restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

A Treatise on American Cultural Socialism

Part 2: Introduction to the Problems and the Problem of the Church

Matthew R. Gamel 

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. –George Orwell

In part one of this series of essays, we have briefly examined the philosophy behind the growing menace of cultural socialism here in America and have made the following conclusions:

(a)      The modern diversity movement and plea for tolerance is a propaganda machine designed to gradually socialize and ultimately communalize a nation

(b)     The traditional economic theories of socialism necessarily follow from the broader scope of cultural socialism

In this essay, I would like to do two things. First, I shall proceed to describe the three most difficult problems and issues confronting our nation in its struggle for liberty and then I will ultimately describe the first of the problems in detail.

A Brief Statement of the Problem(s)

I shall suggest, as I already have, that there are three fundamental problems that are currently the root cause for the moral chaos and push for the massive socialization of America. The diversity movement is obviously a great propaganda tool to facilitate such a goal and most folks are buying into this. Instead of revolutionaries that overthrow government from the outside in, diversity proponents propagandize individuals, playing on their premise that the government will give you everything you want, desire, and need. Thus government is being overthrown from the inside out and constitutional limitations and law are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the minds of the “intelligentsia.” As a side note, I find this technique rather interesting because traditionally, most radical leftist movements have been characterized by sudden and violent revolutions. Of course, there are still elements of lawlessness in this new leftist movement; perhaps a good reading of any recent Supreme Court decision is in order.

The fundamental problems that currently hinder an adequate remedy for the moral and economic crisis in America are three-fold: first, and the most serious of these problems, is the unwillingness and inability of the Church to adequately and appropriately respond to these issues. Second, because of our massive central government and the unwillingness of the people to demand less government (as evidenced by continued support of Democrats and Republicans), the federal government has managed to grow into a gigantic entity that seems to be growing exponentially. Finally, and this issue is equally as important as the second issue, the cultural left has control of the legal and educational systems.

Observe that there are most certainly other problems that have not been listed such as the censorship of speech, the usurpation of the right to bear arms or the usurpation of religious liberty in the name of “tolerance” and diversity. However these other problems are, I believe, merely the natural consequences of the previous three problems. Moreover, the censorship of speech and regulation of where one may practice religion serves a disjoint purpose when we compare these issues with leftist monopolies on education and law. It merely serves to silence and repress those who are firm in conviction and who are unwilling to convert to the new globalist religion of diversity and earth worship or sacrifice the content of their views simply because one may not agree or like them. These regulations are not necessarily in place to coerce morality; they exist to repress it so that massive government indoctrination may occur as smoothly as possible. On the other hand, having a stranglehold on education and parental rights allows humanists, globalists, leftists (pardon the redundancy), socialists, communists, and others to coerce the younger generations to prevent a large populace from becoming a threat to their political power. Yet, social change has not occurred in a positive direction because the Church has primarily remained silent. I would now like to direct the focus of this essay and consider the issues related to the church in America.

Problem 1: The Modern Evangelical Church

Our Founders intended the so-called “separation of church and state” ideology to be unidirectional, not bi-directional. That is, unidirectional in the sense that the church should influence the state; the converse of this statement is clearly false. The clause “separation of church and state” has been viciously ripped out of its textual context in a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist congregation. Our Founders explicitly stated that constitutional government can only thrive when the people are both “moral and religious” as John Adams put it. In fact, our Founders did not believe it is possible for constitutional government to exist when the people had no virtue and when the concept of self-government was foreign to them. Indeed, this observation proves to be quite correct today. Our founders were not a group of schizophrenics who frequently uttered one thing and contradicted it with another. 

Before the church can ever influence social change, there will have to be massive reform within the church. While it is beyond the scope of this treatise to treat this topic adequately, we should be able to briefly examine the basic root problems. There are numerous problems with the modern Church but I shall submit that the primary issue with the church today is a complete and utter failure to adhere to sound doctrine. This has disastrously led to many things such as worldliness and carnality, the church growth movement, lack of reverence for God, and a plethora of other “self serving” movements and characteristics that the church seems to exhibit. The church in America today is so much like the world that half of the time, the world can’t even tell the difference and all of these problems are rooted in a much deeper, more serious problem concerning the exegesis of Scripture, or lack thereof. False doctrine and blatant heresies thrive in the modern evangelical church in America and few seem to notice or care.

What I find so peculiar about this issue is the fact that liberal hermeneutics are often times employed by those who claim to be a Bible believing church. While liberal theology is usually rejected in its most obvious form, liberal hermeneutics lead to the same soul destroying heresy and false doctrine. Satan understands this full and well. So do psychologists, socialists, communists, atheists, and many other individuals whose hermeneutical ‘methods’ are now being employed within the walls of the church.

Should it alarm us when we look at the values of the church and the world and arduously work to attempt to find major differences? Indeed it should. In fact, the diversity movement has seeped into the church and has caused a monumental paradigm shift whereby emphasis on personal freedom, relationships, so-called Christian “liberty” (failing to understand what this liberty is), inclusiveness, and other such attributes are overstated. These things have replaced Godliness, holiness, doctrine, truth, “tough” love (that is to say Biblical love), and similar Biblical issues. The church spends more time catering to the whims of unbelievers than attempting to worship God in spirit and truth or to edify believers. Personally, I frequently worry about false conversions. Has the church lost sight of eternal issues? You bet it has! After reading the frequently misunderstood and overlooked sermon by Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God I soon realized that we are evangelizing people with superficial theology that has enormous potential to send folks to hell. Does anyone seem to care? No, we want to draw as many unbelievers into church as we possibly can. Folks, just because an unbeliever walks into a building that calls itself a church, sings a few shallow tunes, and repeats a prayer or signs a card in no way means that such a person is saved! Moreover, this problem does not appear to be ameliorating; in fact, it is becoming worse. And, unfortunately, the problem does not end here with evangelism. Because many of these churches are filled with superficial Christians who teach superficial theology, these folks usually have a superficial impact on the world as they superficially attempt to evangelize. This could not be more evident given the moral chaos in our nation.

The cultural left understands that the church poses the greatest threat to the prosperity of their governments. So, what they attempt to do is sell the church liberal hermeneutics in the form of “worldly advice” and too often, the church gladly welcomes these destructive fallacies. This “worldly advice” includes but is not limited to the following schemes:

(a)      Mantras of the form “It is bad to be too dogmatic about anything” or the church should welcome “anyone and everyone” regardless of that persons intentions to heed to orthodox doctrine and flee from sin

(b)     Facilitate strong relationships and unity as opposed to truth and doctrine

(c)      The world famous ‘who are you to force your morality down others’ argument

(d)     Mistreat, eisegete, and overemphasize major biblical doctrines, especially the doctrine of Biblical love

(e)      Mistreat, eisegete, and minimize equally important doctrines such as the sovereignty of God, hell, sin, etc

(f)       Recite the sacred humanist chant of “separation of church and state”

I shall respond to each of these claims yet it should be beneficial for the reader to reexamine my section concerning philosophy in part one because I implicitly object to most of these issues there. In response to (a), it should be noted that those who preach tolerance are just as dogmatic about their doctrine of tolerance. This is hypocrisy. In response to (b) this is clearly not a Biblical doctrine for Paul tells Timothy to watch his life and doctrine closely, not his relationships and unity with false teachers. In response to (c), the fact that morality is forced down others throat is necessarily a tautology. Socialists, atheists, humanists, and communists alike desire to force their morality down you – the fact that they have convinced many in the church that (a)-(f) is good advice is an indication of such psychological conditioning. Part (d) comes from a misunderstanding of what Biblical love is – it is not a frivolous, self indulging, self seeking love that leaves people dead in their sin. Part (e) is equally as unbiblical because it leaves portions of the Gospel out. And, part (f) is also just as flawed if one considers the history of our nation (interestingly enough, poor historiography in the secular realm bears strikingly similar results to poor hermeneutics in the church). If the church has no place in government, then atheists, communists, and others of the sort also have no voice in government; epistemology always influences government. Basically what they are saying by using the ‘separation of church and state’ argument is “shut up, practice your religion in private, get out of politics, and get out of the way.” Yet, the broad scope of religion may accompany a plethora of non-traditional ‘objects’ such as secularism. Also, these people don’t want firm believers in any type of office because it hinders their governments. Because of poor theology deduced from faulty hermeneutics, some churches have begun to deny sin (for example the homosexual bishop), have accepted a faulty view of the authority and inerrancy of scripture, and have taught this to their congregations. So silence on behalf of many is to be expected; yet let us again recall why leftists and many so-called born again Christians try to sell this type of heresy to the church to begin with.

Definition of Liberal Theology

We have said much concerning liberal theology and have even discussed characteristics and even made some brief comment concerning the hermeneutics of the liberal church; however, we have yet to define such a theology. I wish to briefly address this issue here.

Liberal theology is the product of rationalism and experimentalism that proceeded from the age of rationalism. Friedrich Schleiermacher1 (1763-1834) who is often known as the father of neo-orthodox and liberal theology contended a “theology of feeling” and placed minimal to no consideration with regards to historic creed and doctrine. Rather, he suggested that philosophy, reason, creeds, doctrinal positions and so forth were not adequate confines for true religion; rather, according to Schleiermacher, religion was to be pursued through feeling and times when one could “experience God.” This type of theology has led to a subjective theology and accounts for much of the doctrinal error in the church today. Moreover, Schleiermacher did not view sin as a moral violation to God’s law but rather defined sin according to the times “when man tries to live by himself, isolated from the universe and his fellow men” (Enns, 549). Schleiermacher also denied most supernatural doctrines clearly taught in scripture such as the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, and the deity of Christ.

So, in a nutshell, liberal theology denies historical authenticity of the Bible and teaches that the Bible must therefore be some little book of good ideas and allegories, offering mere suggestions for living.

A Warning Against Liberal Theology: Guard Your Life and Doctrine Closely (1 Tim. 4:16)

When we consider liberal theology, it should be increasingly obvious that it is soul-damning heresy (or at least to the born again Christian) – sin is no longer an issue, they argue, so there is no “right” or “wrong” moral conduct. Moreover, it completely strips Christ of his deity and of His supernatural power to save and reduces the whole gospel message down to the shallow idea that we should join hands, worship earth, and drink Ovaltine around the campfire, befriend the numerous woodland creatures of earth, smoke pot, and tolerate any and every moral act of indecency.

Curiously, the philosophy of modern historiography is also exhibited within the confines of liberal hermeneutics. That is, the fact that “interpretations” are relative and are hindered by personal bias so methods of interpretation are arbitrary (or at least appear to be). It is true that personal bias hinders interpretation and understanding at times but it is equally as true that the truth can still be deciphered and analyzed in spite of such bias; however, it requires a scarce character trait that is virtually absent in our culture: virtue. These arguments are used merely as a scapegoat to escape the reality that in history, they are simply constructing fairy tales, as do their theologians in their liberal churches.

The following statement should be made crystal clear (although most readers on this site probably see this): liberal theology is not Christian theology and should never be equated as such. Liberal theology is about as anti-Christian as theology can possibly get – it is soul-damning heresy and should be purged and swiftly expunged from the Christian church. Just because these fools use similar terms such as ‘salvation’ or claim to worship Jesus Christ in no way confirms the authenticity of their theology – if this were the case then Mormons and other such cults would, in many ways, be better ‘Christians’ since they at least don’t deny the supernatural. If these people want to pervert the Scriptures, they can start their own churches and partake in their own religion – I am a full supporter and believer in the freedom of religion yet I am also a supporter and believer in intellectual honesty. To deny mounds of historic confessions and the literal hermeneutic of interpretation (especially with regards to NT epistles) is to fully misunderstand and misrepresent Christianity; in a word, it is blasphemous. Ironically, diversity proponents aren’t very tolerant of theologians who refute their whimsical ‘interpretations.’ Call these churches what you will but don’t call them Christian churches because they aren’t. This is a means of deception, folks – these people are the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ that both our Lord and Savior and Paul warned us about. It is precisely this type of theology that attempts to use the Bible to dupe church goers into believing that if a guy with a Ph.D. chants the mantra of tolerance, diversity, and humanism, it must then be Biblical. This is similar to the methods used by the Catholic Church before the Bible was translated in the common tongue and distributed to the masses. In that era, the argument was simply that a pope was the only one well trained enough to understand and “interpret” the Scriptures. So it is with our socialist friends who put on the guise of Christianity to spread their false doctrine needed to engineer social change. “After all”, they say, “Bob over here has his Ph.D. and he understands that ‘science’ tells us that the Bible does not depict history and should fall into an inferior category. It therefore must be an allegory. After all, human reason is far superior to some command that this deity we have never seen gives.” And, of course, we are also seeing the opposite extreme of the elitism that we have just considered. We are now beginning to see what I like to call individualistic theology whereby a Bible study consists of folks going around the room and telling the group what they think a Bible verse means as opposed to engaging in rigorous study to attempt to discover what it actually means. Unfortunately, the masses abandon orthodox doctrine for such things.  They don’t bother to check to see what the Bible teaches about itself. They don’t bother to look at this so-called ‘science’ and see that this in itself becomes a propaganda tool. They don’t bother to check to see if these things are true for themselves and as a result, they heap up teachers to tell them what their itching ears want to hear and are turned over to fables. In fact, this reminds me of the Roman world in the era of the first century church. The Roman’s were more than happy to add Christ Jesus to their list of gods but shunned the idea of exclusiveness, just like our modern leftist, moderate, and liberal counterparts.

Furthermore, it has thus been suggested that if someone spends enough “time” in the Scriptures, regardless of the conclusions one may deduce, then that should be sufficient to at least elevate that person’s work, even though it may be contrary to sound orthodox doctrine. The idea is the fact that some ‘theologians’ (i.e. heretics) have spent a lifetime of study (i.e. perverting the faith) and so their lifetime work should in some way be merited by the Church’s acknowledgement of such heresy. This is utterly stupid and baseless and is an eloquent fable conjured up by a foolish heart and mind. The amount of time spent on a task is irrelevant so long as the initial premise is false. One can begin with a false premise and make as many logical deductions as he or she desires but the quantity of “logical conclusions” will in no way validate a particular theology if the initial premise is false. This is how propaganda works, folks. Suppose, for example, that a mathematician spends a lifetime basing his or her work on a conjecture that is not know to be true or false and deduces many stimulating results based on the premise that this theory is indeed true. Now, suppose that at some point in time, this said conjecture is shown to be false. Although the results may have been stimulating, they then become invalidated because of their dependency on the false premise that the theorem was true.  So it is with theology.

So, What’s The Point?

Why is this important to us as we attempt to discuss socialism in America? Well, simply put, Christians today either tend to be pacifists, tend to have poor theology, or fear the prospect of standing up in a censored, politically correct, totalitarian society such as the United States. If we want to see social change, we have got to stop relying on government to provide everything and start trusting in Christ Jesus (i.e. government is not our savior), we have got to stop trusting bureaucrats who lie at any chance they get, we have got to start standing up, and we ought to study our Bibles and stop obtaining our spiritual advice from people who pull their theology out of thin air, so to speak. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I have just made the accusation that the United States is becoming totalitarian; we are beginning to see major characteristics of totalitarian regimes exhibited in our government (I shall tackle this issue later). Do I need to recall the Randy Weaver incident? Our founders and confederate forefathers who fought in the Yankee war of aggression spilled their blood to prevent precisely what is currently happening in Washington today. Its time to open our eyes, folks. We don’t have much time left. Our electorate is uneducated and is failing to see its purpose and it won’t be too long before it allows the people to vote itself into tyranny.

Conclusion of Part 2: What Can the Church Do?

Unfortunately, I do not have time to discuss the so-called Church Growth Movement (CGM). I do, however, believe that this is another serious problem that has been spawned by issues in doctrine and by cultural issues in America. For a more complete and thorough discussion on this topic, I would strongly recommend visiting http://www.crossroad.to. Berit Kjos does a superb job of describing the problem of the CGM and also offers some good insight into other moral problems of our day.

So, now that we have discussed issues in the church, the real question is how do we proceed? The answer is simple: become diligent workmen who rightly handle God’s word and boldly proclaim the name and worth of our Lord and savior Christ Jesus. This often times means doing such things at the expense of popularity or personal comfort; yet we are not called to a cozy life on earth but rather to look to our eternal home. No doubt we have been blessed with liberty in this nation and have relatively cozy lives but the godless hypocrites invading our schools, churches, and lawmaking bodies are winning the battle. We must cease from our indolence and put on the armor of God so that He might use us to give Himself glory, to save perishing sinners and to secure liberty for future generations. Let us remember what Peter had to say about this situation as far back as the first century church

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who secretly shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their destructive ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed. And through covetousness shall they with deceptive words exploit you: whose judgement now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them to destruction, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly…

Time is running out and God’s judgment cannot remain quenched forever when a vile, perverse people flourish. Let us thank Him for His continued mercy upon us and pray that He might use us not only to restore our nation but also to ultimately bring Himself glory and bring lost sinners into the Kingdom of God. Christians need to start voting their consciences and stop thinking that they are sovereign over the universe; it is God who ultimately institutes government as He pleases but, as in all things, God works these things out through His people. Yet, when His people abandon their principle for the lesser of two evils, that person has sacrificed their vote for someone who is nonetheless still evil. This is why we must vote for a God-fearing candidate this coming election. There is no neocon or “Christian” conservative who can ever convince me to give my vote to anyone who has not demonstrated that they deserve it (i.e. George W. Bush). I can think of somebody who does and at least deserves a chance; however, so long as this “lesser of two evils” ideology prevails, we shall loose our country and shall become slaves of the state. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

“The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Psalm 5:5

Endnote

1. Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Chicago: Moody Press, 1989.

April 19, 2004

Matt Gamel is a graduate student at Texas A&M and eventually desires to go to seminary to study to be a biblical scholar. He may be reached for comment here.

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