The Religion of Communism — A Preview of 2021 and Beyond?
It has been documented that the violent “Antifa” riots in American cities this past year were founded, directed, and led by Neo-Marxist agitators bent on the overthrow of Capitalist society. The leftist mainstream media, however, continues to insist that it has all been “largely peaceful” even as crowds of rioters attack police and innocents, and burn public buildings including police stations and courthouses. What is their ultimate objective?
The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx in 1848, is the blueprint for socialist agitators even today. Marx wrote, “As the class struggle approaches the decisive hour, the process of dissolution in the dominant class becomes so rapid that a part of it falls away and joins the revolutionary class…Law, morality, religion are in their eyes so many middle-class prejudices…The task of the proletariat is to destroy all these and other private safeguards, all forms of existing security in middle-class society…It cannot succeed without blowing up all the upper strata of dominant society. The individuals forming the middle-class must be suppressed. The middle-class family will disappear with the disappearance of capital. Patriotism will vanish with it. Communists frankly proclaim that their object cannot be attained without the violent overthrow of the whole existing order. Let the reigning classes tremble at the idea of a Communist revolution. Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.”
This is a nearly exact description of the situation we find rapidly developing in America today, and the political motivation of the liberal elite and their compliant mobs. Winston Churchill tersely commented, “Lenin was the grand repudiator. He repudiated everything. He repudiated God, King, Country, morals, treaties, debts, rents, interest, the laws and customs of centuries, all contracts written or implied, the whole structure—such as it is—of human society. In the end he repudiated himself.” Yet we in the twenty-first century have apparently not learned the lessons from the past!
Today this repudiation of Western Christian heritage, culture and morals has been aptly called, “the cancel culture.” Cities and states across America have removed statues of Columbus and renamed the holiday intended to honor the European discovery of America; it is now “indigenous people’s day.” Thanksgiving is now being called, “Thanks-taking,” denigrating our founding fathers as a criminal bunch of thieves. The religious motivation and devout faith of the Pilgrims and Puritans is flatly denied. Schoolchildren who are white are being made to feel personally guilty for the supposed sins of their forefathers; just recently liberal media icon Megyn Kelly pulled her young sons out of school in New York City because of the hate being directed at them by the school curriculum. Where will it all end?
Over a century ago in 1911, the late British-Israel writer, GBH Brooke, warned of a spiritual falling away at the end of the age, which presaged what could be called “an age of folly” that would witness the collapse of Western civilization. She warned that she did not want to be accused of “crystal gazing,” but that perilous times were coming.
The Bible indeed warned us in an end-of-age prophecy that a time of tribulation would come: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them” (Jer. 30:7-9).
This prophecy of the coming Messianic David, the Lord Jesus, is clearly to be fulfilled at His return. It will take place at a time of great tribulation, but Jacob-Israel will be delivered. The Amplified Version adds in brackets, “the time of Jacob’s [unequaled] trouble.” Rotherham translates, “a time of anguish it is for Jacob.” The Contemporary English Version tersely states, “My people, soon you will suffer worse than ever before…” The old Reformation martyr, John Wycliffe in his English translation of 1394 wrote, “it is a tyme of tribulacioun to Jacob.” It is clear that there is no secret rapture away to heaven that would enable God’s Israel to avoid entering this Great Tribulation!
What do we have to expect in the events leading up to the time of the end? A favorite scheme of Communists and their fellow-travelers is to use deceptive methods to extinguish our most basic First Amendment right of free speech and expression. Their tactic is to outlaw so-called “hate speech,” by which they mean any words or writings opposing their nefarious plans. In practice, hate speech, of course, never includes their own hateful and violent talk and ideas. In fact, Communist rhetoric is not only hateful but deadly. In the Communist takeover of Russia, a statistical investigation by Russian Professor Sarolea estimated “that the dictators killed 28 bishops, 1,219 priests, 6,000 professors and teachers, 9,000 doctors, 12,950 landowners, 54,000 officers, 70,000 policemen, 193,290 workmen, 260,000 soldiers, 355,250 intellectuals and professional men, and 815,000 peasants.” (Dawn Magazine, August 15, 1929, p.194) The Fortnightly Review (August 1929) documented liberty’s decease in Russia, and quoted a returning traveler’s observation that “The country has become one vast prison.”
To moral-minded Christians, the radical’s guidebook—the Communist Manifesto—reads like the ravings of a mad lunatic wanting to destroy existing public peace, security and safeguards, “blowing up” democracy and capitalism, violent overthrow of society, and suppression of all rights and freedom for the servitude of an atheistic dictatorial state supposedly acting for the benefit of the lower classes. Similarly, the modern rioters in Portland and other cities indiscriminately kill and destroy whatever they please seemingly at will, with almost no opposition from the liberal politicians, while proclaiming a supposed moral right to do so. Although Communism claims to be entirely atheist, it in fact substitutes a very definite satanic immoral religion of its own.
Professor Harold Lasky in 1930 wrote concerning this immoral religion and its adherents: “The secret of its strength is the quality and spirit of those who form the Communist party the world over. When I try to explain the character of the Communist party, I am driven back upon organized religion as the only source from which a proper and fitting analogy can be drawn. I believe that the Communists, taken as a whole, may most fittingly be compared with the great Society of Jesus. The way in which its members are prepared to dare and sacrifice everything on behalf of the Communist party represents one of the most notable developments of modern times. The average spirit in the Communist party is that of the religious devotee, who feels intensely that the more he sacrifices the more certain is his salvation.” (Dawn Magazine, April 15, 1931, p.36)
What can be done to stop the erosion of our religious and political rights and freedom? Over a century ago American President Theodore Roosevelt declared, “Are we to go the way of older civilizations? We cannot be certain of a negative answer, but we can be certain that if we do it will only be by our own act and desert. There is no necessity for us to fall, we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if we will only have the wit and the courage and the honesty to do it.” The American government establishment is given strictly limited power and authority in the Constitution, and George Washington declared that, “The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.” Yet if the people neglect their civic duties and responsibilities, their freedom will soon be placed in jeopardy. As Thomas Jefferson rightly observed, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Let us boldly speak up to defend our rights and freedom. May we be involved Christian citizens exercising our religious rights and freedoms under the Bible and the Constitution!