Part 3 of 4 from Chapter One “A Cultural Prophecy – Socialism” verbatim from David Jeremiah’s book “Where Do We Go From Here?”
“I’m afraid this new political trajectory in our nation is more than just a trend. It is a seismic shift toward a Marxist agenda. We are harvesting the weeds from Karl Marx’s toxic garden. If you look closely, you can draw the connections.
The Destruction of Monuments
It’s become common in recent years to see news headlines or live video of protest groups surrounding, defacing, and eventually removing statues and other historical monuments they consider to be offensive. These incidents began with controversial monuments of Civil War participants, but they have expanded to include key men and women from history—even figures such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
When we witness these events, we’re not simply seeing a bunch of rowdy young people tearing down statues. Instead, these are part of a concerted effort to attack and ultimately erase the past.
As Milan Kundera wrote during the rise of communism, some people rewrite or erase the past. In that way, the masses forget who they are and can be drawn into a new future. He said, “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have someone write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what is was.” 24
Totalitarians are determined to wipe out everything that is not in their particular interests. Remember Mussolini’s definition of totalitarianism: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
On the contrary, it’s interesting to discover that the word remember is found 164 times in the Old Testament. Socialism wants you to forget; Christianity wants you to remember. “Remember the former things of old,” God said through the prophet Isaiah, “I am God, and there is none like Me” (46: 9).
Yes, remember all that God has done for us. On the basis of past mercies, we can build a future of grace. We can say with the psalmist, “For You, O God, have . . . given me the heritage of those who fear Your name” (Ps. 61: 5).
Biblical heroes built monuments to remind future generations of God’s goodness and guidance. For example, when Israel entered the promised land they went through the parted waters of the Jordan River, a story told in four verses in Joshua 3: 14–17. But the entire fourth chapter of Joshua describes what happened next. Twelve strong men from the tribes of Israel erected a monument on the western side of the river. Joshua said, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’” (4: 21–22).
Psalm 77: 11 says, “Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.”
The Bible itself is largely a history book, telling the stories of flawed heroes who, through faith, conquered kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, and became valiant in battle (Heb. 11). But revisionist historians are scrubbing our children’s textbooks of all that is biblical or Christian, and they are rewriting our history to suit their own secular and socialist agendas.
Cancel Culture
Don’t think it’s just statues and histories that are being torn down. It’s also anyone who doesn’t kneel at the altar of prevailing political passions. You are canceled. Elsewhere in this book you’ll find an entire chapter on this subject, but for now I want to point out that this, too, is a child of totalitarianism. In cultural Marxism, there can be no room for tolerance or dissenting opinions.
While working on this chapter, I found it frustrating to watch the news because I felt I was drowning in illustrations. For example, I watched a school board in New Jersey cancel the titles of the holidays on its scholastic calendar. It will no longer be Christmas or Thanksgiving or Martin Luther King Jr. Day. From now on, these will all be referred to as student holidays. But here’s the kicker: When one of the parents in the back of the room tried to raise an objection, the chairman of the school board slammed his fist on the table and said, “This is not a debate.”
Case closed. Discussion over. Opinion canceled. The attempt by that board of education to eliminate the holidays was later overturned, but perhaps not for long.
Dreher wrote, “Today in our societies, dissenters . . . find their businesses, careers, and reputations destroyed. They are pushed out of the public square, stigmatized, canceled, and demonized as racists, sexists, homophobes, and the like. And they are afraid to resist, because they are confident that no one will join them or defend them.” 25
Before the First Amendment is ushered out the door, let me remind you of what it says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Dismantling of the Nuclear Family
Marxism reaches its cold fingers into your very home. Marxists want to raise your children and determine your income. Families based on Judeo-Christian values bred inequality, Marx thought. As Lutzer put it, Marx believed Christian homes “feed on greed and systemic oppression. Such families had to be dismantled if the Marxist vision of equality was to be realized. In Marxism, the family is perceived as a unit in which wives are suppressed by their husbands and children are suppressed by their parents. These clusters of oppression have to be broken up; mothers have to leave their homes and join the workforce.” 26
God created the family to be the glue in human society. For example, when God desired to create humanity itself and establish people within the ecosystem of our world, He did not reach down and fashion a full-blown society. He did not create cities or nations with laws and roads and structures.
No, He created a family. He began with Adam and Eve, and He told them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1: 28).
Similarly, when God desired to reveal Himself more intimately to a human civilization that was staggering under the influence of sin, He did not accomplish that mission by fashioning a philosophical system. He did not thunder from heaven in great speeches with powerful rhetoric.
Instead, He spoke through a family. He told Abraham, “Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” (17: 19).
And when God chose to take on human flesh in order to fulfill His promises and provide salvation for all people, He did not join a kingdom or seek to win an election. He did not attempt to connect Himself with an existing power system.
Instead, He joined a family. The angel told Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS” (Luke 1: 31).
Socialists know that as long as the family remains strong, socialism cannot flourish. So, there’s an ongoing attempt to subjugate the home to the government.
The Redistribution of Wealth
This ideology also teaches that all human assets should be claimed by the government and redistributed to the masses by a more equitable formula. This would supposedly rid the world of poverty. But somehow it has never worked out that way. It doesn’t take a scholar to see that wherever this principle has been implemented, the poor have gotten poorer and the few elitists who have been assigned to redistribute the wealth have themselves become filthy rich. Equality cannot be engineered.
Economist Iain Murray said, “The central issues with income inequality, is that the people who seem to be the most concerned with it never really ask the question, how are the poor actually doing? Because when you asked that question and look at the data that answers it, you will see that the poor do the best in economically free societies and do the worst in societies where they are controlled in one way or another, whether it be by socialist, or fascist or authoritarian regimes.” 27
De-funding the Police
Socialists are especially keen on keeping the reins of law enforcement in their tight fists. In America, their first step is to villainize the police, then to defund them. That’s why some cities have slashed their police budgets. And surprise! Each of these cities has seen a dramatic uptick in violent crimes in the months that followed. In Minneapolis, murders rose by a mind numbing 46 per cent. In Portland, Oregon, murders more than tripled. And the Los Angeles Police Department reported a 38% increase in murders.29
Police officers are retiring early, and the recruiting of new police officers ia t an all-time low. Unless something changes, our once beautiful cities will become wastelands where gangs rule while politicians go to and from work in their limousines accompanied by their expensive security personnel.
There’s a remarkable verse in the Bible about police and law enforcement officials. The apostle Paul called them “God’s minister to you for good” (Romans 13:4). Like all other humans, police officers are fallible, but without them our society would not be viable. The Lord views them as His ministers to maintain order on earth.
Whatever you do, don’t miss the socialist’s motivation for vilifying local authorities. No matter how loudly they deny it, they are simply trying to let the local government fail so that they can federalize our cities and states, moving control for all that happens to Washington.”
FYI
Tomorrow, Part IV, Where Do We Go From Here, first, Reviews What the Bible says; second, Refuse to Live by Lies; third, Resolve to Follow Christ and Not Just Admire Him; fourth, Rethink Small Groups; fifth, Resist Any Way You Can; and sixth, Remember Venezuela.
It is now time for us all to live by our convictions, not by convenience. And remember, the battle is the Lord’s, and the truth cannot be intimidated.
Don’t forget to order your own copy, The books Chapters are listed up front on the Jan 28 blog. A succinct treasure chest to focus your thinking and actions in 2023.