The guilt of Liberal Theology

Hi everyone,

I have been reading again this book called Marx & Satan and today I read a portion about a man named Freidrich Engles, who the author says became one of Marx's 'closest collaborators'. He writes how he was a Christian at first but his faith was shaken by a liberal theologian named Bruno Bauer. He qoutes this man(Bauer) as saying the following in a letter to one of his friends:

"I deliver lectures here at the university before a large audience. I don't recognize myself when I pronounce my blasphemeies from the pulpit. They are so great that these children, whom nobody should offend, have their hair standing on end. While delivering the blasphemies, I remember how I work piously at home writting an apology of the holy Scriptures and of the Revelation. In any case, it is a very bad demon that possesses me as often as I ascend the pulpit, and I am so weak that I am compelled to yield to him... My spirit of blasphemy will be satisfied only if I am authorised to preach openly as professor of the atheistic system."

He summarises the change in Engles this way:

"Liberal theology had accomplished this monstrous change. Thus it shares with Marx and Engels the guilt for the tens of millions of innocents killed by communisim to date. What a spiritual tragedy!"

I was standing in the check out line tonight and noticed the song playing in the background, the chorus was [i]everybody wants to rule world[/i].

John 7:18

Thanks Chris,

Bruno Bauer's letter indicates that liberal theology is inspired by demonic spirits. Conversely can we also recognize that biblical theology is inspired by the Holy Spirit? This is something to remember the next time we wonder if diligent study of biblical theology is really all that useful to a 'spirit-filled' Christian.

MC

Chris, thanks for posting this. It is frightening, but we need to hear this.

ginnyrose

Ginny, thanks for the encouragement. It is sobering.

It is suggested in the book that both Marx and Engles were initially Christians and that Engles was really thrown off by this 'theologian'.

He says that the man that convinced him to become a communist was Moses Hess, who he says had convinced Marx as well.

He qoutes him(Hess) as saying after a meeting with Engles:

'He parted from me as an overzealous Communist. This is how I produce ravages...'

He then asks was this Hess's goal in life? To produce ravages?

It is Satan's too, he says.

This is not so much about liberal theology;
but rather atheism. Respected scholars
and teachers using their logic and intellect
to try to reason away GOD. The fool says in
his heart there is no GOD!

Hi everyone.

I think that there is much to what you suggested sojourner7 but also, one of the points that is brought out in the book is that the early communists were not millitant athiests like the present day. But something more sinister was involved.

Maybe I could relate some of that in connection with what you and Mike wrote:

"Bruno Bauer's letter indicates that liberal theology is inspired by demonic spirits. Conversely can we also recognize that biblical theology is inspired by the Holy Spirit?"

"This is not so much about liberal theology;
but rather atheism."

The excerpt that was qouted from the letter of Bauer is a revealing mix that I think speaks to these things above:

Here is someone that admitts to being possesed of a spirit of blasphemy as often as he takes the pulpit and yet remembers at the same time how he works at home in writting a defense of the Bible. And yet says that his spirit of blasphemy will not be satisfied until he is able to openly preach atheisim.

Whether or not we can fully understand what was going on in the man that he would write that, it says enough to me to underscore a very significant point that the book attempts to make, and it is this:

"It is essential at this point to state emphatically that Marx and his comrades, while anti-God, were not atheists, as present-day Marxists claim to be. That is, while they openly denounced and reviled God, [i]they hated a God in whom they believed[/i]. They challeneged not His existence, but His supremacy." - pg 29 Marx & Satan

I suppose that liberal theology among the ancient Israelites may not have been unrealted to their periods of apostasy and of it being written of them that they 'sacrificed unto devils' though they were not at the same time ignorant of God. Or that God would say of them 'my people has risen up as an enemy'.

In the same chapter, the author qoutes one of Marx's friends Georg Jung as saying in a letter:

"If Marx, Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach associate to found a theological-political review, God would do well to surround himself with all his angels and indulge in self-pity, for these three will certainly drive him out of heaven..."

Drive God out of Heaven? What kind of reason could there be for such an insanity!? Surely not so that Heaven would merely be empty(Is 14:13, Ps 48:2).

Hi again all,

After I got on the train tonight and sat down I was watching the people coming in and taking seats and noticed one young man in particular.

He had a t-shirt on with the Marxist Revolutionary Che Guevara's picture on it. That's nothing too unusuall. But also, he was wearing a pentagram around his neck. It was an odd coincidence, but I know too how our minds are able to pick up things that have become important to us for some reason which we would otherwise have filtered out.

Even so, to see an image of revolutionary marxisim and an image of satan portrayed so closely together was striking.

An entry in wikipedia about Guevara says that his image has become something of a global counterculture symbol. That, if anything, may have been more in the mind of the young man wearing the shirt than anything else. One of the things that I'm picking up on the streets is the impression that there is a growing libertine subculture around us.

I remember a while back watching an episode of the Way of The Master where Ray Comfort had interviewed a leader of the 'church of Satan'. I can't say the qoute is word for word, but I remember the man summarising the 'church' and its creed this way: do as thou wilt.

If the disaffected youth of society are looking for a leader for rebellion and an (im)moral impetus to drive them, then pop-culture images of satan as being both powerfull and somehow a mix of both good and bad and 'heroic' revolutionaries like Guevera are surely attractive. And they may also serve to anesthetize the conscience and glamorise the wickedly vile.

Liberal Theology will share the guilt for that also. For suggesting to the World that Satan and sin can be taken as anything but the absolute worst and most potent enemy to the souls of men.

All of us, but especially those who are being tempted to believe that it is possible to take the devil's bargin and to play at his game without having to one day cash in, can consider some qoutes attributed to men that allegedy took the bargin, and lost.

Lennin(founder of the Soviet State) is qouted in the book as saying this on his death bed, in par(EDIT: see note at bottom regarding this and other qoutes)t:

"I committed a great error. My nightmare is to have the feeling that I'm lost in an ocean of blood from the innumerable victims. It is too late to return..."

Another prominent communist named Bukharin, is said to have desired to become the AntiChrist at the age of twelve after he had read the Book of the Revelation in the Bible.

He is said to have made his wife memorize the following from a letter just prior to his excecution,

"I am leaving life. I am lowering my head.... I feel my helplessness before a hellish machine...."

Pastor Wurmbrad writes, "He had helped erect a guillotine-the Soviet state-that had killed millions, only to learn in the end that its design had been made in hell. He had desired to be the AntiChrist. He became instead a victim of the Enemy."

EDITORS NOTE: I have not so far been able to verify the qoutes above attributed to Lenin and Bukharin with original sources. Please take that into consideration when evaluating their authenticity.

Sobering. Actually, this information is not new if you can remember how the communists persecuted Christians and how life was so cheap in their eyes.

When I was a young woman we were terrified of the communists. Khrushchev had declared they would take over the USA by 1973...to a young mother then, this was frightening to the extreme because I was well aware of the atrocities committed by the commies against people of faith. Today, the young generation has no clue, or so it seems.

Evil, satanic...have you ever noticed the pics on CDs of the performers - how they look so devilish?

Yes, until the USSR fell, communism was a real threat to the world. Today the satanic forces are using the entertainment industry and it transcends international boundaries. No military can thwart its advance, not even in churches.

What else is this book saying?

ginnyrose

Greetings
I have been following this thread. Chris I find what you have been sharing very interesting. Ginnyrose I thought what you shared about entertainment was spot on as well. Just yesterday I was walking through walmart and they had a huge display for the new Twilight movie coming out. They had a tv set up and were playing the movie along with previews for the new one. There were several young girls standing watching and talking over the movie and how much they loved one character over the other. Both of the main male characters in the movie are vampire or werewolf. As I listened to them for a moment I thought how this movie had a seducing evil spirit about it. As I stood there I realized that there was something very evil in this movies/books. They have a way about seducing young girls/women in by appealing to the flesh and the desire of the heart. The longer I stood there I actually began to find myself being drawn in again by the intensity of it all. At once I prayed about it and walked away. I really don't think about satanic forces that play out behind the scenes, but in this movie I do think there is an evil that can be explained in no other way. I fear for the young girls/women who are so caught up in this because they do not see the wickedness behind it, they think it all harmless. It is not harmless at all!

God Bless
mj

A rabbit trail here, but bear with me....

When Khrushchev was Premier of the USSR, he incited fear in the average American because of his belligerent manners, speech.

Fast forward several years...Khrushchev was ousted from office. During this time of 'retirement' - Russian style - he wrote his memoirs "Khrushchev Remembers". I picked this copy up at the public library and gave it a read. In it he comes across as a decent human being, one that need not to be feared.

I have often thought a lot about this, the dichotomy of this entire situation. It troubles me still.

How often is evil presented in the form of an "angel of light"? Somehow it seems to me it is everywhere. Yes, history repeats itself. It is as someone has said "if there is one thing one learns about history is that people do not learn from it."

ginnyrose

I fear for the young girls/women who are so caught up in this because they do not see the wickedness behind it, they think it all harmless. It is not harmless at all!

AMEN!

ginnyrose

Ginny and Mary, thank you both for your thoughts. I've wanted to return here this weekend but have not found time.

Ginny, about this,

"I have often thought a lot about this, the dichotomy of this entire situation. It troubles me still.

How often is evil presented in the form of an "angel of light"?"

I read this tonight before I went out. While I was out I happened to pass by a certain group that is known for preaching racial hatred using the Bible. They believe they are Israelites and that other darkskinned people are the lost tribes of Israel. Tonight when I passed by they were preaching on Romans 3:4 but only emphasising the phrase 'let God be true, but every man a liar'.

Whenever I see them I get terribly grieved and it hurts to see the Bible being used the way they do and often it is all I can do to resist going up to them and getting into an argument.

Tonight as I waited for the train to come I could still hear them preaching down below. I was praying and asking God to stop them and it seemed as though He reminded me of something. One, [i]they were[/i] preaching His word. Although it is terrible that they would ultimately use it to misrepresent Him so badly, yet they were preaching from the scriptures and some people there who were passing by might hear it who would otherwise not.

And then as I sat on the train I remembered something else.

I thought of how it is written in the Psalms,

"With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward."

According to the Hebrew dictionary, this first word that is translated [i]froward[/i] means 'distorted'.

It is absolutely the way of the devil to do this. To distort the truth. He cannot originate a single thing except what he creates by virtue of corrupting something that was at first good. And it is always and ever his practice to see what God is doing and to find a way to subvert it and corrupt it.

I remembered too that the second word that is translated [i]froward[/i] could literally mean [i]to be[/i] morally tortuous.

What an irony to be preaching upon that passage from Romans, even truthfully, but to be otherwise corrupting and distorting the message of the Bible for others. It made me think of the terrible judgement of God and to have compassion for them and desire to be able to say some good thing to them. It made me consider myself also as often as I have spoken of the scriptures, knowing that surely there are times when I'm worng.

One thing is true, the truth of God has hemmed the devil in so much that even he is obliged to put it in his mouth and speak it from time to time, even if it is to ultimately corrupt it. The Devil has been forced now sometimes to become a preacher of rightesounes in order to do his iniquity.

What else is this book saying?

Ginny, I've been thinking about this off and on since you asked last week. There have been several things that have come to mind in continuing to read this book for the second time. Tonight I came across a passage that I think is both very relevant to this topic and for today in general.

One of the things that I think that Satan has sought to accomplish in the world is to undermine [i]everything[/i], so that people will have trouble beleiving in [i]anything[/i]. But especially in the Bible.

One way I think he has tried to do that is through criticism. And to call everything that is accepted, into question. Again, especially the Bible.

With that in mind, I think these qoutes from the book are very significant, if to say something about Marx, even more so about the ways of Satan:

'Satan is called in [i]Faust[/i] the spirit that denies everything. This is precisely Marx's attitude. He writes about "pitiless criticism of all that exists"; "war against the situation in Germany"; "merciless criticism of all." He adds, "It is the first duty of the press to undermine the foundations of the existing political system." Marx said about himself that he is "the most outstanding hater of the so-called positive."'

'Just as Satan came to Jesus with Bible verses, so Marx used texts of Scripture, though with much distortion. Volume 2 of [i]The Works of Marx and Engels[/i] opens with Jesus' words to His disciples (John 6:63), as qouted by Marx in his book [i]The Holy Family:[/i] "It is the spirit which gives life." Then we read:

[i]Criticism[his criticism of all that exists]so loved the masses that it sent its only-begotten son[i.e., Marx]. that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have a life of criticism. Criticism became masses and lived among us, and we saw its glory as the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father. Criticism did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made itself of no reputation, taking the form of a bookbinder, and humbled itself up to nonsense-yes, critical nonsense in foreign languages.[/i]

Those knowledgable in Scripture will recognise this as a parody of Biblical verses (John 3:16; 1:14; Philippians 2:6-8). Here again, Marx declares his own works to be "nonsense," as well as "swinish books."'

- Marx and Satan, pgs. 17, 80-81

One of the things that I think that Satan has sought to accomplish in the world is to undermine everything, so that people will have trouble believing in anything. But especially in the Bible.

Sounds like state education. How sad. How intentional.

MC