Fatherhood and New Chen Guangcheng Family Persecution

In the movie Selena, Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla (portrayed by Edward James Olmos,) loves his daughter, family and life with enthusiasm, commitment and creativity.

Abraham is protective of Selena (portrayed by Jennifer Lopez) while also pushing her to be her best. What movies have you seen with inspiring, intimate father/daughter relationships? Write to:

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When Selena and Chris Perez fall in love, Abraham can't handle it, and in a fit of hot anger forbids the young lovers to see each other. Chris (portrayed by Jon Seda) is the guitarist for the band Selena and the Dinos. Selena and Chris meet secretly for a while. Then Selena proposes marriage. Chris accepts. They elope.

Chris waits in their Porsche get-away-car while Selena goes into her parents home first to tell Abraham about her and Chris' marriage. Abraham is not the erupting volcano they fear. He has cooled off and has become capable of acknowledging that Chris and Selena really love each other, that they are ready to be married and that he compelled them to elope. The happy couple don't need the Porsche get-away car.

But He Peirong and Chen Guangcheng needed their get-away car. He Peirong is a key member of a group of human rights activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China. Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, is a self-taught lawyer who in 2005 filed a class-action lawsuit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.

Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night. His wife, Yuan Weijing, and daughter were living with him under house arrest. This family was prevented from meeting their wider family, including Chen Guangcheng's and Yuan Weijing's son, who lived elsewhere with an aunt.

Last spring He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing, so that he could escape house arrest in Shandong, China. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?

After Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy, the US and China worked out a deal and Guangcheng escaped to the United States. He Peirong didn't loose Guangcheng like Harriet Tubman didn't loose runaway slaves while helping them to escape slavery in American slave states to freedom in American non-slaves states and in Canada.

On April 9, 2013, Chen Guangcheng testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

God the Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) says in Matthew 7:12 Complete Jewish Bible, "“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets." A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues."

Abraham in the movie Selena came to love Chris as his son-in-law. Currently, Chinese authorities are not loving the Chen family and those who dare to defy China's one-child policy which includes forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

“They can’t do anything about Guangcheng, so they are taking revenge on me,” says Chen Guangfu, a brother of Chen Guangcheng, about an attack this morning where two unidentified men stopped him from riding his electric bicycle and beat him ("Exiled activist Chen Guangcheng's brother beaten in latest attack against family" South China Morning Post May 9, 2013, article by Verna Yu.)

The Chen family has been persecuted for a number of years.

Guangfu's son and Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, is currently in jail and is being denied medical treatment for appendicitis. Freedom Now, a human rights group, has written an April 29, 2013, letter to the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Torture seeking to get Kegui to a hospital and out of jail. 

“They can do nothing to control what I say to the international community, so they are threatening and oppressing (my relatives) in order to shut me up,” Guangcheng told Verna Yu by telephone. He also told her, “I will always speak the truth, I will never hold back.”

Abraham lost his daughter's life through a troubled employee. With timely action, Chen family members can be protected. Pastor Bob Fu, Founder and President of China Aid, spoke with Guangcheng today regarding today's attack on his brother, Chen Guangfu. Fu said in a May 9, 2013, China Aid "Chen Guangcheng's Elder Brother Chen Guangfu was Violently Beaten" article, "To employ mafia style actions in order to silent a fellow citizen's voice represents a new low for China's leaders. It is time for President Obama to immediately intervene with this worsening situation. The US leaders and international community should hold the Chinese top leaders accountable for their miserable failure to deliver its own solemn public international commitment that was made a year ago to both Mr. Chen and Mr. Obama, which was to protect the safety and civil rights of Mr. Chen's family members and investigate years' of abuses and torture to Mr. Chen, his wife and other family members."

Love Letters, Relationships and Political Activism

"What started as an idea between two young people who fell in love and dreamed about the future has burst into the effervescence of reality. As time has gone by, it has been amazing to watch you bud, blossom and bring forth fruit. The fruit of that love, that wisdom and that tenacity have been the nectar that has nurtured me as a man and made our children who they are. I take this occasion to thank you, to water you with my love and adoration, to fertilize you with the season of our experiences, hardships, tests and trials, which have brought forth the blossom of love that we so cherish. My life is better because of you. My heart is stronger because of you, and it beats at the memories, at the moments, at the affections that we have shared. My partner, my lover, my friend, my wife. Thank you," writes Bishop T.D. Jakes in a love letter to his wife, Serita Jakes, published in the February 2013 Ebony magazine article "House of Love." 

What wife would complain about a husband who regularly watered his wife with words like those written above by T.D. to Serita? People seek romance. Romance novels are half of all mass market paperbacks sold in the United States.

Does Chen Guangcheng speak love letters to his wife? Guangcheng is a blind lawyer for the disabled and against forced abortions and forced sterilizations for anyone. He escaped from house arrest in China in April of 2012 and is now living in New York of the United States of America. Guangcheng's joy of celebrating marital love must be tinged by the sadness of knowing family in China are being persecuted for Guangcheng's activism. Yesterday Guangcheng told the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China.

True love is limitless and loaded with goodness. Wisdom is good. Wisdom is a name for the Great Lover Jesus Christ.

When Guangcheng came to the United States of America, he could have stayed silent, happy to be with his wife and two children free from prison and torture. But he didn't choose this path.

Lovers are outstanding time managers. "Mirad, pues, con diligencia como andeis, no como necios sino como sabios, aprovechando bien el tiempo, porque los dias son malos. Por tanto, no seais insensatos, sino entendidos de cual sea la voluntad del Senor," dice Efesios 5:15-17 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960. The Bilingual Bible New King James Version Ephesians 5:15-17 says, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Creyentes (believers) have wisdom. Are you using it to speak words of love in all relationships? Could a spouse, family or someone else write or speak about you like T.D. Jakes, "My life is better because of you"?

Choose Principle Over Presentation

Nick Vujicic is married to Kanae, expecting his first child with his wife, an evangelist and a motivational speaker who was born without arms or legs and also heads the nonprofit organization Life Without Limbs. Vujicic wanted to star in a movie, but ended up turning down his first movie offer. He says in his book Life Without Limits, "How do you want to be remembered? I didn't want my grandchildren to one day discover a DVD of a movie in which Grandpa Nick curses, drools tobacco juice down his chin, and lives like a degenerate. So I said thanks but no thanks to that first movie offer."

Money, fame and power obtained from evil behavior can be tempting. The Apostles Paul and Barnabas said thanks but no thanks to a tempting, but bad offer. God used Paul to heal a man who had been born unable to walk (Acts 14). Instead of praising God for the miracle the Lycaonian people called Paul and Barnabas gods and wanted to make a sacrifice to worship them. Paul and Barnabas could have gone along with this situation since it presented that Paul and Barnabas were visible whereas God was not. Yet Paul and Barnabas chose principle over presentation. Paul said in response to the false worship in Acts 14:15 Amplified Bible, "Men, why are you doing this? We also are [only] human beings, of nature like your own, and we bring you the good news (Gospel) that you should turn away from these foolish and vain things to the living God, Who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything that they contain."

Choosing principle over presentation is not always popular. Even though Paul did a good deed and also told the truth, the Lycaonians stoned him. Vujicic sometimes suffers persecution for living a life that pleases God. So does Charlene Cothran. Today there is a push to legalize the sin of homosexuality and lesbianism through gay marriage and to present the gay life as positive even Biblical in contradiction to Scriptures like Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 22. There are also those fighting for principle over presentation in this area. One such person is Charlene Cothran, who lived the gay lifestyle for almost 30 years, but today is a Christian minister and heads The EVIDENCE Ministry, Inc. Cothran says, in her article Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out, "Many argue that each individual should determine for themselves what God intends for him or her. This would indicate that we each have a separate set of biblical rules to live by.  This is untrue.  If you are ready for change and willing to open yourself to the truth, God’s love can bring your current belief system in line with His Word.  Jesus will cleanse and forgive all confessed sin from a willing heart.  Homosexuality is only one of them.  It is no greater sin than any of the others, but it is sin."

Please share about instances where principle was chosen over presentation.