Archive: Our Embarrassing Leftward Tilt

by Steve | Jan 2, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: Our Embarrassing Leftward Tilt

By Steve Beard

In our focus on political systems, we have been more pathetic than prophetic.

For Western Christians who have worked long and diligently on behalf of persecuted believers in the Eastern bloc, recent developments in the region must engender a deep sense of satisfaction. Sadly, our own United Methodist Church may find it difficult to share that kind of fulfillment. While we United Methodists pride ourselves on being at the forefront of numerous social movements, we have not been seriously engaged in the move to displace communism with freedom. In the quest for liberty in Eastern Europe, we have been more pathetic than prophetic.

This was not always the case. In 1952 the UM bishops asserted, “The communist threat must be met; to surrender to it or to be overcome by it is to forfeit the supreme values underlying our highest culture and our Christian gospel.” In the same year, the General Conference described communism as “the major foe of Christianity and freedom in the world today” (Biases and Blind Spots, Bristol Books, 1988, p. 29).

Such language is no longer to be found in our denominational literature, mission studies or resolutions. Rarely will you hear a peep of criticism directed toward communism—unless, of course, it accompanies a parallel or harsher critique of Western democratic capitalism. Herein lies the maxim of moral equivalence: Never criticize the failings of Marx and Lenin without an equally ominous pronouncement about the shortcomings of the West.

At times our denomination’s view of economics has moved from a skepticism of capitalism to an all-out advocacy of socialism. The Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries published An Economic Primer in 1980 to help UM Women understand “economic development in the world. One section of the primer states that Americans “must endeavor to bring their bias against socialism under control” (p.75).

At the same time Soviet citizens were standing in line for rations, Primer readers were told that socialist countries “find it relatively easy to provide ample employment opportunities at adequate wage levels because they rely on an economic plan in deciding how much to produce and what to pay rather than the profit motive” (p.26).

At the same time East German party bosses were living it up at hidden hunting lodges, the primer goes on to say that extremes of wealth and poverty are more or less automatically avoided in the system” (p.26).

While the primer does admit to a lack of political rights in socialist countries, it says that “the sting does not seem to be as acutely felt by the mass of the population because their basic material needs are being equitably attended to” (p.28). How oddly that statement reads after watching TV reports of thousands of Czechs shouting for freedom and hundreds of thousands of East Germans pouring through the defunct Berlin Wall for a day of shopping in the West.

UM Women were also told that while “opportunities for political participation … may seem more limited, … they are at least likely to be more or less equally shared” (p.30). Lest the reader should feel some concern for inequality in the state-controlled framework, we are assured that even the “most authoritarian of the socialist regimes are often more democratic than the capitalist ones which they replaced” (p.30), and their workplaces are “likely to be far more democratic than what we are accustomed to … in the United States (p.30). If this is the case, what was the need for a Lech Walesa in Poland?

The problem isn’t that the UM Church has ignored Eastern Europe entirely. In the early 1980s the church utilized the National Council of Church’s (NCC) study guide on Europe, Must Walls Divide, in which the Rev. James Will identifies the wounds of Europe’s “ideological divisions” as being “irritated by continuing concerns for human rights and ‘captive nations’” (p.6). This would come as small comfort to Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians who have long suffered under communist rule and who now seek independence.

In one chapter Will published the thoughts of a Romanian church leader who claims that his country guarantees “civil and religious rights,” “freedom of worship” and “liberty of conscience” to accept or reject a religious faith. All of this was published as numerous congregations found their sanctuaries demolished after state bulldozers plowed through town.

But what are we Methodists saying now? At the most recent semiannual meeting of the UM Council of Bishops (November 6-10), the bishops called United Methodists to prayer for Eastern Europe and issued a refreshing statement to remind us that places such as Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and [at that time] Czechoslovakia saw “practically no change … ” (United Methodist News Service, 11-13-89). After encouraging Western economic support for Eastern Europe, the bishops oddly warn against the “imposition of traditional Eastern or Western value systems” (United Methodist Reporter, 11-17-89), again implying a moral equivalence between the two.

In a formal presentation to the bishops at the same meeting, Janice Love, a UM member of the World Council of Churches (WCC), told them that the recent developments in the USSR and Eastern Europe have spurred “a new-found triumphalism about capitalism” that she found to be “uncritical, unwarranted and chauvinistic” (United Methodist News Service, 11-13-89). During a lengthy critique of capitalism, she called on Christian leaders in the United States to “break the mental chains that strident anticommunist ideology has imposed on us in this century” (ibid.).

One would have to struggle to find a critical comment—even a whisper—against the Soviet Union in our church documents. Blame for the Cold War has been effectively shoved onto the guilty shoulders of the United States, while the Soviets continue to send massive shipments of arms to Marxist groups in Africa and Central America.

Resolutions and comments directed toward the Soviets are designed to be non-threatening so as not to offend, a pattern which consistently undermines the integrity of our so-called “prophetic” church. South Africa would never receive the kid-glove treatment granted the USSR.

Consider the fate of an amendment to the US/USSR exchange resolution at the General Conference in 1988. It asked for unlimited importation of Bibles, release of remaining prisoners of conscience, an end to state limitations on seminary enrollment, and guarantees of special relief for Christians in Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine. Opponents of the resolution said that it would “mess up a simple petition” and that its tone was “imperialistic” and even “preachy” (Religion and Democracy, July 1988).

Eastern Europe is not the only place we have missed the boat. In the 89 pages of the 1984 NCC mission study, Fire Beneath the Frost: The Struggles of the Korean People and Church, editor Peggy Billings, at the time the head of the UM World Division, only once briefly discussed the “communist persecution and purge of Christians in the North … (p.21). Worse, this cursory reference was found in the midst of a passage damning refugees from the North for their subsequent “blind” anti-communism (p.71).

Billings felt no constraint in condemning the majority of South Korean Christians as “fundamentalists,” “self-righteous,” and “intolerant” as she set out to herald the glories of “minjung” theology, a form of South Korean liberation theology.

Unfortunately, our church resolutions have been as willfully blind. The 1980 “Human Rights in Korea” resolution cites only problems in South Korea while never mentioning Stalinist North Korea. The 1988 General Conference resolution was headed on the same track until the Korean-American caucus, disturbed at being excluded from the drafting process, organized to amend the resolution. Their valiant effort produced one of the more judicious US church statements by emphasizing democracy as a prerequisite for Korean reunification (Religion and Democracy, Sept./Oct. 1988).

Numerous annual conferences commendably condemned the brutality of the Chinese government toward those seeking reform and democracy in Tiananmen Square last spring. The resolutions ranged from overwhelming support of the students to complete condemnation of the government’s violence. But a careful reading of news reports fails to find one conference which denounced the communist system itself, despite China’s long record of repression.

We should not be surprised. The 1984 General Conference resolution on China went so far as to say, “While the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Church differ on their views of religious belief, the Constitution now provides for both the policy and practice of religious freedom” (Book of Resolutions 1984, p.440). This terminology makes it sound as though the two simply disagree on whether to baptize by sprinkling or immersion.

Elsewhere around the world:

• The most recent UM resolution on the Philippines carefully avoids any criticism of the brutal, communist New People’s Army, in contrast to its criticism of right-wing vigilante groups which bring “terror and murder to the countryside” (IRD Special Report, April 1988).
• While resolutions on South Africa tend to be some of the most lengthy and detailed, the political ideology of the African National Congress (ANG) is never seriously questioned, even though the 1988 NCC study guide, South Africa’s Moment of Truth, admits that “there can be little doubt that the ANG is an organization of the political left in which the communists play a strong role.”
• Through the World Council of Churches, the Marxist-oriented South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) received a 1989 grant of $165,000 despite WCC General Secretary Emilio Castro’s acknowledgement of “serious allegations about torture and other forms of brutal treatment in the hands of SWAPO officials” (Religious News Service, 9-22-89).
• While Ethiopians starved by the millions in the early 1980s—the result, in no small part, of the Marxist government’s brutal policies of forced resettlement, collectivization and repression—UM officials found no fault with the government. In fact, after returning from Ethiopia in 1984 Norma Kehrberg, chief staff executive of the UM Committee on Relief, commented that she was impressed with the country’s “openness and accessibility” (UM Communications News, 12-14-84), while one UM bishop commented that the USSR had done more to help Ethiopia than had the United States (ibid.).
• Mysteriously the 1984 “Recognition of Cuba” resolution leaves out any condemnation of Castro’s heinous human rights record (Book of Resolutions 1984, p. 402).

There was, however, one General Conference resolution in 1980 that commended democracy and religious freedom. It read, “We believe that people have the right to choose their own government through democratic, competitive elections, free from internal or external coercion” (Book of Resolutions 1984, p.142).

It goes on to proclaim that we unalterably oppose all governmental systems that deny human rights to the people within their borders, including fascism, communism, apartheid, and all forms of military and authoritarian dictatorship” (ibid.). Unlike most resolutions, these affirmations were offered by concerned laypeople, not by one of our church agencies.

General agency personnel sought to have the resolution superseded by a resolution for the 1988 General Conference deleting the specific affirmation of democracy. An attempt to amend the resolution by observing that “democratic systems of government best protect religious freedom” failed because opponents objected to “code words” and statements which “would play into the hands of those who have too narrow a definition of democracy” (Religion and Democracy, July 1988).

Sadly enough, the opposite is true. Our church leaders and publications in the last 30 years have shown little sympathy for the spread of democracy. By refusing to firmly and specifically critique communism—the system that has been energetically rejected in Eastern Europe today—United Methodists have been on the wrong side in the human struggle for freedom. The collapse of the Berlin Wall will occasion serious rethinking of international relationships and priorities. Some of that rethinking needs to take place among the leaders of the United Methodist Church.

Steve Beard is a United Methodist layman and a research assistant at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.

Archive: Another Notch in Freedom’s Belt

by Steve | Jan 1, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: Another Notch in Freedom’s Belt

By Mark Elliott

Never before has history moved so quickly. Who could have imagined that we would see the virtual collapse of the Iron Curtain? Here Mark Elliott, director of Wheaton’s Institute on Marxism and Christianity, discusses the changes.

Good News: Are we really seeing, after some 70 years of dominance in Europe, the virtual collapse of the communist system?

Elliott: I wouldn’t be ready to say the virtual collapse of the communist system because obviously events in China have not turned out this way, at least in the short run. And I don’t think the conservative forces in the Soviet Union have given up, although they obviously are out of the public limelight So I probably wouldn’t make quite so dramatic a statement, but at the same time I would say, along with Secretary of State James Baker, that these are some of the most extraordinary political events since World War II.

Good News: I recently read of a young man in Moscow who said, “Every honest man wants socialism wiped out” Has that become a universal aspiration in the Eastern bloc?

Elliott: I think that’s a fairly widespread opinion of the laypeople as opposed to the members of the elite who have benefited from being on top of the socialist system. For some time ordinary workers have felt profound disillusionment in contrast to the promises of Marxism, and it’s coming out in all sorts of ways. One example was the counter-demonstration through the streets of Moscow parallel to the traditional October Revolution demonstration through Red Square. One plaque read “72 years leading nowhere.” I think that’s a common sentiment among ordinary folks in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Good News: Mark, we’ve been following the events of the recent sweeping change in Eastern Europe, but we haven’t heard much about Estonia. What is happening there?

Elliott: The events in the Caucasus and in the Baltic are just mind-boggling. I think the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians are all beginning to feel they can stretch the limits of what the [Soviet] leash will allow them in ways that would have been unthought of even a couple of years ago. They’re dreaming now, it appears to me, of if not full sovereignty then certainly economic autonomy and local self-rule, with perhaps a patchwork cover provided by Moscow in terms of foreign policy and international relations. It appears that the Baltic states are dreaming of modeling themselves after Finland. Finlandization is a code word for a government that’s basically independent, but which leans over backward in deference to Soviet foreign policy.

Good News: Someone pointed out that it’s significant that no Germans are fleeing East.

Elliott: More than perhaps any other symbol of Marxism in the 20th century, the focus has been on the Berlin Wall. It’s not down yet, but it’s certainly porous now. All these openings make it abundantly clear that there is something lacking. We’ve got a bankrupt system here, and the chinks and the holes in the Berlin Wall are a dramatic, symbolic illustration of that fact.

Good News: What do you sense the mood is among Christians in Eastern bloc countries about staying or leaving?

Elliott: Each East European country has its own set of unique features, and it might be foolhardy to make a generalization. In the midst of all of these exciting developments, we need to remember that our own state department has effectively cut off the valve in terms of evangelicals leaving the Soviet Union by removing the processing from Rome back to Moscow. This has actually hurt the case, at least in the short term, for evangelicals to leave—in particular Pentecostals who historically have had a lot to complain about in terms of treatment at the hands of Soviet authorities. I believe that most Christians in East Germany feel some obligation to stay. For one thing, the church in West Germany has not given pastorates immediately to any clergy leaving because it [the West German church] has felt that it is not healthy to see the church eroded. We had some East German guests on campus a couple of weeks ago and they were adamant in supporting the notion that people stay and be Christian witnesses in whatever the context.

Good News: What do you think have been the major ingredients in bringing about such sweeping change so suddenly?

Elliott: I really believe that serious disillusionment, at least in the Soviet Union, began with Khrushchev’s secret speech back in 1956 when he let it be known to the Central Committee [of the Communist Party]—and then the word filtered out into the population—that serious mistakes were made under Stalin. Then the intelligencia began to disassociate themselves from the ruling party, seeing many of its promises not fulfilled and seeing the state as one big lie. The quest for spiritual integrity among the intelligencia caused them to divorce themselves from the regime. Then Christians from both Baptist and Orthodox camps began to make bolder statements. So I think there was a slow increase in the opinion that “this is not working,” and at first nobody would say it openly, but people would say it among their closest friends and relatives.

More recently, information control is an important contributing factor. For example, in the Soviet cities frequented by tourists there has been a growing disenchantment with the regime. But as we look at what has precipitated all this I think we have to start with Gorbachev. Now why did he do it? I personally don’t think it was any particular humanitarian concern as much as it was a fight for survival—a fight for economic viability and technology. In the past the Soviet Union could perhaps not be as dynamic in its economic evolution. But it could beg, borrow or steal Western technology and adapt it for at least certain sectors of society—missile improvements, military hardware. But with the coming of the computer age, it became impossible for the Soviet Union to keep that gap from widening because the technological revolutions in the West now are happening so rapidly the Soviet Union can’t keep as close to the West technologically by begging, borrowing or stealing. It could be argued that this computer revolution and the associated economic malaise of the Soviet Union forced the leadership’s hand. Gorbachev decided that the economic situation was in such a shamble radical changes would have to be made if the Soviet Union were to compete with the West in any appreciable way.

Good News: Do you anticipate that this revolution will remain bloodless, or do you think there could be some violence in the weeks ahead?

Elliott: Ceausescu [the head of the communist party in Romania] doesn’t want this infection coming into Romania, but it will sooner or later. If there is an uprising against him—not necessarily in a political-revolutionary sense, but in terms of passive demonstrations as in East Germany—I feel that he would not hesitate a second about resorting to force. But in the other countries that have already moved quite a bit—Hungary, Poland, East Germany—I think if we were going to see large-scale violence it would have been before now.

Good News: Mark, your institute is involved in helping Christian ministries understand what’s going on in these Eastern bloc areas. Is there a need right now to help Eastern European churches and ministries in those areas?

Elliott: I think the needs are more profound now than they have been since World War II, simply because there are opportunities that could not have been anticipated and that are unprecedented. People need Bibles and teachers from the West. At the same time, of course, the West receives great lessons of faith from the church in the East. So I think now is the best time ever [for Christians] to be generous with reputable ministries to Eastern Europe because the opportunities are unlimited now as compared to any time in the past.

Good News: One of the things your institute does is to train and provide orientation for those kinds of ministries.

Elliott: More and more I’m getting involved in training and orientation for East European ministries that are sending people to that part of the world. This is in addition to the courses that we offer here at Wheaton, especially in the summer, toward that end. This past year I have had the opportunity to help with orientation of seven East European ministry groups, and I’m hoping that will continue to increase as time goes by.

Good News: What is happening with the Methodist Church in some of these countries, including Estonia, that you have visited a number of times?

Elliott: Well, the Methodist Church in Eastern Europe, in every case, is extremely small. The largest is in East Germany, and it only numbers 25 or 30 thousand people. All the other Methodist churches are in the range of one to three thousand people, and those would be in Poland, Hungary and Estonia. There are also small Methodist communities in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

I would love to see the Methodist Church in the West become more involved in helping those tiny outposts of Methodism in the East. In some cases, they offer dramatic and memorable examples of faith that has gone through the refiner’s fire. I think of the small Methodist church in Estonia, for example, which I know best firsthand. Those Methodists are so deeply committed to their faith, and they have put that commitment on the line with their own lives—careers lost and chances for higher education lost—that we’ve really got some wonderful lessons to draw from their example. They’ve got a lot to offer us, and we might be able to offer them help. For example, theological education is one of their great concerns because they have no seminary. Until recently they’ve had no chance for anyone to study in the West, and there’s a tremendous need there.

Good News: Some groups have been calling you, asking you for advice. I understand you’ve been busy these days.

Elliott: This is by far the busiest time I’ve had in my three and a half years with the institute. It is obviously an exciting time for the people in Eastern Europe. It’s also very exciting for people who have invested a good bit of their lives in trying to help, in trying to understand, in trying to study the church in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It has been somewhat hectic, but at the same time I couldn’t be more delighted because things seem to be improving for these people that I have such affection for.

I’ve been getting quite a number of requests for radio interviews—”Prime-Time America,” the Moody network, and some journalists. I think perhaps the most exciting opportunity has been a visit from a foundation officer. He flew in to talk with me about how best to invest in the new opportunities to strengthen the churches in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and to see the churches expand through evangelism. In a sense all of my spare time since 1982 that I’ve devoted to studying the church and ministering to the church in Eastern Europe seemed to focus on that Actually, I spent more than half a day with this foundation officer sharing something of what I had learned about what’s working, what’s not working, where countries need the most help and which countries can use the help to best effect.

Good News: How might United Methodists help?

Elliott: I’ve been involved with some people from Asbury Seminary in putting together pastors’ workshops for the Methodist ministers of Soviet Estonia. I have a dream of seeing this kind of help extended to other small Methodist communities in Eastern Europe. I’m dreaming right now about taking some key leaders who might dream dreams and see how Methodists in the West might become prayer partners or aides to these small churches. I already know of the possibility of someone going to Estonia for a pastors’ workshop to be able to do something similar in Yugoslavia, perhaps as soon as next summer. This is certainly not guaranteed; there are too many variables and imponderables. But I’m dreaming this way. At one time dreaming of helping the Methodist church of Estonia was no more than that, so I have some confidence that with commitment and an extended vision some more and exciting things can be done in Eastern Europe. It’s interesting to me that each professor from Asbury Seminary who has gone to help with these pastors’ workshops comes back so aglow. That’s really my secret if I have any—to get people involved firsthand in one experience. Then the Holy Spirit does the rest

Good News: One of the things that has to impress a traveler is seeing what it costs believers behind the Iron Curtain to be Christians.

Elliott: Andrus Nocar’s story shows the cost of discipleship. He was a youngster in the capital city of Tallinn, and through some exceptional youth ministry in the Baptist and the Methodist churches there he came to the Lord. This caused political reverberations in Tallinn because his father was the mayor of the capitol city. His father lost his post over this scandalous situation with the son, and the [new] mayor actually became an outspoken believer. Andrus is now pastoring the Methodist church in Tartu, an ancient university city farther south than Tallinn.

Good News: In several succinct suggestions, Mark, what should Christians do to be involved and to help the Church in these countries?

Elliott: A couple of Methodist churches have looked into the possibility of being sister churches with Methodists in the Soviet Union. I would love to see a program like that take off. It’s hard; it takes commitment. Also, I don’t think we can underestimate the power of prayer. Methods are not what we need so much as people willing to pray with conviction.

We need to study the situation there, to read more. As far as the small Methodist communities in Eastern Europe, there’s a lot of room for exposure of our Western Methodist communities to those tiny, struggling churches.

We could visit. It’s encouraging to believers in the East to know that they’re not forgotten. I’ll never forget the Rev. Partimus of the Methodist church in Estonia, after being asked, “What’s the most important thing we can do for you?” saying to a group of American visitors, after some pause, “We need you to pray for us so that we won’t feel like we are forgotten.”

How Wheaton’s Four-Year-Old Institute Has Been

Unmuddling Marxism

The events of recent weeks in Eastern Europe have focused our attention on that part of the world with an intensity perhaps not seen since the construction of the dreaded wall.

But Mark Elliott’s attention has been riveted on Eastern Europe for many years. In fact it’s been a major part of his job since 1986. That’s when the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Marxism was founded at Wheaton College with Elliott, a professor of history, at its helm.

From its inception, the institute has functioned around three specific goals:

• to articulate in a variety of forums a clear understanding of the Marxist challenge to faith;
• to assist ministries and Christians in academia in acting on behalf of Christians in Marxist countries; and
• to facilitate greater communication and collaboration between Christian workers who serve, and academics who study, the church in Communist lands.

To those ends the institute serves as a kind of think tank as well as an educational organization. Elliott acts as a consultant to several groups with an interest in Eastern Europe and as a resource to reporters from both the religious and secular press.

ISCM also

• sponsors summer conferences and seminars on Soviet-bloc history, theology and missions;
• sponsors tours to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe;
• sponsors lectures and symposia on Christian/Marxist themes (Some of the guest lecturers have included such notables as poet and human rights advocate Irina Ratushinskaya, Time magazine foreign policy correspondent David Aikman and Josef Tson of the Romanian Missionary Society.);
• provides instruction for part of a Master’s degree in missions from Wheaton Graduate School;
• produces reference material on Christianity and Marxism. (Elliott has written numerous articles, edited books and contributed to encyclopedias.)

Elliott has to date made five trips to the Soviet Union and has a special interest in Methodist churches, particularly in the Baltic States. He has also organized conferences conducted by American seminary professors that have been helpful to local pastors and vision-stretching for the teachers.

Perhaps the least attention-getting goal of the institute is to build a bridge between Eastern European ministry and scholarship, yet it is highly significant. As an example, Elliott points to the fact that one missionary organization had received 15,000 letters from the Soviet Union in the past year in response to the institute’s radio broadcasts and literature distribution—in contrast with 450 letters in 1987.

“I see those letters as a wonderful, primary source for historians and sociologists of religion,” Elliott says. “It’s a wonderful window on ordinary people’s opinions about questions for faith.” On the other side, Elliott adds, “Studies done by specialists could be a benefit to East European ministries if they only knew about them.”

An understanding of demographics would help such ministries with planning how to be most effective. Given the multitude of ethnic backgrounds represented in the Soviet Union, “Isn’t it a shame that 98 percent of the Bibles being sent into the Soviet Union are in Russian when [Russian-speaking people] amount to 51 percent of the population?”

Elliott sees his role as strategic: “Since I have academic training but am involved in a missionary support enterprise here at the institute I’ve got a foot in both worlds.”

Archive: What E. Stanley Jones might say to the United Methodist Church

by Steve | Nov 24, 1989 | Archive - 1989

Archive: What E. Stanley Jones might say to the United Methodist Church

By James S. Robb

Good News Senior Editor James S. Robb has nearly completed his biography of E. Stanley Jones. This project has taken Robb five years to research and write. From this extensive research he has penned what he believes the illustrious Methodist evangelist and missionary would say to the UM Church. However, the following text is in Robb’s words.

I am grateful beyond words for the privilege of addressing my beloved Methodist Church, especially as I’ve been off on kingdom business for some 16 years now.[1]

Even though my ministry was among all denominations and all religions, the sacred spot in my affections because it was at the altar of a Methodist church in Baltimore that I was introduced to the Master. For this I shall be eternally grateful. I am also thankful my church had the grace to free me from my usual duties as a Methodist missionary in India, the land of my adoption, to work with causes and denominations there and around the world.

As I gaze across the present United Methodist Church my thoughts run in two directions. I see both advance and retreat. Those who have read some of my books know I pled with the church and the whole country for years to give the Negro a chance. What business had America calling herself “land of the free” when an entire race within her borders was at best only semi-free? But I now find that justice has at last been done, at least partially. Remember, a wise radicalism is sometimes the truest conservatism.

Another cause for which I struggled for half a century was a greater social consciousness among America’s church people. I constantly spoke against the tendency to make churches into fortresses of piety which lock out the hurts of a needy world. A phrase I often repeated is that a church without a social conscience is like a soul without a body. So I am filled with gratitude that the Methodist people have made feeding the hungry and clothing the naked a stronger priority. Even more, I am thrilled that an emphasis on changing the structures which oppress man has been added. And of course the continued Methodist commitment to eradicating the evil of war can only nourish the soul of the church.[2]

But even with these advances I must conclude that all is not well with the modern Methodist Church. I see grave dangers. I’m told that much of the distress over the direction of Methodism has concerned a membership loss. Certainly a drain of personnel is a legitimate worry, since each loss represents a soul.

Yet the real tragedy involves mission, not membership. On earth I was called many things—minister, missionary, states man. But it was in my capacity as evangelist that I found my greatest fulfillment I traveled on every continent, preaching some 60,000 sermons.[3] My audiences and settings varied enormously. However, my message was always a variation on one theme— “Jesus is Lord.”

More than any other Methodist minister of my day I worked with persons of other religions. We sat together as brothers and rose up as friends. But I never lost sight of the fact that man’s chief need is conversion—moral, social and spiritual. I even tried to convert famous non-Christians such as the Mahatma Gandhi and the Emperor Hirohito. You see, religions are man’s search for God, whereas Christianity is God searching for Man. It’s the Word become flesh. All that we know of God comes from Jesus. He is and always must be our focus.

Thus, I am amazed to learn that the emphasis upon conversion has nearly evaporated. It seems to have been replaced by emphases such as social work and education. As Jesus said when on earth, “You should have done these things without Luke 11:42, Phillips). There is much we can do and should do once we are converted, but until we are converted we can do but little.

I understand some of these changes have come as a result of certain theological shifts in the area of biblical interpretation. In my lifetime I never thought we should make the Bible an idol. Yet to water down Scripture in such a way that Jesus is no longer God strikes me as nothing short of treason from those who profess to be His followers.

Then there are others who claim one can be both a Christian and sexually immoral. This line found a following at the end of my ministry. I felt sure it would not have lasted this long, but I find it has yet to play itself out. The very notion rings hollow. The Christian way is the natural way, and at bottom immorality is profoundly unnatural. A moral universe will never stand for it.

And to suggest, as a number of modern Methodists have, that personal conversion is not a real necessity flies in the face of all we know about human nature. There is only one way to transform the morals and character and spiritual basis of Man, and that is through conversion brought about by faith in Christ

Half a century ago I often said that only one-third of church members were truly converted. This was the greatest need of the Church in my day. Tragically, I believe the need is even greater now.

Methodism has been one of the great movements in the world for more than two centuries. We have taken the Gospel to the ends of the earth, blessing the world. I plead with you not to allow the spiritual boiler that has driven this movement to grow cold, for to do so will produce more than a dropping membership. It will result in a battle for your collective life.

James S. Robb is the senior editor of Good News and editor-in-chief of Bristol Books.

[1] Dr. Jones refers to his death in January 1973 at the age of 89.

[2] A lifelong pacifist, Dr. Jones opposed even such popular wars as World War II.

[3] Dr. Jones preached from three to five times each day for some 60 years. This feat makes him the all-time champion sermon-giver, leaving John Wesley far behind.

Archive: Fatal Attraction

by Steve | Nov 23, 1989 | Archive - 1989

Archive: Fatal Attraction

The Seductive Promises of Socialism Have Subverted Our Concern for the Poor

Part One

by Clark H. Pinnock

We live in an era of the unprecedented expansion of the Christian movement throughout the world. Ours is a hopeful time of great opportunity for discipling the nations and making a significant impact upon cultures around the world, particularly in the direction of relief and development.

Disagreement accompanies that opportunity, though. Christians disagree on how believers should pursue the task of helping the poor (aside from acts of generous charity, on which we generally do not disagree). Ideology is dividing Christians from one another. In our search for answers to the problem of poverty some look to socialism and its constellation of ideas, while others have different recommendations. It would be pleasant to leave ideology aside and concentrate entirely upon “kingdom” issues, but that, sadly, is not possible. An ideology is basically a set of ideas which attempts to explain the world and suggests ways to change it for the better; an ideology can also trap and seduce us by blinding the mind and preventing it from seeing reality.[1]

To be blunt, I am troubled at the way in which our proper Christian concern for the poor has been unwisely routed along the tracks of collectivist economics. That long detour seriously jeopardizes the possibility of doing effective good and threatens to short-circuit well-meaning Christian intentions. If we are serious about “God’s preferential option for the poor” (to use the jargon of liberation theology), then it is neither wise nor prudent to side with an ideology which, as I will argue, has such a bad record in regard to reducing the misery of poor people.

A Sad Case of Ideological Entrapment

My argument is that our frequent lack of good judgment about poverty questions is rooted in an entrapment. Whenever the issue of ideological entrapment is raised some believers cite the Nazi “Christians” (or perhaps, to some, even the religious right in the United States) as examples of a bad tendency. But there is a very serious case of entrapment which few are willing to name: the tendency of a significant number of church leaders in the 20th century to tie the cause of God’s kingdom to the cause of communism or socialism in some milder form.

This entangling alliance can be compared without much exaggeration to the alignment in Germany of the kingdom of God with the Nazi ideology.[2] What makes the comparison appropriate is the fact that the Marxist movement is not just a failure as a self-proclaimed revolutionary force in improving the lot of the poor, but it is also a unique historical evil even in the 20th century which has witnessed many evils on a massive scale.

Marxism has led to the starvation and murder of millions of victims on the very borders of the West, while many of our political and intellectual leaders and even some church leaders have looked the other way and prattled on about the bright new hope of socialism. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and many others have documented the torture and oppression carried out by socialist dictators against their own unfortunate peoples. Between fascism and communism there seems to be no practical difference.[3]

There is a danger of getting sidetracked into telling the dismal story of the romance of certain churchmen with Marxism and the left in general; what we really need to focus on is the foolish act of endorsing collectivist economic practice which has harmed the poor so much. We have to see that socialism is the great political myth of the 20th century and that its appeal is precisely mythical and not empirical. No one could be attracted to socialism on empirical grounds because evidence of its successes does not exist. The attraction is the seductive appeal which myth has for the human imagination.[4]

Briefly, then, let’s itemize some of the pieces of evidence which reveal ideological entrapment. Before 1960 support for Marxism was visible in what Paul Hollander calls political tourism.[5] Hewlett Johnson (the pathetic and amusing Red Dean of Canterbury), along with many intellectuals such as Bernard Shaw, Arthur Koestler and Malcolm Muggeridge, traveled to the Soviet Union in the 30s, at the very time Stalin was consolidating his total power and beginning to liquidate millions under his iron rule. They came back to the West singing the praises of the great socialist revolution in Russia. Their desire to believe the seductive promises of the revolutionary myth robbed them of practically every vestige of critical reason.[6]

Since 1960 the situation has deteriorated further. Christians on the left no longer praise Stalin, but some continue to applaud the ideology on which he based his murderous power. So-called liberation theologians and church leaders proclaim an alliance between Christians and Marxists and see socialism as the way to move beyond class-based society.[7] Miranda, admittedly more radical than most, goes so far as to equate communism and Christianity.[8]

True, the various liberationist writers usually take pains to say they find fault with some dimensions of Marxism, but their criticisms are never so radical as to prevent them from supporting Marxist revolutions. In their view no matter what is wrong with socialism, capitalism is worse. In line with this thinking the World Council of Churches has assisted Marxist guerillas in Africa under the guise of combating racism. In a brilliant display of double standards, these same churchmen are silent about human rights violations in Cuba, Ethiopia and Angola while complaining bitterly about infractions in South Africa and El Salvador. Political pilgrims are currently flocking to Nicaragua to see the latest revolution firsthand.[9]

Some Christians support a very ugly reality in a less direct way. The sainted “peace movement,” for example, is supported by many who have good intentions but little prudence. The peace movement’s greatest success so far was to compel a U.S. retreat from Vietnam and help to make possible the genocide in Cambodia and the wretched oppression of Communist Vietnam from which thousands continue to try to flee in flimsy boats upon dangerous seas. Yet some Christians do not seem to recognize how their noble-sounding efforts serve the cause of Marxist oppression. It feels so good to be for “peace” that they do not want to spoil it by facing facts.

More folly is evident when many churchmen enthusiastically endorse Lenin’s discredited theory that poverty in the two-thirds world was somehow caused by the prosperity of the West Lenin concocted that dependency theory to explain why Marx’s own predictions about capitalism had failed so badly and to account for the rising standard of living on the part of the proletariat in the West Lenin’s gambit obviously has great appeal for the leaders of impoverished states looking for someone to blame for their own deficiencies or bad decisions, but its appeal for Western churchmen can only be explained in terms of seduction by Marxist myth.[10]

There is even a distinct possibility that support from churchmen, coming at a time when Marxism has lost most of its legitimacy and mythical appeal (owing to its brutality and colossal failures), will actually prolong the life of communist empires. What a supreme irony it would be if Christians were to give Marxism the religious legitimacy which it could never have generated for itself as a secular doctrine!

The Utopian Fallacy

The alignment of some Christians with Marxism can be explained by invoking the category of the utopian myth. Human hope for salvation in history—the millennial longing for a world purified of evil—is immense. Christianity provides a solution, but those who want change according to their timetables, not God’s, sweep aside even developed critical judgment in their rush to force open the gates of Eden. In this respect socialism possesses a clear “advantage” over capitalism. Socialism is one of the most powerful myths of the modem era, and the fact that it is nowhere realized only adds to its appeal.

It is vital to understand that a fugitive vision of this sort forever tantalizes those who long for it. Capitalism may produce better results in terms of productivity. It may produce a better car at a cheaper price. Capitalism, however, cannot compete with socialism in the area of romantic appeal.[11] This quality of romance has enabled Marxists to disregard the empirical data and persist in policies long after they have been seen to be ruinous.

Given our theology, Christians may be understandably vulnerable to ideological seduction from the utopian left. For one thing, God’s Spirit makes us sensitive to our own sins and failings, and this can alienate us from our own admittedly imperfect society. Indeed some of us feel so keenly the shortcomings of Western culture that we are prone to accept even false charges hurled against it and idealize societies just out of view, especially if they make a claim to social justice as Marxist regimes always do.

Paradoxically, it is easy for us to become estranged from our own society at the very moment millions are desperate to emigrate to it Somehow that socialist utopia just over the horizon must be a better place, we think, whether it be Tanzania, South Yemen or Albania. Just listen to the Christian terminology socialists use about equality and brotherhood!

But a deeper cause of our willing seduction lies in the millennial dimension of the Gospel message itself. Do we not pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10)? Do we not long to see Christ transform the nations and create a just and peaceful society? Of course we do, and this very fact exposes us to hucksters peddling the miracle ideology guaranteed to deliver the millennium for us.

How easy it is to be indifferent about practicalities in the realm of hope and religion; how easy to want to treat all people as if they were saints—not sinners; how easy to relish a foolish course of action in the name of a greater faith! Whatever moral grandeur can be found in the rhetoric of Marx is more than destroyed in the deadly havoc which has resulted from the implementation of his theories.

Part of today’s problem also lies in the secularization of the faith of certain of the theologians themselves. I would not want to suggest that all left-leaning Christians suffer from a loss of faith. But it is clear that political theology can easily be a substitute for faith rather than an expression of it. Owing to a crisis of faith in the message of the Bible, religious liberals during the past two centuries have sought to perform various kinds of salvage operations in order to have something left over once the old faith disappeared.[12]

Furthermore, intellectuals are unlike ordinary people in that they tend to feed upon ideas rather than realities. Many like nothing better than the grand theory which seems to tie everything together in a perfect mental system. Therefore, many gravitate to utopian schemes like Marx’s, and it seldom crosses their minds to ask the prosaic question of why the masses prosper under market economies and suffer deprivation under centrally planned systems.

The specter of Marxism as a failed myth comes clearly to expression in the new English edition of the work of Ernst Bloch. His work (some 1500 pages in English translation) is perhaps the most extravagant defense of Marxism ever mounted. Here we see a man whose mind was so obsessed by the hope for paradise that he refused to look reality in the face. Looking forward to the Novum, to the kingdom of God without God, he was able to persuade himself that this glorious future had begun to take shape in the Soviet system. From the purges, the gulags and the forced collectivization, Bloch has evidently learned nothing. The only fascism he can see is in the United States. Here we find a man so obsessed by utopia that he can condone mass murder in its name.[13]

In the end, the legacy of Marx is to have bequeathed a myth to the world so strong that it can withstand a thousand refutations. Brutality and folly notwithstanding, the vision is likely to endure because of its seductive power, particularly if Christians are taken in by it.

This article is excerpted from Freedom, Justice and Hope: Toward a Strategy for the Poor and the Oppressed, Marvin Olaslcy, editor; chapter 4, “The Pursuit of Utopia” by Clark H. Pinnock. Used by permission of Good New, Publishers/ Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 60154.

Dr. Clark H. Pinnock is professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, and the author of Reason Enough, Set Forth Your Case and other books. This article was excerpted from Freedom, Justice, and Hope, edited by Marvin Olasky, 1988. Used by permission of Good News Publishers/Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 60154.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Gregory Bawn discusses ideology in broader terms in his book Religion and Alienation, A Theological Reading of Sociology (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), for example on pp. 99-111.

[2] Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler (New Haven: Yale, 1985).Also Richard J. Neuhaus, “The Obligations and Limits of Political Commitment,” This World, August 1986, pp. 55-69.

[3] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the Western World (London: BBC, 1986) is one of his many books. See also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1986), and Paul Johnson, Modern Times, the World from the Twenties to the Eighties (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983).

[4] Sociologist Peter L. Berger has best pointed this out: The Capitalist Revolution, chap. 9.

[5] Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims, Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba 1928-1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

[6] Lloyd Billingsley tells this story in The Generation That Knew Not Josef: a Critique of Marxism and the Religious Left (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1985).

[7] See John Eagleson, ed., Christians and Socialism (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1975), pp. 161, 163, 168, 169. The larger picture is painted by Andrew Kirk, Liberation Theology: an Evangelical View from the Third World (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979) and by Deane W. Ferm, Third World Liberation Theologies: an Introductory Survey (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986).

[8] J.P. Miranda, Communism in the Bible (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1982).

[9] Blase Bonpane calls on his readers to join in the armed struggle as Christmas in a charming book entitled Guerrillas for Peace, Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution (Boston: South End Press, 1985). For more information on the  leftist involvements of these churchmen, see Ernest W. Lefever, Amsterdam to Nairobi, the World Council of Churches and the Third World (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1979); Paul Seabury, “Trendier Than Thou, the Episcopal Church and the Secular World,” Harper’s Magazine, October and December 1978; and Richard J. Neuhaus, ‘The World Council of Churches and Radical Chic,” Worldview Vol. 20 (1977), pp. 14-22.

[10] Thomas Sowell, Marxism, Philosophy and Economics (New York: William Morrow, 1985), pp. 213-215; P. T. Bauer, “Western Guilt and Third World Poverty,” in Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusions (Boston: Harvard University Press 1981).

[11]Peter Berger, The Capitalist Revolution, p. 208ff. He Writes, “Socialism is one of the most powerful myths of the modern era; to the extent that socialism retains this mythic quality, it cannot be disconfirmed by empirical evidence in the minds of its adherents” (p. 215).

[12] This is the thesis of Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (New York: Macmillan, 1966).

[13] Ernest Bloch, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985). Let us not forget that Bloch was the inspiration for Moltmann’s Theology of Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).