Death of Mao Tse-Tung
Mao Tse-Tung, or Chairman Mao as he has been called, the revolutionary leader of Communist China, is dead. Mao, the undisputed head of China’s 800 million people, had to give way before the inexorable arm of death, for death is no respecter of persons. He has gone to his account and to appear at the bar of the God of all the earth, the One whose very existence he discounted.
To Mao, as one of the prophets of the revolutionary struggle for the establishment of Communism, belongs the unenviable distinction of having enslaved the people of China soul and body under Communist ideology and practice. The sayings of Chairman Mao became the ‘Bible’ of the enslaved people and Chairman Mao himself was given the place of a demi-god. Regarded as a saviour of his people, he was in effect one of the anti-Christ’s which have arisen at different times in the history of the world. Under his allegedly beneficent rule, the Christian Church suffered severe persecution and indeed after the Cultural Revolution of 1966-69, which Mao unleashed, was practically wiped out as an organised body.
The conflict of the Cultural Revolution in which thousands perished was, in Mao’s philosophy, a necessary process in the eventual establishment of a world-wide classless Utopia. This dream of a better world through the establishment of Communism was Mao’s justification for the unrelenting class struggle which he waged. That struggle will, no doubt, be carried on by others until the time comes for the Lord to bring down that anti-christian system with the brightness of His Coming. Then will the eyes of the people of China, rulers and ruled alike, be opened to behold the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Saviour of China and the only Prince of Peace.
A Blasphemous Film
The proposal by a Danish film producer, Jens Jorgen Thorsen, to make a blasphemous film called ‘The Many Faces of Christ’ has evoked a storm of protest throughout the country and letters have been pouring in to the Government and to Members of Parliament calling for the project to be stopped and for Thorsen to be banned from entering Britain. Our own Church, along with other Churches, have protested vigorously to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in the matter and it is to be hoped from remarks made by the Prime Minister that the project will be stopped. The blasphemous and pornographical nature of the projected film shows the depths to which men will descend if left to themselves. The enmity of the carnal heart to Christ is such that no insult is too low to cast in His teeth. How like the generation of His own day in the world that said: He casteth out devils through the Prince of the devils.
While it is gratifying to know that Christians and others have been aroused by this blasphemous proposal to protest so loudly that there is every reason to believe that the project will not be allowed to go ahead, yet on the other hand it is sad that it takes something so vile as this film to call forth that protest. Satan has been slowly carrying on his schemes for the undermining of religion and morals in our country yet how muted have protests been. Had the same indignation been aroused when grossly anti-christian legislation was being passed in Parliament and when the place religious instruction occupied in the schools was slowly being eroded, we would have reason to hope that many of these evils would have been halted and the nation preserved, at least to some extent, from the moral and spiritual decay which has overtaken it. Let us hope that even at this late date the Christian conscience of the nation will be aroused to oppose not only this evil but the many evils which are flooding in upon us.
The Pope’s Authority Challenged
In recent times the authority of the Pope has been widely challenged within the Roman Catholic Church. This challenge has come mainly from radicals within the Church who are beginning to question the Pope’s headship over the Church. The most recent challenge, however, has come not from the liberals but from the traditionalists. In France, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre has claimed the right to continue to celebrate the traditional Latin Tridentine Mass which had been displaced after the Second Vatican Council by the Normative Mass. The Normative Mass has considerable changes in detail from the old rite and also omits much of the ceremonial. In this country Father Oswald Baker and many other R.C. priests continue to use the old rite in defiance of the Pope’s ruling. It is strange indeed that priests and dignitaries of the R.C. Church who are more traditional than the Pope himself are now exposing themselves by their action to ecclesiastical censure.
One good result of the controversy may be that Roman Catholics will be forced to look again at the doctrine of the Pope’s unchallenged authority within the Church. A happier result, however, would be that the eyes of Roman Catholics would be opened to see the blasphemous nature of the Mass whatever rite is used, because it calls in question that one offering made for ever by Christ on Calvary’s accursed tree. On this one sacrifice for sin hangs the hope of the true Church, not on some re-enactment of the sacrifice of Calvary made by a priest of the Church of Rome