The Red Trojan Horse
John Lennon’s Imagine is a true Marxist anthem, one that some have suggested replace the allegedly racist Star Spangled Banner, as our national anthem. Indeed, it became an ironic act of megarich celebrity do-gooderism that was hilariously panned even by the New York Times. The proposed canonization of this persistent Communist pop-song is one small part of the current disorienting and revolutionary Anschluß against anything traditional in American culture.
Communism/Socialism has always been contrary to the Christian faith. God’s gift of private property is enshrined in the seventh commandment.
Karl Marx - who was raised nominally Lutheran and later rejected the faith - did not invent Communism. However, his “Communist Manifesto” (co-written with his partner/financier Friedrich Engels) laid out a pattern for Communism, Socialism, and revolution that has defined the trajectory for Communism’s implementation that became the blueprint for the Soviet Union and other Communist/Socialist countries. For a brilliant and yet concise exposition of Marx’s actual Satanic influences, see Marx & Satan by Romanian Lutheran pastor Richard Wurmbrand (who - as well as his wife Sabina - spent years in Communist prisons, author of Tortured for Christ, founder of Voice of the Martyrs, and who later colloquized into the Missouri Synod).
C.F.W. Walther lectured against Communism and Socialism.
Our brothers and sisters in the Lutheran churches of Russia - who before the Bolshevik Revolution comprised 10% of the population of the Russian Empire, whose pastors were shot and whose churches were bulldozed, who were exiled to Siberia testify to the incompatibility of Communism/Socialism with Christianity.
Those of us who are old enough to remember the Fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov 9, 1989 and of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, 1991, will never forget the joyous crowds in Russia, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe celebrating freedom - including the right once more to profess Christianity and openly worship. Churches were rebuilt and the faith re-emerged from the shadows.
But today, we are seeing the re-emergence of Communism/Socialism in the west, largely among people who were born after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. We are seeing statues being toppled and street names changing - which is a repeat of what happened in Communist/Socialist countries, such as Venezuela.
We are seeing a new violent iconoclasm that is even extending to churches and Christian art. Arson of Christian churches has become common in France.
Many of us might be wondering how Communism/Socialism was destroyed in Eastern Europe only to be exported and incubated here in the west. There is a wing of the Democrat Party that calls itself Socialist. The runner up in the 2016 Democratic primary was a self-described Socialist. Socialist ideas like universal healthcare, Uniform Basic Income (UBI), free universal college education, etc. are becoming mainstream - along with slavery reparations. All of these programs are grounded in the Marxian dictum: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” by state force, stealing from one to give to another in disregard of the seventh commandment. This was practiced during the Russian and Chinese Revolutions along with the mass executions of dissenters.
For decades, American school children have been taught to hate their own heritage by means of a Socialist American History textbook that has become standard in public schools. Young Marxist teachers have been indoctrinating our youth while ordinary Americans - convinced that Communism/Socialism was dead and buried - fell asleep at the switch. And now we see statues of Washington and Jefferson slated for removal, statues of Christopher Columbus being violently toppled and removed by authorities, and even religious and literary art that does not pass muster being canceled.
Western Civilization is in the sights, but it is the Church that is in the cross-hairs - as she always has been.
We Christians need to be aware of what is happening, why it is happening, and how it has gotten to where it is - as well as understanding where we are headed.
This lecture by a Christian libertarian thinker and writer named Danny Ajamian lays it all out concisely:
Ajamian ascribes our current malaise to an early 20th century radical Italian Communist thinker and writer named Antonio Gramsci - many of whose writings have been translated into English. He took Marx’s class-struggle theory - which had failed to spark revolution in the West - and retooled it to a struggle over culture - focused on the need to cancel Christianity. He laid out a blueprint for infiltrating all social institutions and gradually to convert them to Communism/Socialism by attacking social cohesion and the ethics that grew out of Christianity. His Trojan Horse plan to take over education, church, politics, and all other institutions such as sports and entertainment - was taken up by the Frankfurt School with its Critical Theory and brought to the United States post WW2. The takeover was so gradual (the “long march through the institutions”), that most ordinary Americans - including faithful Christians - allowed it to happen without opposition.
My own first exposure tying together Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and modern education (public, private, and even parochial!) was from an unpublished paper by LCMS classical educator Melinda Heine, presented at the 2015 CCLE conference presented in three parts (audio below):
It was eye-opening.
Indeed, our own Concordia university system is not immune. There is at least one of our schools that offers a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies (this is right out of Gramsci’s blueprint). I suspect that in most if not all of our Concordias, Sociology is taught according to the prevailing paradigm of Intersectionality and Critical Theory. If this is not the case, I will be more than happy to be corrected. These ideas are so embedded in academia that it would take a herculean effort to avoid it. Indeed, at least one of our now-defunct Concordias had a student club dedicated to upending the Christian and biblical definition of marriage. Again, this the flowering of Gramsci’s methodology.
And as widespread as the ideals of Communism and Socialism and social revolution are in the world of mainstream academia, politics, sports, and entertainment are, most people have never heard of Gramsci, Critical Theory, the Frankfort School, Herbert Marcuse, Fabian Socialism, and other open manifestations of this strategy that is bearing fruit.
I have heard of far too many children of faithful Lutheran laity and clergy being influenced by these ideas. Gramscian radicalism is even lauded by some of our LCMS institutions. Some of our own pastors are involved in this Gramscian revolutionary movement. It is as though we are powerless to stop the juggernaut from taking over every institution, leaving the Church vulnerable and subject to persecution from both the marble-columned state and the bomb-hurling mob - not to mention from infiltration within.
We should be praying as King Jehoshaphat:
O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. (2 Chron 20:12)
We really need to understand the dynamics of what is happening. It may already be too late, but continuing in our ignorant bliss is not an option for the Church Militant. Surrendering our youth and our schools to these destructive, anti-Christian ideals should be unthinkable to us. We got here by burying our heads in the sand and living like the world. Our task at this point may well be to preserve a remnant in the Ark of the Church and fight to the last man like the defenders of the Alamo, or going down with the Titanic ushering people to the lifeboats, waiting for our Lord to return. Or, a miracle could happen, and we could be delivered from Pharaoh’s Army through the Red Sea. But one thing is clear, it is no longer business as usual. “We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4).
Come Quickly, Lord Jesus!