Chairman’s Report – July 5th, 2013

 The Saudi Campaign

 More Religious Freedom Coalition newspaper ads run: Our advertising campaign to expose the evil that emanates from Saudi Arabia has now run in ten newspapers. So far the ads have reached mostly Republicans, but in late July we will also run ads in the district of ultra-liberal Joe Kennedy in Massachusetts.  The ads exposing the brutal treatment of Ethiopian Christian guest workers are targeted to congressmen on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The ads are running in newspapers in which the congressmen’s district offices are located. These smaller newspapers are often much more effective in reaching congressmen in their own districts. Often organizations will blow $10,000 on a one-time-shot ad in a New York City or Washington, DC newspaper in an effort to impress. But those ads are not seen by the constituents of congressmen, the people actually living in their districts. I can tell by visiting the offices of these congressmen that these ads, in their own districts, are having an effect.

As I mentioned in the last Chairman’s Report the newspaper ads have two goals; the first is to educate the public about the brutal intolerance of Saudi Arabia, which is the heart of Islam in the world. The second goal is to reach congressmen on key committees who have the ability to affect American policy toward the despotic dictatorship run by the Saudi royal family.

As the program grows, the ad centering on the cruel injustice toward Ethiopian Christians will be just one of several that are planned. The current newspaper ad directs the public to an Internet page at www.StopSaudiEvil.org. If you have not signed a paper version of the petition I strongly urge you to send a free fax to your congressman using the system at that site. You will be required to open an account with a real e-mail address and a zip code to prove you live in the congressman’s district. This protects the integrity of the fax system and proves to your congressman that he is getting a fax from someone who actually lives in his district. Your e-mail address will NOT be shared with anyone.

Paper petitions mailed: As a test I have mailed 35,000 paper copies of the petition to social conservative Christians across America in early June. So far we have received nearly 2,000 of those back signed and those have been presented to members of Congress. I am continuing to analyze the return to see if the results warrant more petitions being physically sent to people rather than using the Internet based system.

The videos exposing Saudi Evil at Youtube continue to do well. Our Stop the Torture of Christians in Saudi Arabia video at our own site has had 1,800 complete views and nearly 6,000 at CleanTV. Many other sites are now carrying that video as well. Our Saudi Diplomats Use Slaves in Virginia has had over 5,000 complete views at our site, as well as many more CleanTV and other Internet sites that carry it. All videos direct people to contact their congressmen by phone or to check our StopSaudiEvil.org Internet site to send a fax. It will take time, but we can make a difference, we can change American opinion.

Saudi Arabia is the root of Islamic evil in the world, yet our politicians in Washington, DC do the bidding of the Saudi royal families, arming them with our best tanks and fighter jets and allowing them to build giant mosques and Islamic schools in the United States that teach hatred of America, Jews and democracy. We need to change this.

China

William J. Murray at the East Church in Beijing

A Chinese Christian professor’s view – The last week of May and the first two weeks of June I was in China, and while there I endeavored to learn about the condition of the Christian church in what has been a very repressive country.  I visited numerous places including the well-known cities of Beijing and Shanghai. I visited Chengdu, Ningbo, Xian and some smaller cities in China proper. I also flew to Lhasa, Tibet with special permission of the Chinese government.

While in a wealthy industrial city in southern China I had the opportunity to speak with a Christian university professor for several hours on issues of faith, politics and business in China. She is a professor of business. Just before that conversation I had received an e-mail from Mindy Belz of World Magazine about a recent survey on atheism. According to the survey, about 13 percent of global respondents identify as atheists — more than double the percentage found in the United States. The highest concentration of atheists in the world according to the surveys is in China, where 47 percent of the population describe themselves as not believing in the existence of God.

The number of atheists in China is not that surprising considering that the main religion is Buddhism, which does not stress a relationship with God. I visited some Buddhist religious sites, and most of the Chinese people present were tourists, not worshipers. They had simply come to look at the same older, famous landmarks I was there to see.

The professor, whose name I can’t divulge, told me that the figure was probably accurate as a whole, but even higher in the larger cities. She said, “Gaining wealth in the big urban areas has become so competitive that only material things are worshiped, not God.” Her comment made me reflect on the number of Mercedes Benz, Audi, BMW and other high-end cars I had seen in China after arriving. Condominiums in Beijing and Shanghai can sell for as much as $1,000 per square foot, meaning a 1,000 square foot apartment can cost $1 million!

I have never been in a mall in the United States as up-scale as those in Shanghai or Xian where jewelers compete to sell Rolex watches and multi-carat diamond rings. The amount of wealth in China is staggering and on display everywhere. The wealth is also more unequally distributed than in the West, and exists alongside great poverty as well.  Still, a huge middle class is emerging.

While in Shanghai, I saw more Bentleys drive by than I have seen in my entire life in the United States. None of the owners of these cars costing close to half a million dollars in China, have ever voted.  The professor told me, “I have never voted in my life.” This blows away the idea that a nation can only have prosperity when its leaders come to power in a democratic electoral process. There is a reason the United States borrows money from China and is simply that the Chinese nation is prosperous.

But prosperity without faith is dangerous. The drive to obtain money without the restraint of faith causes dishonesty and fear.

The professor and I talked for some time about the willingness of Chinese businessmen to do anything to get rich, even put cheap fillers in baby formula, causing liver damage and death.  Imagine what could drive a man to put dangerous chemicals into baby formula in a nation that allows only one child per family. When that child dies, the family ends. Obviously, to do such a horrendous deed requires that the man have no conscience.  Those without faith have little or no conscience.

The professor attends an “official” or state authorized Protestant Church, not a house church. Attending a house church would probably mean the loss of her position as a professor, although she did not say that. Pastors of the authorized churches have graduated from state approved seminaries. As a result there is no political activity at all in her “approved” church. By no means does that mean that the Gospel is not preached, for it surely is. Yet many members feel that the state approved pastors see their pastorate as just a job, not a true calling from God.  Still, the last five years have seen significant advances in church freedom, according to the professor.

Youtube and Facebook are banned in China, but not for political reasons as much as moral reasons. Despite being officially atheistic, the Communist Party of China is pro-family, stands against same-sex marriage and jails people for selling pornography. There are no state lotteries stealing from the poor as there are in the United States, and gambling is allowed only in Macau and Hong Kong where it existed prior to the Chinese taking back those areas in the 20^th century.

Anyone willing to pay about $50 a year can obtain a “proxy server” address outside of China and visit all the Internet sites banned by the Chinese government. Other than for pornography and graphic violence, most of the banned sites are those of groups the government sees as a threat such as the Falun Gong.  The Religious Freedom Coalition Internet site is NOT banned. Neither are the sites of the Heritage Foundation, the NRA, CNN or Fox News.  In fact, I had difficulty finding banned sites other than Youtube and Facebook. This does not mean that the Chinese government does not have the ability to turn off any Internet site it does not like. (Of course our own government has that ability as well.)

The professor told me that there are many delays in the construction of new churches, and while the government continues to promise construction sites, building permits are years away in her city. Currently many of the congregants are forced to stand during an entire service. House churches are not by any means free, but in some areas tolerated. In other areas house churches are brutally closed and pastors are arrested and jailed.

Still, the professor saw materialism and the drive for wealth in China today as a bigger inhibitor to church growth than Chinese government interference. The most important goals in China today are to own your own apartment and a car she said. She told me, “Everyone wants to be able to come in a place like this for a cup of coffee.” Our conversation was taking place in a coffee house where the latté ran about $4.00 a cup. The problems of winning the lost to Christ in China are eerily similar to those we have in the United States. There are entire generations of people who believe the emptiness in their hearts can be filled with a big house, an expensive car and fancy food.  More on China in my next report.

Congress and the President

Monk beheaded in the name of democracy? – In June President Barack Obama said publicly that he would send arms to Syrian rebels led by “moderate” Free Syrian Army General Salim Idis. Almost the same day I posted at our Internet site a video of General Idis in which he made these comments:

“Israel is an enemy country, I say this loud and clear. It occupies Syrian land. The FSA will not change positions regarding this country before Israel withdraws from Syrian land and recognizes the legitimate rights of the Arab Palestinian people.”

By “legitimate rights” the general means the “right of return” of millions of Palestinians who never did live in Israel. In other words he wants the end of Israel. Read more

NOTE: Strange but true, a huge chartered container ship, the MOA Comfort, which was carrying hundreds of containers of weapons and ammunition to the Syrian “rebels” mysteriously broke in half and sank in the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, the slaughter of Christians by the Obama supported rebels in Syria continues. Attacks on churches are almost continuous. On June 28^th I was scheduled to make a presentation on a conference call about Syria to hundreds of pastors and Tea Party leaders. That morning as I was preparing my notes, my heart sank as I received a copy of a video of a missing monk in Syria being beheaded with a sharp knife. It took time, he died slowly.

Christians just returned to the city of Qusair near Lebanon when the town was recaptured by the Syrian Army. They found their homes destroyed and their churches looted and desecrated. The Free Syrian Army is not in the business of protecting Christians or their property; the FSA is about destroying a secular state and imposing sharia law on the people of Syria.

A few days ago a man walked up to a line of people waiting for food to be distributed from the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, the home church of the Orthodox Bishop of Antioch. The man blew himself up, killing four Christians and wounding dozens more. A secular democratic movement does not have suicide bombers.

The leaders of the Western nations are operating without faith in their hearts, and the result is contradictory decisions for the ‘good of the moment.’ Thus we have a nation that allows same-sex marriage sending weapons to Islamists who hang homosexuals. The European Union and the United States, while handing out abortion pills to 13-year-old girls, are sending guns to men who enslave women and take away their rights. Worse, those being armed want the destruction not only of Israel, but of all democratic states in the world.

On June 17^th, 1963 my atheist mother, Madalyn Murray, O’Hair, won the battle to remove prayer from America’s public schools. It was one of several decisions by the Supreme Court that have led America onto a path of self-destruction. Now, our nation is one such as  Isaiah described that “calls good evil, and evil good.”  Our only hope is turning back to God. (Read more about the lawsuit that removed God from America’s public schools)

William J. Murray, Chairman

Religious Freedom Coalition, 601 Pennsylvania Ave, NW  #900 , Washington, DC 20004 * (202) 742-8990