With the rise of Socialism in our culture today, many Christians have a strong feeling of anxiety about it, but are not exactly sure what is behind the Socialist wave that is sweeping our government and media. Should they be concerned? This short article should provide food for thought. Some liberal Christians read Acts 4:32-35 and decide that Socialism must be alright because it is in the Bible. Is this correct? No, it is not correct. The early Christians were gathered together to learn about Christ and His resurrection from the apostles. People didn’t want to leave and decided that they wanted to contribute so that all could remain together. People gave of their own free will. Nothing was taken from them. Exodus 20:15 plainly says, “Thou shalt not steal.” This includes stealing by coercion, intimidation and redistributing the wealth of others via government power and legislation, not voluntary charity. Acts 2:44-47 was for charity only. See Acts 5:4.
Should we be concerned about Socialism and Communism? Socialism is a philosophy that government should have economic control of the economy and actually was extant during the bloody French Revolution, before Communism. Socialism could be termed, a first form of Communism. Total Socialism or Communism allows no private ownership of businesses of any size. Lenin, founder of Communism, broke off from Socialism to begin the Bolshevik party and changed its name to the Communist Party. Communism requires absolute control of the economy as well as all aspects of society. Communism was the greatest economic failure in world history. Its goal was also to replace religion with worship of the state and its leaders such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung. Hitler was a National Socialist. The term NAZI stands for National Socialist Party. As you can see there are lots of brands of Socialism. Socialist governments’ crimes against their own citizens are forever infamous. But different levels of Socialist ideology are still in vogue and operating today.
Vladimir Lenin believed that religion was just a tool to keep workers under subjugation and away from their rightful place in society. He felt that religion was sort of like a drug used by the ruling class to keep laborers in line. Lenin and Marx deeply held the idea that belief in God must be abolished. Worship of the state was their ultimate goal. Statism is for some, idolatry. These adherents believe that an all-powerful, omnipotent government can solve all problems. Lenin and Marx were not opposed to allowing Christians to join their revolutionary movement because of the belief that Christians could be converted to atheism when shown the errors of their ways over time.
Lenin wanted Christianity to die out naturally, realizing that trying to expunge Christianity by force would just drive people to Christianity, as happened during New Testament times. He decided that one method of ridding society of Christianity was to attack the economic base of religion; an example in today’s society would be requiring new regulations on churches. Using the IRS to regulate all nonprofits, including religious organizations, is a START down the road toward limiting our freedom of religion. Lenin’s propaganda taught that religion was only for the elderly and backward among populations. Schools were of course, totally atheistic. Socialism naturally leads and encourages more people to rely on big government. The state would suffice as an object of worship.
The Environmental Lever
Western society would not accept Socialist Marxist-Leninist Philosophy especially in view of the horrors extant in the former Soviet Union. Therefore, Socialists and leftists in America decided they could introduce big government control of our lives from another venue, that being Environmentalism.
Earth worship and worship of the state must replace traditional religion which their philosophy holds as necessary for Socialism to take strong root. During the ‘70s, climate scientists asserted that Earth was doomed because of an impending Ice Age which was to be caused by the internal combustion engine, aerosols, and of course, carbon dioxide! (See Time Magazine, June 24, 1974 and Newsweek, April 28, 1975.) Would you believe that in Science Magazine, June 11, 1999, Richard Kerr wrote that reports of carbon dioxide causing the two million year ice age were wrong according to two new studies. CO 2 has been a multipurpose culprit for a long time! As the decades rolled out, the weather did not cooperate by freezing all of us, therefore, they changed their mantra to say that global warming and the greenhouse effect would destroy us by heat. Again, we find no cooperation from the weather, so now we are stuck with climate change. The blame for any weather trend can be assigned to carbon dioxide under the influence of man-made industry which, of course, needs ever more big government regulation— Socialism. So now they are covered for every contingency. If it gets warmer, it is climate change, if it gets colder; it’s still climate change to advance the cause of big government control.
By the way, did you know that the Los Angeles Times will not accept any editorials about climate that are not pro-global warming? Did you know that the climate has not fluctuated out of normal range for the last 16 years? Did you know that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change after much study declared that climate change is just one possibility among many for any perceived fluctuations in our climate? Sunspot activity is a lot more valid, but you will not hear much about that because it cannot be taxed or controlled by the government, at least not so far.
Why have scientists had to continually change the global climate theory if it was accurate? Obviously it is not correct, but is simply a method to achieve vast governmental control and to push religion out of the public square. Who controls the weather—God or mankind? The two e-mail scandals involving the leaders of the global warming movement in East Anglia University revealed the truth. Their climate models were in error, built on corrupt science, and could not predict weather trends. Any good scientific theory should with certain inputs be able to predict the precise outputs or results. What a surprise, scientists cannot predict anything if they use faulty assumptions based on purposely fraudulent data. Nor can mankind control the weather. Describing carbon dioxide as a pollutant is ridiculous. It is a mainstay of the plant/animal symbiotic relationship. We humans could not exist without it. Carbon dioxide even regulates the acid-alkaline balance in our bodies. It even helps with digestion and waste removal. Plants use it to grow and breathe. We get oxygen from the plants that need our CO2.
Stalin said he would undermine America from within by coopting organizations and deceiving us. The Soviet empire collapsed and failed but some from within the U.S. continued that direction. We assume they were deceived by liberal professors who were deceived themselves. Therefore for many years we have been undermined by domestic socialists.
The Bible teaches one should work and not be idle. See II Thessalonians 3:11-12. God believes in working and giving to others. If the government gives money for not working it is incentivizing laziness, if it overtaxes the productive, they are discouraging productivity. Many are willing to be slaves to the government for a check.
In latter centuries the Roman Empire practiced their version of socialism. They gave away free food and housing to the masses for political support. These recipients became known as the rabble of Rome, and their society became weaker and weaker. The Roman Empire decayed from within. God’s laws and ways make a society stronger. To the extent that America was in the past a primarily Bible believing nation we were stronger than most nations. The more socialistic we become the more decadent and weaker we become. God wants strong families producing strong industrious responsible moral people. Socialism does the exact opposite to most people! They look to government led by false heroes and false religions like earth worship instead of traditional Biblical standards. The Socialist press Pravda taught the masses to worship the evil Joe Stalin instead of God.
One could argue that among political choices some social programs may be one method of handling problems. We would add two qualifiers. One, that the program be well designed so that it does not undermine industriousness
and entrepreneurship. Otherwise, poverty will spread just as it did in the old Soviet Union. Secondly, a government should never replace reliance upon the true God with false gods of Satanism, earth worship, animal worship or a Messianic leader.
All computer models upon which environmentalist theory is based failed to predict the current plateau of cooling weather. Remember the ship that was frozen in the ocean trying to approach the South Pole to study the disappearing ice cap! The irony of why they had to be rescued was covered up by the mainstream media. Icebreakers, designed to cut through extra thick ocean ice could not reach the stranded researchers. After many rescue attempts, helicopters were finally used to rescue the trapped researchers. This cooling cycle is about 16 years old. The Antarctic icecaps have been getting noticeably thicker during this time period. What is responsible for this pattern? You guessed it! Global Warming has struck again! The scientists are a little confused, but they will come up with an incorrect explanation. The earth has not warmed during this period in spite of an increase in CO 2. The earth is quite robust and mankind cannot control the climate. Billions of tax dollars have been squandered trying to control nonexistent global warming, with no results. Everyone is for clean air and water but not for extremes that needlessly diminish industries and economies.
Why do government programs not only fail to solve the problems but often in the long run, exacerbate them? Unintended consequences of big government programs usually make things worse. The problems increase. LBJ’s War on Poverty is a classic example. His welfare programs helped dramatically to increase poverty.
Financial reward for not working encourages irresponsible behavior. Incentivizing inappropriate behavior is not judicious policy. Since man’s governments have rejected God’s Laws they have no clue what to do to make things work. Paul says in Romans 1:28, “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind; to do what ought not to be done.” This of course includes legislation which is totally wrong and affects all Christians. We could easily lose our right to assemble in church, our right to worship God as we choose; even our right to live could be taken from us. We should be very concerned about Socialism and pray and ask God for His mercy upon us. And we can vote for the least socialist agenda. The unintended consequences of poor legislation often grows like an avalanche. The Bible says, “There is a waywhich seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12).
Let’s pray that God will grant repentance and forgiveness to our beloved nation.
