CULTURALLY INCORRECT by ROD PARSLEY

[islandboy]

I have been reading this book and I highly recommend it. I am going to add a few pages of the book here that I find to be very
important in understanding the culture in Washington.

 Page 50,  MARXISM/STATISM:  GOVERNMENT = GOD

Marx was an atheist long before he was a socialist or the ideological father of modern communism. In fact, his rejection of God was the starting point and foundation of everything else he came to espouse. This militant atheism is one of several attributes Marxism shares with its cousin, secular humanism.
Marx's atheism was inspired by the comtemporary German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. As one scholar described it, "Marx accepted Feuerbach's thesis that the only god of man is man himself." I have to be honest with you, if you and I are the only god we have, we're both in deep trouble! My personal experience and history agree--when we try to fix things on our own, we make an unholy mess of it every time.
As you probably know, the movement to which Marx gave his name is a radical form of socialism that rejects the notions of private property, free enterprise, and personal responsibility upon which capitalism is built. I can't help but be amused at politicans and entertainers who spout socialist rhetoric while enjoying the benefits socialism could never provide. If they really believed what they were saying, why wouldn't they give up their cribs and their cars, and live out the conclusions of those they say they admire?
Marx saw himself as a champion of the poor, exploited working classes. With the conviction of a prophet, he believed natural and economic forces were moving history toward a predetermined end---a series of upheavals, or revolutions, that would result in "the dictatorship of the proletariat."
In other words, he foresaw a utopia, or paradise on earth, in which there would be no extremes of poverty or wealth, no rich ruling class, and each person's labor would be filled with purpose and dignity as it served the greater "collective" good of society.

[islandboy]

To Europe's millions of hardworking poor in the early stages of the industrial revolution---particularly in places like czarist Russia--that all looked pretty attractive on paper. But of course, Marxism hasn't worked out quite so well for common folks in actual practice.
It is conservatively estimated that in a mere handful of decades, more than twenty million people in the former Soviet Union died in Lenin's and Stalin's political purges, government - induced famines, and the infamous gulags. In China, as Mao took Marx's theology and used it as a road map for a "Cultural Revolution" and "The Great Leap Forward" --upward of sixty million people either starved or were killed. In Vietnam, more than 850,000 died in "reeducation camps" after the withdrawal of the American military presence.
Recent research has estimated the twentieth century's "victims of communism" at more than one hundred million in number.
I have had the opportunity to see firsthand the effects of Communism. I was staying in one of Leningrad's finer hotels, and those in my group ordered beef for dinner. "We're sorry," our waiter replied, "you had beef last night." "That's right," we said. "We would like beef again tonight, please." "You don't understand," came the reply. "Last night when six of you ordered beef, it was our hotel's total allotment of beef for one month. Tonight we have chicken. So we ate chicken that night, and were glad to get it.
I was privileged to see the red flag of the USSR come down and the red, white, and blue banner of the Russian Republic raised during the civil unrest that led to the ouster of Mikhail Gorbachev and the eventual breakup of the Soviet empire. I saw first hand the statue of Lenin fall under the sledgehammers of those who felt the first reverberations of freedom among a generation that had know nothing but totalitarianism. I remember standing in the great Lenin Sports Arena in the city of St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) in the first gospel crusade in Russia in over seventy years. I watched with awe as row after row of soldiers of the Red Army came from the upper levels of that stadium and came to the altar in response to the message of the cross, which they were hearing for the very first time. What a contrast to the physical deprivation, emotional uncertainty and spiritual devastation that was all they had known during the reign of Communism.

[islandboy]

However, suffering and death on this massive scale aren't just a relic of the last century. As I write, millions are starving and dying in North Korea---one of the few remaining unapologetically Communist nations on earth. Although good information is always hard to come by in a Marxist dictatorship, one study estimated that in a recent five year period, between two and three million North Koreans had died of starvation.
All this misery and hardship was made possible, in fact inevitable, by the underlying assumptions of the Marxist worldview. One of those key assumptions is that religious belief is a major obstacle to the creation of a "workers' paradise" and thus must be stamped out at all cost.
Also, because Marxism rejects the biblical view of man as fallen, sinful, and in need of redemption, it carries the opposite assumption-- that man is basically good and perfectible. It is man's environment--the system in which he lives--that makes him selfish and brutish. Therefore, Marx and friends reasoned, absolute power to control man's environment had to be vested in the government. As long as any power, property, or freedom of choice remained with the individual, utopia could never be created.
That's why wherever Marxism has been planted in fertile soil, tyranny has bloomed.

[islandboy]

Today, a modified form of this worldview is very much alive around the world and even here in the United States. It is one that shares many of the same assumptions, but pursues the logical conclusions that flow from those assumptions in a somewhat kinder. gentler way.
I'm referring to statism, the belief that government can and should provide a solution to every problem and meet every human need. It is enlightened-government-as-messiah. As with Marxism, the presupposition at the root of this conclusion is a rejection of the Bible's depiction of man as fallen and sinful--what theologians would call the doctrine of original sin.
If, contrary to what the Bible declares, people are born basically good, then there must be some other explanation for why people hoard wealth while others suffer lack, steal, cheat, rape, molest, and kill. If the problem isn't internal to man (a fallen nature), it must be external. We don't have paradise on earth because we haven't created the right environment. And we can't create the right environment unless we grant the government enough power and resources to build it.
Watch your national or local news on any given night and you'll see evidence of this logic in discussions about public policy and government programs. For example, when a new report comes out about a surge in AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, you will invariably hear an expert declare that we have to have more  "education" to combat the problem. The assumption is that it is only a lack of information that causes people to act irresponsibly toward themselves and others.

[islandboy]

Of course, there is probably not a person in America who is unaware that having unprotected, nonmonogamous sex, or sharing dirty needles, is an invitation to a legion of diseases. A lack of information is not the heart of the problem; a need for inner transformation is.
Name any current social ill and you'll find a chorus of voices crying for greater "investment" on the part of the government, more "programs," increased "regulation," and, of course, better "education" to increase "awareness."
As prevalent as this worldview is here in America, it is even more dominant in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Why? Because their abandonment of biblical concepts like the fall (man's rejection of God's authority, choosing instead to rebel and go his own way by yielding to the temptation of the devil) happened much earlier and to a much greater degree than in the United States.
Keep in mind, Europe has declared itself fully "post-Christian." Thus in Great Britain today, there is a tendency to point the finger of blame at the government for every negative act of man or nature.

Here at home, every headline-grabbing natural disaster and spectacular crime is immediately followed by a frenzy to assign "blame" to the appropriate government official or agency (witness the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).
Of course, such blame is never laid upon the actual disaster or criminal--that would give credence to the idea that we live in a fallen world. And that is antithetical to the Marxist/statist worldview.

[islandboy]

Page 91

With that background in mind, let's briefly explore the life of the man whose ideas, in the words of Dave Breese, "have produced the greatest degree of social, physical, and moral ruin the world has ever known."
In 1818, forty-six years after Rousseau was laid to rest in Paris, Karl Marx was born, about 250 miles to the east, in Trier, Germany. Marx's father was a nonobservant Jew who converted to Lutheranism the year before Karl was born. As a boy, Marx actually considered becoming a Lutheran minister and attended a religious preparatory school.  But in Europe of Marx's youth had already begun the wholesale rejection of Christianity and was too full of radical "new" ideas for him to avoid being seduced by the writings of novelists like Rousseau and scientists like Charles Darwin.

[nChrist]

Hello Islandboy,

THANKS!

It would be wonderful if man could learn even a small lesson from such devastating history. Rod Parsley hit the nail on the head when he said "government = god" in the case of communism and socialism. It's hard to imagine that the suffering and death of 100+ million people didn't teach mankind a thing. It should be a massive lesson that living without the REAL GOD is an ugly, bloody mess. Globally, this is where man wants to go - the further away from the REAL GOD - the better. After all, the REAL GOD competes with their totalitarian authority by defining right and wrong. Man wants to define right and wrong - and the more that they do - the bigger mess.

Love In Christ,
Tom

[islandboy]

In fact, Marx ultimately took Darwin's concept of biological evolution and applied it to the realms of economics and sociology. In Marx's funeral eulogy, his lifelong friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, said, " "Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature; so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history." Marx picked up his lifelong atheism as a student at the University of Berlin among a circle of intellectual friends who enjoyed discussing the German philosopher Hegel. Because of these influences, Marx ultimately became convinced that religious belief had to be destroyed if the kinds of changes he hoped to see brought about were going to happen. In that vein, he wrote: "Man makes religion, religion does not make man....The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness."
Like many antibiblical revolutionaries, Marx had messianic dreams. He wrote: " The philosophers have only interpreted the world...the point, however, is to change it." Marx became convinced that the key to changing the world was not in the realm of philosophy but in economics.

[islandboy]

Over the years, he developed elaborate theories that predicted violent uprisings and worker's revolutions across Europe. In fact, by the time Marx settled in London in 1849, he was convinced that massive, large-scale upheavals were right around the corner. But he was wrong; it wouldn't be until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that the first real test of Marx's theories would begin. And as we saw in Chapter 3, (Page 45-61), when they did, people begin to suffer and die on an unprecedented scale.
It may surprise you, then, to learn that Karl Marx and I do have some things in common. I, too, have a passion to see the poor, oppressed, and exploited lifted up. And I long to see people everywhere find meaning and fulfillment in their lives. The difference is, I know those things are possible only with God and through the redemption freely offered in His Son, Jesus Christ.
And unlike Marxism's colossal historical failure to bring anything but misery to men, God's way works. I've seen it transform individuals, families, communities, and whole nations. Marx was right about one thing. History is moving unavoidably toward a specific conclusion. It's just not the one he envisioned.

[islandboy]

(Page 190)             POLITICAL  ACTION  IN  DEFESE  OF  MORAL  VALUES
I begin this section on polemical activity well aware that there has been a tendency in the church to gravitate to one of two extremes on this matter.
It is not unusual for Christians to consider political activism a panacea that will usher in the kingdom of God if only we can get enough believers to the polls and writing enough letters to Congress. At the other end of the continuum, some sincere saints consider and focus on elections or public policy debates to be a waste of time and at worst a carnal and unspiritual entanglement with "the world."
Ironically, many zealous Christians have started out in the first group, but following a few of the bitter disappointments and frustrations that naturally come with trying to effect change through the ballot box, they end up in the second group.
This all-or-nothing view of engagement with the political realm is unfortunate. The truth is, political activity is important---vitally so. But it is not all important. It is only one sphere of influence among the seven mentioned here:
The Home, Religion, Schools & Education, The Media, The Arts, Entertainment, & Sports, Commerce, Science, and Technology, and Government & Politics. (re: page 190)
Nevertheless, we must recognize that God has placed the American church in a representative democracy. That puts the apostle Paul's command that we submit to government authorities in a unique light. You see, the Christians gathering in the young churches springing up throughout the Roman provinces in the first century had no say in their government. What Caesar decreed was law. The people could only pray for just and fair treatment.

[islandboy]

(Page 192)
But in our nation, the people are the government. Our laws and policies directly reflect the desires and character of those who bother to participate in the process. That is why it constitutes such a tragedy when many Christians don't bother or when they participate without thoroughly biblical worldview.
Former President James Garfield had this truth in mind when, more than 135 years ago, he wrote, "Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature."
As has been abundantly demonstrated recently, no organization or political party has a monopoly on loose morals, bad behavior or questionable character. Poor judgement and corruption cross all political and ideological barriers, and people of faith and goodwell need to keep themselves unentangled from any association that would constrain them from speaking the truth to those to their right or left.
What does a balanced engagement in the political process look like for a Christian?  There are a number of simple but significant things every believer can do to have maximum positive impact on our society. The first is the most obvious:

[islandboy]

1. Vote, and bring a thoroughly biblical worldview with you into the voting booth.

2. Understand the role of political involvement in creating moral reform.

3. Organize voter registration campaigns.

4. Practice open and constructive communication with public officials.

5. Begin to build bridges between white and black Christians.

( By reading this book the writer has provided step by step ways to promote Christian values throughout our country in the seven most important areas that affect all our lives)

[islandboy]

(Page 212)
OUR  WAR  OF  THE  WORLDS
I opened this volume with a call to battle. My hope is that I have articulated that call clearly and compellingly, because much is at stake. You see, when worldviews collide, nations hang in the balance.
As I have stated, we are currently experiencing a full-scale, multi-pronged cultural offensive aimed at removing, once and for all, traditional faith and morality from our laws, courts, schools, and marketplaces. World War II asked of that generation "extraordinary service, sacrifice and heroics." This current "war of the worlds" demands no less.
As with the Battle of the Bulge, all the gains we have made in recent years are in danger of being wiped out in a sudden and ferocious counterattack by the forces of secularism and humanism. In the process, the God-given disciplines of scienc and the arts are being misused as weapons in this cultural conflict for the hearts of our fellow citizens.
As with the Jewish resistance in Israel under the Greeks, we are under intense pressure to surrender our distinctiveness and allow ourselves to be assimilated into the idolatrous, pagan popular culture.
The culture isn't demanding that we sacrifice a pig on a holy altar.
The culture demands something even more profane---that we sacrifice the truth of the gospel on the altar of political and cultural correctness. They want us to stop proclaiming that Jesus is the only way of salvation, or that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life---and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.

[islandboy]

There is a price we must pay to save a generation, restore a nation, and revitalize a civilization. The question is, are we willing to pay that price? The Commander of the hosts of heaven is standing by to grace our efforts and assure us of victory--if only we will summon the courage to fight. I don't know about you, but I was built for the battle and created for the conflict and I don't want to march in a parade. I want to be in a battle. I don't want to lead a marching band. I want to lead an army.
Let us love our lost and floundering neighbors enough to tell them the truth. In the spirit of humility and compassion, let us confront them with the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of their worldviews. I say to the church what Jesus said in his prophetic message to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:2 (NIV) : "Wake up!! Strengthen what remains and is about to die."
Wake up, we must. So I will summon my brothers and sisters to battle. For when worldviews collide, nations hang in the balance.

[Soldier4Christ]

"5. Begin to build bridges between white and black Christians."

I do understand what is meant here and therefore do not mean any type of refutation to this statement but rather a complimentary statement to it. Red, yellow, black or white we are all brothers and sisters in and through Jesus Christ. There should be no need for any other bridges to bring us together but that one that Jesus Christ has already given us. We all should be standing side by side in total conjunction a part of the same body which is the body of Jesus Christ with Him as the one and only head at our forefront.

Mat 12:48  But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Mat 12:49  And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
Mat 12:50  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

There is a price we must pay to save a generation, restore a nation, and revitalize a civilization. The question is, are we willing to pay that price? The Commander of the hosts of heaven is standing by to grace our efforts and assure us of victory--if only we will summon the courage to fight. I don't know about you, but I was built for the battle and created for the conflict and I don't want to march in a parade. I want to be in a battle. I don't want to lead a marching band. I want to lead an army.
Let us love our lost and floundering neighbors enough to tell them the truth. In the spirit of humility and compassion, let us confront them with the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of their worldviews. I say to the church what Jesus said in his prophetic message to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:2 (NIV) : "Wake up!! Strengthen what remains and is about to die."
Wake up, we must. So I will summon my brothers and sisters to battle. For when worldviews collide, nations hang in the balance.

AMEN AND AMEN!!