Progressive Shades of Red #2

Barack Obama believes in the distribution of wealth, just as Marx did. He said, “We need to spread the wealth around.” This socialist practice has often been expressed by the statement, “Take from the rich and give to the poor.” This is a socialist philosophy that wants to “leveling the playing field” at the expense of those who have worked hard and accumulated wealth. Socialism is nothing more than a developing phase of communism—a darker shade of red. Communism is supposed to be the perfect world that socialism will usher in. And when it does, conflict will cease and we will all live in a peaceful world. Religious Marxists say that this new order will be the Kingdom of God.” When the communist kingdom comes, the slogan will no longer be, “from each according to his ability to each according to his need,” but just “to each according to his need.” The state will have confiscated the means of production and “spreading the wealth” by taxation and distribution. Socialists in the United States are vigorously engaged in this process by increases taxes and regulating the means of production. This is driving businesses overseas and causing people to be dependent on government. Communism produces a welfare state.

A child’s text book of some years ago had a story about two squirrels; one was industrious and the other was lazy. While the former worked hard storing nuts for winter the latter ran and played in the trees. Winter caught the lazy squirrel unprepared and the story faulted the industrious squirrel for “being selfish and not sharing.” This was an injection of Marxism into our educational system. Isn’t this what is happening in politics and government? Socialism and ultimately communism dictates that wealth be shared, no matter that the wealthy have worked for what they have and the needy class may not have worked or been frugal?

Hegel and Dialectical Idealism: Hegel (1770-1831) was a professor at Heidelberg and Berlin. He wrote books on ethics, aesthetics, history and religion. During this time he developed his dialectical logic. He believed that in all of society, each entity—be it a person, a party or a nation—holds its own preferred philosophy which is in conflict with that of every other. He called the preferred thought the thesis, its conflicting thought its antithesis and the emerging higher thought a synthesis. The thesis first creates its antithesis through conflict and then negates it, giving rise to a higher synthesis. This synthesis becomes a new thesis and the cycle continues—and will continue until the emergence of the “absolute ideal.”
Hegel supposed that everything functions dialectically—in nature, in thought and in relationships. The universe develops by a self-creating plan; human activity leads to property, which leads to law; and out of the conflict between the individual and the law develops the synthesis of ethics, by which the state is produced. The state is the embodiment of the absolute idea, and the ultimate state is a monarchy. Religion has moved from the worship of nature through a series of stages to Christianity where Christ represents the union between God and humanity—between spirit and matter. Philosophy is more comprehensive than religion, as it is the historical unfolding of the absolute. This thought process gave Hegel—and the world dialectical idealism— The Concordia Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press.

Feuerbach and Progressive Materialism: Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a German philosopher and a renegade theologian, but he abandoned theology and embraced philosophy, which brought him into agreement with Hegel. He later parted with Hegel’s ideal philosophy for naturalistic materialism. In other words, while Hegel built his philosophy on progressive thought and expected to achieve his ideal through thought, Feuerbach came to believe that thought and religious feelings are only products of man’s yearning on which no suitable philosophy could be built, but that the answer lay in man himself and in nature. Feuerbach then removed deity from his philosophy altogether, leaving only progressive materialism. Mao Tse-tung, who believed the same, said, “There is nothing in the world except matter in motion.”

Marx and Dialectic Materialism: Karl Marx (1818-1883) married Hegel’s dialectic and Feuerbach’s materialism, and developed his dialectic materialism. The struggle would no longer be in Hegel’s realm of ideas or in Feuerbach realm of the material, but in the realm of politics and economics. Marx called his philosophy dialectic materialism because of the dialectical conflict he saw between the thesis and it’s antithesis in the areas of politics and economics. Socialism was the thesis, capitalism its antithesis and pure communism the synthesis.
Communism is supposed to be the perfect state that socialism will usher in after the world has becomes a socialist state. When this happens, conflict will cease in a perfect world where all will enjoy common pleasures. The slogan will no longer be a socialist slogan, “from each according to his ability to each according to his need,” but a communist slogan, “to each according to his need.”
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Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) explained this philosophy in his book, One Step Forward Two Steps Backward. Change is a historical determinate and progress is made by advancing and retreating, gaining and losing, giving and taking, but never losing sight of its goal. Hegel had developed his dialectic idealism, Marx built his dialectic materialism upon it and, with Lenin’s prediction that they would get it in the church, this dialectic philosophy was ready to be converter into a dialectic theology to be called liberation theology—the present form of modernism that has possessed the postmodern church.


Understanding Dialectic Progression: Remember these two Marxist claims: 1) Everything is constantly changing and, 2) progress is inherent in change. A good way to understand the development of any philosophy is to look for examples. Friedrich Nietzsche dreamed of a super race and thought that by teaching people the proper philosophy—his philosophy—he could produce it. In order to expedite Nietzsche’s plan, Hitler added the elimination of nonconformists. Likewise, Marx dreamed of a perfect communist world and thought that by teaching people the proper philosophy—his philosophy, he could produce it. In order to expedite Marx’s plan, Lenin added the elimination of nonconformists. After all, the elimination of the nonconformists would assist the thesis (socialism) in the negation of its antithesis (capitalism) and would bring in a higher synthesis (communism). Following Lenin, this elimination reached its apex in Stalin, who killed millions of his own people because they were impeding the progress toward a perfect communist world.
Just as the middle class of society overthrew and replaced the unproductive feudal nobility and the colonists overthrew and replaced the government of the king, so the proletariat (working class) must overthrow and replace the bourgeoisie (bours-wa-ze) middle class capitalists, in order to establish a perfect socialist state—a step in the direction of a communist world.
This dialectic method of overthrowing the old and replacing it with the new is to be achieved by a relentless struggle in the economical and political realms. The outcome of the struggle is predetermined by the flow of history (this is Marx’s philosophy of history). Economics would bring about the distribution of wealth and political action (strikes, boycotts and violence) would overthrow capitalism.
Marx reasoned that the value of a commodity is determined by the labor required to manufacture it, and when it is sold for more than it cost to produce, the profit is called “surplus value.” This, said Marx, amounts to capitalists profiteering off of the labor of the workers, which amounts to bourgeois (bours-wa) exploitation of the proletariat. For this reason capitalism would have to be overthrown and replaced by socialism and the instruments of production put into the hands of the state. This action would benefit the working class by allowing them a share of the profit from the goods they manufacture. In other words, capitalism and private enterprise would have to go, private ownership of property would be banned, there would be no churches operating independently of the state and the state would eventually own and educate the children; parents would have no authority over them. In order for socialism to work, the state has to own and operate everything and the people have to be totally cooperative and submissive.
The problem with socialism is that it destroys the initiative to produce and excel by taking away the profit motive, leaving manufacturers without the means to produce, expand and employ additional workers; and it destroys the incentive of workers who see no opportunity for advancement. This means that the working class will have lost the means of their livelihood, because the state doesn’t have the expertise to run all the factories it confiscates. And this is why all nations that have aspired to communism have ended up in poverty and disgrace. When this happens, the capitalists, whom they failed to overthrow, have always come to bail them out with the profit they tried to destroy because they couldn’t have it.

Marx’s Dialectical Materialism and Liberation Theology: Hegel envisioned an absolute ideal, Marx struggled to build a communist world, and when the church adopted Marx’s philosophy and turned it into theology, they also engaged in a dialectic struggle against their antithesis—biblical theology—in an attempt to usher in a secular Kingdom of God. They all speak of an earthly goal, and neither of them believes that the Bible is absolutely true. They all deal with philosophy rather than reality.

Vladimir Lenin, who lived in the generation following Marx, devised a way of getting Marxist philosophy into the church. He said, “We will find our greatest success to the extent that we inculcate Marxism as a kind of religion. Religious men and women are easy to convert and win, and so will easily accept our thinking if we wrap it up in a kind of religious terminology.” He also said, “Telling the truth is a bourgeois prejudice. Deception, on the other hand is often justified by the goal.” Lenin and his followers meant to destroy the church by getting Marxism into it one way or another—either by “wrapping it up” to look like something else or by force. They have succeeded in both. Lenin was right; after they got Marxism all wrapped up in religious terminology, churches and seminaries eagerly accepted it and called it liberation teleology.
Marxist action, whether secular or religious, militant or stealthy, always masquerades as liberating. There has to be a way found to convince the proletariat, whom the bourgeois capitalists have oppressed and the Marxist revolutionaries and “Christian” missionaries have come to liberate. The people will be liberated from poverty and capitalist oppressors through “class struggle,” and liberated for the purpose of forming a socialist state in which wealth will be distributed, everyone will be equal and there will be no further conflict. This will “free the captives” and fulfill the vision that is predetermined by history. In that day, pure communism (or if you prefer, the kingdom of God) will have arrived. All Christians had to do, once they had bought the wrapped-up lie, was to add a concept of God to this Marxist belief system and take it to the mission fields, pulpits and universities. In this way, nations would be “liberated” from the oppression of capitalism, and missionaries and ministers would be “liberated” from the oppression of biblical restraints. Then they would “do their theology as they go, rather than getting it from a book.”
During the past several decades liberationist professors have educated the missionaries and pastors in this new theology and they have in turn educated the nations and the churches. Liberation theology has become the new thesis that has created a conflict with its antithesis, biblical theology, which it must negate in order to usher in a new synthesis, a secular one-world religion. This is the essence of liberation theology, which is Marxist to the core. And this explains why Marxists and missionaries, who have been captivated by this philosophy, work side by side for the same cause on the mission fields: They are comrades, both advancing the Marx’s philosophy of history according to history’s “predetermined plan,” There is no place for Almighty God and His Word in this scheme.
This explains the rise of postmodernism in the mainline churches. Thank God there are many Bible-believing churches and millions of genuine Christians who have not succumbed to this modern virus of unbelief.

Wednesday I was listening to Neal Conan and Daniel Shore talking about the election on Talk of the Nation. Shore, long known as a far left of center news analyst said, “I like Obama, he thinks more like the Europeans than McCain does. When Obama is elected, Americans will also change to be more like the Europeans.” That’s why I said that a vote for Obama is a vote for socialism—in the progressive shades of red.