Communism's Danger

Faith in Man or Faith in God?

Why is there such invincible ignor-
ance in America about the human degra-
dation and the evil of Communism on
the part of the great preponderance of
the American peop1e? Why have Ameri-
cans been so absolutely unwilling to
confront the reality of a mortal enemy
dedicated to their national destruction
for almost 7o years? Why tothis very
day have our national leaders in the
fields of government, in business, in
public education, in the great labor
unions, in the renowned foundations, in
the entertainment industry, in the news
media, and in every important institu-
tion in the nation failed to raise a
ringing and persistent warning about
the mortal danger of the Communist
Soviet Union and all Communist na-
tions to the American people and their
historic way of life? Why does the great
preponderance of the American body of
Christ today refuse to stand in vigor-
ous, adamant and unyielding opposition
to Communism, the most insidious and
implacable ideology of atheism the
world has ever known? Why do so
many avowed forces of God in America
today align themselves in so many
ways with the Communist voices of
anti-God and facilitate the growth and
spread of the Communist night of the
human soul?
The ignorance of the American
people about the danger of Commun-
ism to their freedom, to their economic
well-being, to their spiritual well-be-
ing, to their very lives, and to the fu-
ture of their nation is so massive, it
cannot be emphasized too strongly.
Bob Miner Is a
member of the
Chalcedon
Presbyterian
Chun:h. He is the
founder of Libertas,
and the Committee
For The Mqmorial
To The Viclims of
Commwlism.
by Robert Miller
Why is this so; what has caused it? Can
America be saved from Communist
slavery and conquest? Have the watch-
men in the watchtower failed in their
duty to warn the people of the approach
of the enemy? Is it now too late to save
ourselves?
All of these are questions which need
immediate and full answers. The people
must be warned so they can put on their
full armor. The answers we will provide
to these vital questions will begin in
this issue of The Counsel and conclude
in the next issue.
Because of the horrendous state of
misinformation. disinfonnation, and
"no information" which exists in
America today about the evil of
Communism and the Communists and
their evil and perverse, deceitful
activities and intentions, we must begin
with a clear, succinct, and unequivocal
explanation of the nature and character
of Comrtmnism, the Communists, and
their practices and goals. Because of the
strictures of time and space, we can
only present the highlights, but these
highlights will be enough to terrorize
you, make your knees knock, and give
you that queasy feeling of fear in the pit
of your stomach if you are at all
concerned about the future of your m ~
ily and your country. I take no delight
in frightening you, but wishful think-
ing, false optimism, and self-delusion
will not save us. Appeasement of evil
totalitarians only insures that the pre-
datory crocodile will eat us last as the
British and the French in the 1930's
finally realized in their appeasement of
Adolf Hitler in Europe just in the nick
of time. (Their vacillation and self-
delusion wound up costing the world
some thirty million dead people from
the ravages of World War Two and
many, many millions more of forever
displaced people and families spread to
the four winds, never to be re-united
again!).
Self-delusion has become a way of
life for all too many Americans in the
last half of the twentieth century when
it comes to our relations with the
Soviet Union and the Communists.
Demosthenes (385?-322 B.C.), the
famous Athenian orator and statesman
has some very pithy bits of wisdom
about this:
"Nothing is so easy as to deceive
one's self; for what we wish, that we
readily believe."
-Third Olynthiac, 348 B.C.
"There is one common safeguard in
the nature of prudent men, which is a
good security for all, but especially for
democracies against despots. What do I
mean? Mistrust. Keep this, hold to
this; preserve this only, and you can
never be injured."
-Second Phillipic, 344 B.C.
"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid
war you obtain a master."
-Ibid., Oration IX
And in Second Thessalonians 2:9-11,
God speaks very much to the point
about those who allow themselves to
be deceived:
"Even him, whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all power
and signs and lying wonders.
"And with all deceivableness (deceit-
fulness) of unrighteousness in them
that perish; because they received not
the love of the truth, that they might be
saved.
"And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie."
And Isaiah 66:4, the Lord speaks
thusly:
"I also will choose their delusions,
and will bring their fears upon them;
because when I called, none did answer;
when I spake, they did not hear: but
they did evil. before mine eyes, and
chose that in which I delighted not."
In a world broadcast on October 1,
1939, Winston Churchill, a month after
World War Two had begun on Septem-
ber 1, 1939 in Europe, said of Russia
with regard to what she might do inso-
far as the war was concerned:
"It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma." 1
The Counsel of Chalcedon, January, 1988 --.---------------------------Page 20
In his inimitable way, Churchill,
with a little hyperbole, was trying to
drive home the point that the Soviet
Communists were hard to figure out to
the point of being unfathomable. We
must remember that he said this when
the world had had only twenty-two
years experience with Communism and
before the Soviet Union had developed
into (with American help) such a great
menace to freedom in the world, and
there was still a great lack of infor-
mation and knowledge, indeed a great
lack of desire to even find out, about
what the Soviet Union and Commun-
ism were all about and what their goals
were. In the more than four decades
since World War Two, dte predatory and
atheistic nature of the Soviet Union and
the Communists have been clearly
revealed, and there need no longer be
any mystery about the Soviet Union
and Communism. There is profuse in-
formation, and now a long history of
Communist practices, which fully re-
veal the truth about the Communists
and their evil ideology - their perverse
religion. The problem in our nation for
decades has been that the available infor-
mation - the truth - about the Soviet
Union and the Communists has been
kept from the American people, much
of it by design, much of it because of
the trend toward socialism and ever
growing gathering of coercive power by
our federal government and the develop-
ment of collectivist government that
began in 1933 and thereafter, with the
advent to political power of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt who became our first
American socialist president. The liber-
als of the Roosevelt New Deal of 1933
and thereafter, who could not see that
the revolution they were effecting
through bookkeeping and lawmaking
added up to socialism could hardly be ex-
pected to see what added up to Commun-
ism (Whittaker Chambers, pg. 472 in
WITNESS). Tilis latter factor, bring-
ing increasing numbers of influential
American leaders and institutions into
1 ~ e v e r ekve lfth The challep_ging words of
Winston urc . 1967 by Irallmarlc Cards
Inc., Kansas City, Kansas. Selections from
JliRf. SertftflUCWd War by Winston Churc-
1 , pu s y Houghton Mifflin Com-
pany.
increasing spiritual and philosophical
affinity with the Communists has, in
very specific ways, not only rendered
the American people at large inert but
paralyzed them with apathy insofar as
active opposition and hostility against
the Soviet Union and Communism is
concerned. As just one manifestation of
this i(lea, I simply offer the supine
response of great numbers of leaders in
America relative to the conquest and
enslavement of the people of Nicaragua
by the Sandinista Communists, led by
a gaggle of Congressmen and Senators
in the U.S. Congress whose behavior
just forty or fifty years ago would have
been unthinkable and declared trai-
torous.
Over the last eight years, I have
spent countless hours talking to scores
of people from all over our country
who have escaped or migrated from
Communist oppression, terror, impri-
sonment, and even torture in their
various homelands around the world,
probing always to gain as keen an
understanding into this terrible cancer of
the human soul as possible and seeking
inspiration with regard to how to fully
mobilize Americans against it. It has
become clear to me that certain fun-
damental threads have run through the
whole cloth of almost all these con-
versations. I shall share some of these
insights with you as we go along in
this article.
With all this said as preamble, let us
begin now with some discussion <Jf
Communism's nature and the character
of the Communists. Most Americans
don't know who the Communists are
and what they believe, so let's begin
here. How do the Communists act,
what is their behavior based on, what
are their goals and what are their
practices? Why do they do what they
do? Why is Communism wrong- bad-
evil - and why should Christian Ameri-
cans be hostile toward Communism and
actively work to stamp it out in the
world? Or should we Americans spend
all our efforts and resources in be-
corning friends with the Soviet Govern-
ment and expand trade, cultural, and edu-
cational exchanges, and, in g e n e r ~
extend the hand of friendship to them
and accept their public relations releases
every time they tell us a new day has
dawned in their relations with us, and
the leopard has changed his spots -
"Glasnost" for example.
After you have read the following
truths about Communism and the Com-
munists gleaned from forty-one years of
historical study and hundreds of hours
of personal conversation with the vic-
tims of the Communists, I submit you
will be able to clearly answer most of
these questions yourself.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of
the Bolshevik Counter-revolution in
October, 1917 in Russia, said:
"In the end, one or the other will
triumph - a funeral dirge will be sung
over the Soviet Republic or over world
capitalism."
On page 420 of his book, WIT-
NESS, Chambers said:
"Faced with the opportunity of
espionage, a Communist, though he
may sometimes hesitate momentarily,
will always, exactly to the degree that
he is a Communist, engage in es-
pionage. The act will not appear to him
in terms of betrayal at all. It will, on
the contrary, appear to him as a moral
act, the more deserving the more it
involves him in personal risk, commit-
ted in the name of a faith (Commun-
ism) on which he believes, hinges the
hope and future of mankind, and against
a system (capitalism) which he believes
to be historically bankrupt. At that
point, conscience to the Comqmnist,
and conscience to the non-Communist,
mean two things as opposed as the two
sides of a battlefield. The failure to
understand that fact is part of the total
failure of the West to grasp the nature
of its enemy, what he wants, what he
means to do and how he will go about
doing it. It is part of the failure of thv ---
West to understand that it is at griPs
with an enemy having no moral
viewpoint in common with itself, that
two irreconcilable viewpoints and stand-
ards of judgment, two irreconcilable
moralities, proceeding from two irrecon-
cilable readings of man's fate and future
are involved, and, hence, their conflict
is irrepressible."
Communism denies the existence of
The Counsel of Chalccdon, January, 1988 ----------------------------Page 21
God; Marx proclaimed that "religion is him the" most intelligent of. the n i ~
the opiate of the masses" - that nian . ml;lls . . CopEimicus and his successorS
invented the idea of G.od in. order to . . displaced man as the cen):i-al fact. of the
satisfy an emotional need. To a dedi- uiliverse byproving tlui.t the earth was
cated, well indoctrinated, believing not the central star of the universe.
Communist, the idea of any power Communism restores man to his SOY-
transcendent to man is complete ana- ereignty by the simple method of deny-
thema- an idea fit only for scorn and ing God (Pg. 9 & iO;WITNESS).
ridicule. Scientific socialism, as Marx "The vision is a challenge and im-
characterized it, elevates man to exclu- plies a threat. It challenges man to
sive omnipotence in the wodd; Man is prove by his acts that his is the master-
supreme - NOT GOD!! work of the Creation - by. making
What is the core appeal of the Com- thought and act one. It challenges him
munist ideal? Chambers explains it best to prove it by using the force of his
by this statement: rational mind to end the bloody
"The revolutionary heart of Commun- meaninglessness of man's. history ~ by
ism is not the 'theatrical appeal: 'Work- giving it purpose and a plan. It chal-
ers of the world, 'unite. You have lenges him to prove it by reducing the
nothing to lose but your chains. You meaningless chaos of nature, by im-
have a world to gain.' It is a simple posing on it his rational will to order,
statement of Karl Marx, further simpli- abundance, security, peace. It is the
fled for handy use: 'Philosophers have vision of materialism. But it threatens,
explained the world; it is necessary to if man's mind is unequal to the prob-
change the world.' Communists are Iems of man's progress, that he will
bound together by no secret oath. The sink back into savagery (the A and H
tie that binds them across the frontiers bombs have raised the issue in ex-
of nations, across barriers of language plosive forms), until nature replaces
and differences of class and education, in him with a more intelligent form of life
defiance of religion, morality, truth, (Pg. 10).
law, honor, the weaknesses of the body "It is an intensely practical vision.
and the irresolutions of the mind, even The tools to turn it into reality are at
unto death, is a simple conviction: 1tJs. hand - science and technology, whose
necessary to change the world. Their traditional method, the rigorous exclu-
. power, whose natw"e baffles the rest of sian of all supernatural factors in solv-
the world, because in a large measure ing problems, has contributed to the
the rest of the world has lost that intellectual climate in which the 'Vision
power, is the power to hold convictions is shared by millions who are not
and to act upon them. It's the same Communists (they ;u-e part of Commun-
power that moves mountains; it is also ism's strength). Its first commandment
an unfailing power to move men. is found, not in the Communist Mani-
Communists are that part of mankiild festo, but in the first sentence of the
which has recovered the power to live physics primer: 'All of the progress of
or die - to bear witness - for its faith. mankind to date results from the
And it is a simple, rational faith that maldng of careful measurements.' But
inspires men to live or die for it" (Pg. Communism, for the first time in
9, WITNESS). history, has made this vision the faith
"It is the vision of man's mind dis- of a great modem political movement
placing God as the creative intelligence (Pg. 10, WITNESS).
of the world. It is the vision of man's "Hence the Communist Party is quite
liberated mind, by the sole force of its justified in calling itself the most
rational intelligence, redirecting man's revolutionary party in history. It has
destiny and reorganizing man's life and posed in practical form the most revolu-
the world. It is the vision of man, once tionary question . in history: God or
more the central figure of the Creation, Man? It has taken the logical next step
not because God made man in His which three hundred years of rational-
image, but because man's . mind makes ism hesitated to take, and said what
millions of modern minds think, but do
not dare or care to say: If man's mind' is
the decisive force in the world, what
need is there for God? Henceforth man's
mind is man's fate (Pg. 10; WIT-
NESS).
"This vision is the Communist revo-
lution, which like all great revolutions,
occurs in man's mind before it takes
form in man's acts. Insurrection and
conspiracy are merely methods of
realizing the vision; they are merely
part of the politics of Communism . .
Without its vision, they, like Conimun-
ism, would have no meaning and could
not rally a parcel of pickpockets. Com-
munism does not summon men to
crime or to utopia, as its easy critics
like to think. On the plane of faith, it
summons mankind to tum. its vision
into practical reality. On the plane of
action, it surtunons men to struggle
against the inertia of the past which,
embodied in social, political and eco-
nomic forms, Communism claims, is
blocking the will of mankind to make
its next great forward stride. It sum-
mons men to overcome the crisis,
which, Communism claims, is in effect
a crisis of rending frustration, with the
world, unable to stand still, but un-
willing to go forward along the road
that logic of a technological civilization
points out - Communism (Pps. 10-11,
WITNESS).
"This is Communism's moral sanc-
t i o n ~ which is twofold. Its vision
points the way to the future; its faith
labors to tum the future into present
reality. It says to every man who joins
it the vision is a practical problem of
history; the way to achieve it is a
practical problem of politics, which is
the present tense of history. Have you
the moral strength to take upon your-
self the crimes of history so that man at
last may close his chronicle of age-old,
senseless suffering, and replace it with
purpose and plan? The answer a man
makes to this question is the difference
between the Communist and those
miscellaneous socialists, liberals, fel-
low-travelers, unclassified progressives
and men of good will, all of whom
share a similar vision, but do not share
the faith because they will not take
Pa2e 22 ----------------------------The Counsel of Chalcedon, January, 1988
upon themselves the penalties of the
faith. The answer is the root of that
sense of moral superiority which makes
Communists, though caught in crime,
berate their opponents with withering
self-righteousness (Pg. 11, WIT-
NESS).
"The Communist vision has a migh-
ty agitator and a mighty propagandist.
They are the crisis. The agitator needs
no soap box. It speaks insistently to
the human mind at the point where des-
peration lurks. The propagandist writes
no Communist gibberish. It speaks in-
sistently to the human mind at the
point where man's hope and man's
energy fuse to fierceness (Pg. 11, WIT-
NESS).
"The vision inspires. The crisis im-
pels. The workingman is chiefly moved
by the crisis. The educated man is chief-
ly moved by the vision. The working-
man, living upon a mean margin of
life, can afford few visions - even prac-
tical visions. An educated man, peering
from the Harvard Yard, or any college
campus, upon a world in chaos, finds in
the vision the two certainties for which
the mind of man tirelessly seeks: a
reason to live and a reason to die. No
other faith of our time presents them
with the same practical intensity. That
is why Communism is the central ex-
perience of the first half of the twen-
tieth century, and may be its final ex-
perience - will be, unless the free world,
in the agony of its struggle with Com-
munism, overcomes its crisis by dis-
covering, in suffering and pain, a power
of faith which will provide man's mind,
at the same intensity, with the same
two certainties: a reason to live and a
reason to die. If it fails, this will be the
century of the great social wars. If it
succeeds, this will be the century of the
great wars of faith" (Pg. 11-12, WIT-
NESS).
I believe this eloguent and very ac-
curate revelation by Chambers of the
core appeal of Communism makes the
situation very clear to any Bible-be-
lieving Christian because, of all people,
Christians understand the seductive ap-
peal made by Satan in the Garden of
Eden: "Ye shall be as gods."
[To be continued in the next issue.]
BOOK REVIEW
Christianity and the Constitu-
tion: The Faith of Our Found-
ing Fathers, by John Eidsmoe.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987, 416pp. Re-
viewed by Rev. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.,
Reedy River Presbyterian Church,
Greenville, SC.
One of the eminently important
socio-political questions of our day has
to do with the role of Christianity in
the founding of our nation. It should go
without saying to the readers of The
Counsel of Chalcedon that America is
adrift in the tumultuous sea of secular
humanism. Such anchorless casting
about on the waves of the sea of chance
is sure to result in a shipwreck of monu-
mental historical importance for Ameri-
ca, -- unless faithful Christians can in a
timely manner secure this ship of state
with its original Christian moorings.
A vital aspect of our Christian endea-
vor to regain America's stability is
educational. We life in a day and age
where righteousness and truth are con-
sidered bias of the worst sort, and
dreams ~ distortions are the tools of
"objective historical inquiry." In effect,
the writing of history has recently be-
gun to take on the appearance of the
writing of a novel. The modem historio-
grapher "creates" history, rather than
gathers it However, by the grace of
God there is now a growing number of
books being published which has begun
calling into question the secular human-
istic rescriptive approach in the field of
historiography . .
. One significant area of concern in his-
tory is the role of Christian influence
on our constitutional founding fathers.
Was Christianity a significant compel-
ling influence toward the establishment
of our national governing document, or
not? It is the considered opinion of the
editorial staff of The Counsel of Chalce-
don that it most certainly was. Conse-
quently, we welcome the Baker Book
House publication of this helpful vol-
ume of historical inquiry.
Do not let the fact of the author's
training at Dallas Seminary and Oral
Roberts University dissuade you from
reading this work; John Eidsmoe has
demonstrated himself to be a competent
legal historian. Two of his previous
books include: The Christian Legal
Advisor and God and Caesar: Christian
Faith and Political Action. From 1981
to 1986 he taught constitutional law
and legal history at 0. W. Coburn
School of Law. He has written the
present book for the purpose of impres-
sing upon the reader the significant
truth that "the founding fathers recog-
nized that freedom cannot exist in an
immoral society -- the nation will
crumble from within or be conquered
from without. Christians must supply
the moral fiber that comes from obedi-
ence to God and his natural and revealed
laws if America is to survive as a free
society." The present reviewer whole-
heartedly concurs with this goal.
The book is divided into three major
parts. Part I, "The Background," pro-
vides four insightful chapters entitled:
"Calvinism," "Puritanism," "Deism,
Freemasonry, and Science," and "Law
and Government." His treatment of
Calvinism and Puritanism is quite help-
ful. He fully acknowledges the impor-
tantrole of our reformed faith on Ameri-
ca's founding. He even concurs with
George Bancroft that John Calvin may
rightly be considered "the father of
America" (p. 18). And this despite his
admission that "I cannot consider my-
self a Calvinist," in that he is a
minister of "the Church of the Lutheran
Brethren" (p. 19, n5). The historical
insights offered in the first two chapters
are must reading for concerned reformed
Christians.
Unfortunately, he radically miscop-
strues the nature of covenant theology,
as Dallas Seminary graduates are prone
to do: witness J. D. Pentecost's sum-
marizing covenant theology, not by
quoting covenant theologians, but by
quoting L. S. Chafer (Things to Come,
pp. 65-66)! No wonder they do not
understand covenant theology! On page
24 Eidsmoe states: "The central theme
The Counsel of Chalcedon, January, 1988 ---------------------------- Page 23