“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” Matthew 24:12
How do you see our society? What is the cause of all the division, chaos and violence? What is going on, and what should we do about it?
Few would deny any longer that communism–Marxism-Leninism and its variants–meant in practice bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal gulags and forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and show trials, and genocide. It is also widely known that as a result millions of innocent people have been murdered in cold blood.”
Christianity and Communism?
from http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/law/christianity.shtml
Let us examine the question of the relationship of Christianity with Communism more precisely, to that particular form of communism which has now appeared as an attempt to realize the ideas of socialism. This form of communism emerged in history as a sworn and bitter enemy of Christianity. For its part, Christianity recognizes it as completely alien and inimical with itself.
The history of the Church in apostolic times reveals that, in those times, it had its own Christian “communalism” (not to be confused with Communism) and the faithful held everything common, as the Acts of the Apostles says. Even now, this Christian communalism exists in the form of Cenobitic monasticism. Both the concept and reality of communal property is a bright, idealistically elevated type of Christian inter-relationship, examples of which have always existed in the Orthodox Church.
How great is the difference between such Christian communalism and Soviet or Chinese communalism! One is as far from the other as the heavens are from the earth.
Christian communalism is not an independent self-motivated goal to which Christianity might strive. Rather, it is an inheritance bred of that spirit of love by which the Church has breathed from the first. Moreover, Christian communalism is totally voluntary. No one says, “Give us what is yours, it belongs to us,” rather, Christians themselves sacrificed so that “none of them considered any of their possessions to be their own.”
The communalism of property in Soviet communism is a self-motivated goal which must be attained no matter what the consequences and regardless of any considerations. The builders of this type of communism are attaining it by purely violent means, not balking at any measure, even the slaughter of all those who do not agree. The bases of this communism are not freedom, as in Christian communalism, but force; not sacrificial love, but envy and hatred.
In its struggle against religion, Soviet and Chinese style communism goes to such excesses that it excludes even that most elementary justice which is recognized by everyone.
In its class ideology, Soviet and Chinese communism tramples on all justice. The object of its work is not the common welfare of all the citizens of the state, but only the interests of a single class. All the remaining state and social groupings of citizens are “thrown overboard,” outside the care and protection of the communist government. The ruling class has no concern for them.
The Social Gospel: The 21st Century
In the United States, the Social Gospel is still influential in mainline Protestant denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the
Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church; it seems to be growing in the Episcopal Church as well, especially with that church’s effort to support the ONE Campaign. In Canada, it is widely present in the United Church and in the Anglican Church. Social Gospel elements can also be found in many service and relief agencies associated with Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church in the United States. It also remains influential among Christian socialist circles in Britain in the Church of England, Methodist and Calvinist movements.
In Catholicism, liberation theology has similarities to the Social Gospel. In the Anglican Church, the social gospel has found expression in pacifism.
Christian socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel. The term “Christian Socialism” is used in this sense by organizations such as the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM), a specifically Christian grouping affiliated with the British Labour Party.
Christian socialists draw parallels between what some have characterized as the egalitarian and anti-establishment message of Jesus, who — according to Christian Gospel — spoke against the religious authorities of his time, and the egalitarian, anti-establishment, and sometimes anti-clerical message of most contemporary socialists.
Christian Socialists have gone as far as to become active Communists (see Christian communism).
Quotes on Communism by influential people:
“Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.” – John F. Kennedy
“Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.” – Pierre Joseph Proudhon
“A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.” – Pierre Joseph Proudhon
For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.” – Joseph Stalin
“Let’s not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.” – Boris Yeltsin
“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.” – Mao Zedong
“I am a communist because I believe that the Communist idea is a state form of Christianity.” – Alexander Zhuravlyov
During his 1945 election campaign Winston Churchill stated that:
…a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
…a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom.
-
-
-
- Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism
- It will prescribe for every one where they are to work,
- what they are to work at,
- where they may go and
- what they may say.
- Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely.
- No socialist system can be established without having to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt “very humanely directed” – at first..
-
-
This was foretold by the attempt of the ‘ancients’ to build a Tower reaching to the heavens. “They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’
“The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
“The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” Gen 11:4-6.
https://whitestone2020.com/globalism-and-the-tower-of-babel/
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
https://whitestone2020.com/2020/11/08/am-i-really-seeing-what-i-think-i-am-seeing/
Whitestone Fellowship 