Understanding the dangers of behavioural science and manipulative psychology

The ulterior motive in the school strikes

A picture of what is to come under militant atheism

Celebrating 30 years since ‘imprisoned’ Jews were freed to return to Israel

But its believers have found true freedom

Bearing in mind the brutality meted out against protesters as Hong Kong slips inexorably towards China’s orbit of control, we are reminded by author Kai Strittmatter of the tendency for totalitarian regimes to rewrite history.

“In China, remembering events the Chinese Communist Party chooses to erase from history is a subversive act and thus forbidden and punished,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.¹

For example, reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 30 years ago has been gradually eradicated and many under-30s have no idea that it ever took place. “The state’s troops murdered the protesters; the state’s writers murder the truth.”

Erasing the Past

Sound familiar? Yes, such erasure of the past is proceeding apace all over the globe – even in our country, but especially in the Middle East, where Islamist terror groups are hell-bent on turning truth upside-down in order to justify their murderous behaviour.

They even go to the extent of denying that the Holocaust ever took place, and refuting ancient Jewish links to the Holy Land despite the weight of evidence, backed by libraries of documents and multiple acres of archaeological digs.

True, the land was indeed held by the Muslim Turks for 400 years until Britain’s General Allenby effectively won it back for God’s ancient people. But even Jordanian academic Rami Dabbas, in saying that Arabs have everything to gain from ‘normalisation’ with Israel, acknowledges: “The Arabs are the original occupiers, and have no right to deny the return of the Jewish nation.”²

“It is time to solve this conflict, and that begins with us, the Arabs, accepting the Jewish people’s true historical connection to this land. We have everything to gain from so doing.”

Totalitarian regimes are hell-bent on turning truth upside-down in order to justify their murderous behaviour.

Socially Harmonised Subjects

Kai Strittmatter, meanwhile, in his essay, goes on to mention China’s “socially harmonised and politically compliant subjects” whose every move is being increasingly watched by ‘Big Brother’ on an apocalyptic scale, with a staggering 600 million CCTV cameras.

That’s almost one for every two people in a vast country now exporting its surveillance and artificial intelligence technology all over the world in an apparent attempt to expand its global influence.

But before we congratulate ourselves for not succumbing to this extreme form of socialism, consider how a largely compliant British society has been so quickly and easily mesmerised into a politically-correct harmonisation of ideas, ethics and morality – the ‘normality’ of same-sex ‘marriage’ and even the encouragement of transgenderism in primary schools, that effectively amounts to state child abuse.

And who among us dares to question this diabolical form of social engineering, otherwise known as ‘cultural Marxism’? We have been trained like dogs to ‘sit’ and ‘walk’ at the command of our progressive masters. Even pulling at the leash is forbidden, and we are condemned as unloving bigots if we should so much as suggest that there is another, better way.

We Christians are too easily cowed into a corner, opting for reflective navel-gazing or gathering in our holy huddles while the world outside recklessly careers towards the cliff. But there is another side to China, for the same reason that there is another side to England.

Out of the Ashes

With the World Cup cricket tournament currently being hosted here, Hatikvah Films have been promoting CTA’s docudrama Out of the Ashes – the hugely inspiring story of how one of England’s greatest cricketers heard the call of God to China.

Twice achieving the ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a county cricket season (in just 20 and 25 matches respectively), CT Studd was a leading member of the England team that first brought the Ashes3 back from Australia in 1883.

But his missionary endeavours reached much wider fields. As part of the so-called Cambridge Seven, Studd endured years of extreme hardship and deprivation to bring the Gospel to the Chinese people. After giving away his vast fortune to Christian causes, he also went on to serve God in India and Africa, where he founded the World Evangelisation Crusade in 1913.

But it was the China Inland Mission, founded by Barnsley-born Hudson Taylor, that first stirred his heart. And it is believed that, due largely to their efforts, there are more Christians in China today than there are people in Britain. In fact, estimates reach as high as 100 million, but it is difficult to quantify, partly due to the severe persecution that has forced many believers to practise ‘under the radar’ while others have paid with their lives.

We Christians are too easily cowed into a corner.

These brave souls may have been ‘chained’ by Communism (or even slain by the Dragon symbolic of China), but they have been truly set free by Jesus, who said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31f).

That’s the potential power of the Gospel, and we praise God for men like Taylor and Studd who gave their lives so sacrificially for the Chinese people.

Teeming Millions

So when you think or hear of China again, picture the teeming millions of believers being persecuted for their faith. Pray that they will stand, as this cricketing hero of old stood the test in a fiery trial.

Studd left the comfort zone of fame, fortune and familiarity for foreign fields, for he was convinced that “if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”

Reflecting further on this, he said: “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” And in a poem he penned, he posed the ultimate challenge: “Only one life, ’twil soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

References

1 Daily Mail, 15 June 2019. Kai Strittmatter is author of We Have Been Harmonised: Life in China’s surveillance state, Old Street Publishing, £9.99.

2 Israel Today, May 2019.

3 Literally, an urn with the burnt-out remains of a bail, used to keep the wickets in place. The contest came to be known as the Ashes in response to England’s loss to Australia at the Oval in 1882, when a satirical obituary declared that English cricket had died and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”.

Charles Gardner reviews ‘Dangerous Hero’ by Tom Bower (William Collins, 2019).

If you want to know what a godless society looks like, just read this book.

I spent the best part of a fortnight thoroughly absorbed in Tom Bower’s intriguing, and very readable, biography of Jeremy Corbyn.

It wasn’t, however, always a pleasant experience - in view of its portrayal of a man who comes across as an inveterate liar with little fondness for people. But I trust that the book – which also serves as an excellent political history of Britain’s modern era – will prove an antidote to other aspiring Marxists, who hopefully will be sickened by the vitriol, abuse and hatred liberally dished out in the name of hard-left politics.

Animal Farm?

I think I can safely say that I was forever inoculated against Communism through reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm at school. It’s a pity that the young Corbyn apparently never read the collection of Orwell essays his mother gave him as a 16^th birthday present.

Respected biographer Tom Bower has performed a great service by further exposing the disgraceful anti-Semitism that has been allowed to spread through the Labour Party like gangrene, and may well prove its ultimate undoing.

The book also serves as an excellent political history of Britain’s modern era.

All who have stood against the Jews over several millennia have eventually come to a sticky end, though tragically not before inflicting terrible pain, heartache and humiliation.

That Corbyn keeps bouncing back from a series of often self-inflicted setbacks – whether through anti-Semitism or sheer incompetence – is a shocking indictment, not only of the Labour Party, but of the British electorate as a whole.

Need for Prayer

The author indicates that he was reluctant to tackle this project, but felt it necessary to discover the truth about a would-be Prime Minister who has been cagey about his past, and who apparently hates talking to journalists.

The one thing that became clearer to me than anything else on reading this book is that Jeremy Corbyn needs an encounter with Jesus Christ. Please pray that he has one – for his sake, and also because the alternative might well lead to Britain becoming the next totalitarian state.

‘Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s ruthless plot for power’ (400pp hardcover, paperback) retails for £20. Available widely in bookshops and online, including on Amazon. Also available as an e-book and an audio-book.

Tom Bower is a British investigative journalist and biographer who has also written on such as Prince Charles, Tony Blair and Richard Branson.

How the left-wing turned the Jew from hero to villain

How can a self-proclaimed anti-racist and life-long supporter of the underdog find himself encouraging rampant anti-Semitism within his own Party, to the point that it is now splintering apart? Worse, how can he be found guilty of the same behaviour?

Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem is poorly understood by most, but it is key to explaining Labour’s current crisis. To understand it properly, we have to go back in time.¹

The Early Years

19^th Century socialism, trade unionism and the Methodist revivals combined to give the British Labour movement quite a different flavour to the revolutionary socialism of continental Europe. Christian Socialists such as Keir Hardie dominated the Labour Party’s leadership in its infancy at the turn of the 20^th Century, promoting the interests of the working class.

Indeed, it was Labour Party principles that undergirded the development of the British welfare state, with Labour campaigns for better working conditions and social reforms such as free education, free medical treatment and aid for society’s most vulnerable. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these policies from a biblical perspective, Labour was marked undeniably in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

Labour was marked in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

In this spirit, Labour gladly took up the Zionist baton from Lloyd George’s Liberals. The romantic idealism of the Zionist dream chimed strongly with classic Labour ideals: a down-trodden, persecuted people uniting in common cause of collaborative self-determination, pursuing lives of hard manual labour and bearing one another up through a populist culture of co-operation, shared ownership and mutual benefit, manifested most obviously in the kibbutz system.

Labour leader Arthur Henderson published his own version of the Balfour Declaration three months before the real thing was published under Lloyd George in 1917. Labour endorsed Zionism through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, opposing the Conservative Government’s White Paper limiting Jewish re-immigration and re-iterating strong support for Jewish settlers during and after the war years. Despite some back-tracking from Clement Attlee’s administration, this general support for Zionism continued well into the 1950s and was extended beyond this by philo-Semitic Labour PM Harold Wilson.

Promises of Freedom

It was during the 1960s, however, that the broader political context began to change dramatically, as a new age of rebellion and revolution swept in. As prosperity boomed, empires disintegrated and technology connected up the world, the old class-based politics was replaced by identity politics and a new pre-occupation with the global. Across the West there was a cultural shift as an entire generation rebelled against all forms of authority, choosing instead to experiment – politically, sexually, spiritually.

Under the banner of ‘liberation’ from the old order, a whole host of new movements and intellectual theories gathered, including but not limited to:

• The sexual liberation movement
  
• The anti-capitalist movement
  
• The anti-war movement
  
• The radical green movement
  
• Moral/cultural relativism (the idea that there are no absolute rights or wrongs)
  
• Post-structuralism (the idea that it is impossible to understand the world through universally applicable concepts or ‘grand meta-narratives’)
  
• Third World ‘liberation’ movements
  
• Post-colonial theories (the corresponding academic movement re-narrating the West’s history of colonialism as an unadulterated evil)
  

What unites all of these profoundly influential movements is their pursuit of freedom – by any means necessary - from the perceived ‘oppression’ of the old order of Western culture, grounded as it was in Judeo-Christian beliefs and principles.^2,3

This has manifested most notably through a revival of atheistic Marxism, which turns Judeo-Christian principles on their head and which has been mobilised systematically – and often intentionally - to undermine and overturn them. But Marxism, as we well know, carries within it an illiberal spirit of subjugation and control – not the ‘freedom’ it promises, but tyranny.

While the Cold War seemingly dealt a death blow to communism, the Marxist concept of life as a power struggle between oppressed and oppressor, resolvable only through radical system-change and the forced imposition of a new order, was being re-fashioned in the halls of the Western intelligentsia as a socio-cultural (cf. economic) theory. This eventually became the new guiding ideology for most Western educators, politicians and journalists – and it remains so today.

It was, therefore, the 1960s, 70s and 80s and the gradual rise to prominence of ‘cultural Marxism’ under the guise of social ‘progressivism’, that gave us victim culture and identity politics, the doctrine of multi-culturalism, political correctness and the policing of speech and thought, and the extension of coercive state power into every sphere of life, for ‘the greater good’ of enforced equality.

This era saw the re-organising of Western political and legal systems around a new morality marked by permissiveness, boundary-pushing and a lack of respect for the sanctity of human life. It also saw the entry of Jeremy Corbyn into left-wing activism and politics.

The Marxist concept of power struggle was re-fashioned as a socio-cultural theory which eventually became the new guiding ideology for Western educators, politicians and journalists.

Zionism Inverted

Under this new system, Zionism was inverted: it was no longer a socialist dream for the pursuit of national self-determination by an oppressed people fleeing Western persecution (and with every historical and legal right to return to their homeland), but an oppressive outpost of Western colonialism, with the real victims being the Palestinians. Followed through, this thinking has entrenched on the left the belief that the Israeli state is a racist, colonialist, fascist endeavour that has no right to exist.

White Western Jewish immigrants enjoying increasing economic and military success could not (even despite the Holocaust) possibly attain to the level of powerlessness and victimhood claimed for darker-skinned, Muslim Arabs. The former, as oppressive occupiers, could do no right. The latter, as oppressed victims, could do no wrong.

And this is the nub of the problem: because of its a priori ideology, left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of assumed power relationships that dictate who is right and who is wrong, who is righteous and who is evil, before the evidence is even considered. Reality is then contorted to fit this picture.

Appeal to Labour

That the British Labour Party bought into this utterly inverted worldview shouldn’t be entirely surprising. After all, cultural Marxism mobilises emotive, virtuous-sounding concepts that seemingly run close to traditional Labour values, such as the plight of the oppressed and justice for the most vulnerable.

However, concepts of oppression, vulnerability, freedom and equality here are twisted and inverted to serve a very different ideology than the one which motivated Keir Hardie – one which strips God, his boundaries and ethics, from the picture entirely.

And it is this secular humanist, ‘progressive’ version of social justice (really the French Revolution in new clothes), to which Jeremy Corbyn subscribes more ardently and consistently than most of his colleagues.

From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism

Palestinian flags at the 2018 Labour Party Conference. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images.

And so we arrive at today’s situation, where the current Labour leader’s antics place fourth on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s ‘Top Ten Global Anti-Semitic Incidents’ of 2018. Corbyn makes common cause with Islamist terrorists who overtly seek Jewish genocide while refusing to meet with Israelis, defends and celebrates terror attacks on Israeli Jews and allows anti-Semitic chants to be sung at the Labour Party Conference.

He fails to defend Jewish MPs in his own party as they are singled out for torrents of verbal abuse and death threats, and targeted internally for unseating. He also refuses to recognise that the Party even has an anti-Semitism problem (let alone apologise for it), while his supporters dismiss the allegations as a vicious smear.

Rife within Momentum are Holocaust denials and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that seem more at home on the far-right (indeed, the far-left is blind to them for this very reason). References to ‘Zio-Nazis’ or to ‘apartheid’ Israel degenerate quickly into age-old anti-Semitic tropes, from blood-sucking, baby-killing Jews to Jews as evil masterminds manipulating the world. Israel is singled out uniquely and disproportionately for distorted, ideologically-motivated criticism.

Fuller accounts of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem can be found easily elsewhere. Suffice to say that, in the span of a generation, the Labour Party has completely inverted its position on Israel, and that this has triggered a drastic rise in anti-Semitic attitudes. The inevitability of this slide into anti-Semitism can be argued from both a biblical/spiritual and a philosophical perspective (though many would undoubtedly disagree).

Left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of power relationships that dictate who is righteous and who is evil before the evidence is even considered.

Conclusions

With the whole of the 20^th Century in view, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn is not a freak accident, but an extreme, outlying example of a general trend: the shift of British politics towards the extreme secular left, in rebellion against our former commitment to biblical ethics and ideals. In the words of Melanie Phillips, “Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate – he’s the result”.⁴

The roots of this issue lie in our cutting ourselves loose from our spiritual and ethical moorings in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, a move being described by some as cultural suicide. It is no coincidence that this has brought with it a volte-face regarding Israel and, from there, the Jewish people.

From a biblical perspective, the situation is quite simple. An embrace of God’s word produces not only a love of God’s ethics, but also a respect for all that he has marked as his own – whether land or people. Rejection of his word induces a hatred of all who are connected to it - all who bear his name.

This hatred, in turn, results in a cursing (Gen 12:3) which the Labour Party – despite its honourable beginnings – may even now be experiencing, and from which it may never recover.

Notes

1 What follows is a necessarily potted history. For a lengthier comment on this whole topic, I recommend ‘The Left’s Jewish Problem’ by Dave Rich (2016, Biteback Publishing). Also 'It backed Israel before Balfour: Corbyn stance is stark shift from early Labour' by Robert Philpot for The Times of Israel, 17 April 2018.

2 These movements gained a lot of momentum by piggy-backing on worthier causes, such as the civil rights movement in the USA and the anti-apartheid movement for South Africa (though both of these also had their more violent, revolutionary elements).

3 Read more about this in Melanie Phillips’ book ‘The World Turned Upside-Down’. That these movements cohere around a reaction against the Judeo-Christian West means they find common cause with a variety of other movements with the same agenda (e.g. radical Islam).

4 Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate, he’s the result. Melanie Phillips, 21 October 2018.

Why are we often so different?

In response to Linda Louis-vanReed’s recent article ‘The War on Trump’, Jock Stein muses on the contrasts between American and British attitudes to life and liberty.

In earlier life I had an American colleague who, domiciled in Scotland, heroically adopted three children from Devon. The oldest had an inherited genetic condition and suffered from depression as an adult. Last year, living on his own in California, he took his own life – but not before seeking help from three hospitals who all refused him admission because he had an insurance card called ‘Obama Care’.

The hospitals all refused to use the Obama Care card because they had been purchased by large hospital conglomerates, who wished to pursue more expensive insurance options.

American Christians have a record second to none in dedicated missionary and humanitarian engagement. But it has always puzzled me why their attitudes to healthcare provision, as well as to other political issues, are often so different from ours in Britain. If it were a matter of Christians thinking differently from others, I would expect and understand that – but my impression is that these attitudes represent the majority of Christians as well as Americans in general.

This article is an attempt to explain why this may be the case; it draws upon conversations with Americans as well as past reading, but I am open to correction.

1 Separation of Church and State

The Declaration of Independence is premised on belief in God. But because the American colonies saw church affiliation as directed by the attitude of the reigning monarch (rather than based on theological principles) they decided to allow for a separation of Church and State, hoping that this would make differences between denominations less problematic. Indeed, America was big enough to allow what missionaries called a ‘principle of comity’, with some States being mainly Presbyterian, others Baptist and so on.

Those who signed the Declaration never intended this separation to rule God out of public life. They just wanted to avoid the ‘establishment’ model being replicated in America, so that Christians (especially Non-conformists) would have a freedom they had not enjoyed in Britain. This has resulted in thousands of denominations freely proliferating.

On the one hand, this has allowed a freedom of theological inquiry which is non-aligned to political identity. On the other hand, it has inevitably led to the emergence of ‘tribal’ political identities, with politicians courting ‘the Christian vote’, just as Britain has had ‘the Non-conformist vote’ and ‘the Catholic vote’.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence never intended the separation of church from state to rule God out of public life.

Since the Constitution does not actually name God, in the 20^th Century atheists began to argue more strongly not just to keep church out of state business, but to keep God and the Bible out of it too. Abortion and religious education in schools became crunch issues. While much the same kind of situation has now been reached in Britain by a different route, nevertheless here there is not the same stark gap between faith and public life that exists in the USA.

For example, take the polarisation between Christianity and science. In the USA, believing scientists such as Francis Collins (who cracked the human genome) have to tread very carefully around this issue when they write (as Collins does in his latest book The Language of God, which includes his testimony), despite the fact that 70% of US scientists across the full spectrum of disciplines identify as being ‘people of faith’ (Christian or otherwise). In the UK, there has been a far greater historic acceptance of faith and science rubbing along together.

This modern American attitude to separation – keep faith out of public life – seems to have embraced aspects of service also, feeding the arguments (outlined below) that welfare and healthcare are private matters - the responsibilities of individuals and churches, rather than the state.

2 The Formation of American Identity

The century leading up to the First World War did a lot to found American values. It was a Cowboys-and-Indians century in which Americans drove the frontier westward, with a belief (parallel to the spirit of British Empire) that the United States had a destiny to subdue the entire continent in the name of God.

A nation of self-made people was in the process of forming its own identity, especially after the Civil War, which left the country shaken and wounded. During this century, the steel magnate and self-made multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie wrote a book called The Gospel of Wealth. In it, he argued that economic inequalities then emerging in American society should be tackled by the wealthy upper class, who should put their hard-earned millions to good use, engaging in thoughtful, responsible philanthropy.

A sense of individual responsibility came to characterise white American society and its Christianity.

This sense of individual responsibility came to characterise white American society and its Christianity, while it was black people who began to identify the Gospel communally – i.e. with a people and a race.¹ This contrast between individual and communal aspects of Christianity is expanded later.

Both Britain and the US have struggled to work through their race issues, but in Britain the work of those like ‘the Clapham Sect’ extended far beyond slavery into other social issues, and eventually Christians and non-Christians formed a consensus to support ‘the welfare state’ after the Second World War, which included the provision of social care. The same did not happen in USA.²

3 Individual and Social Provision of Care

The Old Testament teaches that God’s justice and care for the poor does require some social provision, not just individual charity (e.g. Lev 25). Similarly, the New Testament teaches that equity cannot be left simply to the goodwill of individuals (e.g. 2 Cor 8:13-14). This has often been reflected in the teaching of Christian leaders – for example, Calvin’s concern for his neighbour led him to support low interest rates and a city-sponsored job creation programme.

The theological underpinning of this comes from the biblical idea that each individual human being is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26) and is in need of rescue from sin through the coming of Christ and his sacrifice (John 1: 14, 29). But we also see (e.g. in Hebrews 2:5-10) a social or corporate focus – Jesus taking on humankind as a whole and dying, once for all, on the cross.

That is why the early Church Fathers described the incarnation as having both an individual side - the Lord coming to earth as a specific individual (enhypostasia in Greek) – and a corporate side - the Son identifying with humanity by taking on human nature (anhypostasia). And it is why the illustration of the Church as the Body of Christ – one body with many parts – is so powerful.

In other words, both the social and the individual matter when it comes to salvation, and this affects how we see the Gospel impacting society. My impression is that Christians in Europe, perhaps more influenced by Calvin, have taken on both these aspects of our salvation, the corporate aspect which lends itself to socialism, and the individual aspect, favourable to capitalism. This has led (all told) to a centrist economic position incorporating aspects of both in the provision of social welfare, but without the exclusion of charity.

Both the communal and the individual matter when it comes to salvation – and this affects how we see the Gospel impacting society.

In the US, it is the individual emphasis which has largely prevailed, while socialism has often been identified with communism (seen as the great rival of the American way of life, especially since the McCarthy era), and so rejected.³

In Britain the founder of the Labour Party (Keir Hardy) was a Christian; and early Trade Union branches, especially in Wales, were known as ‘chapels’. While of course many Christians held other political views, socialism was respected in Britain and found political expression in a way that did not occur in the States. The US Democratic Party had very different roots.

Final Thought: How Far is Grace ‘Unconditional’?

Healthcare is expensive, and understandably all governments struggle to put a cap on cost in one way or another, especially in ageing societies like Britain and the US. Both countries continue to debate this.

Although the contexts are very different, there is one question about attitudes which both societies face: do you help the poor regardless, or only the ‘deserving’ poor? And – to pick up the story I began with – do people really have to be wealthy enough to afford a certain level of health insurance before they qualify for assistance?

In other words, should the State set ‘conditions’ for the receipt of benefits, and if so, what conditions should it set? This may be directed by cost, but it is also a moral dilemma. Responses on each side of the pond will, at least in part, reflect the cultural differences outlined above.

Christians face this with regard to their own giving: do you help the poor, whether they deserve it or not - whether they belong to your group or not? Or do you limit generosity to ‘those and such as those’? In Roman times, the Emperor Julian used to complain how Christians supported pagan poor as well as their own, even though they would also have known Paul’s priority expressed in Galatians 6:10. And beyond the Church, is ‘charity’ only a private and individual concern, or is taxation and welfare a proper concern of ‘charity’?

In the days of the New Testament, Christians had to work out these issues within a minority group of believers – and in many respects we are now back where they were then. But the laws of Western nations were drawn up when Christians were at least nominally in a majority.⁴ Our social and political witness does, I think, require us to put these questions on a wider canvas, while we still retain the freedom to do so.

References

1 The formation of this ‘evangelical identity’ is well documented (see for example George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1980, OUP).

2 A recent interesting book which explores the history of these ideas is by the American writer Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things (2016, Picador).

3 See Bob Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress: a Diagnosis of Western Society (1979, Wedge Pub. Foundation).

4 See The Evolution of the West, by Nick Spencer (2016, SPCK), Research Director of Theos.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ by Steve Maltz (Saffron Planet, 2018).

When a prolific author such as Steve Maltz claims that his latest book is his ‘most important ever’, it is worth considering why. Certainly it is a timely book and its message vital, both in its socio-political analysis (parts 1 and 2) and its Christian response (part 3, which occupies just over half the book).

The title alludes to Daniel being tested in the lion's den. Christians today face a different den, but an equal threat: Western culture is our lion's den. In recent decades our enemy the devil has been prowling round seeking to devour (1 Pet 5:8), and has succeeded in changing our society dramatically.

In this eye-opening book, Maltz examines satan’s chosen method in the West – the unseen force behind the current explosion of political correctness, identity politics and blame culture – which goes by the name of Cultural Marxism.

Dismantling Society’s Building Blocks

Maltz has done some detailed research on the origins of our current social scene and its threat to Christian witness, presenting it in his usual readable style. He also provides a full and clear response to the threat of Cultural Marxism, drawing largely on his previous writings (Hebraic Church, Livin’ the Life) which in retrospect can be seen as preparatory to this book.

Maltz explains how Cultural Marxism took the failed ideas of economic and political Marxism and repackaged them in subtler, cultural terms, using techniques from other academic disciplines. The result was a “covert cultural infiltration, hidden in plain sight” (p8) that has made massive inroads into undermining the Judeo-Christian foundations of modern Western society.

satan’s chosen method to devour the West is Cultural Marxism.

He starts with Alice Bailey’s ten-point plan (first formulated in 1948) to wrench society away from its Christian roots, and shows how this was then built upon by others, in particular Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno, whose writings were very influential in the 1950s. This eventually led to the creation of the Frankfurt School and the development of Critical Theory in which everything is to be deconstructed, the aim being to ‘liberate’ those who have been oppressed for so long by Christianity and its associated institutions.

In Cultural Marxist thinking, points of previous stability such as the family, or the notion of two genders, are re-interpreted as inherently oppressive. The notion of objective truth is also considered tyrannical - relativism must become the norm. Truth is whatever you want it to be.

The Bible in particular, previously the ultimate arbiter of truth, is to be continually re-interpreted to support these new ideas, rather than read to bring us to a saving knowledge of God.

Victims vs Oppressors

Cultural Marxism divides society into oppressors - those clinging to a biblical framework - and oppressed: so-called ‘victim groups’, who need to be liberated from the ‘repressive’ norms of traditional Christianity. Today’s victim culture is the direct creation of Critical Theory which “began to roll out a series of ‘causes’, centring on those deemed to be ‘victims’” (p46).

The law of Cultural Marxism, which is ultimately as authoritarian as its political predecessor, is that these causes represent true freedom, and so must be upheld by everyone. To oppose or even question them is unacceptable, and so warrants derisive, shut-down treatment (e.g. labels such as ‘homophobic’, ‘racist’, ‘sexist’, ‘fascist’). Only Christians can never be considered as victims - after all, they are the oppressors, who have held the upper hand for so long!

Meanwhile we now have a whole range of potential ‘micro-aggressions’, anything that can be deemed to cause offence to victims’ feelings, ranging from casual comments to displaying biblical texts, wearing a cross or offering to pray for someone.

Cultural Marxism divides society into oppressors - those clinging to a biblical framework - and oppressed: victims who need to be liberated from the ‘repressive’ norms of traditional Christianity.

Cultural Marxism is seen as a progressive movement, helping us turn away from old superstitions, outdated morality and the restrictions of the past. Maltz has illuminated all these trends in a way that is easy to understand. We see how for decades Cultural Marxists, first in academia and then outward into politics and the media, have been pulling the strings behind the scenes in a war for hearts, minds and, ultimately, souls.

Dealing with the Madness

He concludes there “is no real hope for our society if Cultural Marxism is allowed to continue unchecked” (p71).

However, he does not finish there. In Part 3, ‘Dealing with the madness’, he offers a way for Christians not only to survive in this new culture but also to engage with it for the sake of the Gospel.

His starting point is that “we are not called to fix the Kingdom of the World, instead our role should be in the execution of the Great Commission, in helping to rescue people from this Kingdom by guiding them into the Kingdom of God” (p93).

This has always been our role, but now there is a greater urgency, as well as a greater difficulty. Yet there is also a greater opportunity. Despite the dangers of Cultural Marxism, the Gospel is not fettered and God remains sovereign. Perhaps he has allowed all this to shake us out of complacency and force us to re-evaluate our effectiveness? Cultural Marxism may have done us a favour if it results in a more authentic Christianity, one that is more Hebraic, more ‘first century’.

By exploring this possibility and how to achieve it, Into the Lion's Den is an exciting book, not a depressing one.

Has God allowed Cultural Marxism to proliferate to shake the Church out of its complacency?

Encouragement to Live Distinctively

Maltz takes Titus 2:11-15 as our mission statement for these times, using it to show how we can begin ‘Reaching a World gone mad’ (the book’s subtitle). He also draws on the main points of his previous book, Livin’ the Life, about honouring God, reflecting Jesus and engaging with the Spirit, arguing that Christians need to live distinctively.

He asserts that “our best weapon” in dealing with Cultural Marxism (p139) is understanding the difference between function and form. We must function as Christians, not just have the outward form. If we can’t talk about or quote Jesus without being criminalised, then we must become living examples of God’s word.

Towards the end of the book Maltz makes a vital point when he says that “Reaching a World gone mad is going to require more Godly Wisdom, rather than relying on our own powers of articulation or knowledge or experience” (p195). The book contains some real life examples of Christians (from all walks of life) being grilled in TV interviews, as good illustrations for us to learn from. When we speak up, God’s wisdom is needed. But if we ask him and listen, he will give us the words.

Over a long period, Cultural Marxism has been a creeping threat. We may not have seen it coming, but now we can see it clearly at work. But many may still be puzzled as to how our society arrived in its current state, how we got to this particular kind of madness, and how to respond. This book addresses these issues and should be read and then read again until we have absorbed its vital message.

How important the book will be only time will tell, but it deserves to be widely read and discussed.

Into the Lion's Den (238pp) is available from Saffron Planet Publishing for £10.

Further Information

Steve Maltz’s next Foundations conference takes up the same theme of Cultural Marxism – there are still some places left. Please see our News page for further details, and for information about further events involving Steve Maltz.

What's changed in 100 years?

This week the Russian Revolution catches our attention. 100 years ago on the 7^th and 8^th November, what was called the October Revolution sealed the uprising that had been fermenting through the year of 1917.

Lenin, with a group of exiled revolutionaries, had arrived the previous April at the Finland Station in St Petersburg in what was called a ‘sealed train’, shepherded across Europe under close German supervision. The train is on display at this station to this day. This dramatic arrival raised popular support which increased through the following months, until the Russian revolution fully matured through popular uprising.

Lenin’s Bolsheviks organised the armed forces and the Red Guards who, commanded by the Military Revolutionary Committee, took control of government buildings on 7 November 1917. The Winter Palace, seat of Provincial Government, was captured the following day. The rule of the aristocracy was over; the rule of the people had begun, in what became an era of communism.

A demonstration in Petrograd, July 1917.Revolution in the Air

That was 100 years ago this week. Memory of this revolution is prompting comparisons with what could turn out to be a new revolutionary fervour developing in our day.

Today there is a new phenomenon: the power of communication through the established news media has now been broadened and intensified through the internet and social media. The new weapons of revolution are the smart phone and the tablet.

How would Lenin have made use of today’s media channels to cultivate support for the communist cause? He would undoubtedly have exploited them with relish.

The social discontent that gave rise to communism can rise again. This time the ferment of discontent can be brought to the boil and turned for particular ends powerfully and rapidly through the global community of the internet.

The ferment of discontent can be brought to the boil and turned for particular ends powerfully and rapidly through the internet.

The Power to Raise Up, Tear Down

The power of the media has long been well-known. Selective reporting on TV and in the papers has had the powerful effect of cultivating mind-sets and worldviews for many years. So have the arts in the film industry.

But in just a few years we have seen the power of the communication media rise to an astonishing level. It is now even capable of raising up new leaders of the nations (e.g. playing a powerful part in the elections of the USA, France and the UK).

The freedom of the Press is a recognised right to defend in modern-day democracies, and for good reason, but this freedom nevertheless brings with it the potential for exploitation. Journalists can easily exploit the power it carries, knowing that politicians, economists, city institutions, the monarchy and even the Church needs to be careful of how they are presented to the public.

The media has the power to raise up and tear down – individuals, organisations, even governments.

Trial by Media

Notice that whatever the media chooses to highlight brings about swift results. Furthermore, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of individuals there can be no doubt that ‘trial by media’ plays its part in shaping the consequences of issues brought to the attention of the watching public.

The Westminster sex scandal is a recent example. We can only guess at the scale of the media’s contribution to Michael Fallon’s resignation as Defence Minister or the tragic suicide of Carl Sargeant, the Welsh Government Minister, but surely the clues indicate that it was significant, either directly or indirectly.

Whatever the media chooses to highlight brings about swift results.

What the media exposes becomes the issue of the day and forces rapid response. The media selects what the general population treats as the issue of importance, from one day to the next. To further emphasise the relevance of this, even this week we have heard of the tax avoidance schemes that, despite not being illegal, have drawn into suspicion the Queen and Prince Charles, among the wealthier of society. Our attention to the sex scandal was redirected to this within days, as if there is a war on to expose and bring down all in the public eye, particularly those in positions of authority.

Welsh Minister Carl Sargeant, who recently committed suicide. See Photo Credits.The point is not in the rights and wrongs, but to illustrate the power of the media. The issue that led to the resignation of Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, was sparked by a BBC reporter.

One might ask if some of these issues are better discussed behind the scenes than in public, according to biblical principles of one-to-one reconciliation rather than in the public view. But what we are witnessing is a new media-influenced form of democracy that seems to grow stronger each day.

Added to the traditional news media, increasingly powerful is the use of social media to send waves of reaction through the communities of our nations, so that even fake news (declared the 2017 ‘word of the year’ by the Collins Dictionary) can prompt reaction as if it were true. Be sure that this is understood by those who need to cultivate popular support and sway public opinion, so that behind the scenes we have the potential for popular uprising that could be sparked intentionally or by default at any time.

Revolutions Can Happen

Remembrance of the Russian Revolution prompts us to realise that revolutions can and do happen. Add to this the general discontent that is so characteristic of our modern day and we can almost feel the potential for social uprising. It could happen - with increasing likelihood as the days go by.

Another thing we learn from the Russian Revolution is that what seems like a great and cleansing move with hope for the future at the time, turns out to be a disappointment as the years go by. This too would be the inevitable result of any social revolution in our day, save for a revolution of new faith in the Lord. And dashed hope could, more quickly than in previous revolutions, cultivate a tremendous backlash of social discontent in the future. We are in a vulnerable position.

With all revolutions, what seems like a great and cleansing move with hope for the future at the time turns out to be a disappointment as the years go by.

Yet, as Christians, we realise there is a higher, more perfect plan being outworked, whatever this current period of history sweeps in through the swirling tides of struggle for power and survival.

God is Working His Purpose Out

Personally, I have a little anecdote which illustrates to me how the work of God proceeds quietly, yet powerfully, despite the world’s revolutions.

When Lenin arrived on his train in St Petersburg 100 years ago, among those who fled the country was a certain man who came to the UK. His forefather had, many years before, opened the Gardner porcelain factory in Moscow and succeeded in business, producing porcelain that was sold to such as the Tsar - on a par with Royal Doulton in the UK. He was, therefore, a ‘White Russian’ about to be persecuted by the ‘Reds’.

On arrival in the UK, this descendant of the founder of the porcelain factory married a young girl from Wales. They had three daughters, one of whom I met in 1964. We have recently celebrated our golden wedding anniversary. But for Lenin, my family life would have been quite different. Our four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren would not have been born, along with all the history that surrounds our little corner of the world.

I say “but for Lenin”, but I would rather say “but for God”. We may be in a world that is ripe for new revolutions, but in small (yet big) ways we will find God at work. As a popular hymn goes, “God is working His purpose out as year succeeds to year”. Paul put it this way:

I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

The Russian Revolution was used by God to bring me my wife. He is preparing a Bride for his son, Jesus, despite all the rebellion and revolutions of this world. We who know him must be careful not to be swayed by popular uprisings as they are cultivated by the media of our day, but to fix our eyes on Jesus, discern what he is doing, largely hidden from the world but given to us through the gift of discernment.