Karl Marx’s “Reconstruction of a social world”

by Al Benson Jr.

The term “reconstruction” seems to have been the brainchild of Karl Marx when he wrote of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 that he was “the single-minded son of the working class who had led his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.” Like much of what Marx wrote this was pure balderdash, but in our day socialist historians have picked it up and have run with it. Lots of good propaganda value in the slavery issue, even though it had little to do with the real reasons for the War of Northern Aggression.

However, the Marxists loved “reconstruction” and still do  If you doubt this all you have to do is read  Eric Foner’s  tome called Reconstruction 1863-1877. You will be treated to the Marxist line on “reconstruction.” Foner does a good job presenting the Marxist position. Given his family background he should.

Another Communist book Reconstruction the battle for democracy was written back in 1937 and published by International Publishers in New York. The author was James Allen (not his real name) and International Publishers was a Communist publishing house.

The Marxists and other radical socialists viewed the War of Northern Aggression as a revolution. Allen has commented in his book: “With the defeat of the South on the battlefield and the emancipation of the slaves revolution had completed only its first cycle. The slaveowners  had been conquered and the institution of chattel slavery had been abolished. A new phase, involving the complete transformation of southern society, now opened.” So “reconstruction” was a new phase of the Communist revolution to change the Christian culture of the South (and eventually the rest of the country, too).

Allen also noted that: “Many Socialist leaders and German emigres of the 1848 revolution, among them Joseph Weydemeyer, who was a close friend of Karl Marx, served as officers in the Union Army.” The Communists were not afraid to admit that many of their number served the cause of Lincoln in the Union Army as officers. Other “historians” try to sweep this fact under the rug. Walter Kennedy and I sought, in Lincoln’s Marxists to pick up the rug so people could see the political vermin residing beneath it.

I am indebted to Frank Conner, author of the insightful book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 for much of the information in this article about “reconstruction.” Frank’s work proved invaluable in demonstrating just how horrible and shameful was this period of our history that the Marxists loved and still love so much.

What was this “reconstruction of a social world” that Marx was so enthusiastic about? It was nothing less than the cultural reshaping of the South, with its basically Reformed Christian culture. This was what Marx wanted to see destroyed. Southern Christian culture and Southern private property were both major deterrents to Marxist theology and worldview and so these had to be done away with.

There was a master plan developed by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner for doing this. It may be doubtful if these two Northern “gentlemen” conspired with Marx to do this, but their mindsets were identical to his in many respects, which is why I refer to people of their ilk as “Yankee/Marxists.” Their plan involved the impoverishing, subjugating, dominating, and humiliating of Southerners, while at the same time, destroying their culture and brainwashing them into such guilt feelings that they were all supposed to ardently desire to be “third rate copies of Northerners.” That part of “reconstruction” didn’t quite work, but not to worry, they are still at it today They loudly proclaim to those Southern folks who cherish Confederate symbols that “the war is over and you lost, get over it.” But for them (the Marxists) the war has never ended and they are every bit as much our adversaries today as “Lincoln’s Marxists” were in 1861.

To be continued.

From Russia Without Love

By Al Benson Jr.

In the 1990s communism in the Soviet Union and other places in Eastern Europe collapsed—so we are told. The Berlin Wall came tumbling down and that was supposedly the end of it.

Was it really the end, or was it simply a retrenchment? Did the old KGB really disband, or did they simply change their name? We were told that, suddenly, Communists stopped being Communists and now they were all just “progressives.” Really? Or is the term “progressive” just a cover term for Communist?

In the book Soviet Strategic Deception,  published in 1987, Brian D. Dailey and Patrick J. Parker noted something called “perceptions management” They had a table in their book showing how this was accomplished. They noted that this “…refers to that complex of activities directed mainly (but not exclusively) at policy and opinion makers and the public. The channels include self-serving or deceptive statements by Soviet leaders or arms control negotiators, covert placement of articles in newspapers, forgeries and agents of influence.” It was all a lot of bunk meant to cast the Soviet Union in a favorable light. Has all this suddenly vanished because Communism is supposedly dead? Don’t bet the farm on it.

In reality, things have changed little. Strategic deception still goes on and now we have Russia Today as the next step in the agenda. Wikipedia described Russia Today, or RT as it is known in the media, as “…a government-funded global multilingual television news network based in the Russian Federation. It was founded in 2005 as Russia Today by the government-owned RIA Novosti.” It shows round the clock news coverage, sports, and cultural presentations on Russia and is mainly aimed at an overseas audience. It has 21 bureaus in 16 different countries, the US being among them. RT is the second most viewed foreign news channel in this country after BBC news. Of course many folks try to watch BBC news because they realize they will get news about what goes on in this country that they will never get from our American “news” (what a laugh) media.

Russia Today has been described in an article on http://www.keywiki.org as “…a media outlet, aimed at de-stabilizing and weakening opponents of Russian foreign policy.” The article on keywiki states “Today (RT) television, a propaganda arm of the Putin-Medvedev-KGB –run Russian thugocracy, but thanks to a former KGB officer, Konstantin Preobrazhensky , more about its origins and purposes have been revealed…’Russia Today’ is only a part of the Russian industry misinformation and manipulation created recently in the USA by Putin’s KGB. It is including the utilization of some American think-tanks and political scientists.”

Well-known columnist Cliff Kinkaid has observed on http://www.aim.orgthat “During the Cold War it was customary for the Soviet intelligence services, led by the KGB, to use American and Western news outlets and personnel in operations against the United States. Preobrazhensky says nothing has really changed, except that Russia Today television is a more overt way of carrying out the aims of the Kremlin.” In fact, AIM (Accuracy in Media) recently published an article titled “Russian TV Sounds Like Soviet TV.” Well why not? It is.

Shaun Walker of The Independent, a British newspaper, has noted that the Russian channel has sought to play down its connection to Moscow by calling the station RT rather than Russia Today. News correspondents have been informed that they have to refer to it as only RT and never, never as Russia Today. It seems that many American outlets, even conservative ones, are picking this up. I have seen RT references on a couple conservative Internet sites recently.

Cliff Kinkaid has observed in his article that “Several journalists at the channel have told The Independent  that while some coverage of problems in Russia and sensitive issues is allowed, any direct criticism or questioning of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or President Dmitry Medvedev is strictly prohibited.” This is consistent with Communist policy.

I recall, years ago now, reading a book called I Was An NKVD Agent
in which the author of the book, a Soviet secret policeman that had defected to the West told of being sent into Germany during World War 2 as a supposed defector from Russia. The spymaster who sent him on this mission told him that he could criticize such things in Russia as the poverty, because all countries have poverty. He could find fault with the prisons because all countries have prisons, but the minute he dared to contradict the principles of Marxism/Leninism and they found out about it, they would come and get him no matter where he was. Is the situation today any different? It would seem that Russia Today will allow criticism in certain specific, defined areas, because it gives the appearance of legitimacy in the West, but to criticize the Russian leadership or its pronouncements is forbidden. So what is really different between now and the Cold War years? The only difference is that during the Cold War most of the West recognized that the Soviets were the “evil empire” whereas today most have abandoned that posture because, after all, “communism is dead”—right? Well, not quite.

I guess you would have to say that the name has been changed to protect the guilty but the game goes on even if the West is too gullible to realize it.

Earth Day is really birthday–Lenin’s That Is

by Al Benson Jr.

I hate to pass up Lenin’s birthday. That would make all the little leftist revolutionaries mad–one of their own was ignored. So we will commemorate Lenin’s birthday only we will use the euphemism that all the modern leftists use. We will call it Earth Day.

I always found it interesting that when Earth Day was first promoted back in 1970 that the day they picked to celebrate it, by the sheerest of coincidences, just happened to be the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth. When I tried to tell that to the evangelicals they said I wasn’t being “loving” enough toward their brethren (theirs, not mine) on the left.

WEBCommentary editor Bob Webster, on http://www.webcommentary.com  has written: “As part of the global campaign to ‘dumb down’ education and create good little socialists,  the communist movement spawned ‘Earth Day’ on the day they normally celebrated communism and V. I. Lenin’s 1870 birthdate. As the utterly merciless inhumanity known as communism went through its ultimate collapse in the 1980s communists who were later to become known as ‘watermelons’ (green on the outside, red on the inside) simply morphed into ‘green activists’ for ‘environmental extremism.’  The US Environmental Protection Agency harbors these people today and they dutifully churn out regulations designed to destroy capitalism (their ultimate objective).” I would only disagree with one thing he says. Their ultimate aim is to destroy Christianity. Of course they will destroy capitalism in the process.

Mr. Webster noted a few things people could do in regard to this:

1. “Ignore Earth Day celebrations” . A Yahoo article noted that 70% of the people were paying no attention to Earth Day. That’s good. But if Lenin’s birthday is mostly being ignored that means that the Watermelon Gang will try to redouble their propaganda efforts to make us all feel guilty of destroying the planet.

2.” If you have children, carefully explain the difference between conservation and environmental extremism. Monitor what they are taught in school and be prepared to correct the propaganda”. My family and I have traveled, camped, and hiked over many parts of the country over the years. I consider myself to be a conservationist. I realize that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” and with that in mind we are to be good stewards of the land. That’s not the same thing as the crushing Marxist regulations that the environmental bureaucrats want to force down our throats.

Environmental extremism is nothing more than green communism. We have a program in this country called “sustainable development” which is part of the United Nations Agenda 21 project. What this says, in essence, is that we have to be so careful as to how we use the land that we must all be herded into urban areas to live, no private property or single family homes anymore, no air conditioning, as that taxes the resources too much, and on and on it goes. You might then wonder who will get to use all this land they hope to end up clearing people out of. Why the commisars will of course. Part of the price they are paid for the over-regulation of the masses will be the use of what they tell us we can’t use anymore–just like in all other communist countries.

This is what Earth Day is all about. Still sure you want to celebrate it?

The Theology of the United Nations

By Al Benson Jr.

Back during the 1970s the John Birch Society had a project going that was called “Get US Out of the United Nations..” The US in the title was the United States. I felt it was a worthwhile project. I don’t know if they have continued with it or not, but I wish they would consider taking it up again if they have not.

The United Nations has been painted with such glowing colors by the propaganda artists that you have to ask if it’s just too good to be true. And most of you know the old saying “if something looks too good to be true then it usually is.” The propaganda artists would love to paint the UN as the central point on the canvas of one world government. Unfortunately, the most prolific color that they use is RED.

As with any question there is a theological aspect to this one. The late author and minister, R. J. Rushdoony observed: “Any discussion of the United Nations is inevitably a religious discussion, for the principles what that organization embodies are not merely polit8cal and economic, but inescapably religious…The more basic question is this: Is it established on a solid foundation, or is it built on sand? Is it a boon to humanity, or a menace?”

Rev. Rushdoony noted people on both sides of the United Nations question; those who saw (and still see) it as “man’s last, best hope for peace” and those who have viewed it as, basically, an anti-Christ organization. Thus he observed: “The UN thus must be seen in the context of its religious presuppositions. It is, historically, an outgrowth of Enlightenment concepts and of the religion of humanity…It believe that world peace can be attained through world law.”

In other words, the United Nations is a humanist organization, one that relies on the religion of man for its underpinnings. Rushdoony also stated that: “Two aspects of this premise have already become manifest: First, that the hope and salvation of man and of society is through world law, and, second, that the essence or at least the primary factor in peace is environmental rather than personal.” In light of some of today’s events, this environmental aspect has taken on a whole new meaning with the UN’s version of “economic sustainability” and its pushing of the Agenda 21 program. Rev. Rushdoony’s comments were posted on http://www.reformed-theology.org and are worth checking out.

This whole environmental ploy has been promoted by such interesting programs as “Earth Day” to be commemorated this month. I suppose it was just sheer coincidence that the first Earth Day was celebrated on the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, right? The commentator who called the environmentalist crowd “the watermelon gang—green on the outside and Red on the inside” pretty much hit the nail on the head. You could say that environmentalism, in its extreme form, is just green Marxism.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has not been at all bashful about stating its religious views. According to the book Freedom On The Alter–The UN’s Crusade Against God & Family  written by William Norman Grigg, UNESCO’s first Director General, Julian Huxley has stated that “It will be one of the major tasks of the philosophy division of UNESCO to stimulate…the quest for a restatement of morality that shall be in harmony with modern knowledge and adapted to the fresh functions imposed on ethics by the world of today.” It was also observed that installing this “new world morality” in school children would be the most important function of UNESCO. People with children in public schools really ought to start asking just how much UNESCO material is being fed to their kids in one form or another. And do some checking as well as asking, because you have no guarantee you will get a straight answer from the government school bureaucrats.

What all this is telling us is that this UN agency plans on removing Christianity and replacing it with something more in tune with “current morality.” How many in our churches will even realize this and how many will even care?

Have we become so desensitized that nothing bothers us anymore? The answer to that question may determine where we go from here and how fast. Christian brethren, beware of the United Nations. It is not your friend in any way, shape or form.

Want to lose your private property? If so support Agenda 21

By Al Benson Jr.

I have had major problems with the United Nations for decades now. It is an organization that has had the support of Communists and socialists all over the world, including many in this country. Does anyone remember Alger Hiss? Many younger folks will not, but just for the heck of it do a Google search on Mr. Hiss and see what you find—a major connection between him, the State Department, the United Nations, and communism. Also do a Google search on a book by G. Edward Griffin called The Fearful Master. If you can still purchase this book, do so.

Given its deep pink background, why should we be surprised that the United Nations should come up with something like Agenda 21. It’s right down their collectivist alley. Never heard of it, you say. Not surprising. What passes for news media in this country is not about to let you know about Agenda 21 until the current Marxist administration can find some way to sidestep the Constitution and ram it down our throats.

According to http://green-agenda.com “Agenda 21 was the main outcome of the United Nations Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Agenda 21 outlines, in detail, the UN’s vision for a centrally managed global society. The contract binds governments around the world to the United Nations plan for controlling the way we live, eat, learn, move and communicate—all under the noble banner of saving the earth. If fully implemented, Agenda 21 would have the government involved in every aspect of life of every human on earth.”

The article continues: “Agenda 21 spreads its tentacles from Governments, to federal and local authorities, and right down to community groups.” These people have a concept of One World Government that will embrace everyone everywhere. No one gets to sneak under the collectivist radar.

Maurice Strong, first Secretary General of the United Nations Environmental Programme has stated: “The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security…Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class—involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing—are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”

Stop and look at what this man is saying. The United Nations has determined that your life style is no longer to be allowed. If they have their way they will control what you eat, where you live, whether you get to drive your car, even whether you will be allowed air conditioning. It all makes you wonder if these One World planners are going to subject themselves to the conditions they are planning for the rest of us. Somehow, with my suspicious mind, I rather doubt that. Part of their price for reducing the rest of us to serfs will be the ability to enjoy a life style that they wish to deny to the rest of us. Sound familiar?

The site http://patriotupdate.com has listed many of those things that Agenda 21 will eliminate in order that the world may be more “environmentally sustainable.” In an article by Ralph Barker, written in September, 2011 Mr. Barker points out many of these “unsustainable” things we will have to forego:
All private property—(naturally, in accordance with the Communist Manifesto)
Livestock production and most meat consumption,
Privately owned vehicles and personal travel,
Use of fossil fuels for power generation or mechanized travel,
Single family homes,
Human population must be reduced to fewer than 1 billion people. How do you suppose they will manage this last one? The same way the Communists did in the Ukraine in the 1930s?

You may think this sounds far out and it’s something you might want to think about in twenty years or so, maybe, but the fact is that 179 countries have already signed on to Agenda 21 and “nearly 12,000 local and federal authorities have legally committed themselves to the Agenda. If your town or country signs onto this thing it means you don’t even sneeze without UN permission.

Some towns across the country are waking up to this draconian measure and are taking a stand against it. A locality in Texas recently voted against this, as did the town of Colton, California. If this UN measure ever comes before your town council they need to be on record as voting against it.

Ask yourselves just one question—if you live in the Deep South in the United States, how will any relatives you have with respiratory conditions survive the summers there without air conditioning? They won’t—but then that is probably part of the United Nations plan isn’t it?

There Is Nothing New In Unbelief–Part Two

by Al Benson Jr.

Then, there was the article from the gentleman in Oklahoma. It had originally been published in the Civil War Times Illustrated  in August of 1976. It was authored by Peggy Robbins and was entitled The Lincoln’s and Spiritualism.  According to Robbins, spiritualism began to gain a foothold in this country in 1848.  Interesting coincidence–socialist revolution in Europe in 1848, spiritualism in the United States the same year. The shooting part of our revolution was not to come for another twelve years, but the spiritual part was already in progress. Unfortunately most Christians in the North were too busy sending their children off to the Unitarian public school system to be “educated” to notice.

Robbins reported that during 1862 Mrs. Lincoln was involved with a number of mediums, some of whom were just out and out fakes. Historians have disagreed as to whether Lincoln, himself,  believed in spiritualism, because, pragmatic politician that he was, he never gave any of those who inquired into his beliefs on this question a straight answer.  However, in 1861, he did listen to a “lengthy dissertation on spiritualism” by none other than Robert Dale Owen. You’ve all heard that name before, and his father’s name as well. This is the same Robert Dale Owen that gave professional South-hater Thaddeus Stevens quite a bit of input into the drafting of the 14th Amendment. A spiritualist seeking to influence the 14th Amendment–bet your “history” books never passed that bit of info along to you. Robbins’ article labeled Owen as a “distinguished author.” The only thing I have read about Mr. Owen being distinguished in was his penchant for socialism, and spiritualism. Socialist that he was, Owen seems to have had contact with the big wigs in Washington. That may tell you a little about the elite in Washington.and where they were coming from, even during the so-called “good old days.”

Robbins noted that “There is ample proof that the President did attend a number of seances, but it may be that he did so not as a believer but as a detached observer, there to look after his emotionally overwrought wife.” Robbins mentioned that Lincoln had curiosity about the supernatural because he was superstitious, and had long been subject to visions,dreams, premonitions etc.

One spiritualist the Lincolns received at the White House was a Lord Colchester. It seems that he was allowed to hold several seances on the premises. It also seems, however, that Lord Colchester’s  reputation was somewhat suspect, and a friend of the Lincoln’s Noah Brooks, rather bluntly suggested to him that he “get out of Dodge.”

During the latter part of 1862 Mrs. Lincoln attended several seances held by a Nettie Colburn.  In order to keep Mrs. Colburn close to Washington, Mrs. Lincoln managed to get her a position in the Interior Department.  Colburn held a seance in the White House in December of 1862.

Robbins also noted in her article that “famous psychic investigator A. Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, termed this, the first of a number of meetings between medium Nettie Colburn and President Lincoln one of the most important events in the history of spiritualism.”

One seance held in the White House in April, 1863, was attended by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells.  Some of these sessions were actually reported in the newspapers of that time, but interestingly enough,  Lincoln was never criticized for them.  Apostasy must love company.

If Lincoln were the stalwart “Christian” we have been led by so many books to believe he was, would he have allowed either his wife or himself to be drawn into such activities? One can most certainly sympathize with Mrs. Lincoln over the loss of her son. But surely, if her husband were a Christian,  he would have sought some sort of biblical counsel and comfort for his wife rather than allowing her to indulge in spiritualism  and then going along for the ride himself.  In truth, Mr. Lincoln was not a Christian, even his own wife admitted as much.. The book Lincoln’s Marxists deals with Lincoln’s religion, or lack thereof in some detail.

Most of this is not particularly “fun” material to have to pass along to people. However, it is further proof that this country, having abandoned its Reformation foundations, at least in the North, had turned almost completely to apostasy by the time the shooting part of the revolution got under way in 1861.  Apostasy was rampant, from the highest to the lowest stations in society.  The real question is–did we ever really turn from that apostasy? In spite of all the so-called “revivals” since the War Between the States, I think not. Until we turn from it and turn back to the God of the Holy Scriptures, we will continue to go down the tubes.

There Is Nothing New In Unbelief

by Al Benson Jr.

Several years ago, when Ronald Reagan was still in office the spin masters in the “news” media were all agog over stories about Nancy Reagan having consulted an astrologer.  The “news” media picked up that story and ran with it because there were probably some useful idiots in the media that thought Reagan was much more conservative than he really was and this sort of story was their chance to get their leftist licks in at him. So Nancy and her astrologer were headline news for a few days. Christians and conservatives weren’t happy with the revelations, but they should have known.  They goofed with Nixon and didn’t learn anything and mostly they still haven’t based upon what I see going on in the current Republican run for president. You almost wonder if those that direct their attentions would rather have Obama back than a genuine conservative, but I digress.

However, let us not be naive enough to think that Nancy Reagan’s consorting with an astrologer is anything new. Consorting with mediums, astrologers, spiritualists and witches is strictly forbidden in the Old Testament and that prohibition has not changed. It stands today. It stood in the 1800s, when spiritualism  started to become “fashionable” in this country. Spiritualism and these other related activities are the result of apostasy–the result of a people having been exposed to God’s truth and then ignoring or disbelieving it in favor of something more “contemporary.”

I recently did an article on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s adventures into spiritualism.  Several years ago, upon my return from a trip to eastern California and western Arizona, I found in my pile of mail, an article from a man in Oklahoma that dealt with Mary Todd Lincoln’s excursions into this same murky area. The article was informative and, after doing a little research, I found other sources that corroborated the article’s findings.

According to many sources (and there are more now than there were years ago) Mrs. Lincoln was emotionally unstable at times. When her son, Willie, died she struggled with that loss for several years and arrived at the point where she started visiting spiritualists in an effort to contact her dead son.

The book Abraham Lincoln–A Biography by Benjamin P. Thomas (Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y.) recorded a friend of the Lincoln’s writing the following: “Mrs. Lincoln told me she had been, the night before…out to Georgetown, to see a Mrs. Laury, a spiritualist and she had made wonderful revelations to her about her little son, Willie…Among other things she revealed that the cabinet were all enemies of the President, working for themselves, and that they would have to be dismissed and others called to his aid before he had success.” Very interesting, and not totally inaccurate. Makes you wonder where Mrs. Laury got her information.

Another reference, though a short one, referring to Mrs. Lincoln’s dabbling in spiritualism  is found in the book Who Was Who In The Civil War  by Stewart Sifakis.  This large book contains biographical sketches  of most prominent people in the country during the “late unpleasantness” both North and South. In the section on Mary Todd Lincoln it has noted: “The loss of the idolized Willie deeply disturbed her and she refused to enter the room in which he had died and been embalmed. She even held at least one seance in the White House to try to make contact with his departed soul.”

It reminds you of the verse in Ecclesiastes (chapter one, verse 9) which says: “The thing which hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

To be continued.

So Where Did Our Troubles Begin? Part Two

by Al Benson Jr.

Since all these rejections of the Reformed faith, which was the foundational cornerstone of the nation, only continued to grow and never diminish, it stands to reason that the problems the apostates brought in because of their unbelief had to affect the country.

During the late 1700s,  membership in the Congregational churches was comprised of 60% women, and by the early 1800s that figure had risen to 70%. Where were the men, who, according to Scripture, should have leadership rolls among God’s elect?  Because of unbelief they had apparently decided they were capable of building the republic without God’s help or guidance and so they stayed away from worship services in droves. Consequently, many ministers, seeing that their congregations were comprised of mainly women, began to tailor their sermons to them. which, in the eyes of many. made the churches to appear effeminate.

By the early 1800s, especially in Massachusetts, the Unitarians had become influential enough  that they were able to launch the nation’s first public school system as we know that system today. You have by now all heard of Horace Mann, the “father of the common schools.”  The “history” books belabor his “monumental” achievements in behalf of establishing public schools. They don’t bother to mention, however, that Mann was a Unitarian whose efforts to establish public education were driven by his hatred for church schools. By the time Mann appeared on the scene, many Christian assemblies were so thoroughly penetrated by apostasy that they eagerly went along with public education instead of opposing it as they should have.  Robert Owen, the socialist, was also in favor of public schools. He saw them as a vehicle for changing society, and who can honestly doubt that they have more than lived up to his expectations? So, from the beginning, the socialists recognized that it wasn’t about education. It was about indoctrination.

Logical thinking would require us to say that public education in this country was the fruit of apostasy. After the War Between the States, one of the first things the North did during what has euphemistically been called “reconstruction” was to shove public education down the throats of the Southern states. They brought Yankee schoolteachers down here to make sure it was done right and their textbooks were geared to show why the North was virtuous and the South was guilty of all manner of crimes against humanity. Unitarians had gained influential positions in both the abolitionist and “women’s rights” movements in the early 1800s. So had the spiritualists.

By the time the War Between the States was thrust upon us, the North had been so thoroughly “unitarianized”  that it was hardly recognizable in regard to the Christian faith it had repudiated.

All this time, the South was moving more and more toward the orthodox Christian faith and, indeed, might have been the springboard for national revival if given enough time. That could not be permitted to happen–hence the War.

Apostasy–rejection of the truth of Scripture and rejection of the Person and work of Christ Jesus, is the bottom-line reason for our national problems, both today and 150 years ago.  Our political and economic problems are merely symptoms of that apostasy.  If we continue to fail to recognize that fact, we will NEVER make any meaningful changes for the good of the country–and our current public education system will continue to make sure that we fail to recognize that fact.. That is part of its reason for being.

If we continue to think that all our troubles in this country started with FDR, or even in 1913, as bad a year as that was, our thinking is the result of an apostate reaction to Christianity that permeated this country long before we were born.  If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to do the homework like I had to.  Don’t take my word for it. Find out for yourselves, and then act, with prayer, on what you find.

So Where Did Our Troubles Begin?

by Al Benson Jr.

At their deepest point, our national woes, and they are many, are not just political, economic, or even educational, critical though all these areas are. Our deepest national problems are our theological problems. No country on the face of God’s earth has had more biblical truth than this country, yet no country has so lightly regarded that truth as we have for the last 150-180 years. We have become as apostate nation and will be judged for our apostasy. It is a mark of our apostasy and unbelief that we cannot see that our problems go far beyond just electing a few more “conservatives” to Congress or “reforming” our public school system or electing the right person to be president. None of these things will be anymore than a bandaid  on a hemorrhage. Some want to abolish the Federal Reserve System. While I agree that would be a bold step in the right direction it would ultimately not solve our national problems.

For most “political” people, God is out of the picture except as someone to pay lip service to in stump speech. They think they are going to straighten the country out themselves. Boy do I have news for them!  We all need to remember that without the Sovereign power of Almighty God not one of us could even draw the breath of life. That fact alone should humble us.

Let us consider that the Holy Scriptures contain accurate accounts of how the Lord judged apostate nations. In Second Chronicles 24:24 it is stated: “For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the Lord delivered a very great host (from Judah)  into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash.” This occurred because of apostasy, as preceding chapters in Second Chronicles show. Will it be any different for this country?  Can we continue to elect some of the people to polit8cal offices that we have elected and not be held responsible?  Can we continue to believe the lies both political parties tell us and not be held responsible? Can we continue to believe the outright lies told by the “news” media and by our institutions of “learning” without at least trying to question some of this and not be held responsible? Our lack of discernment today is horrendous. We are ready to believe anyone who tells us he is a Christian politician and we never bother trying to check to see if the walk agrees with the talk. We just take their word and they get a pass. Our current “president” has informed us that he is a Bible-believing Christian. Do his actions portray that? Does any “Christian” president actively fill every available position in his government with socialists and Marxists? Yet many evangelical Christians support this man and will work for him when he runs for a second term. That is apostasy in action.

This country had a Reformation Christian heritage bequeathed to it by the Pilgrims, Puritans, and others and we walked away from that faith. We embraced Unitarianism, radical socialism, spiritualism, and a whole host of other anti-Christian “isms”. This conscious plunge into unbelief eventually resulted in the American revolution we call the War Between the States (and that revolution was NOT perpetrated by the South). That war was the culmination of this country’s revolt against Jesus Christ, and this country, to this day, has never recovered from the revolution, just as France has never recovered from the French Revolution.  Unfortunately, it is a sign of our spiritual and doctrinal unbelief, as well as our horrendous public school educations that we can’t see any further back than the early 1900s as the source of our problems.

We had notable problems with apostasy in this country as early as the 1750s.  Let that early date sink in a little.

With minor exceptions, American Unitarianism seemed to develop out of Massachusetts Congregational churches, which, before the mid-1700s, seemed to be growing tired of what they felt was a “strict Calvinism.” As the 1700s drew to a close, nearly all the Congregational ministers in Boston and more than half of those in eastern Massachusetts had walked away from their Calvinist faith, the faith that was their heritage and the country’s, and they had embraced Christ-denying Unitarianism.  Also present at the same time were Arianism (another denial of the Trinity)  and Arminianism, a denial of Reformed theology that manifested itself in pietism.  Should you ask what pietism is, it is a form of Christianity that promotes personal holiness (which is fine in itself)  but never applies God’s law or commandments to the society around it.  All these teachings were present in this country before our War for Independence from Great Britain.

To be continued.

Some Results of Unbelief

by Al Benson Jr.

The Holy Scriptures warn in many places against God’s elect having anything to do with fortune tellers, astrologers, and those who seek to communicate with the dead. Leviticus 19:31, 20:6, and Deuteronomy 18:11 record some of these warnings. Those who profess a belief in the Holy Scriptures and in the Christian faith are exhorted to avoid these activities as they would the plague.  Deuteronomy 18:12 says: “For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord:…”  The truth presented in Scripture is that all who seek to deal in these forbidden areas, those who seek to communicate with the dead, are, in reality, influenced by what they do come into contact with.  And what they come into contact with is not really deceased friends or relatives, it’s not dear old Uncle Harry from Hoboken, but is, in reality, something infinitely more demonic.

We hear much today about satanic activity and increased occult incidents, as though this were something that had suddenly sprung up in the last couple decades.  In truth, activities in these realms has been going on for thousands of years, else the Lord would not have issued the prohibitions He did in the Old Testament Scriptures. Does anyone remember King Saul and the Witch of Endor?

Even in this country such activities are not new.  Many well-known personalities in our own history have been caught up in these forbidden practices.  One of the most well-known during the 19th century was author Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of that infamous propaganda piece Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet, along with her prominent brother, Henry Ward Beecher, were two of the children of Rev. Lyman Beecher, a mostly orthodox Calvinist preacher. He struggled with the concept of “free moral agency” and free will, a debate which still continues today, with many sincere people on both sides of the question. Although orthodox in most areas, Rev. Beecher’s struggle in this area was a costly problem for his family. In time just about all of his children departed from his mostly Reformed faith,. some to slide into outright apostasy. Henry Ward Beecher, for all his reputation as a preacher and orator of national importance, tossed aside sound biblical doctrines throughout his life as if he were discarding old, used overcoats. Finally, near the end of his days, he was, for all practical purposes, a Unitarian in spirit if not in name.

And then came Harriet Beecher Stowe’s departures into spiritualism. This initially started, according to Milton Rugoff, in his book The Beechers, in 1843, when Harriet visited her brother Henry and his wife. Henry started “mesmerizing” (hypnotizing) Harriet, an experience she described on page 267 of Rugoff’s book. According to Rugoff, Harriet was convinced that she ‘had been brought to the verge of the spirit land.'”  This particular session so frightened Henry Beecher’s wife that she would not even stay in the same room where it occurred.  Harriet later consorted with at least two other hypnotists and became intrigued with this concept as a way of communication with the spirit world–something she should have had nothing to do with according to biblical prohibitions.  She, like brother Henry, had departed from her father’s faith and the further away she got, the more bizarre her activities became.

By 1851 she was writing installments of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.. That propaganda piece (and that’s all it was) was so well touted that, within a few years,  Abraham Lincoln, when meeting Harriet personally, referred to her as “the little lady who started the big war.” Maybe he thought that was as good a way as any to get him off the hook. Even though Harriet’s work was propaganda, it did rouse strong feelings on both sides.

At this point, I have a question, which I don’t think anyone else has asked up until now.. My question is–if Harriet persisted in her experiments into the “spirit” world (and we know she was heavily into this in later years), then to just what extent did this kind of activity influence what she wrote in Uncle Tom’s Cabin? I believe it is worth raising the question as to what influences may have been present when Harriet wrote. Where did some of her ideas as expressed in the book, come from? Were they really hers? Or was there another source?  Harriet did write other books, but this was easily the most influential nationally.

Harriet’s son, Henry, (probably named for her brother) drowned in the Connecticut River on July 9, 1857. This threw Harriet into a depression that lasted for months. She was concerned about her son’s eternal destination, as she was unsure of his relationship with God when he died. To ease her feelings, Harriet resorted to spiritualism in an attempt to contact her dead son. According to Rugoff, other family members were into this sort of thing. Even he husband, Calvin Stowe, also had “visions” and said he also often saw his dead first wife. You have to wonder, if Harriet and her family had not abandoned sound biblical teaching they probably would not have gotten involved in all this to begin with. In an article written for a newspaper after her son’s death, Harriet sought to connect spiritualism with biblical miracles–another great error on her part.

For all his problems with election vs. free will, old Lyman Beecher would never have countenanced his children’s slide into apostasy. Yet his own theological struggles may well have helped to create the problem.

You may look at all this and say “interesting bit of history, but, so what?” Look at this country’s history from a Christian perspective.  Ask yourself, what has apostasy had to do with the decline of America in the last 150 or more years. The biblical answer is “much in every way.”

People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher had a tremendous influence on the direction this country took during the middle-to-late 1800s. If these people, and many others we could name, were indeed traveling the road of apostasy, whether they realized it or not, then what kind of influence did they exert on the country as a whole?

Years ago, Rev. Ennio Cugini of the Clayville Church in Foster, Rhode Island, told me that all of America’s problems could, in one form or another, be traced back to the root cause of apostasy (a falling away from biblical faith and truth). At that time I did not fully grasp all that his statement implied.I must say that, at this point in time, I have to agree with him.  If our country was begun (from 1620 or shortly before in Virginia), with a Christian foundation. heritage, and history, and people have willingly departed from that,  can we honestly expect anything but tribulations and problems?  God said “This is the way, walk ye in it.” We have not done so. Do we expect a Sovereign God to bless disobedience?  If we do, then we are even dumber than the Communists give us credit for being.

Were this country to return to its biblical, Reformation roots in repentance, seeking God’s forgiveness and direction, we might have a chance. Nothing less will suffice. In the Bible we have the truth about our lost condition, so let us begin to give heed to that truth, that whatever actions we take may be undertaken with the undergirding  power and authority of God’s Word.