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“Christian faith may sound like an unlikely component in China's future economic success. But the notion that newfound faith can inspire a workforce to increased levels of productivity is being taken seriously not only by Christian businessmen, but by China's Communist - and officially atheist - leaders.”

BBC ran a story on August 11 called Christian faith plus Chinese productivity. Those of us who have studied and observed Christian business ethics and transformation of societies – in history and around the world - are not surprised to find a correlation. Now even atheist and communist Chinese officials are saying the same.

The article says that workers who become Christians assume responsibility, they develop a good work ethic and are also eager to tell co-worker about their newfound faith.

Weng-Jen Wau is the general manager of a manufacturing plant which produces industrial valves for 5 million US dollars per month. He shares that when staff  convert to Christianity, their attitude towards their work is transformed.

"If you're a Christian you're more honest, with a better heart," he says. "The people who aren't Christians aren't responsible. I think it's very different.

"I'm not saying those people who aren't Christians are all bad, but from the percentage of the workers who are Christians, they seem to be more responsible.

"Also when they do things wrong, they feel guilty - that's the difference," he explains.

One of the workers I met who had recently converted to Christianity explained that he had known nothing about the religion before he started work at the factory.

But he said that his new-found faith was now a source of daily inspiration.  He told me that he was now trying to convert his friends and colleagues to Christianity.

"If everybody became a Christian, it would have a very big impact, and would really help the development of our factory," he said.

The wider role of Christian entrepreneurs in the economic success of the Wenzhou private enterprise zone has not gone unnoticed by the Chinese government.  Far from being regarded as a religious oddity, the impact of Christian-run businesses is now being studied by Chinese government officials.

Professor Zhuo Xinping is the Director of the Chinese Institute of World Religions in Beijing. He has studied this and notes that there is a correlation of the work of 19th century missionaries in this region and the present growth of Christians and Christian entrepreneurs. This particularly city – Wenzhou – visited by the BBC correspondent has according to some estimates 20 percent Christians.

Professor Zhuo Xinping says: “It's very important to find the secret of social development, the so-called potential forces for a nation. When it comes to Western countries, the majority Chinese understanding is that this potential force is Protestant Christianity."

Two pieces of news:

1. Shut up!

For many years the Labour party in the UK has worked towards restricting freedom of speech – the fundamental and essential building block of democracy.

“Free speech laws that allow people to express their opinions about homosexual conduct should be scrapped, Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband says.”

What he and Labour want is a ban on people expressing opinions on a particular lifestyle. Sounds like a road to a non-democratic society.

Read more at Ed Miliband would scrap free speech safeguard

2. Atheists more likely to kill?

A survey of almost 4000 doctors shows that “atheist doctors are almost twice as likely to make decisions which speed up the deaths of their patients than their religious colleagues. … The research, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, also revealed that doctors with a strong faith were less likely to discuss treatments that would speed up their patients’ deaths."

Read more at Atheist doctors more likely to hasten patients’ deaths

I was asked by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to write an op-ed on Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt's dealings with Iran and related Middle East issues. The article is published today, 22 July. Here is the link to the WSJ op-ed. My full text follows; the WSJ version is slightly edited:

Iran is by far the most dangerous threat to peace in the Middle East and beyond. We know that the Iranian president Ahmadinejad is an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier and that he threatens to annihilate Israel. This threat is reinforced by the well known fact that the Islamic regime is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.

We know that Iran is an exporter and supporter of terrorism. One only has to mention two terrorist organizations which are backed up by Iran: Hamas and Hezbollah.

We know that Iran is a dictatorship. Human rights are constantly trampled upon. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, or political freedom. Last year’s election was a case in point. Leaders and followers of the emerging democracy movement were brutally beaten, jailed and killed.

But dictatorships always fall; it is just a matter of time.

Three things are of the utmost importance in dealing with Iran: containment, human rights and democracy, as well as international strategic alliances.

Sweden is a small Scandinavian country with limited influence on international affairs. But it has a larger-than-life former Prime Minister and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs – Mr. Carl Bildt.

The post-Christian and secularized Sweden has to a large extent abandoned belief in God and the United Nations has for decades served as the new Supreme Being. Swedish governments, regardless of political leanings, have referred to the UN as the final arbiter and guide in international affairs, almost with a metaphysical reverence.

Among democracies there is a broad consensus that Iran must be contained, and more sanctions should be imposed to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear program. But lo and behold, Mr. Bildt hesitates; some even say he tries to stall the sanction process. On his own blog he questions the decision by the UN Security Council.

He suggests supporting Brazil and Turkey, which voted against UN sanctions against Iran. Is Mr. Bildt representing a new direction in Swedish policy - away from the UN - or is he just running his own race – again? The Swedish Parliament, and some of his own government coalition partners, passed a resolution earlier this year deeming that the killing of Armenians in 1915 should be labeled genocide. His responsibility should then be to carry Swedish foreign policy forward. Instead he publically distanced himself from the resolution and apologized to Turkey.

Mr. Bildt is a gifted and well connected politician. He has a track record of speaking up against dictatorship even when it was not politically correct. He has also proven himself as a man committed to peace and nation building, including risking his own life during his years in the Balkans.

But Mr. Bildt’s dealings in the wider Middle East region – with dictatorships, and the only democracy, Israel - raise questions and cause concerns.

Last fall, diplomatic tension rose between Sweden and Israel. A Swedish tabloid published centuries old blood libel myths, but Mr. Bildt refused to take a stand against those anti-Semitic accusations. He then cancelled a scheduled trip to Israel, at a time when Sweden held the EU presidency. But he gladly went to Syria in February 2010. Syria, one of the worst dictatorships in the region, occupied neighboring Lebanon for many years, and supports Hezbollah in its Holocaust agenda.

Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad hosted president Ahmadinejad at the same time, as well as the leader for Hezbollah and the leader for its twin terrorist organization Hamas. Only bin Laden was missing. Mr. Bildt failed to bring up human rights issues or challenge the fact that Syria supports terrorist organizations.

In short: Bildt doesn’t hesitate to have photo ops with dictators, terrorist supporters and Holocaust deniers, but he refused to visit the only democracy in the region.

There were probably many people with good intentions on the Ship to Gaza convoy. But one of the ships was organized by IHH, a terrorist organization with links to Al Qaida. The Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan backed IHH in their Ship to Gaza engagement. On their ship Mavi Marmara they sang Islamic songs inciting hatred and murder of Jews. Two well known Swedes also participated with this terrorist group. After the incident at sea the Swedes came to Istanbul. Who met them? Mr. Bildt. He quickly showed sympathy for the Swedes and the Ship to Gaza cause and equally quickly he condemned Israel.

Religious freedom is often a good litmus test on democracy in general and human rights in particular. Religious liberty in Iran is as prevalent as rain in the Sahara.

Mr. Bildt replied recently to a question posed by the Swedish MP Mr. Lennart Sacredeus regarding increasing persecution of Christians in Iran. Mr. Bildt assured that Sweden takes this seriously and referred to discussions within UN’s Human Rights Council. Seriously? How can anyone in his right mind take UN’s Human Rights Council seriously; it is a pathetic playground often dominated by dictatorships which don’t allow religious freedom.

Mr. Bildt has to my knowledge never pro-actively dealt with religious liberty issues, while 70 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with limited religious freedom.

Democracies are unlikely to start wars. A truly democratic Iran would defuse tensions in the region. But Mr. Bildt, like president Obama, does not proactively support the democracy movement, nor does he take human rights, including religious liberty issues, seriously.

It is disconcerting that Mr. Bildt seems to work against containment of Iran. It is equally troubling to observe Mr. Bildt’s uncritical alliances with dictators, anti-Israel activists and terrorist supporters.

The democracies in the world need to unite to contain Iran, to actively promote democracy and strongly support human rights in the Middle East, and build strong strategic alliances to that end. But Mr. Bildt seems to have other agendas and the wrong friends.

Yet another example of political correctness going overboard and how the flawed hate speech concept is undermining freedom of speech: A university professor in Illinois, USA was fired when he simply taught Catholic beliefs in a class about Catholic beliefs. It was deemed hate speech. Welcome to Absurdistan! Here’s the story:

For nine years Kenneth Howell has been an adjunct lecturer at the University of Illinois in its Department of Religion. One of the courses he has taught for the school is “Introduction to Catholicism.”

As part of this course, Howell discusses natural law theory and its application to social issues. In preparation for an exam, Howell emailed his students a lengthy discussion of the theories of utilitarianism and natural law and how they would apply in judging the morality of homosexual acts.

Here’s a small portion of that e-mail: “Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.”

Professor Howell is not breaking news here. He’s simply explaining the theory of natural law and how it is used in Roman Catholic teaching regarding homosexual acts. It’s what he’s paid to do.

Or was paid to do. The University of Illinois Department of Religion has decided it will no longer use his services. Why? A student complained that Howell was engaging in “hate speech.”

A friend of one of Howell’s students emailed the head of the religion department with the complaint, apparently because the student wished to remain anonymous.

Here’s a portion of that email: “Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing. Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another. The courses at this institution should be geared to contribute to the public discourse and promote independent thought; not limit one’s worldview and ostracize people of a certain sexual orientation.”

Source: http://online.worldmag.com/2010/07/16/religion-professor-fired-for-teaching-religion/

The freedoms of expression, association and religion took a real blow recently in a Supreme Court ruling in the United States. This is a significant case in itself. But it is also yet another example of a downhill slippery slope on which many Western democracies are on regarding these fundamental freedoms.

Advocates International, a global network of Christian lawyers in over 100 countries, filed a brief in this case. The Founder & CEO, Sam Ericsson, writes about the case and its implications. Excerpts:

“In 2004, a group of seven Christian law students at the University of California/Hastings Law School campus wanted to affiliate with the national CLS network of lawyers and students. The CLS Statement of Faith for leaders and members states that Scripture is “the inspired Word of God.” One tenet is the belief that sexual activity should not occur outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

Thus, CLS excludes from leadership and membership anyone who does not live up to this standard including adulterers, fornicators, pedophiles and those who engage in homosexual conduct. Hastings rejected the CLS Law Student group application for a “Registered Student Organization” (RSO) because the national CLS Statement of Faith allegedly violated Hastings’ Nondiscrimination Policy by excluding students based on religious belief and sexual orientation. CLS sued alleging violation of its First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association and religion.

At the deposition of the Law School dean in 2005, she testified that Hastings has had a long-standing policy requiring all RSOs to “accept-all-comers,” meaning that none of the 60 student groups could exclude any student for any reason from being a leader or member.

But this “all comers” policy had never been heard of in the history of the school until the dean made the revelation at her deposition. Under the “all comers” policy, Jewish student groups could not exclude non-Jews, including anti-Semites. Likewise, Muslims must accept non-Muslims. CLS discovered that several RSO groups had not complied with the “all comers” policy. For example, the Hispanic “La Raza” group required members to be Hispanic. CLS is the only group denied recognition since Hastings’ founding in 1878!

The District Court ruled that the “all comers” policy was reasonable! The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court in an opinion that was two sentences long! In her majority opinion, Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg focused her attention approvingly on the “all comers” policy. She noted that the CLS group could still meet but would not have access to benefits such as the school communication network to let all 2,000 Hastings students know when and where the CLS held its meetings. But there is still hope. The Court sent the case back down to determine whether there had been other violations of the “all comers” policy that had been overlooked by the school and whether CLS was treated unfairly.

In a brilliant 37-page dissent by Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia and Thomas, he took the majority apart point-by-point. According to Alito, the majority’s decision means that “no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness [is allowed] in our country’s institutions of higher learning.” He concludes, “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today’s decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country … I can only hope that this decision will turn out to be an aberration.”

Justice was driven back and truth stumbled on June 28th, but God is sovereign. Let’s pray that a miracle reversal will occur.”

“We believe Israel is subjected to unfair treatment, and are convinced that defending Israel means defending the values that made and sustain our Western civilization.”

A group of intellectuals, senior politicians and ambassadors have written an important article about Israel; published in Wall Street Journal. In six points they declare their beliefs, principles and aims:

“Israel is a Western democracy and a normal country. Nonetheless, Israel has faced abnormal circumstances since its inception. In fact, Israel is the only Western democracy whose existence has been questioned by force, and whose legitimacy is still being questioned independently of its actions.

The recent flotilla crisis in the Mediterranean provided yet another occasion for Israel's detractors to renew their frenzied campaign. It was so even before the facts of that tragic incident had come to light. Eyes were blind to the reasons why Israel had to respond to the Gaza flotilla's clear provocation.

Because we believe Israel is subjected to unfair treatment, and are convinced that defending Israel means defending the values that made and sustain our Western civilization, we have decided to launch the Friends of Israel Initiative. Our goal is to bring reason and decency back to the discussion about Israel. We are an eclectic group, coming from different countries and holding different opinions on a range of issues. It goes without saying that we do not speak for the State of Israel and we do not defend every course of action that it decides upon. We are united, however, by the following beliefs, principles and aims:

First, Israel is a normal, Western democracy and should be treated as such. Its parliamentary system, legal traditions, education and scientific research facilities, and cultural achievements are as fundamental to it as to any other Western society. Indeed, in some of these areas, Israel is a world leader.

Second, attempts to question Israel's basic legitimacy as a Jewish state in the Middle East are unacceptable to people who support liberal democratic values. The State of Israel was founded in the wake of United Nations Resolution 181, passed in 1947. It also arose out of an unbroken Jewish connection to the land that stretches back thousands of years. Israel does not derive its legitimacy, as some claim, from sympathy over the Holocaust. Instead, it derives legitimacy from international law and from the same right to self-determination claimed by all nations.

Third, as a fully legitimate member of the international community, Israel's basic right to self-defense should not be questioned. Nor should it be forgotten that Israel faces unique security threats -- from terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and from an Iran seeking nuclear weapons.

United Nations condemnations of Israel arising from last year's Goldstone Report on the recent war in Gaza, for example, ignore the security challenges that Israel faces. All democracies should oppose such campaigns, which ultimately undermine the legitimacy not merely of Israel but of the U.N. itself.

Fourth, we must never forget that Israel is on our side in the battle against Islamism and terror. Israel stands on the front line of that fight as a bulwark of Judeo-Christian values. The belief that the democratic world can sacrifice Israel in order to placate Islamism is profoundly wrong and dangerous. Appeasement failed in the 1930s and it will fail today.

Fifth, attempts by people of good faith to facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians are always to be supported. But outsiders should beware of attempting to impose their own solutions. Israelis and Palestinians should know how to build a viable peace on their own. We can help them, but we cannot force them.

Sixth, we must be alive to the dangers that the campaign against Israel poses in reawakening anti-Semitism. Hostility to the Jews has been a stain on the Western world's honor for centuries. It is a matter of basic self-respect that we actively confront and oppose new manifestations of an old and ugly problem.

The Friends of Israel Initiative has come together to encourage men and women of goodwill to reconsider their attitudes toward the Jewish state, and to relocate those attitudes inside the best of Western traditions rather than the worst. We urge them to recognize that it is in our own best interests that an increasingly jaded relationship between Israel and many of the world's other liberal democracies is rescued and reinvigorated before it is too late for us all.”

Mr. Aznar is a former prime minister of Spain.
Mr. Trimble is a former first minister of Northern Ireland.
Mr. Bolton is a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Mr. Toledo is a former president of Peru.
Mr. Pera is a former president of the Italian Senate.
Mr. Roberts is a British historian.
Ms. Nirenstein is vice-president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
Mr. Weigel is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Mr. Agostinelli is managing director of the Rhone Group. Mr. Bustelo is a former minister of industry in Spain.