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I’m so ashamed! I was a member of a hate group and didn’t know it.

They say confession is good for the soul, and after the shocking news I received a few days ago, I must somehow make amends for my life of crime. It’s a sordid story that began in my childhood. I can’t take all of the blame. Maybe it was peer pressure or parent pressure. Who knows? But I was molded, shaped, and destined for a life of hate. What’s worse, I am responsible for corrupting my own children with that hateful lifestyle. They say ignorance is not an excuse, but I really didn’t know that what I was doing was wrong. Actually I looked at my beliefs and activities as a badge of honor and felt that I was doing good works for the country.

The news came a few days ago as I was browsing through my emails, and there it was: the Family Research Council email warning us that our cover had been blown (it was only then that I realize that FRC is an avowed enemy of the state, a hate group organization with whom I’m associated-unofficially of course).

It seems that a certain military officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Rich, discovered that a number of groups in America “did not share our Army values.” This shocking discovery prompted him to send an email to thirty-eight of his fellow officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) to educate them that “when we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army values—don’t just walk by—do the right thing and address the concern before it becomes a problem.”

Well, I can tell you his warning sent chills down my spine! I lay awake several nights knowing that LTC Rich and the Army were not ignoring my behavior while wondering how they would address my problem. And I just can’t take it any longer so I’m confessing. I’m an evangelical Christian. And worse yet and to my undying shame I have been a member or fellow traveler of several subversive, hate-filled organizations including the American Family Association and the Family Research Council.

I know I can do nothing to atone for my sin other than to throw myself on the mercy of LTC Rich and the U.S. Army. Yet, I think there are some circumstances that might mitigate whatever punishment I receive. First, I blame the Army for not doing more to re-educate me before I became too deeply immersed in my life of hate. I was young and impressionable when I received the letter from President Johnson informing me of his invitation to join the military in 1967. If they had done the proper background checks, they would have known of my hateful tendencies and radical Christian associates and could have dealt with them then. I hadn’t intended to violate Army values. Heavens, I didn’t know there were any Army values other than to do what I was told by anyone with more than one stripe on their sleeves or they would kick my you-know-what to @#%! and back. (Sorry for the language but “Heavens” has been a part of my vocabulary for many years, and old habits are hard to break.)

But I’ve thought a lot about those days long ago since my discovery last week that I was deeply involved with domestic hate groups. Perhaps the Army realized back in 1967 that I didn’t share their values and that they did the right thing by sending me to Vietnam as a way of dealing with my issues before they became a problem. Certainly, a lot of people with those issues didn’t return from Vietnam to cause problems. Oh well, who knows?

I’m so glad to get this off my chest. I’m feeling much better already. I wonder if they will give me probation and allow me to join HA (Haters Anonymous). Perhaps I could be a group leader and go to some of those organizations identified by LTC Rich and show them the error of their ways:

• The Christian Right
• Various Racist Skinhead groups
• American Family Association (my alma mater of many years ago)
• Ku Klux Klan
• Family Research Council
• Various Neo-Nazi groups

These are just a few of the organizations identified by LTC Rich with the aid of the Southern Poverty Law Center. As the old saying goes, “The fields are white unto harvest!” I could be sort of a missionary spreading Army values across the land. Oops, sorry for the biblical language again.

It’s good to know there are other true patriots in the U.S. Army besides LTC Rich who have implemented a number of initiatives to expose or root out hate group activities in the military:

• A War Games scenario at Fort Leavenworth that identified Christian groups and Evangelical groups as being potential threats;
• A 2009 Dept. of Homeland Security memorandum that identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups;
• A West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center that linked pro-lifers to terrorism;
• Evangelical leader Franklin Graham was uninvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service because of his comments about Islam;
• Christian prayers were banned at the funeral services for veterans at Houston’s National Cemetery;
• Bibles were banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – a decision that was later rescinded;
• Christian crosses and a steeple were removed from a chapel in Afghanistan because the military said the icons disrespected other religions;
• Catholic chaplains were told not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop related to Obamacare mandates. The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience.

Well, this just goes to show those who think the country’s going to the dogs are wrong. There is hope for America with patriots such as LTC Rich spreading Army values!

With deep and sincere remorse,

An older but wiser—Larry G. Johnson.

Sources:

Todd Starnes, “The Army’s List of ‘Domestic Hate Groups’,” Fox News Radio, April 10, 2013. http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/the-armys-list-of-domestic-hate-groups.html (accessed April 24, 2013).

“Are you an enemy of the state?” Family Research Council, April 11, 2013. http://www.frc.org/alert/are-you-an-enemy-of-the-state (accessed April 24, 2013).

Mr. Jones’s Childish Things – Part II

Mike Jones, an associate editor of the Tulsa World, wrote the newspaper’s April 14th Opinion section lead editorial titled, “Childish things – It’s time to end the divide over gay marriage.” In Part I we discussed Jones’s argument with regard to charges of prejudice and misunderstanding against those opposed to gay marriage and the argument with regard to civil rights. In Part II we will address his arguments about presumed biblical/religious support of gay marriage.

Argument #3 – Jones raises three biblical/religious arguments in support of gay marriage.

• Jones cites the Apostle Paul who “believed that there is no need to get married because Jesus would return soon and the world would end… and that those on earth would better serve themselves if they remained celibate and directed their efforts to pleasing Jesus.” However, Jones’s statement contains both factual and contextual errors. These errors become evident without further comment when one looks at Paul’s actual words and the context in which they were written.

…It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband…I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and widows, it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. [1 Corinthians 7: 1-2, 6-9 RSV]

Now lest one takes Paul’s statement as a license for homosexuals to marry, let’s look at his words with regard to homosexuality.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” [Romans 1:24-27 RSV.]

• Jones’s describes his second religious argument as simplistic but one which he cannot shake. Jones believes his simplistic arguments undermine biblical reasons for opposition to homosexuality. However, his arguments contain huge assumptions which are false.

First, Jones asks if God made man in His own image where does that leave homosexuals. In other words, did He make a few mistakes when He made homosexuals? The assumptive language is that God made homosexuals the way they are. Therefore, God made a mistake or He created homosexuals that way as a reflection of His image. Neither is true.

Let’s quickly dispose of the first question. God does not make mistakes. If He did, he wouldn’t be all-knowing and all-powerful. In essence, He wouldn’t be God. Second, to say that God made a mistake means that we recognized something He missed, and that is absurd. Third, we can’t know the mind of God apart from His revelations to us about Himself. That revelation tells us that He does not make mistakes, “He is the rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” [Deuteronomy 32:4 KJV]

If God didn’t make a mistake, then that leaves us with Jones’s assumption that God made homosexuals the way they are, i.e., they were born that way. Therefore, we must accept them and their inborn inclinations as equals in society.

Proponents of homosexuality often cite various scientific studies that indicate sexual orientation is a matter of genetics, i.e., sexual orientation is involuntary, immutable, and rooted in nature. Thus, moral distinctions between homosexual and heterosexual behavior would be invalid.
The first response is to state that science has not proven that homosexuality is inborn. Many of the studies that purport to do so have proven to be flawed and brought into question by other studies showing the opposite is true. Time and space does not permit an extensive examination of this area, but what we can say at this point in time is that science has not proven that sexual orientation is a matter of genetics.

But for sake of argument let’s assume that homosexuality in some cases was found to have a genetic basis (either causal or predisposition), then proponents of the homosexual agenda would argue that moral distinctions are invalid as it relates to differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality. But that is not a valid argument for neither causation nor predisposition justifies cultural acceptance. For example, some people are genetically prone to alcoholism. Another study established a genetic link to criminal behavior. But such genetic links do not justify immoral behavior whether it is alcoholism, criminal activity, or homosexual practices. People are not slaves to their passions, desires, and predispositions as humanists would have us believe. Some people will struggle with those forces more than others, but people have the ability to choose their behavior.

Jones also asks if homosexuality makes a person less human. Absolutely not—homosexuality does not make them less human. God created every human being, and He loved each one so much that He gave His Son to be crucified on the cross for every person’s sin (including the homosexual) to make it possible for them to be in right relationship with Him. But man has a free will, and many freely choose to reject that invitation and live a life of disobedience to his commands whether that disobedience is adultery, murder, theft, or being actively engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.

• Jones’s third religious argument is based on 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Jones says, “That could go a long way in solving this difference of opinion.” In other words, charity (love) trumps all. If we but love, all will be well.

It is one thing to disagree with the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality or to reject biblical authority altogether in defending homosexual practices. However, it is blatantly disingenuous to revise or twist biblical teachings in order to excuse homosexual practices when the biblical record is unequivocally clear in its universal condemnation of homosexuality. Effectively, Jones is arguing that the basic thrust of Christ’s teachings is that in the end we must place love above all other considerations. Implicit in this humanistic belief is that basic doctrines are inherently divisive and must be pushed aside in favor of the non-judgmental love and acceptance of people as they are. In other words such narrow and rigid doctrines as to how one must live are divisive and contrary to the inclusiveness which is demonstrated by the lives and teachings of Jesus and His disciples. However, this argument is clearly false and strikes at the foundation of the Christian worldview regarding mankind’s Fall and man’s need for redemption as chronicled from Genesis through Revelation.

Before we leave this argument, let’s examine the sincerity of Jones’s call for love that “…could go a long way in solving this difference of opinion.” Apparently, Jones does believe that the same tolerance and love is needed when it comes to accepting the motives of Christians with regard to loving the sinner and hating the sin. “I don’t believe the sincerity of that for a second. It’s more often hate the sin, punish the sinner.”

In summary, heterosexual marriage is a universal, and the strength and unity provided by it is the foundation of a strong and enduring society. Where traditional marriage is in broad disarray, as it is in most Western societies, it does not disprove the truth of the marriage universal but rather speaks of the ravages caused by the ascending humanist worldview. Where traditional marriage declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Mike Jones, “Childish things – It’s time to end the divide over gay marriage,” Tulsa World, (April 14, 2001), G1.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), Chapter 23, pp. 353-366.

Mr. Jones’s Childish Things – Part I

Mike Jones, an associate editor of the Tulsa World, wrote the newspaper’s April 14th Opinion section lead editorial titled, “Childish things – It’s time to end the divide over gay marriage.” He is referring to 1 Corinthians 13:11 which says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Jones poses three general arguments in support of gay marriage. First, Jones attempts to label opposition to marriage between a same-sex couple a childish thing which results from prejudice and misunderstanding. Second, Jones believes that permitting gay marriage would be another step toward civil rights for all in the country. Third, Jones makes several biblical and religious arguments in support of gay marriage.

This article will demonstrate that Jones’s statements and claims are untrue, misinterpretations, misleading, and are couched in assumptive language in which seemingly simple statements contain huge assumptions that are not true. In Part I we will discuss Jones’s argument with regard to charges of prejudice and misunderstanding and the argument with regard to civil rights. In Part II we will address his arguments about presumed biblical/religious support of gay marriage.

Argument #1 – Jones claims that opposition to gay marriage (and by inference, opposition to homosexuality in general) is a result of prejudice and misunderstanding.

There are two general conceptions of marriage in society. The first is that marriage can only be between a man and a woman which forms the basis for the ordered family structure. The strength and depth of spousal commitment and unity that derives from a marriage consummated by the reproductive act, whether intended for purposes of procreation or not, cannot be matched by any other relationship. The nature of the reproductive act in marriage is distinctly and intrinsically unitive. This ordered family structure is part of the human constitution, a universal truth, one of the permanent things, and is central in every known society. The family attains status within society—legitimacy, social identity, legal recognition, cultural tradition, and an estate. Humans have fashioned numerous methods by which to organize their societies, but the common link to all is the family unit—a father, a mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring. It is the fundamental unit upon which societies are built.

By contrast, homosexuality is a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. However, proponents wish to lift the status of homosexuality in society through its attainment of legitimacy, legal identity, and respect as a cultural tradition, a place at the table so to speak. These efforts involve court challenges to long-standing and culturally established norms, enactment of laws which favor the homosexual agenda and that diminish marriage, and promotion of homosexuality in the popular culture. The basis for this opposing view is that marriage is essentially a private relationship, and because marriage is the central organizing concept in society, it is critical for proponents of homosexuality to redefine what it means to be a family. Success in the legislative and legal efforts to redefine marriage to include homosexual couples of either gender, whether under law or in culture, will cause a culture to decline and disintegrate as the ideal of a mother and father for every child is weakened. (See article: Thank you, Grace. You are worthy of your name.)

Therefore, the Christian’s opposition to homosexuality is not about prejudice and misunderstanding as Mr. Jones would have us believe, but opposition is based on eternal truths and the commandments from the Bible. Mr. Jones and I will not agree as to who has the better argument because we have fundamentally different worldviews. The question is: which worldview is true? Undoubtedly, the weight of history supports the biblical worldview which is a reflection of truth received not only through biblical revelation to the ancient Hebrews and 1st century Christians but is also a reflection of those unchanging cultural universals built into God’s creation and observed down through the ages.

Argument #2 – Jones believes that permitting gay marriage would be another step toward civil rights for all in the country where “all men are created equal.”

Jones argues that laws allowing civil union are not good enough, i.e., you are less than a citizen if you can’t have a marriage ceremony and which means same-sex couples are “not worthy of rights held by the rest of us.” It appears that Jones does not understand that people opposed to gay marriage are generally opposed to civil unions for the same reasons. Those reasons are based on a biblical worldview upon which the nation was founded (but that is another argument for another day which I am very willing to address).

Jones appeal is on the basis of equality, i.e., homosexuals have a civil right to marry as do heterosexuals. The usual defense of the pursuit of the humanist ideal of equality is that social harmony will be achieved because the nation is moving closer to the ideals upon which it was founded. However, such pursuit has the opposite effect. In America the pursuit of equality has resulted in the identification of an ever expanding array of social problems demanding governmental attention. Such attention is demanded because of the creation of “illusory rights” supposedly on par with the original Bill of Rights (in this case the right of homosexuals to marry).

But a culture that elevates these demands to the status of rights is doomed. In his book Visions of Order, Richard Weaver states that when a culture “… by ignorant popular attitudes or by social derangements” imposes a political concept that creates a different principle of ordering society contrary to universal truths, dissatisfactions arise because society has tampered with the “nature of things.”

The victim of this tampering is justice. The concept of justice is a universal truth, a thing of permanence that transcends the whole of man’s time on this planet and pertains to all cultures. Ignoring corruptible man, the levelers of society admonish Justice to peek beneath her blindfold and act arbitrarily and capriciously to impose the latest standards dictated by the passions of the moment. Prescriptions of fairness, impartiality, and right action derived from an authority above the state and built up over the centuries are now considered quaint, failing to keep up with modern times, or just plain wrong-headed. In other words, the definition of justice has been changed by the humanists to fit their worldview. But no amount of humanist tinkering will change the heart of man with regard to a right understanding of right action in a civil society.

We will examine Mr. Jones’s supposed biblical and religious support for gay marriage in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Mike Jones, “Childish things – It’s time to end the divide over gay marriage,” Tulsa World, (April 14, 2001), G1.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 229, 334-235, 354, 356.

Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1964), pp. 22-23.

Postcard from Hell

“It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place…I felt like a fireman in hell. I couldn’t put out all the fires.” These are the words of Steven Massof, one of the employees in an abortion clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, describing the busy times when the women were given drugs to induce contractions all at once. Gosnell is on trial this week for killing seven children and a young mother in a filthy, blood-splattered clinic near Philadelphia.

The babies had the misfortune to be born live in Gosnell’s abortion clinic staffed in part by teenagers posing as licensed anesthetists. The bodies of the tiny victims were stored in a freezer in the basement of the clinic. Massof admitted that killing babies born alive was standard procedure at the clinic. He estimated that at least 100 babies were born alive in the clinic and had their necks snipped, but the beheadings were so routine that no one could determine the exact number.

Generally, such stories of horrific tragedies would be meat for the media grinder. However, you probably have not heard much if any reports from the great majority of news media. But thanks to the Family Research Council and other conservative organizations and leaders, the story which the media have ignored or censored is gaining some attention.

Sherry West was another long-time employee of the clinic. She testified that she called the babies specimens “because it was easier to deal with mentally.” West recalled one incident of a “screaming baby that really freaked me out…I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien.” She estimated the baby to have been between 18 and 24 inches long, one of the largest she had seen during abortion procedures at the Women’s Medical Society clinic operated by Dr. Gosnell at that time.

Perhaps you will recall President Clinton’s statement that abortions in America should be “safe, legal, and rare.” But his statement is just political sop to pacify the squeamish. The same sop to hide abortion’s grisly reality was used by Alisa LaPolt Snow, the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates lobbyist, in her testimony regarding a bill before the Florida legislature that would require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion. In response to being asked what would Planned Parenthood do if a live baby were born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, Snow replied, “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”

Effectively, Planned Parenthood would leave the life or death decisions to the Dr. Gosnells of the world with regard to babies born alive after a botched abortion. Certainly the mother is in no emotional or physical shape to make a thoughtful and rational decision, and it is extremely unlikely that the doctor would consult the mother’s family (generally not present anyway) as the baby is lying on the table and struggling for life. Apart from lack of sanitation and improper licensing, Planned Parenthood would have little to no issues with Dr. Gosnell’s methods and decision-making process with regard to killing a live baby.

After January 22, 1973, the lives of unborn babies were no longer sacrosanct in America but placed in the hands of the deciders following the dictates of man’s law. It is estimated that over fifty two million abortions have fallen victim to man’s law in America from January 1973 through the end of 2008. These estimates came from direct surveys of abortionists by the Guttmacher Institute, once a research affiliate of Planned Parenthood. The number of abortions per day, if an average were calculated for the entire thirty-six year period, is over 3,900. This average number of abortions per day exceeds by over one thousand the number of lives lost in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Numbers and statistics are sterile things and do not convey the horror of a single abortion as shown above. Euphemisms, platitudes, and legal arguments about rights, privacy, and choice attempt to soften the picture or divert our attention from the horror surrounding the abortion of an unborn child.

Legalized abortion was the wedge used to split open the historic Western commitment to the dignity of human life. Now the humanist defenders of abortion continue attempts to drive the wedge deeper by sanctioning the taking of innocent life which effectively dispenses with concerns as to when human life begins. Thus, the abortionists’ coveted right of choice is attempting to move across the line from abortion to infanticide. Doubters only need to listen to the testimony of Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Alisa LaPolt Snow.

Many scientists and academics would not stop at aborting babies born alive as the result of a botched abortion. Some such as Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner for discovering the double helix in DNA, support screening newborns. For Crick, those that fail to meet certain health standards would be euthanized. Peter Singer, Princeton’s DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, believes that parents ought to be allowed to kill their disabled children. His reasoning is “…that they are ‘nonpersons’ until they are rational and self-conscious.” Singer extends his reasoning to the “…killing of incompetent persons of any age if their families decide their lives are ‘not worth living’.” Some would scoff that Crick’s and Pinker’s opinions are extreme and would never gain cultural acceptance. However, legalized abortion in America was also once thought extreme by most Americans.

Under the aegis of a majority of nine people on the United States Supreme Court, abortion became a choice in 1973, and unborn babies suddenly became mere fetal tissue with potentiality for human life. Contrast the Supreme Court’s decision and humanism’s convoluted defenses of abortion through fictitious rights and irrational moralizing about choice with the words of the Psalmist:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your Book! [Psalm 139:13-16. Living Bible]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

John Hayward, “Kermit Gosnell’s House of Screams,” Human Events, April 8, 2013. http://www.humanevents.com/2013/04/08/kermit-gosnells-house-of-screams/ (accessed April 10, 2013).

Tony Perkins, “Washington Update,” Family Research Council, April 9, 2013. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/braking-news-media-halts-coverage-of-serial-killer (accessed April 10, 2013).

“At Gosnell trial, Del. woman testifies scene ‘freaked me out,” delawareonline.com, April 9, 2013. http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130409/NEWS/304070067/ (accessed April 10, 2013).

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 344, 350-351.

The New Despotism – Part II

In Part I we learned that humanistic definitions of equality have played a central role in the ascendance of a new despotism in America. About 175 years ago, Tocqueville gave a vivid picture of this new type of oppression that would threaten democracies and which “…will not be like anything there has been in the world before…” He admitted that he was having trouble naming this new despotism but “wished to imagine under what new features despotism might appear in the world”:

I see an innumerable crowd of men, all alike and equal, turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls…Above these men stands an immense and protective power which alone is responsible for looking after their enjoyments and watching over their destiny. It is absolute, meticulous, ordered, provident, and kindly disposed. It would be like a fatherly authority, if, father-like, its aim were to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks only to keep them in perpetual childhood; it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves provided they have only enjoyment in mind. It works readily for their happiness but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it. It provides their security, anticipates and guarantees their needs, supplies their pleasures, directs their principal concerns, manages their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances. Why can it not remove from them entirely the bother of thinking and the troubles of life?

Thus, it reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things and often see them as a blessing.

Thus, the ruling power, having taken each citizen one by one into its powerful grasp and having molded him to its own liking, spreads it arms over the whole of society, covering the surface of social life with a networked of petty, complicated, detailed, and uniform rules through which even the most original minds and the most energetic of spirits cannot reach the light in order to rise above the crowd. It does not break men’s wills but it does soften, bend, and control them; rarely does it force man to act but it constantly opposes what actions they perform; it does not destroy the start of anything but it stands in its way; it does not tyrannize but it inhibits, represses, drains, snuffs out, dulls so much effort that finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as shepherd.

The word Tocqueville was searching for in describing this new despotism was socialism, and his words have painted a prophetic and hauntingly real picture of the United States in the 21st century under the humanists’ leadership in the institutions of American life: government, education, economics, the sciences (physical, biological, and social), popular culture, and the family. Socialism is the end result of a society that pushes towards the humanist worldview of which the humanists’ definition of equality is central.

Why does humanism require a society organized under socialistic principles? First, socialism is a prerequisite for a humanist society. It is a cardinal tenet of the Humanist Manifesto I of 1933 which says: “A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible.” For the humanist, equitable distribution means re-distribution and redistribution means socialism. Second, if one examines humanism and its goals, those goals can only be achieved through the imposition of a socialistic system of controls because the fundamental nature of man conflicts with the humanistic worldview. Being created in the image of God and given a free will, humans have an innate thirst for freedom which socialism suppresses.

The restrictions of the humanist society are decided by the social engineers of that society, the elites or “conditioners” as C. S. Lewis called them. Thus, humanism is a top down affair. Its leaders determine what is best for the masses based on man’s laws, not God’s laws. Socialism is humanism’s default setting for organizing society and is inherently domineering, restrictive, and restraining in the details of life and ultimately leads to loss of freedom in every aspect of life.

In a society built upon the biblical worldview, men join together and voluntarily limit their freedom. But the imposition of limits comes from a group of like-minded individuals whose central cultural vision reflects the same biblical worldview of freedom and the nature of man.

In concluding his description of the new despotism, Tocqueville stated that, “The vices of those who govern and the ineptitude of those governed would soon bring it (the nation) to ruin and the people, tired of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or would soon revert to its abasement to one single master.” Given the apparent abdication by Congress of its designated role in the separation of powers and the proclivity of the Executive Branch in disabusing the judiciary, ignoring enforcement of the laws passed by Congress, and governing through illegitimate executive orders and presidential whim, it appears that America, through the ineptitude of the electorate, has chosen its abasement through one single master.

It’s time for pushback.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 10.

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 805-806, 808.