A report issued by Dingler’s group explains that many cheap consumer goods for sale in the U.S. are produced by slave labor, by workers whose only crime is their faith. Ironically, one of the products manufactured this way are decorative Christmas lights:
“Their fingers bleed, but they press on, for if they don’t make the day’s quota – 5,000 bulbs – they are beaten. Inmates like these often make the Christmas lights that decorate the trees of Christian believers around the world. Their crime? Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. House church pastors are sent to work camps after their arrest, and in some respects, these are the lucky ones, for they survived the standard interrogations that greet most Christian leaders after they are detained; several are killed or ‘disappear,’ never to be seen or heard from again.”
(…)
[At the Saddleback Forum,]Senator John McCain asserted that he would use the “presidential bully pulpit” to pressure oppressive countries to halt religious persecution.
McCain evoked the example of President Ronald Reagan:
“He said to those people who were then captive nations: The day will come when you will know freedom and democracy and the fundamental rights of man. Our Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we do what we can to help people who are oppressed throughout the world. And I’d like to tell you that I still think that even in the worst places in the world today and the darkest corners, little countries like Belarus, they still harbor this hope and dream someday to be like us.”
Perhaps such words will inspire China’s millions of believers to hope and pray for a more peaceful future. Assuming, that is, they are allowed to read and hear them.
