In 1989 I was a naive child in grade school. The world was drastically changing around me yet I didn’t fully understand it. From the uprising of China to the fall of communism in Eastern Germany and then the collapse of the USSR in 1991, men, women and children were becoming free. I saw these images on television growing up and I still see them clearly in my mind even today. The first image I recall is one of overjoyed people on top of the wall in Berlin swinging hammers and with each swing casting off the dread and hopelessness their lives were lived in for countless years. Can you imagine what it would be like to physically destroy the very thing that separated you from freedom? The second one was one man, solitary on a dreary, totalitarian road facing down the tanks with their thousands of pounds of steel and death as the Chinese tank operators tried to roll past him and murder their own populace.
“Tankman” as many of us know him is who I want to talk about. What kind of courage do you have to have to stand down a tank, or an entire battalion of them? What was that man thinking while he stood there and as he swung his hands in defiance? He was obviously to his last resort. He knew what was going on in the square and he knew that his life was worth loosing for the dream that is freedom. How is it we forget this dream and how is it we are so apt to loose it? I admire those who want to live free. I believe our freedom is granted to us by God above. God gave us minds to think and hands and feet to act. Those minds, hands and feet were not meant to be chained. We are made in the image of God and we aren’t meant to be under bondage, whether that bondage is political, economical or societal. Christ in his perfection showed us the proper way to act towards one another and in the Golden Rule (You should love your neighbor as yourself – Matthew chapter 22:39-40), freedom is realized. In freedom we can help our fellow man, in freedom we can help our own family. In freedom we are able to produce and benefit ourselves and the person whom we contract with, everyone wins! Our own countries forefathers were oppressed by tyrants, by monarchs, by people who wanted to think for them, act for them and take their produce and give nothing in return. Do we understand our blessings and do we understand the beauty of freedom and its price?
Why do Americans want to return to an unjust, oppressive, un-Godly system? Why are we right now allowing people who man our government to steal our freedoms? Why are we allowing oppressive taxation, oppressive regulation on commerce and watching politicians who live for no other reason to acquire power continue write laws that oppress us, denigrate us and marginalize us?
I’m very excited that today is the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre, because today we can reflect on the events of the past and realize that the groundwork for oppression is being lain in Washington D.C. Tienanmen clearly shows us the fruit of that groundwork. Our forefathers had a dream and it was based upon God’s dream. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a noble dream and it is one that we can all be proud of. The Chinese in 1989 in Tienanmen Square based all their dreams on the American experiment and even went so far to put a mock statue of Liberty in the Square. That dream wasn’t America’s dream… it was passed down from above. Our children need to revel in this dream and scoff at instructors who would insist America is a hateful, shameful country. We who are parents should teach our rich history to our children and revel in it daily. This is an honorable country. We don’t have to be nationalistic about it, yet we must be patriotic! Those who participated in the protest in 1989 are either dead, silent, in jail or have lost hope. That is the product of having a government who thinks and acts for you. The populace of China cannot use Google, they can’t use Yahoo. The government of China blocks bloggers, websites, search engines, Twitter, Youtube…. anything it can block to keep its populace from catching even the most fleeting glimpse of freedom. They understand that ignorance is bliss. This seems like something you’d watch in a Hollywood movie or read about in Farenheit 451, Brave New World or 1984…. but it exists and its happening right now!
Let us all remember the dream of our forefathers. Let us share our rich history with our companions and families and most of all never let those who seek to oppress us, destroy our God-given right to freedom.
For those who don’t believe in a dream of freedom, where does it come from? It can’t come from the animal kingdom, because there is no higher calling there, only reproduction and survival. It can’t come from mankind because there is no perfect man or no perfect council and what we’ve seen time and time again throughout the course of history is that when any man or council has the power at their disposal to make absolute decisions they become absolutely corrupted. The idea of freedom and the inalienable rights must come from God. Some would suggest that Christ’s followers were participants in oppression, saying that slaves were present in the Bible but I would suggest that the evidence shows otherwise. Slavery is an institution of those who don’t understand freedom and its been around as long as men chose to act agaisnt God’s will for mankind. St. Paul in a letter to a friend Philemon told him to consider a runaway slave who came to Paul a brother in Christ, which in effect would make him free. (The book of Philemon). God has no heart for oppression, neither should mankind. The very fact that we are living, breathing, free-thinking entities is proof to me that God values freedom. We aren’t mindless robots that have to do some task. Why should mankind inflict oppression on their fellow man if the creator of mankind didn’t during his creation?
So today on the anniversary of the massacre let us reflect on that solitary man who stood in defiance of a country. That man knew his creator had planted a seed of freedom in him from his birth and no man made institution of government or weapon of war would stop him from realizing his God-instilled potential. We can only pray that in the coming years of the collapse or re-birth of our Republic that we will have half the courage and realization that man had. Let us never stop realizing the dream of freedom that our creator, God wants us all to have.
