SMILING AT SOCIALISM & SCORNING THE BIBLE
By Berit Kjos
January 19, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
"[Obama] can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis.'[1] Henry Kissinger
“Hitler’s aim was first to move the masses and then, having pried them loose from their traditional loyalties and moralities, to impose upon them (with the hypnotized consent of the majority) a new authoritarian order of his own devising."[2] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958
"Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society [Socialist International], which calls for 'global governance' and says rich countries must shrink their economies...."[3]
"...when you remove God from a society, you remove the basis for a moral code...."[4] John Noble, "I Found God in Soviet Russia"
One of my early memories of post-war Norway was a shadowy concern about Russia -- our neighbor in the arctic north. Stalin coveted Norway's frost-free ports (warmed by the Gulf Stream), and many feared the snarling bear on our border.
In contrast, the British press ignored Stalin's atrocities. In his Introduction to "Animal Farm," George Orwell decried the cowardly refusal of British publishers to criticize Communism -- or to publish his book:
"...it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published .... One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information [which apparently] warned him... against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:
"...it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow... so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia.... Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. ... I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are."[5]
It would surely have offended British Communist! By 1943, Marxism had gained much favor in England, Russia was an ally in the war against Hitler, and Fabian socialism had become a powerful political movement among British elites. Like Antonio Gramsci's more subtle form of Communism, the Fabians encouraged gradualism, infiltration and deception rather than bloody revolutions.[6]
This socialist movement fanned out across Europe and into America under the lofty banner of solidarity and common good. Since those two ideals are rarely defined or candidly explained, few understand what they actually imply. Ponder this brief summary of their new meanings:
1. SOLIDARITY: Diverse people trained to find "common ground." (The "diversity" is needed to undermine the old values) The "common vision" and new values required for this planned solidarity are most effectively planted in minds through strategic propaganda and facilitated group dialogue blending opposing views into an evolving consensus. Aldous Huxley describes the results in "Brave New World Revisited,"
"Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgment or will of their own. ... they are subject to sudden excesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant.'”[7]
2. COMMON GOOD: The driving vision of solidarity. American individualism must yield to collective thinking and action. Personal "good" must yield to the "good" of the collective -- including redistribution of resources. Though it sounds compassionate, this process destroyed both Russia's middle class and personal incentive. It left everyone equally poor -- except elite rulers who controlled everything.
Yet, socialist change agents still believe that with a bit more psychology, sociology, surveillance and assessments — all part of today's re-education — the dream can be accomplished. But they are wrong! Whether subtle or coercive, the march toward global solidarity will bring terror and totalitarianism, not peace and plenty. And it will surely raise hostility toward Christianity, which is incompatible with the rising socialist system. As Marx and Engels wrote in "The Communist Manifesto" (1848):
"...communism abolishes eternal truths... and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience....
"The Communists... openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."[8]
Today such change is gradual and alluring rather than forceful and alarming. Influential "pied pipers" like Rick Warren speed the process. According to "Christianity Today," Rick Warren is pleased to share Obama's inauguration platform with Bishop Gene Robinson, a homosexual who has promised to give the prayer without using a Bible. Complimenting Obama, Warren said,
"President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground."[9]
THE PROBLEM WITH HUMAN NATURE
Since the dawn of time and history, man's hope for peace has been shattered by vanity, greed, envy, hatred, violence and war. When people reject God's grace and moral guidelines, only the fear of reprisals can shape a semblance of order and unity. This illusion of peace is maintained by fear, not freedom -- by manipulating feelings, not teaching facts. As Aldous Huxley wrote,
"To be successful a propagandist must learn how to manipulate these instincts and emotions.... Twenty years before Madison Avenue embarked upon 'Motivational Research,' Hitler was systematically exploring and exploiting the secret fears and hopes, the cravings, anxieties and frustrations of the German masses....
"'All effective propaganda,' Hitler wrote, 'must be confined to a few bare necessities and then must be expressed in a few stereotyped formulas.' These stereotyped formulas must be constantly repeated, for 'only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea upon the memory of a crowd.'”
"Propaganda... teaches us to accept as self-evident matters about which it would be reasonable to suspend our judgment or to feel doubt. The aim of the demagogue is to create social coherence under his own leadership."[7]
The cruelties of totalitarianism are documented by John Noble in his book, "I found God in Soviet Russia." Trapped in East Germany by the Russian occupying forces in 1945, the 21-year-old Noble was imprisoned without trial. Through years of starvation and relocations, he finally ended up in a slave-labor camp in arctic Russia. There, in the midst of horrible suffering, he would encourage others to trust God for strength to persevere.
After his miraculous release ten years later, he described the decadence of the ravaging Russian armies that occupied East Germany until 1990:
"I had begun to discover, during those first few months of Russian occupation... what man without God can come to. Although I could not then comprehend why the Russians conducted themselves as they did, the dreadful events of Black Sunday in Dresden, May 6, 1945, gave me my first inkling of the moral erosion that had taken place among the Soviet people.
"Under cover of darkness, neighbors continued to slip over to our house for refuge. The tales they had to tell made us sick. Several of the women were hysterical.... Their lust spent in rape, the Red soldiers turned to looting...."[4]
Lust and lawlessness! These timeless signs of man's depravity apart from God have already permeated our post-Christian culture! Consider the planned homosexual "pig-sex" orgy at Washington, D.C.'s Double-Day Hotel during Obama's inauguration festivities![10]
Sickening as it sounds, the recent assaults on innocent Jewish citizens in Europe and America are just as disturbing. What a way to start the new year! The Western world, which proclaims justice and tolerance for all, was suddenly swept up in a wave of mass rage that brought memories of racist lynchings and the medieval Inquisition. Author Mark Steyn documents some of the atrocities in his recent article, "The 'oldest hatred' lives, from Gaza to Florida:"
"In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell 'You are the brothers of pigs!,' and a protester complains to his interviewer that 'Hitler didn't do a good job.'
"In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, 'You need a big oven, that's what you need!'
"In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, 'Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!'
"In Toulouse [France] a synagogue is firebombed... a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, 'Palestine will kill the Jews.'... a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, 'Jews must die.'
"In Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a synagogue; in Antwerp, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home."[11]
Never mind the legal innocence of these Jewish civilians in Europe. Under the twisted sense of justice that accompanies such hatred, selective ethnic guilt is once again a reality in collective minds. So while Jews are attacked with abandon, few dare criticize Muslims, Hindus or homosexuals and risk the social reprisals for politically incorrect expressions. What does this tell us about the rising New World Order?
RESISTING GLOBAL SOLIDARITY
There are many kinds of "Jews" and "Christians" these days. While most drift with the compromising currents in today's amoral world, others stand firm on the unchanging Scriptures they love. While the latter are viewed as misfits, President-Elect Obama's view of "Christianity" fits right into the vision of global solidarity:
“I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people."[12]
Christians who avoid those merging paths are likely to face the world's wrath. Uncompromising commitment to God makes no sense to those who don't know Him! So the world tries to explain it in their own misleading terms. As Pastor Rick Warren told Stephen Colbert,
"A fundamentalist is somebody who stops listening. There are fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Jews, fundamentalist Muslims.... It's an attitude that doesn't listen to anyone else."[13]
That's not true, unless you define "listen" as the process toward dialectical consensus, which many do. In that context, Warren's strange statement in a 2006 article in "The Philadelphia Inquirer" makes sense:
"Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be 'one of the big enemies of the 21st century.' ... 'Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism....'"[14]
In a May 2005 interview with the Pew Forum on Religion, Warren defined this persistent "enemy:"
"... they are such a minority; there aren't that many Fundamentalists left in America ... Now the word 'fundamentalist' actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity."[15]
That "legalistic, narrow view" is God-given faith in these five essential Truths: (1) the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, (2) the virgin birth, (3) His atonement for sin through the cross, (4) His resurrection, and (5) the inerrancy of His Word. But those fundamentals are no longer acceptable in many churches. As Jesus said,
"...because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.... If they persecuted Me they will persecute you... for they do not know the One who sent Me." John 15:19-21
One such martyr was Ivan [Vanya] Moiseyev, an eighteen-year-old Christian inducted into the Russian Red Army in 1970. Two years later he was tortured to death by Communist commanders for gently refusing to deny His Lord. Apart from God's sustaining grace during the years of unthinkable torture, he would have died much earlier. Perhaps this glimpse of Ivan's response to the first sign of hostility will remind us of the joy of following Jesus -- no matter what the cost!
"...it was incredible to him [a Red Army Sergeant] that any Soviet youth could have been so thoroughly poisoned by religion.
"Zalivako was not finished. 'It is evident that you resist teaching, Moiseyev, and the advice of your superiors. That is a concern to me. You are in need of a lesson. Since you are fond of praying on your knees, I shall give you an opportunity for constructive socialist labor in that position. You are to wash the barrack’s drill hall and all the corridors on your knees.... You will work all night. Perhaps an exercise of this nature, and before your comrades, might help to persuade you to be teachable. You will have opportunity to consider if you wish to cling to your anti-Soviet views.'...
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"...the news of a believer in the unit had passed through the whole company.... Fast upon the first story came the second, that the Polit-Ruk had set Moiseyev to scrubbing the enormous barrack hall with a small hand brush and a bucket.
"Incredibly, he was in good humor, singing and smiling as he worked in spite of continuous interruptions by officers who called him into their offices to harass him. By lunch, soldiers were drifting into the hall... watching him work, listening to the quiet hymns he sang with such evident joy. He was a mystery."[16]
Endnotes:
1,
Kissinger: Obama
primed to create 'New World Order'
2,
Brave
New World Revisited
3,
Obama
climate czar has socialist ties
4,
John
Noble, I Found God in Soviet Russia (New York, St. Martin's Press,
1959), pps. 29-30.
5,
George Orwell, Introduction
to Animal
Farm
6,
Treason
in the Church: Trading Truth for a "Social Gospel"
7,
Aldous
Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
8,
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto, 1848.
9,
Warren
Affirms Obama's 'Desire to be President of Every Citizen
10,
This
event was cancelled after the public outcry.
11,
Mark Steyn, "The
'oldest hatred' lives, from Gaza to Florida
12,
Cal Thomas, "Obama is no Joshua," June 16, 2008 [From a 2004
interview with Chicago Sun-Times religion editor Cathleen Falsani for
her book, The
God Factor. (See also Obama's
Acceptance Speech.)
13,
Stephen
Colbert
14,
Paul Nussbaum, "The
purpose-driven pastor," 01-08-2006, Page A01, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, PA.
15,
May
2005 interview between Rick Warren and the Pew Forum on Religion
16,
Myrna Grant, Vanya (Altamont
Springs, Florida: Creation House, 1974), pps 39-40.
� 2009 Berit Kjos - All Rights Reserved
