get you know in caught up in all this stuff yada yada yada um and all the baggage it will bring with it um and and every time you know I think every time we hear the Good Samaritan story we're so familiar with it we just we kind of just go, oh well of course those guys are wrong. You know we know that the people who walk by that's that's so wrong isn't it but we're not like that. And then you kinda go, no that's exactly what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_04Um and I feel like the same in this situation like I I how can we if we say nothing it just feels like we're just seeing it and walking on by and there are those verbs aren't there in in Luke chapter 10 as Jesus tells the story of the the good Samaritan um Luke 10 verse 33 but a Samaritan as he travelled came where the man was and when he saw him he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine wine then he came and put the man on his own donkey brought him to an inn took care of him and gave the two denarii to the to the innkeeper. But it's those three verbs you know he came to where the man was he saw him and he took pity on him. And it's that you know we'll will we stop and turn aside and and see this stuff which um which will take us out of our comfort zones um and and force us to see the world in a in a new way um that's that's really really key.
SPEAKER_03And then you know what do we what do we go I was just saying again it just reminds me a bit as well of the the Wilberforce quote to do with slavery isn't it where he says you can you can choose to turn away but you can never say you didn't know. And I think that has a lot of weight in it as well just you know in one sense ignorance is bliss isn't it you can claim I never I didn't know didn't know this stuff was going on. But if when once we know you know if if we choose to turn away man Yeah yeah and then what everyone will want to ask is well well now what?
SPEAKER_04Well you know you you can sign petitions to get um uh these things debated in Parliament and and thankfully um we've now just gone over a hundred thousand uh signatories on uh a petition to get um to get this debated in parliament whether we want to um have economic sanctions on China um over their treatment of of um the Uyghurs. Um there are other things you can do you can you can discover um all sorts of uh companies that um profit from what is going on in Xinjiang uh province and there can be economic boycotts. But what can we do as as Christians as well? Um well we we're gonna get onto the show um uh a missionary who uh has been reaching out to uh the Uyghurs and uh sharing the love of Jesus there and trying to uh strengthen the church um there in Xinjiang and uh we'll be talking to him about how it is that the church is faring in China um and how it how it is that we can pray into this situation. Because I I think um what is fascinating is that here we've got you know the the largest country on planet earth that is throwing its weight around in in in a significant way um and is having a massive global impact and at the same time there is uh a giant within it um called the church and and isn't it the case that there are there are more di it sound like they reckon there are more Christians in China than the rest of the world put together, something like that?
SPEAKER_03Or is that an inflated figure?
SPEAKER_04Wow. I've heard um in terms of I mean it's it's just very difficult to know because of the underground nature of of so much of the church there. But um it is significant and it's a significant minority within um increasingly the most significant nation of the 21st century um and you know perhaps the 21st century will belong to China. But what might God be doing there? He might be doing um a tremendous work in China and then through China. Who knows? We'll be talking to um this missionary and uh and figuring out what what we can do um as Christians.
SPEAKER_03But what what what what else what other uh what other lessons can we draw from this Paul um well I mean I think I think for us as Christians I mean one thing we should it should push us towards at least is is to be pushing towards prayer ourselves here. Um that we ought to be uh people who are praying um I think it's a reminder me for me as well that like there are there are lots of things in the Christian community in in our country or in the West that we we're having discussions about which is which is and they're in they're not unimportant things. But it's very easy for us to get bogged down in arguments and uh disagreement over doctrine and belief um and forget about you know loving our neighbour um and just the reality of the world out there. Um and I think I wonder whether things like this are a a bit of a like a a wake-up call sometimes for us as a church to put aside some of the the the the foolish things perhaps that we're involved with um or the unnecessary things, the things that just don't aren't fruitful for the kingdom. Um to remind us to to to throw ourselves on the mercy of God and to pray for God you know for the for the Lord to work in these situations and to to bring about an end to this stuff, you know, and I it just sounds like such a s it sounds like a a really trite answer, doesn't it? Like let's all pray, you know but like if we truly believe that we operate with weapons that are not of this world you know we we you know our weapons are not flesh and blood um but you know we take up the sword of the spirit and all those all those things um you know push comes to shove this is an opportunity for us to do that and join together in praying for these people and you know for and and and you know it who knows as well as you said China is obviously a growing power um I I think they're a one party state um as it stands. It's very difficult to see how that kind of that kind of state can become anything other than that without great you know kind of great unrest and conflict. But you know I guess we want to pray um that God would change that country as well. Like we say pray for our Christian brothers and sisters as well. I mean we we know that it it's not just Ouija Muslims although it seems predominantly Muslims there is there is some talk of Christian communities as well um facing some persecution there.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely yeah it's it's a sign of what the one party state wants to do to clamp down on any um any dissident voices um and so they're they're very threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood and they're very threatened by you know the Christians being a fourth column within their um within their country and so um yeah the the church they they they consider the church to be a great threat and in one sense the church is um a great threat even as the church is for them in Christ but um so I yeah I think I think pray and I and I think preach as well that um you know what is what is the view of the human person that enables a genocide and actually without Jesus um it's it's it's actually um genocide becomes possible. Jesus comes into this world to love and redeem the least and the last and the lost by becoming the little guy by becoming a religious minority within the Roman Empire and getting crucified he he is one who is you know he was he was a victim of religious violence and he was a persecuted minority and and you know it's Jesus who's taught the world to be sensitive to minorities and to the weak. And it's Jesus who's taught the world to have um an equal regard for every single person no matter how economically useful they are. And this has become secularized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights but it's it's a thoroughly Jesus shaped thing. And you can understand why the Communist Party might value people only according to their economic utility or according to you know the market rate of you know whatever organs are necessary. That that is a a chilling vision for for how you value human beings but I think without Jesus that that is how you value human beings. You only value them according to their ec economic usefulness or according to the you know the minerals you know I'm a sack of protoplasm and and how much do you get for the minerals in my body? About the same as a Big Mac. Yeah. On on Twitter I um tweeted out um this this video that we made two years ago if people remember the um Jordan Peterson versus Sam Harris uh debates um there was a moment during the Sam Harris Jordan Peterson debates when they talked about value and how it is um we we value things and persons. And uh and this is um a clip um from one of the videos that we made at that point and I think it it really has bearing on what is the value of a human being.
SPEAKER_02Let's have a look so if I if I tell you this is the glass that Elton John drank from his last year. Right, right. It could be that you know you're just the biggest Elton John fan ever and you it's worth quite a lot to you.
SPEAKER_04Elton John's glass is worth more than the contents of that glass. Okay that's that's good news because when I look at a human being and I wonder what their worth is I do not want to limit their worth to the material contents in front of me. See here's a bag of protoplasm, right? A human being and I could probably get about 20 bucks for the minerals that are inside that bag of protoplasm but we know that people are worth more than 20 bucks, right? So he is hoping that people can be valued not according to what's inside them. He is hoping that there is a value system that will accord people dignity that goes beyond their material structure or their particular strength or intelligence. He is hoping there is an Elton John out there. That's not how the analogy is developed in the in the debate. In the debate Harris says that the glass is like the land of Palestine.
SPEAKER_02The reason why Israelis and Palestinians can't negotiate as though their problems could be solved by real estate transaction is because they have irrational and irreconcilable claims upon land. Is it any more irrational than the claim that the glass is worth something is it's like land.
SPEAKER_04According to Harris, it's irrational to attribute to objects values that can't be seen in the objects themselves. His example is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the land but look what Harris does with the analogy. The complete analogy is we remember the fight over Elton Gentleman's land and Elton Gemman was never here and everybody claps but everybody claps when they think that the glass is Palestine would they clap if they knew that the glass was the human person get rid of Elton Gentleman and the glass must be valued on its own merits. Get rid of God who makes us in his image and we must be valued on our own merits and some are stronger and some are weaker. Some are smarter some are dumber. Some are born to rule and some surely are born to be ruled over and you know take take the God who makes us in his image out of the equation and yeah what what are the Uyghur Muslims worth? What what are the the failing gong um adherents worth? What are Christian minorities worth? What is anyone worth? Well they're only worth what you see within them unless there's someone outside the system who has valued us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah and that's true and we've talked about this before where that's true even here in e even with just the human rights, isn't it that human rights is a is uh although it it's become sec it's a Christian thing that's become secularized it's just based on this belief, isn't it, of something outside that gives value to the human life you could quite reasonably look at human rights and just go, okay, but why? You know um and because it you know even in the West we've lost the foundation for those human rights really if we were to start picking at them.
SPEAKER_04And of course we see that we see that happening it unravels more and more well in my debate with um Matt Dillahunty he he always sort of said look I I'm a humanist and I believe in human rights because we need we we of course care about human beings and my comeback was always well who's we? Who do you define as we? And it it always becomes you know the the strong majority who draw the line around me and my tribe and I'm always liable to leave you and your tribe on the outside because you you're not helpful to me and the and the moment you're not helpful to me, you're on the outside of what I'm going to you know define as a as a true and proper human being. And you might be three fifths of a human being but you're not you're not as as valuable as I am and and that's that's always the danger. Unless there's somebody from outside the human system who values the entirety of the human system without that without Jesus then you've just got members within the human family who just value people like them. And human rights always you know that that's the thing like atheism cannot guarantee humanism because you need something from outside the system to value all those within the system. And you get that with Jesus and you just don't get that in the secularized version. So you know what what what can we say to China? You know why should China value the human rights of everyone including the minorities? Why should they? And that becomes a very big problem for for pluralists who just say well I've got my system you've got your system what is it that's above here that says this Western value is superior to this communist value? What is it up here that says this is closer to the truth and that is further from the truth? You've got to have something up here or else it'll it'll collapses. Yeah. Absolutely well I think we should probably uh draw a line under things here and um people should stay tuned for our uh interview with uh Chinese missionary uh or rather uh an American missionary two uh Uyghur Muslims in China and uh we'll figure out furthermore um how it is that we can pray for the situation and um how it is that God might be using the church in China to bring about his kingdom purposes. So stay tuned for that. But Paul how can people uh get in touch with us?
SPEAKER_03Uh yep so you can get in touch with us via all the major kind of social media um platforms so you can find us on Facebook um with Speaklife UK there uh twitter uh instagram we're kind of all under the same handles there you can also get a hold of us on the website speaklife.org.uk um and there's lots of you know I can find lots of resources there but you can also find us uh if you if you're looking for resources in particular um best best bet is our channel on YouTube which hopefully this is where you're watching this anyway um so if you're interested in more stuff have a look through our videos do subscribe to the channel hit the bell so that will notify you when we actually release new videos and that'll keep you up to date with kind of all the the main things going on with us awesome awesome Paul Feasy thank you so much well thank you Glenn see you guys cheers