By Al Benson Jr.
Who says the Devil isn’t interested in theology? It’s one of those things, like history, that he enjoys getting in there and monkeying with, that he might twist its meaning and message to suit his own agenda and thereby fool a lot of undiscerning people who should know better but apparently don’t seem to.
One thing he enjoys immensely is taking an anti-Christ thought system like Marxism and making it over just enough so that totalitarianism is made to sound compassionate and rank humanism is made to sound like Christian love. He can’t fool everyone with this theological sleight-of-hand, but he can fool enough that it makes the effort worthwhile in his truncated sight.
One of his main efforts has been to dress up Marxism with enough of a veneer that it sounds downright Christian—until you take a good close look at it, and if you do that, with prayer, you can often see the Red showing through. Otherwise you miss it.
Several years ago now, the John Birch Society published an informative booklet entitled Apostasy and the National Council of Churches. This dealt with how Marxists had infiltrated and influenced much of what the National Council of Churches in this country had done and it backed up the old truth that “not many ministers become Communists, but a lot of Communists become ministers.”
An article on Discoverthenetworks.org gave a few examples of this: “One notable religious leftist who embraced communist and socialist causes was the late Rev. Lucius Walker Jr. In the 1960s Walker was a sponsor of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, a Communist Party front group…and from 1973-78 he served as Associate General Secretary for the National Council of Churches. A longtime critic of American policy toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Walker in 1994 was an initiator of the International Peace for Cuba Appeal (IPCA), which called for normalized trade relations with Castro’s island nation. IPCA was an affiliate of the International Action Center, which was itself a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.” Almost seemed like Walker lived in the Communist front group world.
Another “minister” that falls into this group is Rev. Je$$e Jackson. Jackson’s leftist views have long been known to anyone who takes the trouble to look and one of the farthest to-the-left ideas he ever came up with was the one where, in return for the $600 billion that blacks spend each year, black business owners ought to be guaranteed an equal share of the service and manufacturing contracts awarded by U.S. companies. In other words you get your service contract because of your skin color. No “white privilege” here, just a bit of “black privilege.”
Then there is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president’s (former) pastor. His church, Trinity United Church of Christ, has a “ten point vision” which seeks the cultivation of “economic parity and the eradication of America’s economic mal-distribution.” In other words, redistribution of the wealth, Marxist-style.
And let us not forget James Cone, who wrote the book Black Theology and Black Power. In yet another http://www.discoverthenetworks.org article Cone is quoted as saying: “What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of Black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” How’s that for man telling God what to do? And Cone further advocates and calls for “the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.” Not only that, Cone advocates Marxism as a tool for social analysis to enable Christians to see “how things really are.” How many of you were ever told any of this about Liberation Theology in any article you ever read about it? Its Marxist origins and intent have ever been glossed over whenever the “news” media touches any of this and all you are ever told about is their “compassion for the poor and suffering of the world.” That’s all a lot of horse radish! The only concern the Marxists have relating to the genuine poor and oppressed is to figure you how to use them to promote their own agendas. In other words, the poor and downtrodden are cannon fodder for the Marxist program.
Back in 2008 Anthony B. Bradley, a research fellow at the Acton Institute, and an assistant professor of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, published an article on http://www.acton.org entitled The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology. Although he almost seems to soft peddle in some areas, yet he does make some worthwhile observations regarding Black Liberation Theology. He notes: “Black Liberation Theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks…Reducing black identity to ‘victimhood’ distorts the reality of true progress. For example, was Obama a victim of widespread racial oppression at the hand of ‘rich white people’ before graduating from Columbia University, Harvard Law School, or after he acquired his estimated net worth of $1.3 million? How did ‘rich white people’ keep Obama from succeeding? If Obama is the model of an oppressed black man, I want to be oppressed next! “
Bradley mentions a book by John McWhorter called Losing the Race, in which McWhorter says that “Victimology is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one’s identity.” And Bradley continues: “McWhorter articulates three main objections to victimology: First, victimology condones weakness in failure. Victimology tacitly stamps approval on failure, lack of effort, and criminality. Behaviors and patterns that are self-destructive are often approved of as cultural or presented as unpreventable consequences from previous systemic patterns.” In other words, “I committed this crime, but it’s all Whitey’s fault, not mine. I’m not responsible.”
It is stated by Bradley that: “Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks). Black Liberation theologians James Cone and Cornel West have worked diligently to embed Marxist thought into the black church since the 1970s. For Cone, Marxism best addressed remedies to the condition of blacks as victims of white oppression. In For My People Cone explains that ‘the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are’.” So what he’s saying is that in order for Christians to begin to grasp where the rubber meets the road, they need the assistance of Marxist thought and critique. No longer is the Bible your guideline. Now Marxist thought becomes the way to go.
When you strip all the fancy jargon away from all this, it amounts to nothing more than a theological excuse for promoting the old Marxist class struggle technique. And of course the Devil is downright ecstatic when Christians buy into that lie because he realizes that this subverts the real meaning and reason for the Christian church. In truth it is Marxism that oppresses people, not Christianity.
You have to question, with these modern “liberation” theologians, just who their master really is.
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I’m highly critical of “capitalism” myself, and I’ve found readers will often learn the wrong lessons from a teacher (unintended consequences). So one influenced by a Marxist might in theory learn very unMarxist lessons, or so it’s hoped. Also, post-Marxist Russia at times shows a conservative instinct, so it’s hoped that even if they continue to revere Lenin and Stalin that they can be won over somewhat. Many present-day “leftists” seem to hate Wall Street and American government power for the same reason we complain against Wall Street and American government power.
Reg. victimology, it’s powerful to serve a “good cause”; but moderns have discovered they can spin any cause to be “good”. And there’s this modern assumption that the successful are always successful because of some crime against the unsuccessful. Our societies have become so integrated that it’s indeed difficult to argue one deserves what he owns. Even a hermit living in the mountains can be accused of “unjustly” owning too much land/resources, even if he built everything by hand. We seem to be trending towards a return to rule by force as a result, where ownership goes to the strong, not the hard-working.
I fear conservative attempts at objective truth have proven inferior to victimology. I continue to believe in the importance of truth, but other groups just assume we’re playing the same victimology game. That anyone would side with objective truth against his own interests seems unbelievable to a modern. Really, outside European societies and maybe Korea and Japan, where is hard work and truth valued? We seem to be returning to rule by force, truth determined by the mighty.
A system of ethics is powerful within a group, provided nearly all adhere to the code nearly all the time.
A system of ethics is weak outside a group, except where it wins favour/trust.
Marxism is strong in its war with us, because Marxism holds no system of ethics. But Marxism cannot build a society; it can only exploit and destroy, never create.
Richard Weaver was no dogmatic Capitalist, but he wrote that property rights are a vital tradition of ours. We’ve allowed so many other traditions to fall, but we must retain property rights within our society, because it’s our last sacred tradition. If we cease to respect these last rights, our society will collapse. Society stands on the sacred, on some system of ethics held by the group. I do not mean to imply Christianity is not also essential.