Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 21, 2010

If Chinese official Li Shiming had respected the lives and property of others, his wife wouldn?t be a widow, his children wouldn?t be fatherless, and 18-year-old Zhang Xuping wouldn?t have become a murderer.

Zhang was hired to kill Li by a farmer in a north China mining town. Li had used his high position in the Communist Party to terrorize and plunder many local residents through extortion and blatant acts of terror. Those who opposed him in any way were subject to beatings inflicted by police or other hired thugs and often summarily imprisoned.

When Zhang was sentenced to death for killing Li. more than 20,000 people signed a petition demanding clemency. The young man?s real crime, wrote one local commentator, was that he ?refused to be obedient and to be a slave.?

This tragic episode displays, to good effect, the elemental conflict between those who live to control others and those who wish to be free. It may also be a foretaste of our own future.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.