Tag Archives: religion

Alex Newman: Biblical Worldview & Christian Education: Real & Fake 4 (1)

by Alex Newman

A biblical worldview is becoming increasingly rare in America and that is in large part due to the education system, explained Nehemiah Institute founder and chief Dan Smithwick in this interview on Conversations That Matter with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. Smithwick, who developed the PEERS test to understand worldview, has been studying this subject for decades. And he found that some Christian schools do far better than others in instilling a biblical worldview in students. Smithwick said churches and preachers must address this crisis immediately.

 

NA: https://thenewamerican.com/biblical-worldview-christian-education-real-fake/


Alex Newman is a senior editor of The New American, author of the new book Deep State: The Invisible Government Behind the Scenes, and coauthor (with the late Sam Blumenfeld) of Crimes of the Educators.

John Kachelman, Jr.: The Reality and Requisite of a National Thanksgiving 4 (1)

by John Kachelman, Jr.

The fourth Thursday in November is my favorite day of the year. It is “Thanksgiving Day.” Ironically my favorite day of the year follows my least favorite day (Halloween). Thanksgiving Day celebrates the heartfelt and happy acknowledgment that the Almighty God has providentially blessed us. Halloween celebrates all that is evil, selfish and ungodly. These two calendar events frame the constant battle in civilization’s history. I prefer the celebration of good rather than the celebration of evil.

One has well asked, “Why is it that mankind chooses to celebrate thanksgiving to the Almighty only on one day, and focus on gripes, grumbles, and complaints the remaining 364 days?” The answer to this query is an indictment of society—mankind is more concerned with Self than with the Almighty God.

A celebration of Thanksgiving is a high-valued target in today’s ungodly society. Any action, celebration, moral compass, lifestyle choices, etc, that places the Judeo-Christian ethos as the governing parameters, is instantly damned in brutal verbiage. To acknowledge Thanksgiving is to acknowledge the Almighty God. In today’s culture God is not acknowledged—He is erased.

The practical consequence of erasing God is an embracing of socialism. Socialism advocates that the communal thought is the source of all power; the State is the ultimate arbitrator in even the most personal choices. One is thankful to the Sate because God is erased. Such an ungodly position ultimately leads to blind submission: “The State knows better how to spend the private citizen’s money than the private citizens.” Or, “The State knows better what your children need to learn.” Or, “The State knows better how to raise your children—it takes a village to raise a child because parents cannot raise their own children!” This is a power struggle—the power of evil seeks to erase the power of good.

However, there is a major problem in the socialistic erasure of the Almighty God. The prophet summarizes this issue as he describes the socio-religious conditions of his day, “There is oath-taking, denial, murder, stealing, and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore, the land mourns, and everyone who lives in it languishes along with the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, and even the fish of the sea disappear.” And what is the cause of this catastrophic environment. “For there is no faithfulness, nor loyalty, nor knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1-3).

Please do not miss the obvious truth! The failure to be thankful to the Almighty God impacts every aspect of man’s civilization and environment. Even the “ecosystem” is destroyed by the unthankful attitude toward the Almighty God! Do you want to cure the ecosystem’s disintegration (climate change or global warming or whatever it is termed today)? Then foster a thankful attitude toward the Almighty God. Do you want to cure the criminal cancers destroying civility? Then cultivate a knowledge that will cause you to be thankful to the Almighty God. Then cultivate a knowledge that leads to a thankful attitude. It is a simple fix. But this simple fix is fought “tooth-and-nail” by the unthankful heart.

The conscience and strength of our nation is being dismantled brick by brick. The deconstruction of our nation has already removed much of our heritage that made us a world power. The heroes have been painted as the villains and the personalities that have fueled hate and instigated anger are memorialized as “saints” and recently even as the Christ!

Reliance on God’s providence was a hallmark of the early colonists but is a never taught historical fact in our schools. God’s providence is a blasphemous belief according to our politically correct speech. God’s providence is a faded memory in the minds of older Americans. The Judeo-Christian foundation of our morality, governing, and freedoms are being attacked and removed piece by piece. We have lost so much of our national conscience that Hosea’s characterization of his society reads like today’s news briefs.

Our nation has long been in an ideological war. Many dismissed the surrender of freedoms and the encroaching governmental “mandates” as inconsequential. But, ideas have consequences. When ungodly, uncivil ideas are permitted unrestricted advocacy, they become a cancer that metastases and brings ruin to every part of society.

Our national day of “Thanksgiving” brings an uncomfortable focus to this war. Two striking points are considered as illustrative of those intent on dismantling our great Republic who attack Thanksgiving Day.
First there is an effort to rewrite history so the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving becomes a myth. Illustrating this are a number of articles from those claiming to have “discovered the truth” regarding the Thanksgiving Holiday celebrated in the USA.

Our educational centers are teaching the “inventing” of Thanksgiving. The holiday is purported to be founded upon a legend. Here is one of many such propaganda pieces deconstructing our national heritage, revising our history and contorting truth. All is an effort to erase the Almighty God and encourage the State’s surrender to socialism.

“The legend of the American Thanksgiving holiday is said to have been based on a feast of thanksgiving in the early days of the American colonies almost 400 years ago. The tale as it is told in grade schools is a legend, a mythologized version that downplays some of the bleaker history of how Thanksgiving became an American national holiday…The holiday continued…not with a feast and family, but rather with rowdy drunken men who went door to door begging for treats. That’s how many of the original American holidays were celebrated: Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Day, Washington’s birthday, the 4th of July…By the mid-18th century, the rowdy behavior had become a carnivalesque misrule that was closer to what we think of as Halloween or Mardi Gras today. An established mummer’s parade made up of cross-dressing men, known as the Fantasticals, began by the 1780s: it was considered a more acceptable behavior than the drunken rowdiness. It could be said that these two institutions are still part of Thanksgiving Day celebrations: rowdy men (Thanksgiving Day football games, established in 1876), and elaborate mummer parades (Macy’s Parade, established in 1924).”

In stark contrast to the idiocy of the revisionist’s attempts to rewrite facts regarding documented facts, we note this historical account: “In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies…In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith…Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from a member of the Abenaki tribe who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe…Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years…In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving.”

Much of what we know about what happened at the first Thanksgiving comes from Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow, who wrote: “Our harvest being gotten in…we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors…many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted…And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want.”

The second point focuses upon how the real Thanksgiving Day celebration demolishes the socialistic onslaught of our free entrepreneurial economy. This point is often eclipsed by the feast shared between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, but it should be strongly emphasized today.

The first Thanksgiving exposes socialism as bereft of any value culturally, morally, civically, economically, and religiously! Any way one looks at socialism it is worthless—except to the elite who become richer and more aloof!

Let me suggest that you read several articles published in Forbes Magazine by Jerry Bowyer. Bowyer’s discussion on the real significance of Thanksgiving is rarely heard. His opening sentences read: “It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom.”

Bowyer, in another article, exposes the emptiness of socialism’s promises. Socialism never produces abundance, energy, expansion, and improvements. As Bowyer notes, “I explained that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of abundance after a period of socialism and starvation…Their Thanksgiving celebrated the triumph of the individual, private property, and incentive, over collectivism…For them, God, not Plato, knew best. Accepting the principles of private property and self-interest was God’s way of harnessing self-interest to the greater good. We know all of this because an elder and Governor of the Plymouth plantation, William Bradford, kept a journal and it survives today.”

I appreciate such insight!

Thanksgiving Day is exceptional in many ways but these two points add emphasis to the reality of such a day celebrated in history and its requisite to a national ideology that succeeds by a bold individualism and a contained and controlled central governing!

The Bible says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12). Perhaps we should add the thought “and whose citizenry remains thankful for the divine blessings.” The Bible says in Deuteronomy 28 that if we honor and obey God, we will enjoy blessings. If a nation dishonors and disobeys Him, it will reap curses (as Hosea observed).

I well remember the truisms once stressed by our political leaders: “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” And, “Once a nation removes God from its conscience, it becomes a god-less nation.”

This is the reality and requisite of our Thanksgiving Day!


John Kachelman, Jr. is a Christian patriot, preacher, and missionary for Jesus Christ to foreign countries. He lives in Montgomery, AL.

Bill Lockwood: Socialism Has Corrupted the Pulpit 4 (1)

by Bill Lockwood

The people of Isaiah’s day said to the seers, “’See no more visions! And to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant (smooth) things, prophesy illusions. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” – Isaiah 30:10-11

The Jews of Isaiah’s day (approximately 730 years Before Christ) were God’s chosen people, but they had grown rebellious. The prophets checked them in these pursuits, but they did not wish to hear of God’s commandments and especially His hatred of sin. Remind us not any more of these things!

Instead, they wanted flatteries—things agreeable to their own wishes. Their desire was to be entertained, not instructed and certainly not corrected. Illusions and deceits is what they wished for. As Matthew Henry comments, “But as they despised the word of God, their sins undermined their safety. Their state would be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Sounds like today’s pulpits, doesn’t it? No spirited edge, only milquetoast and honeyed words. What occurred? Socialism.

Socialism

Max Eastman (1883-1969) was a prominent editor, political activist and “prominent radical” who, like many in Woodrow Wilson’s “progressive” America, became infatuated with Marxism. Eastman traveled to the Soviet Union to learn firsthand how to be a good socialist and became friends with Leon Trotsky. Years later, when Eastman became convinced that socialism is void of validity, he reflected upon his time as a Marxist. “I sadly regret the precious twenty years I spent muddling and messing around with this idea, which with enough mental clarity and moral force I might have seen through when I went to Russia in 1922” (Reflections on the Failure of Socialism).

Eastman commented on socialism this way.

Marxists profess to reject religion in favor of science, but they cherish a belief that the external universe is evolving with reliable, if not divine, necessity in exactly the direction in which they want it to go. They do not conceive themselves as struggling to build the communist society in a world which is of its own nature indifferent to them. They conceive themselves as traveling toward that society in a world which is like a moving-stairway, but walking in the wrong direction. This is not a scientific, but in the most technical sense, a religious conception of the world. (Max Eastman, Marxism—Is It Science?)

Eastman knew whereof he spoke.

Socialism is not normally classified as a religion, but when its doctrines are examined, it more closely resembles a religious concept than anything else. The only difference between socialism and Christianity is that the latter is grounded upon historical fact while socialistic faith is founded upon unproven assumptions. Communism particularly is a philosophy of faith in the dialectic—the zig-zagging of history onward and upward to a more perfect society.

Because socialism is in reality an implicit religion, Spargo & Arner, who virtually wrote the textbook on Socialism, called Elements of Socialism (1912), tell us that not only is a “future life” such as heaven an “invention of man” but that God Himself is a “construct of the human mind.” They present socialism as an “alternative to Christianity” which infuses a passion for perfection “without God” and “without heaven.” Further, it is based upon the general theory of evolution  (p. 63, 75, 111, 206, 222), which itself is a theory designed to replace belief in God.

The Pulpit

This brings us back to the churches of today. Far too many Bible classes, pulpits and church groups have bought into the lie that one needs to keep separated “politics” and “religion.” To frame the issue this way is to make like some preachers are running for political office themselves in sermon material. The real issue is: Do social ideas have any input from the Bible? Should the church and Christians have any interest in social ideas for the community and the family? Do biblical principles have any say on the social issues of the day?

In truth, the social issues plaguing our society today are born of the alternative religion: socialism. Welfare, government housing, government schools, government manipulation of the free market, government intrusion into farming, businesses, health care, family planning, and the list goes on.

Should Christians be interested at all in maintaining a free society by which they may, without reprisal, worship God? Or, shall we capitulate to the social justice warriors such as the Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s who wish to force their godless worldview on a free people? When Marxist BLM declares its intention to rid society of the “nuclear family,” should biblical Christians have something to say?

Is it in the interest of Christians to be able to defend private property and enjoy the fruits of our own toil as biblical principles teach? Does “thou shalt not steal” not imply the concept of private property? Or, shall we endorse government plunder in order to provide medical care, housing, education, food, services and you-name-it for those who do not have these things? Should I not show the difference between freedom to be charitable and government confiscation and squandering? Or, should we ignore these crucial distinctions?

Frederic Bastiat, the 19th-century French economist, made this crucial point: “Socialism … confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to it being done at all….It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

Shall pulpits insist upon the freedom to teach our children the way of the Lord in homeschooling (Deut. 6:4-9); or must we capitulate to government schools with its full display of hedonistic life-styles in the halls and Marxist propaganda in the classrooms? Is it not within the scope of this topic to remind congregants that there are political operatives that wish to remove this God-given liberty?

Am I, as a preacher, out-of-line to remind churches in sermonic material that some political candidates support the strong arm of government confiscating your own monies to pay for ungodly abortions? For redistributing your earnings to those who refuse to work? For giving your money to those who deal in drugs and wander the streets lawlessly looking for more stores and innocents to loot?

In preaching against homosexuality am I not within my God-given boundaries to remind people that some politicians not only support this wickedness, but use the strong arm of the law to coerce it within your houses of worship and private businesses? Shall preachers not “mark” those in apostate pulpits who endorse this lifestyle? (Rom. 16:17). And does not consistency demand we also “mark and avoid” the devil’s legions in the political ranks who are doing the same?

R.C. Foster, a Christian Church preacher of yesteryear, commented on the anemia that had already begun affecting the pulpits of his day. He commented that things will change in America only “when Christian martyrs, instead of craven cowards or selfish worldlings, stand in the pulpit.” The pulpit remains powerful when the gospel is preached and the church refuses to “substitute theatrical performances, pie suppers, and pool-tables for the preaching of the gospel.” But when “the husks of philosophical and scientific speculation, modernism, and infidelity are substituted for the gospel, God’s people are starved and the kingdom suffers defeat.”

Preaching the gospel includes more than merely speaking the “smooth things” (2 Tim. 4:2-4). Corruption in the pulpits is caused, in part, by the siren-song of socialism which has infatuated the unsuspecting and unlearned and caused multitudes of preachers to preach merely the illusions of the day.

Bill Lockwood: The Critical Race Theory-Rabid Anti-White Bigotry 4 (1)

by Bill Lockwood

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has spread into almost every area of society. Beginning in the 1970’s with various radical lawyers and liberal activists desirous of canceling the culture of America, CRT has now moved into education, sociology, religion, government, philosophy, the arts and even medicine—practically every area of human experience. Collegiate campus activists, who have been taught to admire socialist/communist agitators such as Antonio Gramsci, Cesar Chavez, and Barack Obama, now are mobilized against American society.

What is the CRT?

Critical Race Theory is thinly veiled anti-white bigotry. To CRT activists all of Western culture is tainted by the “bigotry” that comes with being white.  In turn, all institutions and traditions of America have been polluted by the past and our “institutional racism.” Whiteness is a moral blight by nature and all white people are compliant in oppression.

What exactly are these institutions that are so poisoned with whiteness? Our entire educational system which holds academic achievement as a high standard; our value system which believes an eternal standard of right and wrong exists—this is only a “white man’s construct”; critical thinking that enables one to solve problems logically is “racist”; logic and reasoning or mathematics are supposed to be “white people’s ideals”; the family structure of husband, wife, and children—inherited from the Bible—is a “white man’s organization” that needs replaced by Black Lives’ Matter “villages”; the holding of “private property” is once more, a white construct; “legal reasoning” and “neutral principles of constitutional law” are all racist ideals. The list goes on.

Seattle, WA

Luis Miguel documents how this works in Seattle where the city government held on June 12 a “whites-only employee training session.” Attendees were instructed to “undo your own whiteness” so as to be held accountable to people of color. Training literature declared that “racism is not our fault but we are responsible.” In other words, a white person is racist by genetics.

Concepts such as “individualism” and “intellectualization” are white people’s racist constructs. All Caucasians own in their DNA an “internalized racial oppression.” Training materials included this gem: “city employees who identify as white [are to] … reflect, challenge ourselves, and build skills and relationships that help us show up more fully as allies and accomplices for racial justice.” Reach down inside and find that racism that lies deep within!

Since the assumption is that whites are born with “racism” in their DNA, training in Seattle admonished, “We’ll examine our complicity in the system of white supremacy … how we internalize and reinforce it—to begin practices that enable us to interrupt racism in ways to be accountable to Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) folks within our community.”

How shall we interrupt our whiteness, especially since it is in our genetics? Employees in the seminar were taught how to “interrupt” their whiteness by being “honest and implicate yourself either in the moment or in past experiences in which you acted or thought similarly.” Condemn yourself for being white.

This all is social engineering gone mad. “CRT is the opposite of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance.’ It’s a bitter movement bent on vengeance against everything branded as ‘white.’”

CRT in Health Care

CRT has even entered the once hallowed-halls of medical science.

Wesley J. Smith, writing in The Epoch Times, points us to a recent article in The Lancet, the world’s oldest medical journal, which has now left the field of “science” and amazingly, entered into the territory of “wokeness.” Readers are encouraged to make race the primary focus of “the concept of intersectionality” to describe “how multiple social categorizations—such as race and gender—interact to confer interlocking oppressions and privileges.”

Deserting even the realm of common sense, the authors of The Lancet article Time to take critical race theory seriously: moving beyond a colour-blind gender lens in global health, write the following:

“Like gender’s problematic binary of male versus female, race is a complex social construct with biological implications, the classifications of which vary across history and geography.” Gender itself is not male and female and it is “problematic” to so consider the sexes.

Cultivated Irrationality

As Dr. Duke Pesta pointed out, Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, in The Revolt of the Masses, defined the appearance of this modern “woke” “mass-man,” a barbaric figure whose ignorance was a necessary precursor to the rise of the violent masses. The “mass-man” could emerge to destroy his own culture. “This type of anarchist ‘did not care to give reasons or even to be right.’ Ortega argued that cultivated irrationality is what set apart 20th– century fascist and communist movements from what came before: ‘the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: the reason of unreason.”

Another “scholarly” screed speaks this way about the sin of “whiteness.” “This racial consciousness needs to be part and parcel of our efforts to address gender inequity worldwide … Only then will we develop an essential sense of humility and self-awareness to be antiracist in our work.”

Wesley J. Smith comments: “That’s not anti-racist. It’s crass bigotry, unvarnished and cruel, and moreover a blatant call to societal dissolution.” This is the point of the CRT–societal dissolution.

Bill Lockwood: What is Cancel Culture? 4 (1)

by Bill Lockwood

Western culture is built upon Christian presuppositions. The word cult, in its original connotation, meant religion. Religious ideals at the foundation of society make up what we call “a culture.” This is why almost every definition of the word “culture” includes such items as values, beliefs, and customary views of a society.

These “customary beliefs” of America, which many have taken for granted, are summed up in the Declaration of Independence; specifically, that our individual rights are gifts from God and that the prime role of government is simply to protect those rights. Biblical values all. Our culture not only sprang from these concepts, but is the only culture in the history of the world to provide this framework for a nation.

This is all anathema to Marxists who play a heavy hand in America today. Karl Marx, one of the founders of what we know of as Marxism/communism, whose efforts to explain the world solely in terms of materialistic philosophy is well-known, actually began at the starting point of atheism. His Manifesto called for “the abolition of religion.” His Marxists followers, whose number are legion, Goosestep with the same hatred for all things religious—particularly Christian.

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist, born in 1891. After founding Italy’s Communist Party, he moved to Russia where he expected to find that Marxism was a success. On closer inspection, however, he concluded that Stalin’s terror was unnecessary. But he did not relinquish the atheistic worldview which was at the center of Marxism. Instead, after moving back to Italy and then being imprisoned by Mussolini, he gathered his thoughts on how a nation could be made into a “Marxist paradise.” These thoughts are in nine volumes, known as Prison Notebooks.

His notes included the following.

Any country grounded in Judeo-Christian values can’t be overthrown until those roots are cut … Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity … in the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.

In these revolutionary ideas is the “cancel culture” being carried out in America today. First, there is the “overwhelming” of Christianity, the basis of western culture. Cut the Christian roots of society. Second, replacing Christianity is the “new order,” the “religion of socialism.” As with Karl Marx, criticizing, even condemning and blaspheming Christianity, would be the very foundation of the new world order. This is socialism—a new religion.

In the “German Ideology” (1845), Marx and Friedrich Engels opined that “for the widespread generation of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause, it is necessary that man himself should suffer a massive change.”

Georg Jung, a Marx contemporary and member of the Doctors’ Club along with Marx himself, reflected that Marx was not a political revolutionary, but a theological-philosophical revolutionary who was attempting to overthrow the entire social system, not just an economic system.  This is the “massive change” required for cancel culture—the overthrow of Christianity.

Bill Lockwood: Christian Nationalism? 5 (3)

by Bill Lockwood

A new bogeyman has supposedly made an entrance in the American scene: Christian Nationalism. Multitudes of Christians – specifically white people who support the Republican Party platform–are said to be in its clutches. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), a humanist organization that attacks all things Christian, co-founded by atheist Dan Barker and whose board boasts rabid anti-Christian heavy-weights such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, summarized what the concept means in a 2007 article by Michelle Goldberg.

She explains that it is a political ideology masquerading as a faith. Christian Nationalism basically holds that America was founded as a Christian nation, that the founders never intended to separate church and state, and that church/state separation is a lie and a fraud perpetrated by secularists in the last 100 years, which has to be undone so America can reclaim its ‘former glory.’

Christian Nationalism is the charge against those who believe America was founded as a “Christian Nation.” Goldberg worries that “this movement” seeks to “Christianize all the institutions of American life, from the schools to the judiciary to the federal government, the presidency, Congress, etc.” A similar screed by FFRF (10-14-19) blasted former Attorney General William Barr with “Christian Nationalism” for referring to the values upon which our nation was founded as “Judeo-Christian” ethics.

A 2017 booklet entitled Christian Nationalism in the United States, edited by Mark T. Edwards, a professor of US History and Politics at Spring Arbor University in Michigan, likens Christian Nationalism to the belief that America is a “Christian Nation,” even when the verbiage itself is absent. The accusation includes that even in the early 19th century, “lettered men and women were ‘reinventing’ the United States as a Christian nation. Outspoken Christian nationalists like Justice Joseph Story joined [Alexis de] Tocqueville in solidifying the Pilgrims and the Puritans as the foundation of religious and political liberty present in antebellum America.”

Kevin Kruse, professor of history at Princeton University, in his book, One Nation Under God (2015), makes the identical accusation against conservatives. George S. Benson, long-time president of Harding University, is heavily criticized for having advanced the cause of “religious nationalism.” The thesis of Kruse’s book is that America was “re-branded” as a “Christian Nation” in the 20th century. The chief culprits for such a plot were the religious professors, conservative politicians, and preachers, including Harding’s National Education Program, headed by Benson.

Fred Schwarz, the Baptist preacher from Australia who began the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, who worked in the same fields as did Benson’s NEP, is also called out by Kruse for pressing “religious nationalism.” As a matter of fact, the NEP’s model of a nation which is founded upon a “Fundamental Belief in God,” is singled out by Kruse for harsh criticism as being completely erroneous (p. 71).

The Christian Nationalism charge was picked up by Christianity Today in an article by Michael Horton (What Are Evangelicals Afraid of Losing? 8-31-2018). In it he lambasts preachers and professors who are on board with President Trump’s “America First” agenda as, “courting political power and happily” allowing “themselves to be used by it.” “This always happens when the church confuses the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this present age. Jesus came not to jump-start the theocracy in Israel, much less to be the founding father of any other nation.” That which is “at stake” here, according to Horton, is “whether evangelical Christians place their faith more in Caesar and his kingdom than in Christ and his reign.”

Christian Nationalism in the churches of Christ?

From here the idea has been uncritically picked up and repeated in articles by members of the churches of Christ. In a blog entitled, For King, Not Country, Brian Casey (7-8-2020) informs us that “’Christian Nationalism’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘God and country’ is a misleading amalgamation.” “Things get very confused as Christian and national identities are blended indiscriminately and ignorantly. The mixture is so toxic to the Christian life…”

He introduces the article by criticizing with heavy-hand Harding’s George Benson for the mistake of confusing the church and the country. “…he promulgated the false marriage of the Kingdom of God (and the ideal of Harding) with the political machine of the United States. The National Education Program became the center of conservative political activism.” The madness in America today could have been avoided, says Casey, if Benson “not merged” nationalistic ideals” with “Christianity.”

Benson, the tireless missionary to China and president of Harding College, according to Casey even confused evangelism for Christ with “making America safe for democracy.” This is an “ill-blended mindset,” he intones.

Now comes The Christian Chronicle with articles written by Bobby Ross, Jr. (10-30-2020; 1-13-21) which carries the same ill-informed charges of Christian Nationalism against members of the churches of Christ who happen to be conservative Trump supporters. Interviewed in the articles are a number of ministers and church workers. The recent rash of attention on the topic is supposedly because some Trump supporters rioted and broke into the Capitol building on January 6. But that wrong-doing merely highlights a much more sinister sin, per these ministers.

Jeremie Beller, congregational minister of the Wilshire church of Christ in Oklahoma City and adjunct professor at OCU, repeats the Michael Horton charge (Christianity Today) that “Christian nationalism is the intertwining of the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men.”

Tanya Smith Brice is the dean of the College of Professional Studies at Bowie State University in Maryland. She gravely warned that Christian Nationalism is a “form of civil religion that places one’s earthly citizenship above one’s obligation as a follower of Christ.” Those who do this “falsely” give to a “nation-state a Messianic identity.” The “nation-state” is seen as the “primary mechanism for ‘saving’ human history.”

Tanya Smith Brice, who is black, now levels the racist charge. “White evangelicals are more likely to support the oppressive class and behaviors of our current federal administration than those who don’t identify as White evangelical.” She then remarks, “Christian nationalism has become inextricably linked with White Supremacy.”

Lee Camp, professor of theology as David Lipscomb University, goes so far as to say that this Christian Nationalism is “idolatry.”

Melvin Otey, former U.S. Justice Department trial lawyer for the Obama Administration and law professor at Faulkner University, says that “People believe that being an American or being a patriot or being a part of a political party is part of their faith. It absolutely is not. That’s what keeps people divided.” He admonishes with words of the apostle Paul, that we are “citizens of heaven.” Says Otey, “we have too many people in the church who aspire to be Christian Republicans, Christian Democrats …Their alliances and their allegiances are not first and foremost to Christ.”

Divided allegiances; white supremacy; confusing the church with Americanism; mistaking missionary activity for Christ for Americanism; idolatry invented in the 20th century—a heavier list of dark sins is hard to be found.

What Shall We Say to These Things?

First, America was founded as a Christian Nation. This is no “re-invention” by later generations, for the Founding generation spoke almost with one voice on this topic. It is noteworthy that celebrated authors such as Kevin Kruse of Princeton, in his One Nation Under God, hardly takes a glance at what the founding generation of Americans actually said. He assumes that in the mid-20th century the entire concept was invented, and he moves forward from there.

When our Founding Fathers referred to this nation, as “Christian Nation,” as did John Jay, one of authors of Federalist Papers, they did not intend that this be understood in the sense that an official church had been established, or that a “Theocracy” was in place, but rather that the principles upon which our republic rests were Christian in origin. Benjamin Morris, a second-generation American, in surveying the mass of material on this topic, summarized:

“Christianity is the principle and all-pervading element, the deepest and most solid foundation, of all our civil institutions.  It is the religion of the people—the national religion; but we have neither an established church nor an established religion.”

Some of founders even referred to America as a “Christian Republic.” That generation demonstrated this by the fact that they adorned public buildings with biblical symbols such as Moses crossing Red Sea; or Moses holding tablets of stone carved on the building of the Supreme Court; or that the state papers of the Continental Congress that are filled with Christianity.

One of the formative laws of the United States, listed in the U.S. Code, is the Declaration of Independence. It reads more like a theological statement that a political thesis. Our republic posited that rights come from God and that the single role of government is to protect what God gave us, inclusive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Republic itself is an outgrowth of Christian principles.

Roger Sherman, from Connecticut, one of the most influential of the founders, having signed not only the Declaration of Independence, but the Articles of Confederation as well as the Constitution. He wrote to Samuel Baldwin in 1790 that “his faith in the new republic was largely because he felt it was founded on Christianity as he understood it.”

Joseph Story, a jurist who served on the Supreme Court during the founding era and wrote the first lengthy Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, commented as follows:

Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal sentiment was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.

The Supreme Court in numerous cases has referred to this as “A Christian Nation.” Most notable is the 1892 case entitled The Church of the Holy Trinity v. The United States. Here the Court packed its decision with a litany of precedents from American history to establish “this is a religious people, … this is a Christian Nation.”

The First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion …” simply forbade the establishment of an official National Denomination in the sense of a state church supported by federal taxes. Fisher Aimes, who offered the wording of the Amendment, makes clear from his original version that “religion” meant “a single Christian denomination.” This is also how Thomas Jefferson understood the Amendment in his comment upon it in which he used the phrase “separation of church and state.”

Even Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1989 expressed the same.

It was never intended by the Constitution that the government should be prohibited from recognizing religion …The Christian religion was always recognized in the administration of canon law, and so far that the law continues to be the law of the land, the fundamental principles of that religion must continue to be recognized … (County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573).

The charge therefore that our Founders desired “Christian Nationalism” because they spoke of a Christian Nation reveals a fundamental misunderstanding. The modern pretension misfires completely by suggesting that some of our brethren have been guilty of “re-inventing history” when they point to a Christian foundation of America.

Second, the blanket charge that great evangelists of modern times, such as George Benson, somehow confused the kingdom of God, or heavenly reward, with a Christian America is flagrant falsehood. I challenge any of these who make such an outlandish charge to produce one statement from Benson or James D. Bales, who also worked for the National Education Program, or any other prominent evangelist such as Baptist Fred Schwarz, who has made any statement that remotely resembles these accusations.

The truth is, our modern-day professorships completely misunderstand the concept of a Christian Nation. The reason our founders desired to have a nation established on a Christian principles was that it provided—for the first time in modern history—a zone of order established upon the fundamental concepts that God provided us our rights, including life, liberty, and property—that the government was merely an institution designed to protect those rights.

And instead of inventing charges of “Christian Nationalism” against fellow Christians, as if someone somewhere wishes to establish a theocracy where an official State Church would rule, I would like one of these ministers to take in hand to defend how a Christian can in any way subscribe to the Democratic Party platform, that enshrines as a principle the destruction of innocent human life through infanticide and abortion and champions the practice of sodomy in our land. It would be interesting to hear one of these professors defend supporting a political platform that sounds as if had been written by King Herod.

Professor Otey’s rebuke is that Christians are “citizens of heaven.” The logical conclusion to that argument in this context is that one should not be involved at all in anything that partakes of civil government. Yet, he is one who continually calls for “conversations” about “race” in the church. What does “race” have to do with being a citizen of heaven? (Gal. 3:28). Apparently there are things about which he thinks we should be concerned as citizens of the United States as well.

Politics is nothing more than the organizing of human society and its institutions upon certain principles. Why should not Christians desire biblical principles to help regulate conduct at various societal levels? The apostle Paul’s ultimate citizenship was in heaven, but that did not stop him from appealing to his Roman citizenship (Acts 22) and ultimately to Caesar (Acts 25) to prevent miscarriage of justice in civil society.

Earlier Paul had been beaten with rods—unjustly by Romans in the city of Philippi. When the magistrates of the community discovered his Roman citizenship they were fearful and invited him to leave quietly (Acts 16:22ff). The apostle would have none of it. He utilized his Roman citizenship to his own benefit. “They have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they sending us away secretly? No indeed! But let them come themselves and bring us out.”

Did Paul do wrong to press his Roman citizenship and fair treatment in Roman society? Should we have remonstrated with him that his “citizenship is in heaven” and not to worry about such matters? Was Paul “blending his Christian and national identities,” in the words of Brian Casey? Was he “conflating” Roman citizenship with being a citizen of heaven?

There is nothing more erroneous about speaking of a Christian Nation than of a Christian Family. What is a Christian family? It is one where biblical principles are implemented. Does that mean it is a perfect family? Is this family absent of sins committed by mother, father, children? No. But the principles there taught we recognize as Christian and refer to it as a Christian family. No one objects by suggesting that the entire family has not been baptized into Christ, or that not every family member is a Christian. But we still recognize what is a Christian family. So also a Christian nation.

More importantly, shall we say that when someone uses the phrase “Christian family” that we have “conflated the concepts of heaven and the family?” Have we laid ourselves open to the charge that we have “confused the Lord’s church with the family?” The answer is obvious. Brother Benson and others who worked with the NEP merely recognized that just as a godly, Christian family is more conducive in which to rear children to love and respect God, so also the nation.

Cultural Marxism

Third, perhaps the most dangerous element revealed of the above critiques of Christian Nationalism is that they are born of Cultural Marxism. Classical Marxism, revealed in The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is rooted in atheism. This atheistic creed demands that the sole factor that determines a person is his economic status. A person thinks and moves as he does because of the class into which he is born.

Society is divided between the bourgeois (land-owners, middle-class) and the proletariat (the workers, who do not have property to sell, but only their labor). Between these classes there is an inevitable class struggle. This is the dialectic. People are not considered as individuals, but as part of a class.

The Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), built on Marx’s materialistic base and developed the concept of “cultural hegemony” meaning that the dominant ideology of society reflects beliefs and interests of the ruling class. Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D. explains:

Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the worldview of the ruling class, and the social and economic structures that embody it, as just, legitimate, and designed for the benefit of all, even though these structures may only benefit the ruling class. This kind of power is distinct from rule by force, as in a military dictatorship, because it allows the ruling class to exercise authority using the “peaceful” means of ideology and culture.

Gramsci would argue that “consent to the rule of the dominant group” in a nation is achieved by the “spread of ideologies—beliefs, assumptions, and values—through social institutions such as schools, churches, courts, …” The dominant values in America—designed solely to maintain power of this class—is white male heterosexual.

To Gramsci’s Marxism the founders were only “a group of white men” constructing a government to protect their own cultural dominance. So also today. Laws in America supposedly reflect whiteness; the proof of this is the fact that minorities comprise the majority of prison populations. The assumption is that white America—the dominant culture– is racist. Hence, Cancel Culture rages in our streets.

Tanya Brice Smith’s blanket charge of sin of White Supremacy among Trump supporters is nothing less than this cultural Marxism. An entire class of people—white males—are guilty. Period. No need for evidence or fact. It just is. White people may insist continually the opposite of these things, but to no avail.

Cultural hegemony also explains why Jim Wallis, the “spiritual advisor” to Barack Obama, lambasted America by saying that “Racism is America’s Original Sin.” Sin attaches to white people because of whiteness. Again, no proof necessary. Whites are guilty. Lamentable as it is, now there are black preachers among us who will sound more like Jim Wallis than the Apostle Paul. Some suggest white people have “racism” in their “DNA.” Again, no proof necessary before a bar of justice. Just assume and blast away. Cultural Marxism.

It is indeed a sad day in America when preachers of the gospel of Christ will be more about beating the drums against an entire culture that has provided the greatest freedom to preach since the days of Adam and Eve. And that a Christian paper would allow these types of blanket Marxist-style charges indicting a large portion of the brotherhood of Christians shows how far we have gone.

Bill Lockwood: Christianity & Christian Education Targeted by Biden? 4.5 (2)

by Bill Lockwood

Selwyn Duke tells in The New American of a tour guide in Hungary who once explained to visitors how that nations’ Marxists “dealt with” Christians. “It wasn’t that you couldn’t be a Christian … you could pray at home, worship at home and with your family, even get baptized and go to church. However, you had a choice. You could either be a Christian … or you could be successful.”

Unfortunately, this is the same picture that is being filled in America today, and will become eminently so if and when Biden takes the oath of office. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which is America’s largest and most powerful LGBTQ Lobby, is pushing the incoming Biden Administration to target Christian Colleges and Universities, and in essence, Christianity itself. The HRC offers 85 suggestions in their Blueprint for Positive Change, including eliminating non-discrimination exemptions for religious colleges if they refuse to ABANDON the biblical position on marriage.

Christian Colleges

Holding the federal government’s “accreditation” standards above the heads of Christian educational institutions, the HRC recommends:

Language regarding accreditation of religious institutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act could be interpreted to require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or that do not meet science based curricula standards. The Department of Education should issue a regulation clarifying that this provision, which requires accreditation agencies to ‘respect the stated mission’ of religious institutions, does not require the accreditation of religious institutions that do not meet neutral accreditation standards including nondiscrimination policies and scientific curriculum requirements.

There it is in plain language. Withhold accreditation to Christian Universities if they do not abandon biblical standards for teaching, hiring admissions, student housing, student life, college clubs and organizations, and even teaching. There will be no student loans—since the government already has removed that from the free market several years ago—no grants, no assistance to fund private university education. Christian schools must lose their Christianity.

Setting aside the forcible co-opting of “science” to imply that people are born homosexual—for science is not determined by political pressure, and science has NOT substantiated that people are born homosexual—consider also the fact that converting people to Jesus Christ is to be outlawed.

Conversion Outlawed

Beneath the section Department of Education, a sub-section is entitled “Prohibit Pupil Services from Engaging in Conversion Therapy or Referring Students to Conversion Therapy.”

“Conversion therapy,” the phrase that the LGBTQ community uses for making efforts to “convert” or “change” a person from their so-called “sexual orientation”, is absolutely forbidden. As noted above, the homosexual community dons the false mantra of “science”—aided and abetted by the Democratic/Socialist Party—and from that standpoint, demands that no “school counselor” or “school-based mental health professionals” or “social worker” provide or even refer students to “providers of conversion therapy.”

What shall we say to these things?

First, this means that the homosexual agenda is so weak that it needs the full strength of government force to demand that society “recognize” that homosexuals are “born that way.” It naturally follows from this that there will be no preaching of the message of Christ which requires repentance from sinful activity. This is tantamount to setting the government itself up to define what is SIN and what is NOT Sin.

For those who suppose that this would never occur in America, they are lagging in information. Such laws already exist in states such as California and New Jersey—the latter state having implemented similar programs during Gov. Chris Christie’s governorship.

Second, this is nothing less than an unabashed war on Christianity and biblical values and anyone who espouses them. Next we will be hearing, “Bring on the Lions!” It is past time for Christians to engage and get political, if they wish to preserve their freedoms. The Democratic Party, and now the government itself, is at war with you.

Unalienable Rights?

An example of how the homosexual agenda turns logic and morality upside down is its push for recognition of “inalienable rights.”

The Homosexual Lobby explains that, in the past, “The Commission on Unalienable Rights” was created by the State Department “to challenge the international consensus”; but it had a too “narrow view of human rights.” This narrow view has left “LGBTQ people” out. Hence, the HRC demands the Biden Administration bring on a “principles based approach” which would be fully “inclusive” for homosexuals.

In short, HRC demands that homosexual practices be counted as an inalienable right. However, This empties the concept of all meaningful content. Rights are inalienable because they are given by God—that’s why they are inalienable—they cannot be removed without incurring the wrath of God. This is sole reason government was formed to begin with—to protect what God gave us. “…to secure these rights governments are instituted among men…”

But HRC repudiates God and His Holy Word. As a matter of fact, not just the HRC’s strategy, but any effort that seeks a government endowment to define or give “rights” has nothing to do with the concept of “inalienable.” Government endowments are not inalienable. They are government grants; government creations. And what government can give, the government has the ability to remove. When God is removed from the equation the concept of “inalienable” evaporates.

Over a century and a half ago, Frederic Bastiat, who was trying to preserve freedom in France, explained to the world the following.

Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

The inescapable quandary of the homosexual community is this: it wishes to repudiate God—Who makes our rights “inalienable.” Yet, it wishes to retain the idea of “inalienable.” Beware of the HRC and its influence on the Biden Administration.

Bill Lockwood: Socialism as a Religion 0 (0)

by Bill Lockwood

Marxists profess to reject religion in favor of science, but they cherish a belief that the external universe is evolving with reliable, if not divine, necessity in exactly the direction in which they want it to go. They do not conceive themselves as struggling to build the communist society in a world which is of its own nature indifferent to them. They conceive themselves as traveling toward that society in a world which is like a moving-stairway, but walking in the wrong direction. This is not a scientific, but in the most technical sense, a religious conception of the world. (Max Eastman, Marxism—Is It Science?)

Max Eastman (1883-1969) was a prominent editor, political activist and “prominent radical” who, like many in Woodrow Wilson’s “progressive” America, became infatuated with Marxism. Eastman traveled to the Soviet Union to learn firsthand how to be a good socialist and became friends with Leon Trotsky. Years later, when Eastman became convinced that socialism is void of validity, he reflected upon his time as a Marxist. “I sadly regret the precious twenty years I spent muddling and messing around with this idea, which with enough mental clarity and moral force I might have seen through when I went to Russia in 1922” (Reflections on the Failure of Socialism).

Eastman knew whereof he spoke.

Socialism is not normally classified as a religion, but when its doctrines are examined, it more closely resembles a religious concept than anything else. The only difference between socialism and Christianity is that the latter is grounded upon historical fact while socialistic faith is founded upon unproven assumptions. Communism particularly is a philosophy of faith in the dialectic—the zig-zagging of history onward and upward to a more perfect society.

Nikita Khrushchev was appealing to this “dialectic” when he said that history was on their side and they (Soviet Union) would bury us (J.D. Bales, Communism, Its Faith and Fallacies, p. 102). “Communists represent the antithesis which the dialectic has decreed with destroy us, the thesis. It is this faith which helps keep the rank and file members at their tasks when the going is difficult.” This is also, we might add, why myriads of collegiate students, trained by their Marxist professors, continue to march fanatically to the drumbeat of socialism.

Norman Thomas

Because of the religious nature of socialism, it was a simple matter for Norman Thomas (1884-1968), to trade his ministerial garbs and Presbyterian beliefs for a heaven-on-earth utopia strategy of socialism. He became known as “Mr. Socialist” in America.

Thomas, in turn, was heavily influenced by the 19th-century Social Gospel “theology” developed by Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch was himself a Baptist preacher of the 19th century who mixed a version of modernistic “Christianity” together with Marxism to craft what became known as the “social gospel.”

The key to Rauschenbusch’s theology was his concept of the Kingdom of God. To him, this Kingdom was not located in another place called heaven or in a future millennium, but could best be described in modern terms as a level of consciousness in which one recognized the immanence of God in human life and the interconnected, interacting, interdependent nature of the entire human species.

So writes Dr. Elizabeth Balanoff, professor of history at Roosevelt University in Chicago in her paper, “Norman Thomas: Socialism and the Social Gospel.” “Walter Rauschenbusch was convinced that this was the original Christian vision which had been distorted and lost with time, and that it was possible to regain it.”

Because of the religious nature of socialism, H.G. Wells stated: “Socialism is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of my ideal life and all the religion I possess.” Mr. Edmund Optiz, writing in Foundation for Economic Education (1969) observed that “As a religion, Socialism promised a terrestrial paradise, a heaven on earth.” This is why Optiz called Socialism “A Fanatic Faith.”

Max Eastman, in his 1962 book, Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, related that Norman Thomas, “in his rather pathetic Democratic Socialism, A New Appraisal (1953), throws overboard everything that gave distinct meaning to the word socialism, but continues to drive along in the old bandwagon with the name printed on it in large letters.”

For example, Eastman points out, Thomas’ words were “Socialism will do this, …” “Socialism will do that …” But Eastman asks, “how does that differ from what he preached as a Christian minister before his conversion to socialism?” In other words, socialism and Marxism are nothing less than a “religious-type” of conviction that has jettisoned biblical promises of heaven for a “garden of Eden” on earth. As stated succinctly by Mr. Socialism himself, his socialistic philosophy was an “implicit religion.”

Spargo & Arner

Because socialism is in reality an implicit religion, Spargo & Arner, who virtually wrote the textbook on Socialism, called Elements of Socialism (1912), tell us that not only is a “future life” such as heaven an “invention of man” but that God Himself is a “construct of the human mind.” They present socialism as an “alternative to Christianity” which infuses a passion for perfection “without God” and “without heaven.” Further, it is based upon the general theory of evolution (p. 63, 75, 111, 206, 222), which itself is a theory designed to replace belief in God.

As does everything that seeks to replace biblical Christianity, socialism presents a misdiagnosis of what ails mankind. Dishonesty is not “in property ownership” (Spargo & Arner, 23); poverty itself is not an evil (p. 39); world peace is not the ultimate goal (p. 202); and “social injustice” is not the devil incarnate (p. 46). This is why Mr. Edmund Optiz describes socialism as a modern, “this-worldly” religion.

The real problem with man lies within his/her heart—it is called sin. “Above all else, guard your heart, fro everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). Sin is a violation or transgression of God’s Almighty Law (1 John 3:4). All men have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 6:23). There will be no improvement of society until humanity faces the stark reality of sin imbedded in the heart. Only when the corruption in the world is given its proper diagnosis can people turn to the only real healing—forgiveness in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21-23).

Bill Lockwood: Socialism is Rooted in Atheism 0 (0)

by Bill Lockwood

In spite of the many challenges in defining “religion” versus “irreligion”, or even “atheism” as opposed to “theism,” multiple studies indicate that Americans are becoming increasingly non-religious—even atheistic–in their orientation. Why is this? In part, it is doubtless due to the fact that socialism has become the state-sponsored creed not only taught in public schools and universities, but practiced by both major political parties. The philosophy of Socialism itself is rooted in atheistic assumptions, offering an alternative view of man, the family, society, sin, and the role of government.

First, socialism and communism are one and the same. Textbook authors of Elements of Socialism, John Spargo and George Louis Arner (1912) state it plainly. Communism is “equivalent” to Socialism (226). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who wrote the Communist Manifesto, are lauded as the founders of modern-day socialism.

Second, how is the socialistic system atheistic? Engels argued that the “idea of God” resulted from fallacious reasoning by early man when he observed natural phenomena. “…the first gods arose through the personification of natural forces … out of the many more or less limited and mutually limiting gods there arose in the minds of men the idea of the one exclusive god of the monotheistic religion.” This is a concept still maintained by socialists.

Again, Engels theorizes that the Idea of God is a “reflection of the mind of men.” “All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces. In the beginning of history, it was the forces of nature which were at first so reflected.”

Spargo and Arner suggest that, “Primitive man began to think and talk about himself and his environment. The world seemed full of mystery. How could he hunt in a dream when his friends swore that he had not moved? The echo and the shadow puzzled him. The mighty forces of nature awed him. There must be a power greater than himself, and since he could not think of forces as impersonal, he imputed personality to that power. There must be a spirit apart from the body or he could not hunt in is dreams. Thus were evolved the ideas of anthropomorphic gods, spirits, and ghosts.” “…a stage earlier than … even the lowest modern savages …”

What About These Socialistic Assertions?

First, if these things be true, then origin of religion not explained on basis of economic system. Therefore, the economic interpretation of history cannot account for religion which has been one of the most powerful forces in history. Engels himself even agreed to this. “It would surely be pedantic to try and find economic causes for all this primitive nonsense.”

Thus, according to one of the founders of modern-day socialism, it was not until after religion had arisen as a reflection of natural forces in men’s minds, that the social and evolutionary forces began to act and the “changing economic system” forged it differently. The philosophy of communism falls on its own sword here, for not everything can be explained on the basis of economics.

Second, there is no historical PROOF of any of these assertions suggesting that polytheism (belief in many gods) preceded monotheism (belief in one god). Assumption is a long way from proof. Actually, that is also the unfounded position of a growing number of so-called biblical scholars who begin their studies on this assumption. In point of fact, the opposite is true.

When men are not hypnotized by the hypothesis of evolution which demands that historical facts be arranged in such a way as to fit the hypothesis, they realize that the further back into any culture they go the fewer gods that culture has. William W.F. Petrie, in The Religion of Ancient Egypt, “What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first state traceable in theology … Wherever we can trace back polytheism to its earliest stages we find that it results from combinations of monotheism …”

Professor Stephen Langdon studied Sumerian and Semitic religion. “Monotheism preceded polytheism and belief in good and evil spirits” (Semitic Mythology, 1931). Herbert Farmer, who was a Gifford Lecturer, stated that with but few exceptions the evidences show that “the most primitive levels of human life which we can reach by the soundest ethnological methods reveal a belief in one supreme deity or High God …” Many other unbiased scholars could be noted.

Third, deception is “built into” the socialistic system. How so? Setting aside the foolish assumption that early man was simply a dumb brute who could not discern his dreams from reality, Spargo & Arner argue at length that they are not “atheists.” But before the page is turned in the book they argue that God is a “construct of the human mind”; that religion itself is “man’s attempt to put himself into harmonious relation with, and to discover the meaning of the universe.”

Deceptively adept again, they rush to say that “The Marxian theory does not deny that men may have benefitted by seeking an interpretation of the universe, or that the quest for such an interpretation is compatible with rational conduct … Marx could not ignore such an important and universal phenomenon as religion” (p. 79-80).

It appears that these socialists believe that we are still “dumb brutes” who cannot reason. The question is not whether anyone believes that “religious belief” itself has played a part in men’s lives or in civilization—but is there any ultimate reality behind this belief in God?? To this question they answer “No.” This is atheism. When they confess that one’s beliefs has been a “force” in human history, that is a far cry from confessing whether or not there is any reality at the base of those beliefs.

As Americans plunge increasingly into a socialistic state, we are fed more and more lies by communistic masters. This is the very nature of socialism. This is one major reason why atheism and irreligion grow in America.

 

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