In October of 2019, the NBA basketball Houston Rockets General Manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted his support for pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. Little did he know at the time the firestorm he would create. Almost immediately the NBA lashed out at him for doing it. They subsequently tamped down their criticism, but the damage was already done. Following that, various companies that do business with China began criticizing Morey, as well as did NBA great Lebran James.
At the time, several NBA teams were actually in China to play some exhibition games. The games went on, but the Chinese government put severe restrictions on them, particularly as it related to press coverage.
It is a pretty well known fact that China gets quite offended when people point out their human rights abuses, and they do not hesitate to use economic and other kinds of pressure to make opponents back down. And in the past, they have been pretty successful doing that. They have a massive population that companies want to sell to. They have cheap labor that companies want to exploit in order to make their products more competitive. And, they have “invested” massive amounts of money in other countries in a way that allows them to bring pressure to look the other way regarding the bad things they do.
It is actually not surprising that China would do this. After all, they are a Communist country, and the worldview foundation of Communism is Naturalism. As such, they don’t acknowledge any kind of objectively real moral beliefs. With that, they feel free to act in any way that advances their goals.
What is somewhat surprising, though, is the behavior of many of the individuals, companies, and even countries that are giving in to them. What this shows us is that money, rather than truth and right, are the primary motivators of these folks.
As America was established based upon biblical worldview principles, personal and social behavior have traditionally been based on beliefs and values that reflect biblical Theism. With the radical transformation of society over the last fifty or so years to the domination of naturalistic beliefs, these biblical values have been set aside by many – including those who would downplay the evils perpetrated by China.
The end result of this kind of thinking is that repression, oppression, greed, lying, sexual immorality, and many other evils become mainstream in society. Ultimately this will lead to the utter destruction of both individuals and society.
The solution to this is not simply different behavior. Behavior is driven by worldview beliefs. Change in behavior only comes with a change of heart. Christians need to be actively working to share not only the wrongs of bad behavior, but also the reasons why wrong is wrong. Exposing false beliefs and helping people understand why they are false is a powerful first step in sharing the truth of the Christian faith, and the reasons it is true.