Many people know John 3:16, but it does not stand alone. Consider the verses that follow it. Consider this passage from the Bible.
John 3:16-21New American Standard Bible (NASB)
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His [a]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the [b]only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
What is the NBA-China controversy about? Is it not about hiding the deeds of the Chinese communist police state from the light of day? Does the NBA see anything wrong with this? Of course, they do. For the sake of Mammon, we see that the NBA would hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil, and they don’t like this being revealed. Still, the NBA intends to work with the rulers of China and happily ignore and contribute to the coverup of the atrocities of a communist police state. Yet, at the same time they would allow their players to criticize the United States for the sake of conscience, or is it money?
Our nation has many great corporations with business interests, including many in China. These corporations would be ashamed of their deeds if they were exposed to the light. Many of these corporations even own news and entertainment divisions which they use to hide and obscure the truth. That includes propagandizing us to advocate for politicians and political interests that will further their business interests. That is one reason it takes time, understanding, and wisdom to discern fact from fiction, the truth from lies.
What is the solution? Putting our faith in God, not money. When we put our business interests ahead of the truth — when we feel the need to hide our deeds — we should fear for our souls.
Citizen Tom 
First, I acknowledge I think the loss of faith in the U.S. is a big problem. Largely why people do not care about how the Chinese government is oppressive. I also think the NBAs complete wokeness in the U.S. and obedience to China shows that they are greedy and really interested in money above all else.
@James
I doubt the NBA and their players are especially greedy. We can look back into history and see too many examples of greed. People generally find some way to justify their selfishness. What is unusual is when people actually care about others.
Thought this was interesting. Interview with Jason Whitlock:
(trigger warning, it’s Fox news)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/12/jason_whitlock_the_nba_answers_to_nike_and_nike_is_using_nba_to_go_after_trumps_policies.html
FOX Sports 1 journalist Jason Whitlock connects the dots on how Nike influences the NBA and the athletic apparel company’s relationship with China.
“I’m going to try to explain this,” Whitlock said Friday on FNC’s ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ “It’s very simple actually. Nike is in control of basketball — the NBA, college basketball, high school. Nike is the real person driving this conversation in this thing with China. If you go back to — and I’m going to connect it to politics — in 2015, in May of 2015, President Barack Obama went to Nike’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon and announced his defense of the TPP – Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
“A deal that was going to be very favorable for Nike, for China,” he said. “Who is the President that came after Obama and walked America away from the TPP? Donald Trump. Who is the shoe company that employs LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and these other athletes that smear Donald Trump as racist? Who are the people constantly criticizing Donald Trump? NBA, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich.”
“The NBA answers to Nike,” Whitlock declared. “Nike is a $40 billion business. The NBA is an $8 billion business. President Obama, the basketball President, friendly relationship with the NBA, went to Nike’s headquarters to announce his defense of the TPP.”
“This thing is very simple. This is about money,” he said.
“This is about a President that won’t cooperate with what Nike wants done,” Whitlock said on FNC. “Nike is using the NBA and its leverage over the NBA to go after this guy because they disagree with him about his policies as it relates to trade in China. It’s very simple.”
Tom,
Your post brought another issue about misunderstandings and/or lack of education of the Bill of Rights and Freedom of Speech being reported in the news.
Thanks for the inspiration..
If Interested
https://rudymartinka.com/2019/10/13/king-solomon-free-speech-in-the-private-sector/
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Tom,
Your post brought to mind the idiom: “Never bite the hand that feeds you.”
https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/bite-the-hand-that-feeds
and the wisdom, should entertainers voice their political opinions in public?
In a previous post I wrote about an entertainer who choose not to speak out on political opinions.
In my opinion, our government chose to build up the economic power of a communist country and we also allowed them to allow our government to outsource our manufacturing jobs , and give away our technical information to China.
Who should speak out on China and Hong Kong, and Tinmen Square, and Taiwan, and The China Seas is not a quandary of our own makings?
What is the wise thing to do now?
I believe Trump by trying to restore balanced trade with China is a long-range solution.
The short-range solution is to support Trump until he achieves his economic goals.
The wisdom of anyone to speak out is a matter of personal choices whether they have either religious or a following of people who listen to them.
Let’s be frank, when we judge China, we need to remember that “we are the masters of our own disasters.”
Whether it is wise or foolish is a personal decision of those who speak out to bite the hand that feeds them.
If Interested
https://rudymartinka.com/2018/11/25/king-solomon-billy-joels-wisdom/
In my opinion, it is wiser for religious leaders to voice their opinions when evil is evident, rather than entertainers. Your choice of Christian verses is a wise example to appeal to open minds that recognize evil.
Regards and goodwill blogging,
Tom, just one suggestion. I love your post, and we all seem to believe that China is Communist. I seem to remember in a high school economics class many years ago (1960), we were taught that in Communism the State owns all the business enterprises (means of production), and in Fascism, the businesses are owned “privately” but the state tells them what to do. If that holds true, we should call China Fascist.
Yes, they abandoned socialism in the 1980s and have prospered with a capitalist economy, yet the ruling group still calls itself the Communist Party. Of course they also had the Great Leap Forward which failed dramatically and the Cultural Revolution that attacked all things cultural. They have a strange habit of calling things what they are not. J.
The Great Leap failed? Not if your goal was to kill 12 million of your own countrymen.
@Savageable
See my reply to iamcurmudgeon => https://citizentom.com/2019/10/11/a-lesson-from-nba-china-controversy/comment-page-1/#comment-90063
When the communists took over Russia, they did not immediately nationalize the economy. The Nazis were not in power very long. Hitler was too eager to go to war. Given time would the Nazi have nationalized the German economy? Don’t know, but they called themselves Socialists.
Socialism is a stupid system. Makes the government a bottleneck instead of a mere regulator.
Note also that the spirit of regulation matters. If the government assumes control of the economy through regulations, the government become the effective owner of the economy. That is true even if private individuals still hold the deeds to the capital assets. What we cannot control, we do not in fact own.
@iamcurmudgeon
There was a time I would have made a similar observation. Then I realized that the fascism and communism were just different names for the same thing, the old distinction without a difference. Could be wrong I suppose, but here is my take on it => https://citizentom.com/2018/05/10/of-twisted-words-left-wing-and-right-wing/.
Both are manifestations of the Spirit of Totalitarianism. You’re right.
Amen!!!!
Anyone remember when Lebron James refused to sign that letter criticizing the Chinese for their part in Darfur genocide? Made the news for a while (a while is a couple of days in modern social media land, but still). That was about ten years ago.
I guess the NBA has given up all pretense of lip service to criticizing them now. It really was only pretense. These folks were wearing and publicly promoting all the kit made in China.
From my perspective, candidly, the 2007 or some such letter protest kind of reminded me of a protest march against a serial killer, back in Gainesville in the early 90s. “We’re marching in solidarity to protest this murderer who is killing us!” Um…how is this protest march going help exactly? “We’re telling him we don’t want him to kill us!” Okay…think I was 17 then and it still sounded ridiculous to me. I just slept with a gun, and got a dog. That was my protest….
Similarly, the real protest is to stop doing business with this horrible government, if/when at all possible.
It is so so so long overdue.
Apple has handed the Chinese government the keys to spy on their own population, but at least they’re leaving now (last I heard, time will tell).
Google is helping the Chinese communist police state and Democrats. Google has both the best search engine and the least trustworthy.
Thanks for the heads up and reminder. I will try another search engine…I’ve said this before and keep slipping into the old google habit