The Progresssive Movement

Progressive Churchmen Commend Communism

Observing the change in the church over the last few decades and feeling the loss of that which has been precious to us for generations, I tried desperately to be heard by writing a book— Beyond the Intention of Jesus, hoping that someone would take a stand with me against the progressive movement, known as Liberation Theology. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t more successful. But I understand now: It was too late to succeed! Liberation theology had already become the“preferred option,” not only of the “poor” but of the governments, universities and churches as well.

It’s too late to change the “main-line churches” that have accepted this evolving scheme, but how can we be silent! I am constantly reminded of our plight and, as in the case of Jeremiah the prophet, there is a fire burning in my bones, compelling me to speak out. In these essays I am speaking out, hoping that someone will listen and take a stand for God and truth, and perhaps accomplish something for Christ that I have not been able to do. If there is such a person out there, thank you in advance for your faith and courage. But let no one think it will be easy —leaves float with the tide; rocks stand against it.

Go back into the history of your church and recall how you used to have Bible studies and hear sermons from the Bible and sing biblical songs. Remember the sincere faith you received from your parents and your church when you were young. If you don’t have these special memories, perhaps you will have to ask someone in the previous generation. Compare what you remember or learn with the present theology of your church, the lack of interest they show in those who have not kept pace with their progressive theology, and their disdain for those who would dare to speak of the “old paths” and the “ancient wells;” observe your preacher’s failure to preach expository sermons from the Bible. While you are in a reflective mood, think of your own journey and see if you have also drifted. Is so, repent and return to the road you once traveled with Christ. It may take some effort on your part to get past the indifference that has so stealthily and gradually overtaken you and with which you have grown so familiar. But to see the light of grace again will be worth it all! Alexander Pope wrote of familiarity as follows:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
Is to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

No wonder the Bible says, “Remember,” 232 times. Consider the trouble people have had because they failed to remember. “Remember, repent and return,” was the Lord’s instruction to the church at Ephesus. (Rev. 1:1-7) This is wonderful advice for the church today. Progressive deception has done its destructive work, leaving many uncertain about their faith and the truth of God they once held dear. Jesus is still saying, “Remember, repent and return.’

Missionary/Educator, “Communists are advocates of Christianity”

Dr. Otis Gatewood, a well-known minister in the Church of Christ, went to Germany as a missionary Soon after WW II. I learned about him when I became a Christian in 1950, and in 1960 I heard him speak at Michigan Christian College where he was president. I never heard of him again until 1989, when I was reading Dr. Fred Schwarz’s Christian Anti-Communism Crusade newsletter. Schwarz had written an article titled, “Evangelical Misinformation Concerning Communism,” in which he quoted an article from Dr. Gatewood’s mission paper, World Wide Contact Vol. XXIII No.3. The article was as follows:

“The communists themselves are in some ways advocates of Christianity. They teach truthfulness, honesty, thrift, industry, dedication, equality of all, monogamy, chastity, sobriety, diligence, obedience, humility, patience, love and honor in the family, productivity, fruitfulness, and they erect great school and hospitals, and give support to the aged. All these things are fruits of Christianity. The communists are, in many respects, practicing Christians. One Communist guide in Kiev pointed with pride to the statue of Prince Vladimir, on the banks of the Drieper River, who brought Christianity to the Soviet Union. I asked: ‘Have things been better since Christianity was brought to the Soviet Union?’ She replied: “Very definitely because before Christianity came here our people worshiped stones. Now we worship God.’ They deny God, yet they confess him, not only in action, but also in word.”

I was about as stunned as Dr. Schwarz was to read this from a Christian preacher, missionary and college president in an ultra-conservative church. But then I realized that Marxism is no respecter of persons—it gets into the mind and heart of preachers, teachers, missionaries and educators the same as it does the peasants. And once it does it stays there for a lifetime.

Missionary/Author, “Communism is an example for a reluctant church”

Dr. E. Stanley Jones, a prominent Methodist minister, author and missionary to India for many years, took the same turn Gatewood did. I have always loved Jones’ books and I was greatly inspired by a sermon I heard him preach on The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person in 1973, which became the title of his book later that year. I regarded him as a true believer and a great preacher, but I didn’t understand that he was equating the Kingdom of God with global socialism until I read his book.

When Stanley Jones was young he wrote the following: “I found…in Russia during a visit in 1934…the communists…building up a civilization without God, and doing it enthusiastically. The young people carrying earth out of the subway were chanting, ‘We are making a new world.’” (The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person, Abingdon Press, NY 1974, p. 32)

When Stanley Jones was old he wrote this: “When the Western world was flourishing in an unjust and competitive order, the church was bound up with it and was a part of that order, God reached out and put his hand on the Russian Communists to produce a just order and to show a reluctant church what it has missed in its own Gospel…To the degree that the Communists have caught the meaning of the Kingdom of God and have embodied them, they are a part of that Kingdom, even if they repudiate that Kingdom.” (Pastor Herman J. Otten, Baal or God, Lutheran News, New Haven, MO, p. 88)

First, Jones saw the Russian Communists “building a civilization without God,” but later he saw that “God reached out and put his hand on the Russian Communists to produce a just order and to show a reluctant church what it has missed in its own Gospel. This is Marxist liberation theology exemplified.

Conclusion

Now communism is old and Stanley Jones is gone. As communism was aging, a radical young
Liberation Theology Movement came of age. And after communism was deeply imbedded in society, this movement began to drop its title and become a part of the Progressive Movement. As communism is a cancer on the world, religious communism, in the form of liberation theologians, is a cancer on the church and university. But in time liberationists will be old also and will go the way of their Communist Party comrades, while the faithful remnant of God, which will always be young, will march triumphantly on. The glory that is Marxism will have passed away, taking millions of souls with it, and the liberationists with their unbelieving churches will have followed their demise.

When our churches were young people sang “Back to the Blessed Old Bible” and “There Is Power in the Blood,” but now that they too are old, they sing of a false liberation and a political kingdom, which have no place for either the Bible or the Blood.

Lenin said, “As long as capitalism and socialism coexist, we can not live in peace; in the end, one or the other of us will triumph—a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism.”

Some of us, who were contemporaries of Lenin (I was born a year before he died in 1924), belong to the Christian remnant who sang a funeral dirge over the Soviet Republic. But millions, like Otis Gatewood and Stanley Jones, heard the Marxist call fir liberation and left the doctrine of Jesus Christ for the propaganda of Karl Marx. They too defend Marxism by their demand for “peace and justice, i.e., yielding to socialist control and distributing the welt of the rich. But God will always have a remnant, which will stand up for Christ and speak out against this progressive socialism in our drifting nation and churches, and will remain standing to sing the funeral dirge over the Marxist Liberation Theology Movement. Perhaps we will sing about the Progressive Movement from the Gnostics to the liberationists, how it deceived and destroyed souls, and how the saints of God stood up for their Lord and fought it until its demise. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!