Lecture V

Dr. Paul Tudor Jones

We have been studying together for some weeks, the theme of Christianity and Communism. We have noted the rapid spread of communist ideology and power over the face of the globe. We have surveyed some of the varied attempts to thwart, contain, resist, or destroy communism.

We have examined the historical origins of Marxian communism, its goals and promises, its philosophy and practical embodiment in the structures of states and nations. We spent one whole evening on the evils of communism, its materialism, its totalitarianism, its cruelty, its cynicism, its ruthlessness in dealing with individuals: friends or foes, its suppression of religious liberties, its atheism. We saw that the ultimate source of communism’s evil is its idolatrous nature.

We come this evening in our concluding session to the topic: “What is the Christian’s duty before the threat of communism?” In order that there be no misunderstanding, let us underscore again the eternal and irreconcilable hostility that must forever exist between Christianity and Marxian Communism. I call to your attention again, the striking statement of this implacable warfare, which can never be ended, as bluntly set forth in an editorial in the Christian Century for November 15, 1961:

“The conflict between Christianity and communism is deeper, more subtle, and more durable than the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. If, to take an extreme and wholly improbable example, Russia and the United States should resolve their political differences by carving the world into spheres of influence and should faithfully keep the terms of such an unthinkable agreement, such a compromise would in no way diminish the antagonism between Marxism and the Christian faith as systems of thought and patterns of life. Rival states do, at times, come to such terms, but communism and Christianity are implacable foes. In what each is, in what each trusts and hopes for and in the means by which each seeks its goals, Marxist materialism and the Christian faith are mutually contradictory. In its godlessness, in its prideful disavowal of the sinfulness of man’s nature, in its absolutizing of man as his own authority and redeemer, in its naïve optimism about human progress, in its use of any means which accomplish its ends, in its contempt for the individual and in its submersion of the individual in the collective will, in its materialistic interpretation of man’s nature and of human history — in all these respects, Marxism defies and desecrates the Judeo-Christian soil out of which it sprang. Add to this repudiation of Christianity and Christianity’s God, the aberrations which theoretical communism has produced when put into practice — the one-party state, the closed society, rule by police terror, to name only a few — and it is crystal clear that Christians must not only reject communism for themselves, but must also contest with resolute and persistent vigor, communism’s claim on and its appeal to the souls and lives of men. The Cold War, then, is two wars in one: a rivalry between major world powers, and a conflict between major world religions. The political rivalry can and should be negotiated: the religious conflict cannot and should not be compromised.”

There can be no peace between Christianity and communism. But what are the weapons of our warfare? “We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against spiritual hosts of wickedness.” What are the effective weapons of the Christian in such a contest? What can we do?

As I see it, there are three superlative duties of the Christian in this conflict with communism:

The first duty of the Christian is to know and understand the nature of communism. An ignorant Christian soldier, no matter how valiant, is a vulnerable Christian soldier. To know more about communism and better to understand it has been our aim for the past few weeks in this series. Certainly we have achieved no exhaustive knowledge of communism. We have only begun to scratch the surface. Continuous reading, study, discussion, trying to inform ourselves factually and accurately about the nature of this demonic, political, and religious reality, is the Christian’s plain duty.

Everywhere John Foster Dulles went on his trips about the world as Secretary of State to serve his nation, he took with him two books: his Bible and a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital. He tried to understand the mind and the behavior of our communist antagonists and, at the same time, to have his mind and behavior fashioned by the will and purpose of God. That is the proper pattern for us all.

I heard last week of a group of young women in our city who have undertaken to use reliable and trustworthy material, visual aids, etc., to educate the children of our community about the nature of communism. This is surely a part of the Christian’s duty for all of us.

But, just as the Christian had the duty to know and understand what communism is, he also has the duty to recognize and understand what communism is not. In some circles, there is regrettably the tendency to label any unpopular movement, either communistic or fascistic. This is to be deplored, not only because of the confusion and error which it occasions, wrongly branding as communistic what isn’t, and needlessly dividing those who are really allies in the struggle against communism, but also because it dissipates the strength of the enemies of communism through inter-fraternal warfare.

A second duty of the Christian before the threat of communism is to refrain from worshiping the false gods of our communist enemies.

In the 25th chapter of the Second Book of the Chronicles of the Kings, we find the strange story of Amaziah, King of Judah, and his irrational, impious, even foolish behavior, which was to cause his ultimate downfall. In going forth to battle against the Edomites in the name of Jehovah of hosts, he won a great victory. But, in the flush of success, he threw over the God who had given him the victory and brought back the idols of his enemy and worshiped them. In the 14th verse, we read: “Now, it came to pass, after Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought home the gods of the children of Seir, set them up to be his gods, and bowed himself before them, and burned incense unto them.” Was there ever more irrational, unreasonable, foolish conduct? Amaziah may have been acting very unreasonably, but he was not acting uncommonly. No, Amaziah has lots of company — those who, with him, are prostrating themselves before the gods of their enemies. History is replete with accounts of those who have followed his foolish example.

Are there those who are worshiping the gods of our communist enemies? This is really the more horrible and more likely communist infiltration we need to fear and organize to be vigilantly on the guard against.

What are some of the false gods of the communists?

First, there is the communist idolatry — their worship of their system. They have made an idol of the communist system and recognize no reality above it. So, are we tempted to make an idol of the private enterprise and private ownership system — or capitalism — and make all things subservient to our devotion and allegiance to this idol? Christian, watch it. Don’t be an idolater like the communist and worship any manmade political or economic system.

Second, there is another false god of the communists that bears the name, Hatred. The communists preach class war. They encourage the proletarian to hate the bourgeoisie, the workman to hate his employer. The temptation is strong in this warfare with communism, to bow down before our enemy’s hate image and hate right back.

But as Professor Norman Horner says: “While hating the system that enslaves people, let us never give way to hating people. Victims of totalitarian rule deserve nothing less than our sympathetic understanding; even their rulers, like all others who succumb to the sins of pride and lust for power, are still potential recipients of God’s grace to forgive and power to change. To regard them otherwise would be a denial of the Christian faith. To hate them would be capitulation to the very spirit on which totalitarianism itself thrives.”

Third, there is the false god — Force, which our enemies worship and which we must never prostrate our moral selves before. Though they scrap all moral and ethical standards in the struggle and say the end justifies the means, that might makes right, we must resist the temptation to do the same, no matter how bitter grows the contest.

When David, the shepherd boy, went out to battle with the giant Goliath, there was wide contrast in the military equipment, the techniques of warfare, as well as the spirit of the contestants. David said to Goliath: “Thou comest against me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield; but I come against thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God or the armies of Israel, and this day shall He deliver thee in to mine hand.”

So, the Christian, in this time of crucial contest between Christianity and communism, must resist every temptation to bow down to the gods of our communist enemies and keep on keeping on in the struggle in the name and faith of our God.

And this brings us to the final and ultimate duty of the Christian before the threat of communism — His duty to give constant, patient witness by word and deed to his Lord. This sounds so pat and so pious. And yet, it is the one thing we are most inclined to forget and neglect in this particular struggle. Let me put it this way: It is more important for us to be pro-Christian than anti-communist. Communism will fade and fall by the way only when a positive, creative, Christianity goes about its own redemptive business, freshly addressing to each new day, and every society or social grouping, its eternal truths.

And Christian witness is not only by word, but also by deed. Christian action is Christian witness also; the most vigorous thrust against encroaching and incipient communism is Christianity’s activity of redemptive love in those areas of our social and business and political life where the absence of Christian love has created cesspools of human misery, degradation, inequality, hunger, despair, disease, and ignorance. These are the breeding places of communism. This is not a preacher’s notion. This is a demonstrable diagnostic fact of contemporary history.

A Cuban refugee asked her American friends: “Do you want to keep communism out of America?” When they nodded their obvious affirmative answer, she said: “Well, do you believe in human equality? It is just that simple. You guarantee equality to all your people, regardless of race, color or creed, and communism will not come here.”

Where enlightened business practices of Christian owners and managers have acted in Christian concern to make their laborers and employees sharers in the profits and part owners of company stock, communism has been stopped dead in its tracks.

A persistent Christian witness by word and action, which springs from the tenacious faith that God is sovereign of history, will be patient and faithful, even in time of chaos or temporary defeat.

Reinhold Niebuhr says: “We may have to do our duty for a long time in a world in which there will be no guarantee of security, and in which no duty can be assured the reward of success. The hysteria of our day is partly derived from the disillusion of a humanistic idealism which thought that every virtue could be historically rewarded, and encouraged men to sow by the promise of a certain harvest. Now we must sow without promising whether we can reap.

“There is nothing new in all this. Our present vicissitudes remind us of the word of scripture: ‘If in this life only, we had hoped in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.’ That is an expression of what a humanistic age called ‘Christian other-worldliness.’ It is the Biblical illustration of a dimension of existence which makes sense out of life when it ceases to make sense as simply, upon the plane of history, as it was once believed. We are rightly concerned about the probabilities of disaster to our civilization and about our various immediate duties to avert it. But we perform our duties with greater steadiness if we have something of the faith of St. Paul, expressed in the words: ‘Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord, whether we live therefore, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.’ In this final nonchalance about life and death, which includes some serenity about the life and death of civilizations, there is a resource for doing what we ought to do, though we know not what the day or the hour may bring forth.”

A friend gave to me yesterday the true story of a little girl who had been ill a very long time, despite her small span of twelve years. A devout member of a faith healing cult called on the little girl and said: “The Lord Jesus can heal you, Mary Ann.”

Mary Ann didn’t answer.

He said it again.

“I know He can,” said Mary Ann. “I know He can do anything. But whether or not He heals me, it’s still His business.”

It is that kind of faith, which springs forth to flower in the Christian witness of word and work, that will eventually soundly defeat communism and every other false ism that the sins of men and the schemes of the devils can ever contrive in a millenium of centuries. The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. He is the King of Kings, forever and forever.